"Your wife is 50% responsible for the condition of your marriage, pre-affair, as are you."
Agreed
"From the perspective of your marriage, you are 100% responsible for having the affair. I just want to make sure that you understand who is responsible for what. Part of the 'fogginess' of an emotional entanglement is that the infidel seeks to find blame in order to balance out the equation of their choices rather than take responsibility for their actions."
Well, some of the things I said may have come across as seeking to blame someone else, but I can assure you that internally I feel 100% of that blame acutely. I have to be careful here though and make sure that I don't let my guilt go haywire. I think not viewing this appropriately, as a simple mistake (when I say simple I don't mean trivial) rather than a sign of my inherent evilness has caused me to not react appropriately to the situation. I have been wallowing in self-pity and guilt for so long, I have continued to make bad decisions.
"You owe the other woman nothing. She owes you nothing."
I agree and disagree. My statement should have included the word "misguided" before loyalty. I just didn't want to hurt her inadvertantly through some further poor choice of mine. Like I said, I just don't know if I trust myself to make good decisions. This is true in nearly every aspect of my life, not just relationships.
However, emotionally I still feel like I owe her a lot. I'm sure you will tell me I am dead wrong, but I am just relating to you how I feel. I can guarantee you that you will have a nearly impossible job making me think negatively of her.
"If she was a great person, she would not have involved you in an extramarital relationship."
I disagree strongly. Great people can make mistakes just as easily as anyone else. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think this is more of a tactic of demonizing the OP as a way of getting over them. I don't think that is helpful. I agree with my C that the feelings that I developed for her were a perfectly understandable reaction to the situation we were in. The mistake was not in the feelings, it was in how I chose to act on those feelings by making them stronger and causing "entanglement" as you say. I think if I am to properly understand and deal with the feelings of loss that I have, demonizing her is not productive. It is not a question of whether those feelings are right or wrong, they just are. I can see how demonizing her or demonizing myself will just lead to excessive feelings of guilt. IMHO it is better for me to look at this as a bad choice rather than bad people.
"Good friends don't cause harm to the other, and that is what your relationship did."
I disagree somewhat here too. Good friends do harm to each other all the time. Miscommunication, being controlled by emotion rather than logic are functions of the human condition. The question is when good friend do harm to each other, and that harm comes to light, what is the response. A good friend will do there best to alleviate the source of that harm. But here is where the fog of entaglement caused me to rationalize my not removing the source of harm. And I am not saying "caused me" as some sort of cop-out for my actions. I am the sum total of my thoughts, actions, and motivations. They are all a part of me. One part of me causing another part to do something is not an attempt to escape blame. It is an attempt to understand the situation.
"Would you further support her activity by helping her keep her secret, or would you do the right thing and let the other man's wife know what was happening. I would certainly want to know. Most people would."
Yes, I think it would be fair for the other man's wife to know. But I doubt very much if I could make myself do it, that's just me. I do think there is a right way and a wrong way to bring the affair into the light. If our culture took the stance that an affair is a mistake that can be made by two worthwhile human beings, then there would be no reason for not completely exposing it. But our culture has made infidels as you call them into something one step above a serial rapist. I think people who have affairs need help. I certainly need it. I don't think they need a scarlet letter and permanent villification. Do you think I am being self-serving? Maybe. But I am also someone who believes that empathy and sympathy can cure more ills than nukes.
"Careful how you paint the other woman's husband. I bet he is a lot like you. Scared and desperate."
You are very right there. I am sorry about that. I shouldn't demonize him anymore than I want people to demonize me. I won't do that again. There was a bit of a defense mechanism at play there. He did threaten my family. He probably didn't mean it though, it probably came from a really hurt place inside of him. I don't know, and I shouldn't assume.
"here is also a golden rule that you should be aware of; All cheaters are liars. You can't be or do the one without the other. I am sure you see the logic of it."
All humans are liars. All humans make mistakes. But I see your point that to maintain the affair requires an active lying state.
"Also, other woman will, and very likely already has, lied to you about her marital situation."
That seems like a bit of a generalization, but probably true in most if not all cases. I think everyone is guilty of lying or at least exaggerating to paint a better picture of ourselves. This is doubly true when deep emotions are involved. I'll admit I am guilty of it.
