Sandi's Place

[sandi2]

I strongly urge you to discuss your needs to your H. We women tend to want them to automatically know the desire of the female (you know, like in romantic novels), but it isn't that way in reality. We have to break it down and spell it out. No hints.....just get it out there.

Does he know about any of your EA's? I understand you thinking that not telling him is protecting him from being hurt. I tend to have the same mentality, but I'm learning that is not the way to do it.

Once you've made it very clear what you need emotionally and physically, then you should tell him that the lack of these needs being filled has prevented you from overcoming temptation.

How many times have you had an A? Until you can heal in your M you will continue to crave attention from other men. You want romance. You want to feel sexual desire. You want to feel young, pretty, and alive! When you are in a SSM, you don't feel any of those things. So when a smoothe talking man comes on line to strike up a "friendship", you don't have the strong defense to slap it down.

I know what it's like to go for years without a close connection (physically & emotionally) with a H. I know what it's like to have years of continued stress that doesn't have anything to do with the M but certainly affects it. I understand the depression.

Let me tell you what one doctor told me when he took c acomplete blood workup. He could not believe it, but said my sex hormones was zero. Then he started talking about some other things and how low on the scale that was. So, I was in pretty bad shape. But here's what is so wild about the PEA's, the Internet stuff caused me to experience feelings that let me know I wasn't completely dead. You know what I mean.

I had shutt down to everything around me, but mostly my M. I had no desire to or energy to even think about trying anymore. So like you, I got hooked on that sexual high that I found through flirting and then had an EA with OM from Internet.

I told you all of that b/c I wanted you to know that I was going through a lot of things (that I won't go into), but I was able to get through it. You can too, but it isn't a picnic.

I can tell you still want that high that comes with those PEA's, but you would like to have that by a good R with your H. I don't know that I can explain this very well and I don't want to discourage you. The biggest part of my EA was the fantasy. In fact, I'm sure I already had the fantasy....I just needed some man to fill in the void. The OM was slick. I mean, he knew exactly what to say and when. I'm sure he was experienced and I now realize that I wasn't the only woman he was stringing along.

It took some things all happening to me at the same time to begin to get my eyes open. At first, I was not very willing to stay in my M, much less work at it. Getting older and having some health problems might have helped to shine reality into my fantasy a little bit anyway. But I did make that decision to stop contact with OM. I was lucky, b/c he said he would respect my wishes and not pursue any farther. I've read where some women had some bad outcomes in EA's.

Getting through what's called the mourning period was not fun, but trying to get to the point of "wanting" to work on my M was actually harder for me. The depression and all of it put together was a hard hill for me to climb. It took a long time for me to start having the right kind of feelings for my H. I held so much resentment toward him that I had to work through that before I could start feeling romantic.

I believe that you can have those feelings of romance and sexual attraction for your H again. But, I don't believe you can feel it as long as you carry a tourch around for OM or fantasize of somebody else. Will you feel as dreamy or whatever? IDK. I think part of my excited feelings in the EA was b/c it went against the way I was raised (I had always been the proper, good girl, good wife, etc.). It was secretive, OM was a new person in my life with no shared history, and I could be whoever I wanted to be over the Internet. All those ingrediants are not found in a MR, or it shouldn't be anyway. But I believe that those feelings in an A will burn out and then you would have to find a new OM. At some point, the feelings cease to happen no matter how many times you enter into an A. It's like they have been numbed due to engaging into these areas that you shouldn't. In fact, I read a book about women & infidelity that explained that very well, and it scared me enough to know I did not want to live my life out with no feelings for anything.

You can get your love feelings back for your H! It helps when both partners are working at it. That is why you need to tell your H what is lacking and what is needed in the R. If he isn't willing to get help with the SSM, then you need to make him realize how close he's come to losing you. Nothing wakes a man up better than the truth.