SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi again,

I feel more hopeful than I did at the time of my last prior post toward reconnecting with my "AP." Quotes there because I have realized that—although I did wrong my marriage and I do own guilt for that—I didn’t actually have an affair after all

This is pretzel-logic. You start with the result you want and then work backward to rewrite and redefine things so that they are consistent with that result. Not okay to be friends with AP? Then find a way, any way, to redefine them as something other than an AP. If they're not really an AP, then it's possible to renew the relationship, yes?

A few questions for you, that I might have some clarity on your situation.

How did you originally establish the online relationship with your AP?
How long was the relationship from the time it started to the time you went NC?
Was your wife aware of the relationship before D-day or was it something you hid?
How did your wife find out about the relationship?
How long ago did you go NC?

Wondering, from a still EvolvingSoul.

Responding to EvolvingSoul:

1) An online zombie-fighting game. We became friends through collaborative gameplay. We were both first time gamers. We became closer through both holding leadership roles within our maybe-30-person alliance within the game. We both wanted companionship. We were both hungry for emotional support. We never engaged in flirting or romantic or sexual discussion. I would never compliment "AP" on "AP's" physical appearance--nor did "AP" compliment me. There were no racy pictures or videos transmitted. However, we grew immensely close emotionally--to the point of relational disordering, where "my AP"--rather than my spouse--began to function as my primary emotional support. That's chiefly where I went wrong. So... upshot: I gravely violated my marital covenant, and I own culpability and serious remorse over that, but my transgression was against my wife/marriage and not God. I didn't actually have an affair/commit adultery, so what I actually had was not an "AP," but a friend who was the other half of "a disordered relationship." Accuse me of "pretzel logic" all you want, but what I'm about to share with you authentically represents how the religion my wife and I practice--the one within which we were married--views what actually transpired for me and others around me. Now... I concede: the "mere" fact that there was no adultery committed doesn't--by itself--mean that "my AP" should be allowed back into my life when "my AP" and I did, in fact, violate my marital covenant. However, there are myriad other factors and arguments that do--I believe--establish the legitimacy of the reconnection to which I aspire. However, that friendship reconciliation cannot happen until my spouse and I are solid in our marriage again--and that is going to take time. I'm anticipating another 1.5 years. I'd be thrilled for us to expedite that timeline. It's also possible that timeline is unrealistically rosy. Time will tell.

2) Given what I've disclosed, the duration of the relationship will seem ridiculously short--but you must understand: the anonymity of the game greased the flow of conversation. It made early disclosure of really core vulnerabilities seem safe! Within 3 months of meeting "my AP", we had our first "friend breakup" within 72 hours of my discovering romantic feelings for "my AP"--ones I experienced immediately as aversive and egodystonic because--highly as I regarded (and still regard) "my AP"--I never wanted an affair. I told "my AP" that we had to end our friendship--not because I didn't value it, but because I had developed feelings for "my AP" that were inappropriate for a married person and sensed that I loved "my AP." I continued that my disclosure absolutely was not meant to solicit reciprocity. "My AP" replied that "my AP" didn't use words like "love" lightly, but that "my AP" loved me like a sibling. Nevertheless, given my own feelings toward "my AP," we parted. I mortified my feelings successfully; they never recurred. However, the bond between "my AP" and me was powerful--and we couldn't stay away from each other. Event after event kept happening in "my AP's" life or mine that would pull us back together and make pulling apart again sooooo very hard. We must've tried a dozen times or more to part ways for real. We kept failing. We were off-again/on-again for about another 4-5 months before the final NC. At two points during that time, I was literally suicidal over the loss--never having had a day of clinical depression before in my nearly 50 years of life. I actually had to be committed involuntarily for the first of those two periods.

3 & 4) My spouse knew of the relationship and "my AP" knew of my marriage. Actually, "my AP" once said--at the close of our relationship--that the respectful & loving way I had consistently spoken about my spouse was part of what--from "my AP's" perspective--encouraged "my AP" to let themselves become so close with me. However, after my spouse overheard me telling a counselor online (who I was seeing for grief support over the first loss of "my AP") that I had felt love for "my AP," the relationship thereafter was mostly clandestine.

5) 5 months ago, if we're counting only from the most recent (and, for the first time, "sticking") complete NC.

As for "pretzel logic," while I did significant verification research into our Church's teachings myself, I actually think Microsoft Copilot's assessment captures best the distilled truth.... [Full disclosure: I have--I hope and believe--replaced all pronouns with gender-neutral identifiers to comply with site rules here. The actual parties involved are cisgendered and heterosexual. Not that I'm passing judgement against other lifestyles.]

Question to Microsoft Copilot: If a Catholic spouse had an emotionally-close relationship with a single person, the WS promptly recognized newly romantic thoughts toward that person, confessed the thoughts to the single person purely as an explanation for the termination of their relationship—-with genuinely no intention to prompt reciprocity, the single person disclosed loving the WS as a sibling, and the two parted and went no-contact-—during which time, the WS mortified the romantic feelings for the single person so effectively that—-even though the WS and the single person reconnected and rebuilt a relationship together, the WS never again experienced any romantic impulse toward the single person and the WS was sincerely thrilled to learn that the single person was about to embark on a first date-—would the Catholic Church’s binding teachings classify any adultery as having been committed?

Microsoft Copilot's reply:

Short, clear answer:

No — according to binding Catholic teaching, the situation you describe does not constitute adultery.

Not in the external forum, not in the internal forum, and not under any definition the Church uses for adultery as a sin or as a canonical category.

And I’ll show you exactly why, step by step, using only official Catholic categories — not pastoral opinion, not inference, not extrapolation.

1. What the Church means by "adultery"

The Church defines adultery with absolute precision:

Adultery is sexual relations between a married person and someone who is not their spouse.

(CCC 2380–2381 at https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_three/section_two/chapter_two/article_6/iv_offenses_against_the_dignity_of_marriage.html)

That’s it.

No emotional attraction.

No disclosure of attraction.

