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Maybe an EA is Okay?

29K views 241 replies 41 participants last post by  calvin 
#1 ·
i know i am half way into an emotional affair, but i want to know from someone who can tell me when it MAY be better, because the marriage may be best to just let go of.
I am in therapy. It's not making it any better yet.
This marriage is a second marriage, 3 yrs, no kids except from previous marriage, and it seems to have gone cold. or I have gone in another direction and so has he.
my emotional affair feels like it is my only lifeline, because of how stuck i feel in another failed marriage.
I did not see it coming and I sure wasn't looking for it. I had just decided to do the best I could with my job and family and tolerate the distance my husband and I now have.
what i realize-prob with help of the counselor who keeps asking me, 'what do I want?' is that i do not have any good, enriching, uplifting,supportive CONNECTION with my spouse, other than he is here. usually in the next room.
and I am not pursuing my EA, but we work in the same field and when we are together we talk and it just feels way more supportive than what i am getting at home.

what the EA did for me though, was put my husband on notice that something is not right in our relationship and we had better fix it, or i am about to hit the door.

what i also realize is that it does not mean my EA will work out where we end up happily ever after either. I suspect, which could be why I am stuck, is that it will probably end when my marriage ends and I will be on my own completely without any emotional support at all.

i am not sure either if this will make me feel wonderful or horrid.
one way or the other, i think i am ready to let the pieces fall where they may.
 
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#85 ·
we just started, after i told him this marriage was not working he said he wanted a divorce. after we had decided to divorce. he said he wanted to do counseling. i said i wasn't sure if i did. or as we were asked is this marriage counseling or divorce counseling. so we talked terms of the divorce. when the day came he was to move out, we talked and decided to see if we can work this out. the counselor knows of the ea. this is where i am.
 
#91 ·
he said i need to make a choice. we are doing couples and individual, because i did ask him, how do i go from feeling this way about that guy and bring the focus back to my husband? when i try though, he withdraws more. what do i confess? i have more feelings for someone I hardly know than I do for my spouse?
 
#92 ·
He is playing games, with you, he probably doesn't really want a D, cuz he will give up some of his property, in the settlement----

Every word out of your mouth says you want out---SO WHY HAVE YOU NOT GOTTEN OUT

Stay out of your EA, till you are done with your D.,just go NC on your EA partner, for now---you can always hook-up later on.

stop ruminating about any other stats, mge's, d's,---the only thing on your mind is this mge you are presently in, and what you intend to do with it----nothing else has any bearing whatsoever on this mge, deal with what needs to be dealt with!!!!
 
#94 ·
I'm sorry but your story gets deeper and deeper with more "facts" about things to justify your cheating. Why didn't you say you already agreed to divorce, i dunno, FIVE PAGES AGO!?

I call troll. Forgive me if I'm wrong.
 
#95 ·
Ok let the pieces fall. Ok tell your husband and leave him the heck alone. An EA is very very selfish and hurtful to your husband..It is unfair what you are doing to him. I don't care how bad your marraige is. An affair of anykind is not the answer. It makes everything 1000 times worse. No contact with the other man has to be done before even thinking about MC or repairing your marriage. Trust me..I had an EA and during the EA I was in marriage counseling. MC did nothing for us til I confessed and left the home. I luckily came to my senses and stopped contact with the other man and gave our marriage a real try. We are reconcilling but if I could turn back time I never would have had an EA. It had damaged our marriage and hurt my husband tremendously. What you are doing is cake eating.
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#103 ·
Just tell your husband and leave him so he can have a life. You are saying you want the other man so what's stopping you. You say you don't need your husband. Why are you still with him?
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#109 ·
His involvement with video games is not the same as an EA; however, it can be similarly destructive.

Our marriage counselor explained it this way: imagine you have a married couple, W and H. Draw a line between them -- that's the communication between them. As times goes on, that line gets gunked up with things that just make it harder to get to the other person. Old resentments, unfinished arguments, unresolved issues -- you name it and it gunks up that line.

