Optimistic...not hopeless! :)

[Accuray]

Angel61,

Feeling replaced, or like a second choice, is a natural place to go -- if you've been on the wrong side of infidelity it's pretty much inevitable.

As I'm sure you know, it's a poison place to go, because it just pummels your self-esteem. At the same time, self-esteem and confidence are critical for attraction, so it makes it that much more difficult to DB effectively.

The point is, however, that it's not a competition -- it can't be. When you get into a marriage with someone, there are highs and lows. Your spouse has seen you at your best, AND at your worst. There are accumulated hurts, things said in anger, resentments that have built over time -- all those things make your relationship "real" -- it's work, it not a fairy tale, and it has benefits that come from doing the work.

An affair is simply two people telling each other how wonderful they are. They have not seen each other at their worst, they have no accumulated hurts, they have no accumulated resentments. The relationship is based on the fantasy that their affair partner is "perfect" or at least perfect for them. There is a evolutionary mechanism that creates this effect, there are brain chemicals released that induce us to lower our defenses, and interfere with our ability to make rational decisions. Nature has done that in the interest of continuing the species, it reduces the friction and creates those feelings of infatuation.

My MC described it in terms of shoes -- there are the shoes that you wear every day, they're comfortable, you know their strengths and weaknesses, you know just what to expect. Then there are the "fancy" shoes you see in the shop window. You picture yourself wearing them, you picture how good they look. You don't picture or think about the painful break-in period, or the comfort you're going to sacrifice for the good looks. All you see is the good, and you start to obsess about it. Once you start obsessing, all else is forgotten, and everything else pales by comparison. When you're doing that comparison, however, you're comparing the reality of your current pair of shoes, to the fantasy of the new pair, with no recognized downsides -- there is no way for the old pair to win in that comparison, because it's not a real comparison at all.

Now if you actually buy those shoes and start wearing them around, eventually all the downsides are going to make themselves known. Initially you're going to ignore them, because you're still tied up in the fantasy, but sooner or later (like a blister) they can no longer be ignored and they will come to the top. At that point the new shoes become real too, and the old shoes may not look so bad by comparison.

So what can you do about this?

First, a lot of your angst is coming from a loss of control -- something that you relied upon has been pulled away from you. There is evidence that feelings of "love" are directly related to feeling out of control -- that's why when your spouse leaves you it's common to feel more love for them than you've felt in a long time.

One thing that will make you feel a lot better is to restore that feeling of control, and you can do that by creating small, measurable goals and then accomplishing them. That can be weight loss, getting in shape, learning a new skill, taking up an instrument, etc. You make a goal, and when you see yourself hit it, you feel more in control of your own destiny, and this offsets the control lost in the relationship.

Secondly, you need to meet some new people, and interact with friends as much as you can. When you see how much others appreciate you and respond to you in a positive way, it helps to rebuild your self esteem. Right now H's reaction to you has an unfair weighting in how you feel about yourself. If you spread that out over many people where H is just one of them, you'll get some perspective that it's not about YOU, it's about H.

Third, you need to make your H question what he thinks he knows about his "old shoes". He assumes right now that you are on the shelf waiting for him to return, and that's a great feeling of comfort and insurance. He also thinks he knows everything there is to know about you -- how you act, what you say, how you look -- he's seen it all before and thinks there's nothing left there to discover.

You will do yourself a huge favor if you change that up on him. Make him question if you're sitting on the shelf (get out and GAL, make new friends, engage in new activities, don't tell him what you're up to). If you have frequent sayings or mannerisms, change them up. Get a new haircut, change your haircolor, dress slightly differently than you did before. If you make him question what he does and doesn't know about you, he's going to start to think, and thinking is what you want.

I posted this on another thread about your WAS avoiding you as well, maybe it helps:

H isn't avoiding you because he has disposed of and replaced you. He's avoiding you because he feels deeply ashamed of what he has done and he can't face himself.

It's like when you break up with someone in high school, you see them walking toward you at the opposite end of the hall, and you quickly turn around and head in another direction. You're not doing that to "reject" the person, you're doing it because you're ashamed about how you've made them feel.

He is AFRAID to contact you, half because of what you might say to him to shame him, and half because of how he feels about himself due to what he has done to you.

The first half you can address by acting as if, being happy, and generally approachable when he does eventually reach out. The second half you can do nothing about except to give him space and let him get over it on his own.

Getting over it requires that he have motivation to deal with himself, it's easier to keep those feelings locked up in a dark closet. As long as OW is involved, he can keep them locked up and pretend like everything is fine -- but he knows they're there, and they creep up on him when he least expects it.

When OW is gone, or when the "in love" haze starts to fade and things start to get real, that's when he's going to start doing his own thinking.

When he does contact you, it will be important to be approachable, to be happy, and not to pepper in guilt or other shaming comments. That can be HARD but works wonders if you can pull it off. It makes you approachable versus ominous.

Accuray