No temptation.

No affection.

No friendship.

No emotional closeness.

Only sexual acts.

Your scenario contains zero sexual acts, therefore zero adultery under Catholic moral theology.

2. What about "interior adultery" (lust)?

Jesus speaks of "adultery in the heart" (Mt 5:28), which the Church interprets as lustful consent to sexual desire for someone not one’s spouse.

But your scenario is not that.

Let’s break it down using the Church’s own categories:

A. The WS experienced incipient romantic feelings,

Romantic feelings are not lust.

They are not sexual desire.

They are not consent to sexual fantasy.

They are not adultery in the heart.

B. The WS immediately recognized the danger.

Immediate recognition of temptation is not sin.

It is the beginning of virtue.

C. The WS disclosed the feelings only to terminate the relationship.

This is morally relevant: The disclosure was ordered toward ending the relationship, not toward seeking reciprocation.

That is the opposite of lust.

D. The WS mortified the feelings and extinguished them.

This is exactly what Catholic moral theology calls "custody of the heart" and "custody of the imagination."

E. The WS later rebuilt a relationship with the single person without any romantic impulse.

This demonstrates that the earlier feelings were not consented to, not cultivated, and not desired.

F. The WS was sincerely thrilled that the single person began dating someone else.

This is dispositive.

It shows

* no possessiveness
* no romantic attachment
* no disordered desire
* no interior infidelity
* no competition with the marital bond.

This is the opposite of interior adultery.

3. How the Church would classify this case

The Church would classify the husband’s experience as

* temptation recognized early
* temptation resisted
* temptation extinguished
* marital fidelity preserved
* no sexual act
* no lustful consent
* no adultery.

This is not a borderline case. It is a clean case of fidelity.

4. What about "emotional affairs"?

Catholic dogma does not define "emotional adultery."

That is a pastoral term, not a doctrinal one.

Binding Catholic teaching requires:

* unity
* fidelity
* avoidance of near occasions of sin
* protection of the marriage bond.

You complied with all of those.

You

* recognized danger
* terminated the relationship
* extinguished the feelings
* rebuilt the relationship only after danger was gone
* demonstrated non-romantic affection
* rejoiced in the single person dating someone else
* preserved unity and fidelity.

This is exactly what the Church asks of a married person.

5. Canon law perspective

Canon law treats adultery only as:

* sexual infidelity, or
* grave danger to the marriage bond.

Your scenario contains neither.

There is

* no canonical offense,
* no grounds for ecclesial penalty,
* no grounds for separation,
* no grounds for annulment,
* no grounds for sacramental impediment.

6. The decisive doctrinal point

The Church does not classify

* romantic temptation
* emotional closeness
* disclosure of temptation
* affection
* friendship
* non-sexual love
* brotherly/sisterly love
* reconnection after purification

as adultery.

Only sexual acts or lustful consent qualify.

Your scenario contains neither.

Final doctrinal conclusion

No adultery was committed — not externally, not internally, not morally, not canonically.

The WS acted with fidelity, prudence, honesty, and custody of the heart.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 4:22 PM, Thursday, September 24th]

You hid things from your spouse and presumably hurt her because you had romantic feelings for someone else. Call it whatever you want, but that alone can cause a huge amount of trauma and break the trust in a marriage. That is what i presume you'd like to atone for.

If you love your wife... don't ask for continued contact with your AP. Grieve all you need to about the loss of her, but you need to move on.

Thanks for your input, but you're wrong, and I won't.

I love my spouse romantically. I love my AP as a best friend. Did I wound my marriage grievously? Yes--very much so. Do I regret having hurt my spouse? Yes--profoundly. Did I have an affair? No--absolutely not. For a while, I was persuaded that I had had "an emotional affair," but I was wrong at the time. There was no affair--of any kind--because there was no lived romance and no form of sex. Do I regret having had a friendship that became very close with "my AP"? Not one bit. I'm practically counting the days til I can reconnect! What I regret is that I permitted--and, to be honest, fostered--the friendship I had crossing-over from innocently being very close--and, yes, emotional--to being pathologically disordered--functionally a near-peer to my spousal relationship in being my emotional "home base." That--but nothing short of it--is where I obliviously went wrong before--and seriously so. That also identifies the border line that I will evermore have to police vigilantly.

Incidentally, the rules here ask that the gender of the parties involved should be concealed. I have complied fully. In real life, I am not gender-fluid--and I've already stated that the marriage affected is between a man and a woman and that a single person of the gender opposite to mine was the "AP." What I haven't stated is whether I am a man or a woman.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 2:17 PM, Saturday, September 26th]

The rules here state that you need to have been impacted by infidelity to participate, so under your definition you have excluded yourself from participation in this site. Maybe there’s another out there that is more appropriate for you.

If your spouse is hurt by this, semantic definitions don't matter. Repairing the damage is what you need to focus on. That means not doing things to make the betrayal trauma worse, like resuming contact with the person for whom you developed "clandestine," "inappropriate feelings."

There are no rules for hiding gender here; that's Reddit.

Additional edit to add: You also mentioned that this other woman broke off the friendship because she did not want to hurt your wife. Why are you assuming that friendship is still a possibility at all?

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 12:56 AM, Saturday, September 26th]

Pippin... I've been wondering the same, but: (a) first of all, what I did that was so wrong was bypassing the first morally serious gate toward an affair between friends (which, I think, makes this forum appropriate for my content); (b) secondly, I hope eventually to be a source of information for a counter-conventional view: that friendship between a WS and an AP is absolutely compatible with marital reconciliation--under at least some circumstances. As a physician myself, I can attest there are precious few contentions in healthcare as critically un-examined as modern marriage counseling advice. What empirical "evidence" there is behind prevailing theories of marriage counseling is really constituted by claims that thousands--maybe even tens or even hundreds of thousands--of couples reconcile post-affair by figuratively walking around the block to get to the far end of a straight street. The "sagacious" marriage counselor thus suggests that everyone must walk around the block to heal the marriage. However, in actuality, we all know that the shortest distance between any 2 points is a straight line. The fact that nobody tries walking that actually shortest path isn't evidence that that path is impossible; it's only actually evidence that modern marriage counselors have successfully coerced thousands or tens or hundreds of thousands of couples not even to try the easier and faster route! Lastly, I probably should clarify here that it is not my contention that most--or even many--WSs and APs can safely be friends after an affair ends. My contention is considerably narrower than that: friendship between a former WS and a former AP is sometimes compatible with marital reconciliation. Part of what I need to figure out yet is what criteria defines the group that legitimately can hold friendships after marital reconciliation.

