Emotional Connection and Attraction

[BC39]

Thanks Accuray. Man, your insight is very helpful, thank you.

HopefullStill is right that the continued presence and contact with OM can account for this behavior, but in my opinion, if OM was still involved you would know, because you would feel it. I suspect that in HopefullStill's case it was those "feelings" that motivated him to keep digging and watching. In my experience, when OM is truly gone you can tell.

Everything points to the fact that he's gone, but who knows, I just have to have faith.

Here's the other things that can account for her behavior: when OM is gone, she's going to mourn the loss, and that can take quite a while, during which time she will not be emotionally available to you.

I can understand W mourning the loss of the relationship, but the timing is off. It doesn't make sense that she'd be mourning now, this long after. (I'll cover more of the timeline in my summary to you)

She's also told me (this could be lip service) that "she didn't love him or anything", they didn't "make any plans to be together" or anything like that. He just made her feel good.

In addition, the "in love" feeling of an affair is very intoxicating, people believe that "this is how they *should* feel". When they return to a long term marriage, those feelings do not arise, and the marriage can feel "flat" by comparison, or like something is missing.

You can rekindle "loving attachment", but you should not expect to rekindle "in love", which is a distinction that is absent from Dr. Harley's writings, and which I feel is a crucial difference.

If you wife is holding onto the expectation that she should have "honeymoon feelings" throughout the course of her marriage, that is not a reasonable expectation.

We've spoke about this, she says she understands this.

Her emotional wall could also be a remaining defense in response to prior hurts. At some point during the marriage, the WAS has their hopes for the relationship crushed, and walking away is the result. It's like if you broke a bunch of bones playing football without pads, you'd be loathe to remove your pads again in the future, even if the rules of the game have changed to prevent getting hit. The memory of the pain you experienced convinces you to keep those pads on for protection, no matter what!

At the risk of sounding like I'm down playing it, there were no glaring "hurts". It was normal marriage stuff.

"Attraction" and "Intimacy" we're never an issue until OM came into the picture. (Again, I'll try to cover this in my summary)

We have one life to live. I had a friend who felt like he had heartburn and six weeks later was dead from esophageal cancer. I do not believe you should stay in a marriage that is making you feel tortured and unhappy for years and years. I think in a situation like yours where your wife claims to want to make it work and claims to want to engage with you, at some point you need to start getting your needs met, or you need to leave.

I'm sorry about your friend. Life is certainly short.

I obviously think regularly how long I can do this. I get very frustrated regularly. I am an impatience person faced with a situation that may take more patience than the most patience of souls could endure.

I haven't thought of a timeline yet. I just know I love me wife.

I have to keep climbing this wall she has put up in front of me and hopefully I can make it to the top without falling off. Or maybe she'll lower it so I can walk to the other side.

..............

The tone of this post (trying to make sense of her actions) leads me to the path where I start to "question" or "try to make sense" of things.

Just this morning, she was very bubbly, we joke around, she gives me a kiss good bye and says have a good day....she SEEMS happy. It's like this most of time, even lately.

As much as I love that I can't help but also feel sad at the same time.