I wonder why it is termed as an illusion. WAW is in a relationship with OM. However crazy as it sounds the WAW is in love with this person. That feeling is as real as daylight. WAW is not in love with the LBH. That is real also.
Dismissing it as fantasy only serves to soothe the LBH's ego.
Well it's an "illusion" because often the affair is not grounded in the reality of relationships, it's based on an imaginary ideal. Married couples have to deal with a host of things together- paying bills, taking care of the kids, homework, discipline, caring for a house and yard, dealing with sick relatives and possibly needy relatives (both monitarily and emotionally) and a thousand other unpleasant, uncomfortable things. These things tend to push out the romantic aspects of the marriage and completely take over. The love dwindles. Affair partners deal with none of this. They get together long enough to fulfill each other's emotional needs and go back to their problem-filled lives. On the surface it seems like a perfect, loving relationship to those involved in it. Under the affair scenario it's easy to wear a lover's mask and not expose the partner to all the crap in your life. But eventually the mask starts slipping and at some point comes off and reality hits like a big ol' slap in the face. Most affairs do not survive the unmasking process. Once the illusion is stripped away, the WAS discovers that everything they thought they were running from is still front and center. They will then either seek out a new partner to perpetuate the illusion, or they will begin to do the hard work of exposing the REAL source of their unhappiness (within themselves). Sometimes that wakeup call brings them back to the LBS and sometimes it doesn't.
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What it does is places the LBS in the wrong state of mind. It gives the LBH false sense of hope and it prolongs the 'acceptance' stage. LBH ultimately falls into his own trap.
Well, I wouldn't say it's a "false" sense of hope because there is valid reason for hope. Not all affair WAS's return, but enough do that there is a reason to hope.
