Attorney Tom, I have never read your story, but I've often read your posts to Built4speed and from time to time on Midlifecrisis and I have to say - YOU ROCK.
You are a sensible, considered, compassionate man, with a very sensible turn of phrase. How did you end up here?
I think you're great.
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Never make someone a priority, who makes you an option.
This is the third time I have seen this in the last 4 months. Here was someone who was trying to reach out.. it starts out ok.. then suddenly ( see the middle of page one) folks go nuts about the affair.. bring their own personal sitch's into it and just develope a mob mentality and whack the thread owner with 2x4's totally ignoring the reason the person is here ! I hate this !
What if this forum was dedicated to rape survivors? In fact, rape survivors who were held captive for weeks, months, sometimes years. Rape victims who were beaten, assaulted, mocked, spat upon, lied to - rape victims who knew their children were just over in the other room hearing bits and pieces of what was happening to their mom or dad.
And so, we have that forum dedicated to rape victims - and then we have a rapist come on and try to explain to us how rapists have feelings too.
A rapist who wants the rape victims to understand that they didn't mean any harm, it just happened - like a lightening bolt, or an act of God.
Most of my sympathy and understanding goes to the raped.
I too would have alot more sympathy and understanding for the OW if she posted that although she may love her partner she also knows it is wrong and wanted help to get out of the relationship.
Trying to find validation and reassurance that what she is doing is OK just doesn't fly with me.
This isn't about intollerance on the BB this is about believing what is right and doing what our moral conscience tells us. I am sure we can all find ways to justify our bad behavior at times, but taking a stand and actually doing the "right" thing is what gives us character.
There can be no testimony without a test. I am praying to go through this test and come out the other end with a new and better marriage then before.
What if this forum was dedicated to rape survivors?
Are you kidding me? A what if defense? AtTom is trying to get this thread headed back in the right direction. I will even call myself on the carpet regarding a post Tom is referencing where I might have been wrong. There is some of the most insightful information that I have seen in quite some time in the first page.
I think the thing to remember is that this site is about saving marriages. It's not a victim's support group. While we are victims, we are empowering ourselves to work through this and learn about our contribution to the erosion of our marriage. If we cling to this victimhood, then we choose not to heal personally and we choose not to truly heal our marriage. This woman offers another perspective, something that as the potential to give us insight into what the WAS is walking TOWARDS. Yes, we're all hurt and angry to some degree, but if this is what we focus on, we've missed the point, we're indulging in our feelings. We are victimizing ourselves and this poster gave us an opportunity to lash out with all this pent up aggression that we use against ourselves.
Here's an opportunity to see someone that we could easily blame for all of OUR problems and absolve ourselves of responsibility for having any part in them OR we could see the PERSON here. This is a person, just as we are. She's making mistakes, as we do. She's not a "bad" person just as we are not "good" simply because of the circumstances. We would do well to take a good look at our response to this poster in order to learn more about how we judge each other and ourselves. There is something to be learned here, and too many of us are throwing stones because we don't like what she represents.
There is a reciprocal relationship between the way you view others and the way you view yourself. Whenever you devalue another person because of what they have done, you acknowledge that YOUR value is contingent on something, actions, wealth, knowledge, etc. It's not. In the same way I ask you not to make your sympathy and understanding contingent on another person's actions, but rather on your own capacity for love.
This woman posted here for her own personal reasons. Maybe she wanted to help us out, maybe she wanted to absolve herself of guilt and blame, maybe she wanted all of us to just let go and further the erosion of the institution of marriage. Who knows? Whatever we read into her motives are our own projections. Sure, we see evidence and clues, but we're putting together a picture based on this evidence for our own personal reasons. Let's choose to heal, to forgive and to see the positive (perfect forum for practicing PMA!) rather than exercising hatred and blaming someone else for the ways in which we victimize ourselves.
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. ” – Albert Einstein
There are plenty of repentant OP's on this board, and though I like their perspective, talking to someone who is in the thick of it and feels no remorse will really help up in understanding the OP and what they might be giving our spouses.
If you consider the OP your enemy, be grateful that you have a real live one here who can help you understand them. Know your enemy.
And if we are honest with ourselves, they are not evil, not anymore than we are -- if we were pushed hard enough.
My wife is an EA with my ex-best friend. They both claim they are "just friends". There are moments when I think of straying and running off with someone else just to feel loved and cared for. And guess what, I don't think about my kids when those thoughts start to rear their ugly head. It's so easy to be narcissistic in times like this.
I think Lissete's post, however, should be framed. It expresses how we all feel when we think of how our kids will be hurt by all this.
Perhaps our original poster needs to consider that this man is in a good relationship with his girlfriend and loves her. He's not escaping a bad situation. For the sake of the little girl she should walk away.
Shirley Glass said affairs happens to good people in good marriages. It's just a matter of letting our boundaries slip (which is a choice) and then, little by little, you connect with someone else and have the affair. It sounds like this man let his boundaries slip and now, under the chemical influence of a new romance, can't let the OP go.
This woman posted here for her own personal reasons. Maybe she wanted to help us out, maybe she wanted to absolve herself of guilt and blame, maybe she wanted all of us to just let go and further the erosion of the institution of marriage. Who knows? Whatever we read into her motives are our own projections. Sure, we see evidence and clues, but we're putting together a picture based on this evidence for our own personal reasons. Let's choose to heal, to forgive and to see the positive (perfect forum for practicing PMA!) rather than exercising hatred and blaming someone else for the ways in which we victimize ourselves.
She wrote what her purpose in posting was:
"I think my point in posting here is simply so that folks can understand that not every Other Woman is a souless hussy out to wreck homes. There are those of us that simply have had the luck of being in the right place at the wrong time. I'm definitely not condoning cheating, but sometimes things set into motion and it's easy to talk the talk of resisting temptation, but not so easy to walk the walk, so to speak. "
To acknowledge that one has been victimized by infidelity, doesn't mean that you are choosing victimhood. It is a recognition of an event. This is a support group for people who have been victimized by infidelity BUT who are searching for ways to claw back out of that pit.
People who post here may have just found out about it last week, others have been working on it for years. Those that found out recently are going to be very *raw* and not given to have much sympathy for any OM or OW who shows up here wanting to justify their bad choices and whine for understanding.
That's like salt on an open wound.
Time and effort will eventually take the sting out of being betrayed, but I don't think we should be a Job's friend to our fellow posters who haven't had the time to process their pain.
I think ... in her defense, that it took guts to post, here of all places.
I agree with AT that she needs to re-evaluate herself, and leave him be.
I'm sorry but who cares what HE wants you to do TSC.....you know what's right - this happened to you before (this is what confuses me - 2nd post in 4 months, almost identical sitches)......
So...you remember how you felt when your H cheated? Walk away from this man and his family. He needs to think of his family first....quit your job, move, get a new life somewhere else if you can't go without seeing him. Help him if you love him so much - help him save his family.
....Understand, that I can't, not be what I am I'm not the milk, and Cheerios in your spoon ~ Avril Lavigne ~ ..."Nobody's Fool"...
I think it is important to realize the OP is NOT the problem. The problem is that our S's made a choice to go outside their M for whatever need they had. Why they chose to do so is what we ponder. I can't imagine how being the OP in a triangle such as this could in any way be fulfilling to any well adjusted human being. I think the coin lady expresses alot of pain in what she says (whether she recognizes it or not). To allow yourself to be the OP in such a no win sitch says more about your emotional health than your character. It's sad no matter which way you look at it from.