"Exposure is not blackmail. It is the bringing a secret held in the dark, to the light of day. Your wife had a right to know."
There is a difference between "this is something that his W needs to know so I am going to tell her" and "if you two ever do anything to piss me off, I'm going to tell his wife." The first is an appropriate behavior. The second is controlling blackmail. Even if my W deserves to know, that does not justify attempting to force someone to behave in a certain way. When you try to use information to force someone to do something, it is blackmail. If he had just sent what he had to Lori immediately (or as soon as feasible) then it would have been really hard on me, but I could not have faulted him. Instead he is holding this like a sword over both OW and me. I think that is wrong.
"You are not a hero for telling your wife the truth, but you did do the right thing, and this is good."
I agree, but where in the world did you ever get the idea that I felt like a hero for anything I have done. I'll just assume you are making a blanket statement to cover the bases. Perhaps some infidels do try to make themselves out that way.
"Don't expect your wife to 'just get over this'. She won't, not for a long time, and you are going to have to help her. If you just dump this at her feet and do not actively work on recovery, your marriage will likely fail. You will end up paying alimony and child support for the next 18 years."
Everything up to this point has been good, but here is a real dillemma for me. What my C said to me makes sense. I have done my part and apologized. I need to make a conscious effort to move forward. I cannot make her move forward, especially not by excessive apology, guilt, or doing a million tasks to make up for it. Besides, all of those things just keep the hurt fresh. It is better to just let it drop and move on. I do need to work on myself to make sure it doesn't happen again.
However, what you say makes sense to me too. I do want to help her through this. I don't want to just drop this bomb at her feet and walk away. I don't want her to ever feel like she is alone in this tragedy. But how do I do this without proverbially picking at the scab. If you talk about nothing else to me about affairs, I want to talk about this. Because all that other stuff about blame and making sure what happened is put in the right perspective is "nice" and all, but how do we truly repair, rebuild, and strengthen our relationship from this point onwards is what is really important. I want to know, and I want to know it all, whether it hurts or not.
I do want to say that I never meant it to come across that I don't want to work on recovery. I am just confused now at the best mode. Do I let it drop, improve myself, and make myself the most warm and loving person I can be so that when/if she is ready she can come back to me. Or do I actively take a role in guiding her through the process of recovery. Maybe the right solution is somewhere in-between.
"You do have a right to have your needs meet in your marriage, and your wife shouldn't threaten to hold sex over you as a weapon. That will cause a quick end to your marriage. She needs help also so that she can understand her contribution to the condition of your marriage."
I would include whatever LL the person speaks in with sex. To withhold acts of love from the other person as a weapon to inflict harm is wrong, whether it is sex, affection, quality time, etc. Now that is different from not being able to be loving due to an acute hurt. But I think the attitude from the offended spouse should be (once the hurt and grief is dealt with to a degree that the person can function) either I want this marriage to be happy and healthy or I don't. It is that person's choice, as it is anyone's choice in any marriage. But I think just as it is proper for an offended spouse to know they are being offended, it is proper for the offendee to know what the base intention of the offended spouse is. To pretend to want to repair a relationship without really intending to, and using deceit to further the malintent is IMHO just as bad as an affair.
"There are two books both you and your wife should read - IMMEDIATELY.
"Surviving An Affair" and "His Needs, Her Needs" both by Willard Harley."
I will check them out on amazon tonight and most likely talk to my wife about them.
"I am assuming you already have read Michele's books."
I have not. I was unsure if SSM was too strong an approach for my wife, who tends to easily back off from difficult material. I did buy "Passionate Marriage" a few days ago.
"You have a lot of work to do. If you have been able to stomach what I have written to you, I am willing to talk to you more regarding recovery. Regardless of your opinion right now, you have a lot to learn and do yet in order to save your marriage."
I can guarantee you nothing you said to me was even remotely as stomach-sickening as I have made myself over the last six months of my life. I have managed to get myself caught in huge maze in which I for most of it did not see a way out.
"Let me know if you want to continue this discourse."
Well, I think I have already answered that question, but I will say officially yes. I am sure we will agree on some things an disagree on others, but I will take any offer of help that is given me. Maybe that is a fault of mine, I can surely see that my tendency to trust people as a catalyst for the EA. I certainly did place a lot of trust in OW.
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
