Affair fog,MLC or true love?

[JC08]

That was a huge thing that kept me from separating from my wife when I was in the affair, I'm hugely involved with my girls. I always helped at bed and bath time, almost every morning got them ready(asked my W to lay clothes out was about it), always did drop off and pickup, got up with them at night when they were babies. So it was a major, major hand up for me. The flip side was the OW telling me that I would be a better father if I was a happy father, that kids are resilient, on and on. But in that state of mind the wayward will change all their values, morals, beliefs, everything(I did, my wife is now). One thing I never did was ever assume or say I would give up 50/50 custody, its what I have now, even in the height of my affair and thinking divorce was the answer I always wanted my kids, I just thought getting joint custody was one negative to all the positives I falsely thought I was going to get.

During my affair when I was talking and pushing separation/divorce she always brought up the kids, not as pawns, but as telling me that they would be devastated, that they shouldn't have to deal with all the tragedies and heartbreak because we couldn't figure stuff out, that we owed it to our children to make our marriage work, and so forth, I believed in that, but I did temporarily start to change my opinion, and so on. Then she turned around did the same thing, I used the same arguments, but in my W own words, "I'm going to be selfish and pick my happiness", of course her OM is divorced (twice), kids live 4 hours away and he rarely sees them, but she was heavily influenced with his "great" advice.

Anyway, very common justification I have read on the board, plus I used it for a while, then my wife did. The affair fog, limerence, addiction, whatever name you call it is powerful and changes a lot about a person, a lot.

I don't know because it didn't happen, but if my wife would have started making family outing plans without me, taking off and doing her own thing(GAL), and stuff like that I think it would have made a major difference, because I definitely was a cake eater. Best of both worlds or whatever.