# Dealing with Infatuation(another person) in a marriage?



## sidestep (Oct 23, 2009)

My wife has been talking for 2 months to an old boy friend from when she was 10yrs. old. It went from Facebook to the telephone in the last month, he is half way across the us. She finally told me what was going on and she felt like he was "The one" or a "what if" in her head. She has halted all contact with him to try for our marriage but after 3 weeks of back and fourth thoughts and saying she felt "Crazy", I finally searched and found Exactly what she is feeling. Her words were "OMG, that is me exactly!"

Below is what we found....

*Infatuation. * 
_"So what about infatuation in relationships? 
You think of someone all the time to the point of addiction at times, you go out of your way to be around or contact him/her, and you begin to center your priorities around him/her or create an alter world. There is history with this person: Maybe a short history, but maybe quite a while. You have feelings of anxiety, lust, panic, uncertainty. This is infatuation and it is a very powerful "drug" that can quickly take over your life. With infatuation, reality becomes what you make it.... A perfect world to escape from the daily grind of "normal" life. People that have been studied that are in or have been infatuated report that it makes them feel crazy at times and they have a very difficult time with rational thoughts or decisions. Life usually becomes a blur and also can suffer from it... unpaid bills, difficult with all decisions, the job will suffer and life can become un-manageable."_

How do we get past this and back to our lives. We have a great relationship and we both love each other very much. We are going to counseling to help but after we figured out she is infatuated, we wonder if therapy is what we need or something else?


----------



## Lostandconfused (Jul 6, 2009)

I think you've got a great start on getting past it. You are talking to each other about it. You're helping her identify what this "really" is and what is "really" isn't.

Now she has to take some steps. 

She has to understand that feelings are fleeting and fickle. They change with the environment and with the stimuli they encounter. Once she understands that this is JUST a feeling she can CHOOSE to remove herself from that environment based on what she KNOWS to be factual.

She needs to cease ALL contact with him of any kind. As I told my husband this means ZERO communication of ANY type, via email, text, phone, snail mail, smoke signals, telepathetic messages (teehee pun intended), message in a bottle, absolutely nothing.

She MUST be transparent. This means you have complete and free access to every type of email account, facebook, myspace, twitter, phone, any communication of ANY and ALL types forever.

Note: it's possible she will grieve for this "lost" relationship for a time but it will lessen over time and eventually fade away. Be patient with her but firm that it MUST be over completely. 

When thoughts of him cross her mind, she will need to divert her thoughts to thoughts of why she loves you and how important her marriage and integrity is to her. 

Together, you can build new habits on spending time together, working on improving communication and meeting each other's needs. Make extra effort going forward to ensure that each of you focus on how much you love the other and SHOW it. Be patient and kind. Worry more about making the other person feel treasured than whether they are making you feel treasured.

Hang in there,
Praying,
Lost


----------



## sidestep (Oct 23, 2009)

Thank you for the reply..

She Has cut all communication and deleted him from her Facebook. She has anxiety at times and has told me she feels like emailing him but she doesn't.
I also have complete access to her Facebook, both email accounts, phone records.... she has been open and honest even when I didn't want to hear some things.

I just talked to a new counselor that was recommended to us, she was Sooo understanding and sympathetic, I think it will be better for us because the guy we are going to right now does nothing, hardly talks and just stares at us.


----------



## Loving Husband (Aug 3, 2009)

Well sounds like she is addressing the issues. I think you need to go deeper.. Find out why she has this need to reach out for somebody else. What can you do to make her feel better about your marriage. She seems to be looking for something. Get to the root of the problem. The OM is a symptom not the problem.. Fix the real issues and he won't be a problem. If you don't it will come back.


----------



## larniegrl (Oct 7, 2009)

I am impressed...your post was very encouraging. Good luck to you both.


----------