Now, draw a line from one of those spouses to a third party: the AP. That line is clear and easy! It's an escape from dealing with that other, gunked up line that is so difficult to cross. It's so much easier to just spend time with AP -- they don't have the same judgements as your spouse, they reward you in ways your spouse used to but doesn't any more. It's just easier with AP.

Here's the thing -- that AP can be a person. Or work. Or video games. It's whatever the spouse turns to to get the same reward they used to get from their spouse before the lines got all gunked up.

So do I think that video games are the same as an affair? Heck no! However, I don't think it can be easily dismissed as not destructive to a marriage. Here, for the marriage to work, idkwhat is going to have to go through the difficult process of getting rid of the OM and going through withdrawal so she can put her time and energy into the marriage. Similarly, her husband is going to have to do the same thing with his video games.
 
#121 ·
You have it all figured out...go and dont look back.
Its what you want.Just leave and be with the OM and live happily ever after.
Its quite clear thats what you want and desire.
Go find your happiness with the OM,dont wait another day.
Go with OM and you will never ever have any problems again.
If I were you I'd do it as soon as you can.
The OM is damn near perfect. So,why wait?
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#117 ·
Hmm your current husband acts like a friend to his kids or to you? Exactly how is he not a father? As far as this other man in your life goes. Compare how long you have known him vs how long your husband has remained by your side. Compare what your husband and you have gone through vs what this other man and you have. You say your family is disfunctional? So is mine so I can relate there.

A real man has issues.
A real man will go through hell and high water with his spouse.. even when she has her head up her butt with some fake illusion of a perfect life with someone else... aka the ea you have with this other man.
A real man would have arguements with his spouse and despite the bad feelings... he would still remain at her side.

The grass is only green where you water it darling.
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#123 ·
sh*t this is not helping. so at one point you convince me to divorce his, next point you convince me to stay married. believe me I have heard every argument you are saying in my head. I have been crying over this all year. i hear what you are saying though that i need to stop with the ae till i get the marriage worked out.
plenty of us live in denial for a long time though huh? perhaps he was sent into my life to push me out of denial and into a plan of action. so quit beating up my beautiful manly man......
 
#127 ·
sh*t this is not helping. so at one point you convince me to divorce his, next point you convince me to stay married. believe me I have heard every argument you are saying in my head. I have been crying over this all year. i hear what you are saying though that i need to stop with the ae till i get the marriage worked out.
plenty of us live in denial for a long time though huh? perhaps he was sent into my life to push me out of denial and into a plan of action. so quit beating up my beautiful manly man......
No, you need to stop with the EA PERIOD if you have even the slightest chance that you are going to stay married to your husband. Stop beating up the OM? Are you kidding me? He has his sights set on a MARRIED WOMAN. Yea, what a FINE UPSTANDING GUY he is. Good GRIEF! :mad:

ETA: Oh, and yea, plenty of us live in denial... plenty more don't f*ck up their lives by cheating on their spouses. However, some of us who have are fortunate enough to get another chance to fix what WE broke when WE had affairs.
 
#126 ·
Quit beating up your beautiful manly man? Lmao I find that so amusing. You do realize your only getting upset because we are shaking up this fake image you have of him.
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#134 ·
Is it possible that these days some people have completely unrealistic notions of what marriage is, taken from movies and romantic novels and that they keep searching for "the one" they see in those media and when they think they have found it they get disappointed as soon as real life gets in the way?

Then they move to the next relationship and rinse and repeat. Perhaps marriage isn't something you should jump into if you aren't really in it for real.

It's as if he is my brother, my father, my lover and my son.
WTF... That sentence made me want to vomit. How do you put father and lover and son in the same sentence like that? You have some serious daddy issues or what?
 