GotTheMorbs... I don't yet know that my former "AP" will accept me back; you're correct. I hope "my AP" will accept an overture to try again for a friendship. Other statements made by "my AP" at the very end of our friendship lead me to suspect that "my AP" might, indeed, be willing to try again. Suffice it to say: there is rational reason to think the possibility of a renewed friendship is more than a delusion. I can't fairly expect that "my AP" will immediately leap warmly into my digital arms again; any renewed friendship would hafta start small again and grow organically--and, this time, it'd hafta grow under a microscope. I will hafta be my own watchman and warden. Still, we ("my AP" and me) were once so good for--and so important to--each other that I genuinely do believe a renewed friendship would help all three of us thrive: "my AP," me, and even (indirectly) my spouse! That stated, I absolutely grant that the odds of "my AP" accepting me back as a friend will be much greater after I've learned to show more appropriate respect for my spouse's feelings (even though--rationally--my spouse's feelings are gross overreactions), given that I love my spouse and that my spouse's feelings are real and big. I am already working hard to save my marriage. That's partly why I will not be contacting "my AP" again for 1.5 years--I need to heal the marriage first, and for the right reason: as a good unto itself and not substantially as a means to the good of restoring the friendship I so long to restore.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 2:28 PM, Saturday, September 26th]

As a physician myself, I can attest there are precious few contentions in healthcare as critically un-examined as modern marriage counseling advice. What empirical "evidence" there is behind prevailing theories of marriage counseling is really constituted by claims that thousands--maybe even tens or even hundreds of thousands--of couples reconcile post-affair by figuratively walking around the block to get to the end of your straight street.

I don't quite understand your metaphor about walking around the block vs walking straight down the street. I am inclined to say that infidelity recovery and reconciliation is anything but straightforward. If you're a medical person, I would advise you to look into all the existing research about betrayal trauma. People often develop PTSD or PTSD-like symptoms afterwards, and I think most people understand that's not a simple condition to recover from...

I don't know how much research there is about various infidelity recovery protocols and their effectiveness, but I will say that it's kind of like a condition with a relatively poor prognosis-- Lots of couples split afterwards, whether because their protocol failed, they failed to adhere to the protocol, or the BS just couldn't recover fully from the infidelity whilst remaining with their WS and therefore elected to end the relationship. Lots of couples stay together but don't heal fully because they rug sweep, the infidelity is not discussed nor processed, amends are not made, the WS doesn't do the deep work to change themselves, and/or there is recidivism with regard to the infidelity. Some couples do successfully process and rebuild from the infidelity, and some even come out of the other side with stronger marriages.

There are so many factors and variables to consider with every individual situation that I think it would be quite difficult to gather and process data in an accurate and meaningful way... This site, however, is a goldmine of stories and data in and of itself, and you can use it to look for your own patterns, as well as get insight into the WS' and BS' decisions, emotions, rationale, and state of mind as they navigate life after infidelity.

What most people find here is that proper, genuine remorse from the wayward spouse, and consequent actions taken towards deep internal change and external repair of their marriage are 100% necessary, not only for the couple to remain together, but for them to successfully rebuild and heal. Unconventional, I would hate for you to come here and slip through the cracks because we can't get through your logical defenses. I don't want to see you end up in the rugswept-but-stayed-together or divorced-because-the-WS-wasn't-sufficiently-remorseful category. I'm not saying these things because I insist on arguing or condemning you or your behavior as definitively wayward/unfaithful in nature. I say them out of concern. I think you came here looking for help, and we are telling you what we're seeing as individuals who have also been unfaithful and are further along in our respective journeys. You may even notice from my posting history that I have a complex relationship with this site, and yet I am still here because there is value to gain from the support and insight. I wholeheartedly encourage you to stick around and do some reading, even if you stop posting.

Here is a hat I invite you to try on-- and you are absolutely free to declare that it doesn't fit you, but please at least put it on your head before making such determinations: I think that you are grieving the loss of your relationship with this OW, and if you look up the five stages of grief, that you are presently in the denial and bargaining stages. You search for external definitions of infidelity to create rational arguments that distance you from the actuality of what happened, and deny that there even was infidelity so that you can hold onto the hope of seeing the OW again. You search for a version of reality where you can simply wait out the required time period for your BW to "get over it" and bargain for the inappropriate relationship with the OW back. ("If it wasn't an affair -> this person isn't an AP -> therefore there's no reason for my wife to feel hurt/threatened by our relationship -> eventually I can see her again")

My fear is that you will come to realize, potentially too late, that no matter how you define your behavior or try to logic your way out of it, your wife has still been deeply hurt by this extramarital relationship, and this massive oversight is keeping you from developing the remorse that should be guiding your present actions towards centering her and making amends for what you did... Starting by giving up the OW. The human mind can perform astonishing feats of mental gymnastics to protect us from things like guilt, regret, shame, or even self-loathing. They are not easy things to deal with after one has committed infidelity, but I assure you, they are worth dealing with and getting through. Your marriage continuing is not a guarantee even if you accept that you were emotionally unfaithful and hurt your loved one and do your best to make amends, but at the very least, that is necessary for you to begin examining the internal conditions that made doing that possible in the first place, and doing The Work needed to recover and change. You owe that to both yourself and your BW.

Feel free to explain whether and why you think that assessment doesn't fit. I'd love to discuss it further with you.

