Trying to stay patient- part 5

[mdu]

Tarheel, I have to imagine that at *some* point eventually W would get over OM, even with continued contact. I can't imagine that there's any research that says that the chemicals that Starksky and others reference go on indefinitely. Just doesn't make sense to me, that would mean that no one gets over a broken up relationship if they happen to have contact with that person. What does that say for all the divorced couples who have continued contact due to kids? They never get over each other? Granted, I get an affair is a bit different because of the intensity of it. But I don't think that an affair creates any different 'in love' chemicals than any other relationship. H and I had a very intense courtship, I doubt he's feeling anything different with OW than he felt with me. Has someone really proven that there's a special affair chemical that never, ever dies as long as there's contact?

Having said all that, I think the core issues are twofold: 1). I believe continued contact will drag out any reconciliation attempts. The feelings will take longer to die and that leaves less space for feelings for you to grow. Just like any break-up, if you continue to be around the person it's much harder to get over. 2). There's definitely a HIGH risk that they will fall back into a relationship as long as they are in contact. Feelings will likely continue to linger for a longer time than if they had no contact. And as long as their are feelings there's high risk for things to reignite.

So the question is, are you willing to live with likely a much longer reconciliation and take the very real risk of her getting reinvolved with OM? Only you can answer that, obviously. As you can imagine, I'm grappling with the exact same questions.