#138 ·
To add to what costa said. A marriage is a lifetime... get that? LIFETIME commitment. Its not like dating where you can just walk out when you get the slightest bit bored or unhappy. If your so hellbent on feeling like your etitled to all sorts of unrealistic crap then I agree with kasler and calvin. I do hope you get your head out of your butt and realize your making a very grave mistake.


Oh css.... lmao love the post.. check his teeth! Lol awesome.
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#146 ·
well, my former marriage which produced 3 kids, late in my life, was an alcoholic fiasco. I stayed in for 12 years, went to al anon and learned about myself and boundaries and that is when my growth began. same time i learned to not be a doormat by telling him that i was no ok with his drinking around our kids, and that's when he said he would rather choose alcohol over his family. so i really don't need any lectures about marriages last forever. they don't. i have been a single mom, and did better. I though when i met current husband that he was everything the other was not. so maybe i have control issues. I will be the mother bear when it comes to my kids. but i really appreciate NOT being controlled by someone or being controlling. this one turned out to be like raising another kid. and i told him. I need a man. I do not want a child for a husband. that's when he said he wanted a divorce. I work hard and many hours, I love my job, and I am grateful everyday. it is part of my program to work on my "recovery" forever.
Anyone who knows anything about that pathology probably can read me and my life like a book. I have never had an affair. I have spent a good deal of my life independent and single, however, and i really am not sure why, I have had many men throw themselves at me asking me to marry them. I am not that attractive. Perhaps I do have daddy issues, but I don't think so, altho he was overbearing and abusive. I did have a tight bond with him when I was younger. i know i have low esteem issues, but have been working on that too. so i would say i am average in my life's issues.

This EA turned my head around about three times and it has yet to swing back. i never would dream of having an affair. i didn't see it coming, i never thought it would happen to me. i don't see swinging as a decent lifestyle. however, to me it seems that it would not have happened if there had not been something SERIOUSLY missing in the current relationship, which there was, just that i didn't have the guts to call it as it was. not working, another failure on my part. Marriage or not, love will not be denied, if your heart is open.
 
#140 ·
Indeed... if he wants a divorce then give him a divorce. Let him find his perfect match if you two really aren't that compatible.
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#141 ·
someone please tell me what a freaking troll is. if i am a troll i do not know it. you are talking to a real human being f**ked up woman with an issue she has been batlling with for a year. The EA felt like a blessing compared to my marriage. What the heck do you want from me? I didn't realize everyone here had been betrayed before. Believe me I know betrayal too.
 
#143 ·
You don't know betrayal, if you know just how painful it is no way in hell would you be doing it to your husband.

What we want and what your husband needs is for you to choose.

Either drop the EA and fix your marriage.

Divorce your husband do whatever the hell you want with OM

Or break it off with OM and go into counseling to decide if you want the marriage to work or not.(OM has to be gone)

Simple, only person complicating this is you.
 
#144 ·
If you know betrayal then you know what you are doing is wrong. All relationships have their issues OP.... so being in one... especially a marriage will never be easy. It may seem like this EA is a blessing but when you think about it... its not. Its a nightmare in disguise. A troll .. btw ... is someone that starts spouting off nonsense online just to rile people up and get a kick out of watching the aftermath.
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#145 ·
I didn't realize everyone here had been betrayed before.
I wasn't... Don't put everyones opinions down to their traumas and issues. I think you will not find much sympathy for your case unless you go to a cheater forum. All other people, and even some past cheaters will not give you any slack.

Of course, in a forum like this you are probably seeing people with much experience on the issue. Hear them out.
 
#148 ·
As I stated earlier. I had an EA and was in lala land fantasy land and was completely out of my mind. Some day you will see that you really are out of your mind if you really think having this EA is a good thing at all. As I said earlier, even if your husband is a complete a-hole an EA will not fix anything. You will see and you will be sorry and your sorry butt might be too late and you may be out on the street or in the looney bin or whereever you will be it will be a very dark ugly place and you will say to yourself "what in the heck was I thinking?"
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