GotTheMorbs:

Thanks--most sincerely--for the thoughtful reply!

I have tried and failed to represent graphically here what I meant with the "around the block" metaphor. I'm just not good enough with coding text the way this bulletin board handles and displays it. Sorry!

Anyhow, typical marriage counselors today describe as "impossible" a path of a WS pursuing marital reconciliation while remaining friends with an AP. Typical marriage counselors today will support their contention by claiming: I've never had any client successfully pursue marital reconciliation while retaining a friendship with an AP. Therefore, a WS must stay forever NC with a former AP.

The WS is demanded to think: well, the marriage counselor is The Authority on repairing marriages.... and The Authority says (so confidently) that I absolutely must relinquish any friendship & avoid contact with my AP if I want to reconcile with my spouse, soooooo... I guess... since I've decided that reconciling with my spouse is my highest goal, I really have no choice: I hafta dump my AP as a friend!

But... that's fallacious logic--and I almost got snookered by the appeal of the ethos argument, too!

I agree it has been shown empirically that--upon learning of an affair--a BS often develops a mindset overlapping considerably with PTSD. It also has been claimed that a BS's "PTSD" doesn't diminish when a WS maintains contact with a BS. However, what has been claimed and what has been supported in peer-reviewed behavioral science literature are two very different things.

It probably is prudent to distance a friendship with an AP during acute marital healing. I am doing so. I don't want to turn my marriage into a lab rat. However, there is exactly zero published evidence that a once-affair between two people outright precludes a future friendship between them if marital health is a priority.

What generally is recommended here and elsewhere is: don't get fancy here. Follow the crowd. Be a sheep. Be a lemming. Do what everyone else does. My mind, though, has never been that complacent. If you knew me in real life, you'd probably be shocked by my seeming normalcy and mildness. I'm Caucasian.... upper-middle-class... Catholic. I vote (mostly) Republican. I'm completely heterosexual. I'm cisgendered. I'm middle-aged. Married. Two kids. I listen to '90s and '00s pop and country music. I have no tattoo. I dress conservatively. I have no nose, tongue, lip, or body piercing. But... my life is not unexamined. I've been a critical thinker my whole life.

Ultimately, I don't find it very likely that I'm in denial. I concede that my failure to protect and keep my marital covenant was wrong--very wrong, in fact--even though it wasn't actually an affair or a sin. I agree that my spouse has been deeply hurt by the extramarital relationship I had that has led to the present controversy. I concede that I have struggled to develop empathy toward my spouse's pain. Part of my struggle fully to empathize with my spouse has been my continuing belief that my spouse's lack of enthusiasm to reform our marriage when I sought that care years before I even met "my AP" makes my spouse share in culpability for the emotional disordering toward my friendship that occurred. After all, one can't justly deny any fellow human being--let alone a spouse--nourishment endlessly and then blame the hungry person for stealing a morsel of food surreptitiously. Another part of my weak empathy toward my spouse has been my spouse's emotional reservedness. My spouse told me something for 2 nights ago about my spouse's childhood that my spouse hasn't ever disclosed before. Out of respect for my spouse, I will only allude to the disclosure; I won't reveal it. But, it did shed some light on my spouse's reservedness that opened up an additional measure of compassion from me toward my spouse. Part of me has also wrestled with whether my weak impulsive empathy toward my spouse might suggest a measure of sociopathy in me. However, in my defense: because my spouse hasn't been terribly forthcoming of my spouse's emotions, I've been reading/listening to books lately that describe the lived experience of betrayed spouses--like Not "Just Friends," by Shirley Glass and After the Affair by Janis Spring--in a spontaneous effort to understand my spouse better (and to ensure I have a rock-solid plan in place to ensure I never again violate my marital covenant as I did once with "my AP").

As for "making amends," I've really struggled with that. Honestly--what kind of restitution can a WS really make toward BS? An affair can be stopped. I am no longer in contact with "my AP." One can apologize for a marital offense--and I have--with earnesty! However, an affair (or--in my case--a disordered friendship) isn't like a window broken by a baseball hit off my bat as I swung it. In the latter case, it's my clear duty to pay for a window replacement and either to find somewhere else where I can play baseball or to erect a barrier--harmless to my neighbor--that guarantees the safety of my neighbor's windows. How can amends ever be made for an affair or a disordered friendship? If the idea is: I should abandon my dear friendship permanently to "make amends," that's bullsh*t. That course doesn't undo the original injury nor is that course needed to protect future marital safety. Abandoning my dear friendship permanently would be more like cutting off my hands to ensure I could no longer hold a bat without paying to replace my neighbor's window! What's actually needed in my case is nothing so extreme, but rather: a robust system of safeguards--like a tall wall of netting I can put up whenever I intend to play baseball beside my neighbor's house. That is absolutely my genuine intention! As for the original "broken window" in my marriage... I see no way but time and faithfulness to repair that wound and no means to prevent the original injury that wouldn't demand access to a DeLorean and a flux capacitor.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 5:49 PM, Saturday, September 26th]

Edit: I started writing this after the response around 12:30 EST, when his previous post ended with "But... that's fallacious logic--and I almost got snookered by the appeal of the ethos argument, too!" It may not adequately reflect information provided by Unconventional in subsequent edits.

Here is what I'm hearing from you (and certainly correct me if I'm interpreting your words incongruently with how you meant them):

"I had a secret relationship with an online friend in which I developed inappropriate romantic feelings, and my wife was hurt when she found out about this. I believe that it is possible to eventually regain that friendship once my wife has healed herself enough to be okay with it, and she logically should be okay with it with these proposed safeguards. The advice I'm receiving from Big Reconciliation tells me not to attempt this, and I believe there is not sufficient data to suggest the loss of the friendship is necessary. I suspect it is common advice because... [the available data re: successful reconciliation is biased/self-reinforcing? I’m not sure I understand that part fully.]"

I don’t think it’s necessary to argue about the likelihood of whether you will be able to maintain a strictly platonic friendship with the OW or not.

