They don't get it, until they get it

[Augtan]

Sanderika, the addiction part is sooo true! Our therapist said that an affair is like crack cocaine, it is just as addicive. She said that my XH working with OW was like putting a crack addict (after going thru some treatment) back into a crack house with people smoking crack all around him, he is never going to stay clean or succeed, period!! You have to completely remove the addict from the thing they are addicted to or it is near impossible to break the addiction. Well, in my case due to the need for a job to eat, support our three kids, etc., my XH had to go back to the crack house (his place of work) and went back to doing the crack (the OW), left us for her and we are now divorced. I never knew he went back to OW, he kept it very well hidden and was a master manipulator and liar by this point. He left us and I still believed he was leaving for reasons other than the OW, I know now he had gone back to her months before he actually left for good. I wish I would have caught him doing the crack again (OW), cause then I would have rather starved than had him go back to his place of work (he would have eventually gotton another job, I am sure, and family could have helped til then), cause I think that time I would have really believed it was an addiction and leaving there would have been the only way to save our marriage, hindsight is 20/20! OW dumped him a year ago and he has been in and out of the tunnel ever since, never really coming back to me, but making steps toward that, then pulling away again.

If I had known forsure OW was back, I would have never, ever let him cake-eat and go back and forth, I know that with a third person in your marriage there is no clarity, there is just no way you can see your marriage clearly with someone from the outside telling you that being with them can be and will be so much better, especially when the person listening to the OW is in MLC and wants to live in a fantasyland of no responsibility as it is, they will be drawn to the OW because they are offering a perfect life with all the stuff outside the box of reality...no bills together, no kids together, no history, no baggage, no nothing but the bubble they create, but that bubble bursts eventually. The MLC'er just doesn't want to believe that will happen and you the LBS can never convince them.

A