SP, here's what I think is brilliant about where your wife is right now. She knows she is angry at *a lot of things/people*, Not. Just. You. That story about how everything was your fault, she's letting it go, she's letting herself recognize and sit with her own emotions and not just projecting it all immediately Smileys-Personward. Seems like that has to be a net positive for both of you, however it all shakes out in the end
Would that it were so. She's STILL angry at all things SP -- she's just added other people who piss her off to the mix. The more the merrier!
I still think it's better ... at least more realistic ... for her to be vocalizing her anger at multiple sources rather than just you. Although I'm sure it's very tedious to experience, regardless.
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -- Frank Herbert
Anger is good, means she is still emotionally attached. She still feels something for you.
M22,H45,W45 S21/18D12 Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
Yep -- and the "eros" love toward a spouse is physiologically blocked when one is in an affair with someone else.
Oh I don't know if that's true. I've got Miss Someone but that doesn't stop me from hotting-up over WAW more-or-less every time I see her.
If this paradigm is correct, I suspect eros is the most fleeting, least sustainable of the lot -- so when You've Lost That Loving Feeling, you've lost it, whether or not there's an OP. Doesn't mean you can't get it back, but at the moment it's gone. (Whooa-ah-o-ah-o!)
The problem is, as @Kettricken pointed out above, many many people act on the moment. This, indeed, is something WAW said in re: the Bomb at Fab MC#2 -- "I don't know, right then it just felt like the right thing to say." (Which is why, incidentally, so many times after, when Herself was complaining about alimony, etc., the deer-in-headlights-look would materialize whenever SP Himself said, "So, what? You didn't think about that before you did it?")
So yes -- when the moment is right (wrong), WAS acts. On the spur of the moment. Based on the feelings of the moment. Rather than (SP Himself said smugly) on the basis of sober reflection and....analysis.
so when You've Lost That Loving Feeling, you've lost it, whether or not there's an OP.
Oh puh-leeeez. Look at the turning points here when the LBS gets attention from OP...It is a flippin' quagmire and why I'm glad that while I've forayed into dating and a little romance, I have no significant other to speak of (or to muddy the waters)...
I just don't see how we can chastise the WAS for allowing an OP to impact their decision making/feelings and then negate that it is a factor for us...I differentiate here, it is chastisable for he/she who was in the marriage when he/she diverted his/her affection...it is a "factor" (not chastisable IMO) when it is the LBS moving on. Nonetheless, when analyzing and sifting through the trough of feelings and notions, please don't rule it out.
Yep -- and the "eros" love toward a spouse is physiologically blocked when one is in an affair with someone else.
Oh I don't know if that's true.
It is. Read up on it. Formerly wayward spouses on these very forums talk about how they SAW their spouse's changes, and their loving gestures, but they were blocked from feeling or appreciating them, because they were infatuated with OM/OW. Just google "PEA" "brain chemicals" "love" "lust" sometime, and follow the links. It's truly fascinating stuff. It's what made an intelligent, otherwise sane adult female astronaut drive across country WEARING AN ADULT DIAPER, rather than stop for bathroom breaks, so she could drive to Florida to avenge her man!
Personally, I think it goes down two ways. The chemicals behave in the brain as described, but the resulting behavior can vary.
Instance the first, like Puppy describes. Maybe it's a manifestation of cognitive dissonance. Convinced that OP is their at-long-last-discovered one-and-only soulmate and/or chance for escape/self-realization, the walkaway can't afford to give the LBS even the ghost of a chance. Can't endanger that French Connection, after all.
Instance the second, good sh*t is good sh*t. That sexual energy generated by the affair (EA or PA) gets channeled back into the marriage bed, too. For what could be a staggering variety of reasons.
You could possibly advance the argument that the first scenario is more likely to apply to women, and the latter to men. Although there's probably a lot of bleedover, depending on belief system and personality type.
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -- Frank Herbert
It is. Read up on it. Formerly wayward spouses on these very forums talk about how they SAW their spouse's changes, and their loving gestures, but they were blocked from feeling or appreciating them, because they were infatuated with OM/OW. Just google "PEA" "brain chemicals" "love" "lust" sometime, and follow the links. It's truly fascinating stuff. It's what made an intelligent, otherwise sane adult female astronaut drive across country WEARING AN ADULT DIAPER, rather than stop for bathroom breaks, so she could drive to Florida to avenge her man!
Puppy
Maybe it just Depends
M22,H45,W45 S21/18D12 Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