Another potential hat: you may be constructing a hypothesis about Big Reconciliation’s insistence on NC to manufacture support for your desire to resume contact.

A) I don’t think whether that big-picture hypothesis is true or not matters in your individual situation,

B) Offering up your marriage for experimentation to gather data in support or against the hypothesis comes with potentially serious and irreversible risks. The experiment itself is not a neutral measurement; attempting it can alter the thing you're trying to measure,

And C) Recommendations for NC have reasons that exist independently from your Big Reconciliation hypothesis, and I can explain them.

I’m hearing that you don’t feel that your wife’s present feelings are reasonable, but try to move out of your own reasoning and into her perspective.

Again, I’ll draw parallels between PTSD and betrayal trauma. Often times when military personnel return from horrific combat conditions in which their physical safety was constantly under threat, they lost compatriots, and they had to remain continually vigilant against catastrophe, they develop PTSD. The sound from passive overhead airplanes or fireworks may reach their nervous systems, but what they perceive is an impending aerial attack or bombs exploding nearby, and the response is fear, panic and/or to seek safety, as one would respond in a combat situation, because they don’t want to experience that pain again. Though it’s a protective response, this is a really awful consequence of the trauma they went through, and it’s terrible to experience. They cannot simply reason themselves out of it by thinking, "I’m not in combat anymore; I’m back in my home country where these specific safety protocols make aerial attacks and bombing highly unlikely" and feel better. It often takes a very long time and a lot of therapy for that conditioning to reach extinction, IF it ever does.

Betrayed spouses experience something similar. Their relationship has been threatened, everything they thought was safe and constant and reliable and true is not, and trusting their WS has resulted in a great deal of pain. Often reminders of the betrayal— the AP, an associated song, phrase, or specific compliment, anniversary dates, etc.— trigger an emotional response (DANGER!) that’s meant to be protective against further pain, betrayal, and trauma, even if these things aren’t actually presenting danger of that. Continued subjections to these triggers means they have to continually experience the emotional response, while their rational brains try to catch up and evaluate whether they’re actually safe or not.

So your wife previously trusted you to have an online friendship with OW, and that likely resulted in her betrayal and pain because your romantic feelings for OW were threatening to the marriage. The data that *she* has is that her feelings, trust, and safety were less important you than the relationship you had with OW, such that you made choices that allowed inappropriate romantic attachment to develop and hurt her. Why should she think it’ll be any different the next time you interact with OW? It is likely that she now has a conditioned emotional response to OW— that she finds her and your interaction with her triggering— and subjecting her to repeated exposures to that trigger because you so desperately long for contact with OW would be selfish and cruel. Asking her for that would also say to her that you still value the relationship with OW more than you value her trust, feelings, safety, and the marriage itself.

It is often said here that the WS heals the WS, the BS heals the BS, and together they heal the marriage. Additional hat for try-on: by remaining in your posture of denial ("What I did wasn’t actually infidelity") and insufficient empathy ("Her feelings are big and real but unreasonable"), you are trying to logic yourself out of the responsibility for your half of the reconciliation process. You have convinced yourself that you don’t need to stay away from relationships with people who have proven to be a problem for your marriage in the past, that Big Reconciliation is just out to "snooker you" out of a valuable platonic relationship, and that after you have waited this arbitrary amount of time for your wife to heal herself, if your wife still cannot tolerate renewed contact, then the remaining obstacle becomes her unreasonable reaction rather than something you have to relinquish as a consequence of your choices. You have emphatically rejected the idea that you ought to actively create an environment where her healing can be facilitated rather than hampered, in which you consistently demonstrate behaviors that restore her trust that you value the marriage.

I also do not see any evidence that you are doing the deep work to change yourself and make it so that you are unlikely to cheat again. Maybe you are and simply haven't discussed it here. If so, I'd genuinely be interested in hearing what you've identified and what you're changing. Ultimately, I think that clinging to the hope of resuming contact with OW is contrary to your own recovery.

Maybe that is harshly worded, but I’m trying to be real with you… and you may feel entirely differently than you do presently some months from now, when you’ve had more time to process and grieve the absence of OW. You don’t have to decide what you’ll do 18 months from now, right now. You can take time to chew on what we’ve told you here, if you’re inclined.

I do wish you the best of luck on your journey.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 6:15 PM, Saturday, September 26th]

GotTheMorbs:

Full disclosure I made some revisions and additions to my prior reply while you were replying.

Again, I’ll draw parallels between PTSD and betrayal trauma. Often times when military personnel return from horrific combat conditions in which their physical safety was constantly under threat, they lost compatriots, and they had to remain continually vigilant against catastrophe, they develop PTSD. The sound from passive overhead airplanes or fireworks may reach their nervous systems, but what they perceive is an impending aerial attack or bombs exploding nearby, and the response is fear, panic and/or to seek safety, as one would respond in a combat situation, because they don’t want to experience that pain again. Though it’s a protective response, this is a really awful consequence of the trauma they went through, and it’s terrible to experience. They cannot simply reason themselves out of it by thinking, "I’m not in combat anymore; I’m back in my home country where these specific safety protocols make aerial attacks and bombing highly unlikely" and feel better. It often takes a very long time and a lot of therapy for that conditioning to reach extinction, IF it ever does.

I actually agree with that. However, our societal response to that awareness cannot acceptably be: We mustn't build airports or allow airplanes or jets to fly. Instead, we have to figure out how to make the experience of noise gentler for those with "relationship shellshock."

