It's so easy people really overlook it sometimes!

[nightshade]

SOrry Deb,
didn't mean to bring any bad memories.
I'm not looking for causes anymore myself, although sometimes I have a thought or something happens and I write it . In this case I wrote it here.

I hope your situation soon improves, and that you can start building good memories to replace all te bad ones.

Nightshade

[stupidfoolishwife]

Nightshade - I agree w/ you on how easy it is to get started in an affair. I have always been cautious about how close I would let the men around me get or what types of conversations I had w/ them. My H on the other hand would not listen I told him not to talk about personal issues w/ ow or to talk about things of a sexual nature w/ them but it was useless. He became friends w/ a woman at work and all the time I warned him that he needed to be carefull and he insisted that there was no way he would have any of those kinds of feelings w/ her (citing her appearance as one reason-not too good looking). I also said -well then be carefull that she doesn't start to feel that way towards you. Well after months of non-stop talking to one another they ended up in bed together. So he went from just friends w/ someone he described as overweight and somewhat obnoxious to thinking about moving in w/ her and starting a real relationship.
It happens much too easily and it is because the person allows it. He was given much warning but decided to overlook it not out of stupidity but because he wanted to.

[nightshade]

Very true!
Before my h's affair I never really thought much about boundaries and such. I was personally aware of them, and of the signs that give a clue that lines are being crossed and used them for myself, but never gave that a deep thought.
H and I have been talking some about them now. He needs to pay attention to those signs. In both cases it was the long conversations every night during breaks that created the "initimcy" . Conversations that went from "hi, how are you, how was the weekend?" to goals, ideas, plans for life, and then to talk about personal things and married life... and then to venting when upset at something.. and so on.
It is so important to read the signs. Everyone enjoys talking and having people to listen to us. However I find the rule to be stop before you're getting personal. If it's something they wouldn't say if I was present, then it certainly is something they shouldn't say when I'm not present.
He's getting there slowly, I hope.
ANd you're right, it's a choice. A very poor choice.

Nightshade

[shinybear]

Quoting Nightshade: However I find the rule to be stop before you're getting personal. If it's something they wouldn't say if I was present, then it certainly is something they shouldn't say when I'm not present.


EXCELLENT rule of thumb!!!

Shiny

[psluke]

Hi Nightshade,

Thanks for the support last night!

I'm with Shiny I think that is a very good rule of thumb!!

I didn't shove the dishwasher. It is built into the cabinet though so maybe have to come up with something else.

[Zoo]

Morning Nightshade

Maybe I should have made that post as more of a generalised comment since I didn't mean it in response to your particular sitch but more toward some of the other posts where it was said the S didn't realize where they were until they were in it (para-phrasing here ).

My sitch was much the same as Stupidfoolishwife posted. I warned H about OW the first time I met her. Got many of the same responses...not my type,too obnoxious etc. H didn't heed my warning...one thing led to another...blah, blah,blah. H tried to cover his tracks by constantly denigrating her which of course instantly got my warning bells ringing.

My question is...how come we women are better at not crossing the boundary line? Maybe I should clarify that by saying "married" women. Then there is the question of why do some women make it a point/habit of actively pursuing married men? I know there are tons of psychological explanations for that but from my feminine perspective...well, it just makes no sense because nine times out of ten the OW gets tossed away. With H's OW it is a habitual process...he wasn't her first M man nor will he be her last...yet she wonders why no one will marry her?

It just seems to me that we are better at maintaining our moral standards then our H's or men in general. One could hypothesize and point to statistics etc. as to WHY this is so I guess...I don't know, it's just one of those little things that really irks me

However I find the rule to be stop before you're getting personal. If it's something they wouldn't say if I was present, then it certainly is something they shouldn't say when I'm not present.

I'm with Shiny and the others...couldn't agree more that this is an EXCELLENT rule of thumb. Unfortunately in our sitch's it seems to only apply for us "gooses" and not the "ganders"

Zoo

[sage]

My sitch was much the same as Stupidfoolishwife posted. I warned H about OW the first time I met her. Got many of the same responses...not my type,too obnoxious etc.

I, too, had a "sense" when I first met ow...so did all the other wives in our "group". We weren't comfortable with it at all but all the h's told us that we just "didn't understand" her presence, her way of interacting, etc.

My question is...how come we women are better at not crossing the boundary line? Maybe I should clarify that by saying "married" women. Then there is the question of why do some women make it a point/habit of actively pursuing married men?

Well...in my case ow IS married...to a guy who worked at the same place as she does, h did, all the friends did. ow's h seemed completely oblivious to the whole thing...

I would LOVE to know more about the steps/stages that happened with h and ow. It would go SO FAR towards comforting me...towards knowing that he SEES the dividing line between OK and not OK.

Sage

[nightshade]

Hey Pam, that's what we're her for :):)
Loved to read the good news
Hugsies
nightshade

[nightshade]

Hey Zoo

It does seem that women are less prone to cross that boundary line, although unfortunately that is not a rule.
My H's ow is married as well, so I guess she did cross it, and so do many women.
I don't even want to start a discussion here on why that happen, but for some women I know for a fact that the first idea is that if the man is married there is some safety to their own marriage. Less demands, more need to secrecy, so their own marriage is not in jeopardy - tthis was true in the case of my h's ow. It's interesting how a new term is coming into fashion now a days "f** -buddies" she used it a lot, as well as many of her friends.
No responsabilities, no attachments just some extra marital sexual fun. The problem is that things are never that easy. After the first logical step - which is hard for me to understand, but who am I to judge? - things get a bit more confusing. Emotions start playing a role, and the tables turn. Now they want the whole thing, including the attachmente, the committment and the emotions. AFter a while her emails to her friends stopped being cold and calculated to year for his companionship, and wishing she had gotten married with him instead of her husband... and even going to pshychics hoping to get a validation and wishing to know when they would be together forever.

ANd sage.... we all would like to know all the stages .. but sometimes it's just sad, and doesn't bring any answers. I have - he gave me his passowrd for work to delete them - all the messages that they sent back and forth since they one. At the time, I saved them because I wasn't sure of how things were going to develop. And since them I saved my all hard drive to reformat and they're somewhere in a cd. I"m not even sure which, and although sometimes I am tempted to find them, I've been able to prevent myself. Reading them once was more than enough. SO I guess I do have a play by play in this situation, added to the fact that I once worked in the same place they did, and still had friends there, that know her, and forwarded to me many of her emails with comments on the situation.
Do those messages give me any insight? Not really. DId it bring anything positive into my own situation? Not really. AM I better off knowing all that?? Not really. But I know that if I hadn't seen then I would be hoping to get a glimpse at what happened .
ANyway, I'm probably still not making much sense here. I rarely make much sense anyway and being sick doesn't help
Hugs
nightshade

[psluke]

So you don't feel it gave you any more peace of mind or closure to know more clearly what happened and the time frame it happened in?

Sometimes that eats at me. I remember things we all 3 did together last year and I wonder, were they laughing at me behind my back at the time we did such and such together?

I guess knowing that doesn't really resolve or help in any way does it?

Best to just let it gooooooooooo.

RIP

Ok, can you tell I got nowhere NEAR enough sleep last night????