EAS

I have been reading here and posting here for a while now. I read all of the wonderful words of wisdom hoping that something will finally sear into my being and make me finally get it. I have read about the fog and how all of our situations are basically the same with different circumstances (some of us M or S....A with friends, neighbors or co-workers). I still hung on to this hope that it was some how different for me. I told myself that my situation was different and there were real feelings on both sides and that "WE" were somehow different, unique or special.  I see things a little more clearly now. I am starting to see that it is all the same. There is not this undying love on either part. It is not fate or destiny. It quite simply is two people with addictive/compulsive personalities that found their fix in each other. We fed each others ego's, insecurities and compulsions/addictions. We thrived on the chaos, instability and the chase. In a lot of ways it has always been a game of cat and mouse and when the spouses got involved the trap fell so we would simply clean up the mess and restart our game.

It is somewhat bittersweet. While I am happy that the picture is starting to come in to focus....I am sad that the picture is not what I imagined it would be all this time. In my head I had it built up as a  rare and elusive Picasso and in reality it is a cheap and unflattering no tell motel wall hanging. Does that make sense?

Thanks for listening, Just needed to let some of these thoughts out.

Hugs,

Kristin

kristinintexas-

thanks for those thoughts...they represent exactly where I am...feeling the fog lifting and the bittersweetness of the clarity.  the best thing about this place has been helping me understand that my A wasn't different...infact, just the opposite, it was so perfectly textbook its almost embarassing.

i feel as the days go by and i get stronger in my conviction that a little piece of me is dying too.  i know it needs to die and when it's really gone, i'll feel even better.

my exAP didn't believe i could do this...i've cried wolf a few too many times.  he spent the weekend in Vegas with his buddies drunk texting me and calling.  just another nail in the coffin.  amazing how special i am when he's tanked and lost all his money and he gets to look forward to nothing at home (i.e. sex)...all of a sudden i am at the top of the list and "he really fk'd up"..i took him to Vegas the last 5 times he went......on my nickel. 

now i get to look forward to him returning to his lame life and trying to figure out what went wrong between us.  he honestly can't understand why the A wasn't enough.  he would have gone on forever with me as his sidedish.

i'm hoping for strenth and keeping some of this clarity so I don't get lost in all his needing me all of a sudden.  i know there is going to be a barage of "i'm sorry's"...trying to explain his behavior...blah blah blah.

I need to keep replaying the loser vision I have of him sitting in Vegas, too drunk to function,  losing all his $$ in 5 hours and feeling sorry for himself...um, no thanks.

going to keep focusing on making this life, the one I'm actually in, that Picasso. 

keep the no tell, motel crappy print in the dumpster where it belongs.

thanks again for saying it all so well.  i too just needed to download and get ready to NOT respond to him.

Nomore,

You are very welcome. This new place (mindset) is very bittersweet for myself. It seems scary yet exciting all at the same time. It is clarifying yet confusing.

I realized the other day that I was looking at this the wrong way. I kept thinking that the thought of him out of my life forever quite simply hurt like Hell. Truth is that the idea of him out of my life does hurt like Hell but the idea of him in my life hurts like Hell also. If I am to make a choice then why not pick the lesser of two evils. For me the lesser of two evils is to have him out of my life. This way I can go on with my life and learn to love myself again. This way I get to know myself again....not the old me as she is misguided and has poor judgement at times.....but the new me that will have a whole new level of wisdom and self-worth.

I don't look at XMM as anything but what he is.....a reflection of myself.....as the saying goes we are the company that we keep. (That is not directed at you but at myself) He is someone that has lost himself along the way and found himself not feeling so great about his life or himself...much like me. He is someone that found an escape  from reality in the A....much like me. When together we didn't ask much of each other and that is because the stress of everyday life never could catch up to us. We have been each others "fix" for seven years. We both found comfort in the chaos and instability as odd as it sounds. I think it is much like a teenager that goes out and parties and looks for the unknown and knows mom and dad are going to be there no matter what the circumstances are. We were the teenagers and our spouses the parents so to speak. Does that make any sense? It does to me and I guess that is all that matters.

The point of this all is that I don't blame him. I think he is someone that got caught up in the fog also. I am sure all the things he said and did at the time he believed. I know when I said/did things involving the A I believed it to be true only to later realize that it wasn't what I wanted or felt. My point is he is responsible for his actions and I am responsible for mine. These words are food for thought for myself and no reflection on you. Writing it all down seems to do me more good than to have them aimlessly racing through my head. No offense intended.

Hugs,

Kristin

kristin-

absolutely no offense taken.  i am seriously with you word for word and revelation for revelation.  I feel much the same way.  98% of the last month, i am sane and intellectual and can evenly share the blame...and then i will get a little mad.  which feels great and strengthens me to do exactly as you say..."pick the lesser of the two evils" 

i don't want to write 5 years of my life and the truly fun amazing times we had off.  they were important in my life.  I was married at 19 and missed my 20's...so it makes sense that i fell into this A...his reasons for the A are his own, but very real.  we aren't horrible, we took great pains never to hurt our families and get caught. 

and you are right again...we were a reflection of each other.  that's why we seemed so perfect together.  but the perfection rarely saw the light of day or any real amount of time or life together.  what relationship wouldn't be perfect when its limited to 5 hours, great sex, food, concerts, las vegas...of course we were "soul mates"....

the thought of losing all those roller coaster highs is really scary.  i don't care what any one says here...i am not going to find those with my DH of 28 years.  BUT, i will have a future that I've always wanted with my family together and intact.  so, i just have to trust that the highs of being with my DH when my daughters graduate from college, get married and have families will be highs much greater than a weekend of orgasms in a hotel. 

isn't that crazy that i would ever risk all that i have for about 500 hours in the past 5 years....it is absolutely insane.

and i also hope that he can learn from this, go home and work on his own marriage.  he's committed to being married and raising his kids because of family and religious pressure..he now has to return to his marriage and decide if he can live with knowing about a different kind of love than he knew before me.  it's not going to be easy for him.

ok, i'm like you...just writing these random thoughts keeps me on track. 

thank you for all your insights....they really help me, so please just keep writing. 

one day at a time....

nomore

hi,

boy do i get that bit about seeing through the fog. i am emerging from an A with a mm after 4 years. i deluded myself also in that he loved me, we are different, it is a love affair, etc. actually, it was an addiction. you are so smart when you call it a way of feeding egos and meeting emotional needs. it was not the great love affair, only i can get him, he gets me affair. it was basically physical needs being met in a cheap way. he had no intention of leaving his wife and frankly, he led it on as long as he could. i like to think he wasn't deceivi g me, but at some level, he knew what he was doing. so did i i guess. i broke up with him over and over and kept coming back, because i was afraid to go it alone. others on this site tell meit is a self esteem thing, i think they're right. i am so sorry that you are feeling the hurt of finally seeing through the fog. it does hurt. I am hoping that now you can move on, just as i am struggling to do so. it gets crazy. not sure why it happens.

Hang on, don't go soft, be tough. i'm with you on this.