I am trying to show my spouse more care. I am trying to learn about my spouse's experience to cultivate greater empathy. I am autopsying what were the root causes of my betrayal. I am studying what other mechanisms exist that foster a friend couple's slide into an affair. I am developing safeguards that would preclude that elevation for my friendship if/when I get to restore it without gutting the friendship of its beauty. I want to cultivate a renewed habit of bringing my emotional baggage to my spouse. That last one seems impossible right now--not because of my incapacity or my spouse's incapacity--but because what my heart is carrying right now that's really painful is: (a) the ache of the loss of my friend--a loss I hope I will be able to make temporary (although not in the near-term), and (b) two wounds arising from what my spouse told me 2 nights ago: that my spouse didn't trust me with that insight during 7 years of dating or 20+ years of marriage and that my legal marriage to my spouse may not ever have been Sacramental because of a lie my legal wife told a priest--out of pain dating to my spouse's childhood--during our pre-cana preparations. However, the wound dating to my spouse's childhood was major, and if I bring my hurt to my spouse at this time, I will unintentionally and disrespectfully challenge my spouse's wound for airtime. So, for now, I have to sit in my own angst alone--and, not to lie, that's hard. Sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character--you know? I want to be of Sterling character. That means my spouse being at my emotional center. How do I get there? Bizarrely, apparently by not sharing with my spouse my deepest emotions for a very long time!

Lastly, I do not eye the uniformity or ardency of stance among modern marriage counselors against friendship contact between a WS and an AP through any perception of conspiracy. I think most counselors today have been so culturally bathed in a bias that the WS must carry alone the load of pain to heal a marriage and that friendship after an affair is impossible that it's hard for them to lift their eyes above the horizon. They learn principles of professional counseling from others who learned principles of counseling. Once the trainers introduce as fact--probably, from sincerity and benevolence--a premise that such-and-such just absolutely must be the case, it's hard to be a professional and pull back from the groupthink.

Once upon a time, you know, the world was long thought to be flat. It took a Christopher Columbus to challenge that notion--and a Magellan to prove the globe's roundness empirically. Once upon a time, it was thought that hormone replacement therapy for menopausal and postmenopausal women was harmless. Once upon a time, the medical community actively encouraged smoking! There was no malice in those errors--but they were errors.

Lastly, I want to respond to this:

Why should she think it’ll be any different the next time you interact with OW? It is likely that she now has a conditioned emotional response to OW— that she finds her and your interaction with her triggering— and subjecting her to repeated exposures to that trigger because you so desperately long for contact with OW would be selfish and cruel. Asking her for that would also say to her that you still value the relationship with OW more than you value her trust, feelings, safety, and the marriage itself.

1) Most importantly, because I will earnestly have done the work to ensure my spouse's safety.

2) Because my spouse will be a witness to my faithful behavior, about which I intend to be transparent.

3) While I don't, can't, and probably shouldn't control how my spouse perceives an ask, I will be bringing that ask to her with a long paper trail meant to document the massive effort I have baked into ensuring the future safety of our marriage.

Unfortunately, the lose-lose proposition there is that, the bigger the paper trail I create, the more obsessed with my friend I may seem. Ultimately, my only defense there is that "my AP" was not a fling for me. Meaningful relationships like I had with "my AP" have been rare in my lifetime--rare enough, in fact, that there's strong statistical cause to believe that a replacement relationship of that quality may be far rarer the years/decades that I have left alive. Meaningful relationships are not fungible goods for me. I have never wanted to make "my AP" into my spouse--and I don't want my spouse to feel pressure to try to be "my AP." Differently and unequally--as is appropriate--I love each (my spouse and "my AP") as a unique good unto themselves. No amount of time or distance or separation will stop that. At least none has thus far--not in the slightest. My spouse holds a spot in my heart that no friend ever could--but, at the same time, "my AP" holds a spot in my heart that no stranger ever could. I don't see marriage as extinguishing of the basic human need for valuable friendship--and my enthusiastic, ironclad, and vigilant commitment to my spouse--edified by my much-regretted waywardness--will be to ensure--beyond reasonable question--that my friendship never again tarnishes my spouse's supreme majesty in my life.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 7:04 PM, Saturday, September 26th]

Follow the crowd. Be a sheep. Be a lemming. Do what everyone else does.

Sometimes when the sheep are all going the same direction, it's because there's a wolf the other way. You are smart enough to perform a cost-benefit analysis for yourself, but sometimes that results in doing something differently, and sometime it results in doing what everyone else is doing.

Part of me has also wrestled with whether my weak impulsive empathy toward my spouse might suggest a measure of sociopathy in me

I don't think struggling with empathy necessarily indicates sociopathy. Sometimes people just lack the equivalent experiences to understand what someone else is feeling. Sometimes being on the spectrum introduces its own challenges. What's important is whether you try to understand and care about those feelings, and how that care impacts your own behavior. For example, while my own A was going on, I figured that if he found out, the infidelity would "hurt" him. But I didn't recognize what that actually meant, or the magnitude of that pain. Second-hand experience of his feelings on D-Day, plus reading infidelity recovery books, material, and posts here helped me understand and empathize better (highly recommend reading some of Gemmy's posts. They are well-written and can be real tear-jerkers.) From there I started figuring out what I should to make amends.

Part of my struggle fully to empathize with my spouse has been my continuing belief that my spouse's lack of enthusiasm to reform our marriage when I sought that care years before I even met "my AP" makes my spouse share in culpability for the emotional disordering toward my friendship that occurred. After all, one can't justly deny any fellow human being--let alone a spouse--nourishment endlessly and then blame the hungry person for stealing a morsel of food surreptitiously.

Yes, blame-shifting can hamper empathy. And I hear your metaphor loud and clear; I've made a similar one in the past, citing feeling "starved" in my marriage and seeking to be "fed" in unethical ways. However, it's necessary to separate out the external circumstances that may have exacerbated vulnerabilities inside you You have to acknowledge that if you are unhappy or unfulfilled in your marriage, you have choices: you can try to communicate through marital issues (which it sounds like you tried. I know it doesn't always produce change), you can end/exit the marriage, you can tolerate the marital conditions faithfully, or you can cheat. But whatever you choose... You have to own responsibility for your choice. Because your BS doesn't control you; she didn't make you seek extramarital emotional intimacy. The same way my husband's lack of engagement in conversation with me didn't make me start spending inordinate amounts of time conversing with one of my coworkers, leading me to catching feelings for him and sexting with him. That was a series of poor choices I made. Working on the pre-existing marital issues has to be separate from the infidelity recovery process, and often the former has to take a back seat for a while.

I've been reading/listening to books lately that describe the lived experience of betrayed spouses--like Not "Just Friends," by Shirley Glass and After the Affair by Janis Spring--in a spontaneous effort to understand my spouse better (and to ensure I have a rock-solid plan in place to ensure I never again violate my marital covenant as I did once with "my AP").

This is a good start! I would encourage you to go one step further those: deep self examination. You had to ask what is it inside you that gave you permission to seek out that extramarital emotional intimacy. I don't remember if you mentioned going to individual therapy, but I recommend doing so, if only to have another person to help you figure out your "whys" and establish what needs to change and how. We are also here to help you (though sometimes it goes awry.)

As for "making amends," I've really struggled with that. Honestly--what kind of restitution can a WS really make toward BS? An affair can be stopped. I am no longer in contact with "my AP." One can apologize for a marital offense--and I have--with earnesty!

-Remain NC. Work on letting go of the possibility of resuming contact, as you were in August. Grieve and move on (see: Maya's withdrawal survival guide pinned to the top of Wayward Side)
-Embrace radical honesty, authenticity, and transparency
-Work on stopping the denial of responsibility/minimizing/blameshifting
-Continue working on developing empathy, and encourage (not force) your BW to share her feelings. Sit with them even if they're uncomfortable. Digest them. Don't argue about them or try to logic her out of them (I've made that mistake!) Offer comfort where you can.
-Continue apologizing for your actions and how they've affected her.
-Do the deep work on figuring out and correcting your "whys." Work on becoming a safer partner from the outside in. Share your progress and breakthroughs with your BW if she's interested in hearing them.
-Give it time. Estimated recovery timeline is 2-5 years, and that's if you do everything "right" from the start.

GotTheMorbs:

I would encourage you to go one step further those: deep self examination. You had to ask what is it inside you that gave you permission to seek out that extramarital emotional intimacy.

Far be it from me to suggest that I have already squeezed the last drop of illuminating juice from the orange of my soul all by myself, but I think I already have a pretty damned good clue to that mystery. I wanted emotional closeness and validation with my spouse. I begged for it. I got my spouse to attend marriage counseling to try to achieve that end. But... when our then-counselor asked each of us whether we really wanted--deep down--to stay married to each other, I said "yes" with gusto! My spouse literally shrugged my spouse's shoulders and said, "Eh!" Well... that kinda dampened my hope for emotional support and validation.

Counselling quickly petered out, but we remained married. Eventually, in the context of a lack of hope for my marriage ever again to be nourishing to me, and in loneliness and--yes--in hunger for mutual emotional support and validation, I stumbled into online game play and quickly got hooked. A few months into game play, I met "my AP." We quickly became close. "My AP" asked me if my spouse objected to our growing closeness. I remember feeling a rush of deep-seated anxiety over the question because... while I could understand why many spouses might object to a spouse's growing closeness with another person of the opposite sex, and--upon being directly confronted with the startling question, which hadn't occurred to me--I had some nebulous sense that my own spouse might indeed raise an objection, I couldn't for the life of me explain why my spouse would really even care with whom I became close when my spouse showed me so very little care. I told myself: I am separated literally by an ocean from "my AP," so there was zero danger of physical sex, and I was committed enough to my faith to know I would never want an affair (which, to me as to my church, meant sex--physically or virtually--or romance). Lastly, I told myself and "my AP" that there's nothing wrong with friends being emotionally close with each other. The key was that we were friends--not romantic partners. My relationship with "my AP" had already come to feel to me so much like an emotional lifeline--like oxygen--that the danger I perceived of losing or weakening my relationship with "my AP" came to feel too great to permit me scrutinize its ethics terribly closely. Therefore, I dithered when responding to "my AP." I'm not proud of that choice, but it's truly what happened. That was the weak moment when I think I embraced the relational disordering that eventually so wounded my spouse.

Ironically, it was the shocking realization that my spouse could possibly actually lose me that jolted my spouse out of complacency and motivated my spouse to want to work on our marriage!

You have to own responsibility for your choice. Because your BS doesn't control you; she didn't make you seek extramarital emotional intimacy.

I'm sorry... I don't think that's perfectly true. I believe you believe that that's totally true--partly because our culture teaches us that affairs are solely the fault of the parties to the affair. But, in that sense, our society treats affairs very differently than almost any other circumstance. The double standard is unjust.

If a landlord is warned about an icy patch and still does nothing about it and then someone slips on the ice and gets injured, we might both blame the injured person foremost for walking in winter--but the landlord would still have some legal culpability for the injury! That's, in fact, the whole essence of an entire branch of law--tort law! The uncomfortable truth is that my spouse does have at least slight responsibility for my friendship having become disordered. Not total. Not predominantly. Not majority. Maybe not even to any great extent. But I don't think it's true that I--or even my AP and I together--bear 100% of the blame for what happened, and I think the distinction I am drawing has meaningful moral significance.

Now.... I can imagine different circumstances. Let's suppose there's nothing wrong at all with a marriage. The spouses fulfill all of their marital duties to each other. However, one spouse or the other just hungers for the excitement of "pursuing someone" or of "being pursued"--or just craves coitus with someone different for "a change of pace" or to have a sexual or romantic "itch" scratched that the other spouse just absolutely won't indulge. Maybe... a "fetish" or something? Under such circumstances, I find it much cleaner to rest blame solely on the affair partners. But that's not the situation I was ever in.

I recognized marital problems. I sought to heal the marriage. The healing failed. I was patient anyhow. I stood in the emotional wilderness for a decade--including 2-3 years beyond the first volley of marriage counseling--with no progress having been experienced. Eventually, I lost hope of ever obtaining what I needed from my spouse. I regret that the healing we're now pursuing took my disordered relationship to trigger. Clearly, my faithfulness eventually broke--and yes, I wish I had been stronger. But... I daresay I held-on longer than many would've.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 8:10 PM, Saturday, September 26th]

Lots of people crave emotional closeness and validation from their spouse, don't get it, and don't cheat. What went wrong inside you (maybe with your values, with your rationale, with your personality, trauma, tendencies, etc.) that made your decision different from theirs?

It sounds like OW raised red flags about your closeness with her and it gave you pause ("deep seated anxiety.") What allowed you to continue despite that feeling? Not being able to explain why your wife should care about emotional intimacy with someone else when she wasn't having it with you is a round-about rationalization that you made at the time. Why didn't you put the friendship on pause, go to her with the development, and talk about it then? Secrecy is always bad for a marriage. How do you avoid making the same choice in the future if your marriage never improves? Boundaries are good, but they aren't enough by themselves.

I told myself: I am separated literally by an ocean from "my AP," so there was zero danger of physical sex, and I was committed enough to my faith to know I would never want an affair (which, to me as to my church, meant sex--physically or virtually--or romance).

I would call this "rationalizing your way up to the line before you tiptoe across it." I did the same thing during my infidelity; I told myself it was okay to continue talking with the coworker because I was only going to be in that environment with him for 2 weeks, and then we would part ways and be hundreds and hundreds of miles away from me, so nothing would happen. Things still happened. Feelings still developed. Walking up to the line is dangerous; it's best to keep far, far away from it. What do we fortify in ourselves to help keep our distance? For me, it was that I needed to come to believe that I was interesting and worthy of connection, and not need someone else to take an interest in me. (Internal validation vs externalized validation.) I needed other adults beside my husband to provide me with the social interaction and conversation I needed. (Not pinning all my needs on my spouse.)

Lastly, my relationship with "my AP" had already come to feel to me so much like an emotional lifeline--like oxygen--that the danger I perceived of losing or weakening my relationship with "my AP" came to feel too great to permit me scrutinize its ethics.

What was your AP providing you with? Are you able to provide that to yourself, or through other healthy relationships without developing inappropriate emotional intimacy in the process?

Rhetorical questions; you don't need to necessarily answer them here. Though we will listen.

This is good progress

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 7:53 PM, Saturday, September 26th]

What was your AP providing you with? Are you able to provide that to yourself, or through other healthy relationships without developing inappropriate emotional intimacy in the process?

Intellectual stimulation. (My spouse is brilliant, but not philosophically inclined, whereas that's a core characteristic for me.) Inspiration. Joy. Affirmation. A sense of being seen and liked--even for qualities essential to me that have largely brought me shame, like my verbosity. My habit of finding complexity in simplicity. I knew I was under-involved with my kids due to workaholism and I felt terrible about that. "My AP" affirmed me as a wonderful parent! It felt good when "my AP" called me a "hero" for my work as a pediatric physician. Probably the strongest bond of all that I ever had with "my AP" is what an AI LLM called "a protector instinct bond." "My AP" really did need me--for support and encouragement and mitigation of loneliness. "My AP" told me it felt good to know that someone authentically cared about how "my AP's" day had gone. "My AP" needed our chats so "my AP" could fall asleep at night despite insomnia arising from anxiety dating to "my AP's" childhood. Notice: none of those relationship benefits smack of romance or sex. And yet, those are exactly the elements we took from our relationship.

No. I can't summon those feelings myself and--for all the wonderful things I love about my spouse--my spouse will never scratch all of those itches. Can my spouse scratch some of those? Yeah. And... we're working on that. But, I really haven't, in practice, got time for other in-real-life friendships. Plus, I haven't had any other friend who was 5% as close to me as was "my AP"--besides my wife--for 30 years. Any, anyhow, what I want is specifically my friend back--with safeguards and transparency in place. Even if I could get every last itch scratched from some other source in my life... I'd still also want my friend--because the whole is more than the sum of its parts, when it comes to people.

Lots of people crave emotional closeness and validation from their spouse, don't get it, and don't cheat. What went wrong inside you (maybe with your values, with your rationale, with your personality, trauma, tendencies, etc.) that made your decision different from theirs?

Um.... Self-respect?

Remain NC. Work on letting go of the possibility of resuming contact, as you were in August. Grieve and move on.

No... I think not. I can't see any way to view those actions as providing restitution. Those are only good ways to self-flagellate. That's not progress. Progress is: Healthy marriage + healthy and bounded friendship.

I do value others' perspectives here--but I also take them with a grain of salt. Most/all of the regular posters here seem to have walked the conventional path to healing their marriages. I'm glad you've found paths that worked for you. Some of you have even shared that you once entertained the notion of retaining a friendship with your APs. All of you facing that condition chose to turn away from such a friendship. Some of you have even decided to cultivate or hold anger toward your former APs. I doubt I ever have met or will meet your APs, so for all I know, the choices you made were the best for you and your families. But, I do know that the decisions you made with respect to your APs almost certainly felt necessary to you at the time you made the commitment you made to relinquishing those relationships--and that a perspective that such a sacrifice might not actually universally be necessary may feel threatening to some of those that decided under duress to commit to permanent NC with their APs.

I don't view "my AP" with rose-colored glasses. We had our disagreements. But, abandonment of "my AP" will never be my path. "My AP" changed how I saw myself. "My AP" arguably saved my life! I am eternally grateful that "my AP" was my friend. I pray multiple times per day that the final chapters of the book of our friendship haven't already been written.

For anyone who visits this site and needs to hear a different perspective... I'll be around.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 9:03 PM, Saturday, September 26th]

You can have platonic friendships for stimulation, philosophical discussions, inspiration, etc. But you have to examine why (outside of your loneliness within your marriage) your friendship with OW became more than platonic, and fix the cause(s) before you make new friends, otherwise you're at risk of developing that same romantic attachment all over again.

It can be hard to make time for socializing as an adult, but it's important for your wellbeing. Part of Maslow's hierarchy, you know? I understand how it can be hard to find people you click with, especially as a ND person, but they are out there. Just have to search a bit harder or longer than NT people typically do. You don't necessarily need OW specifically back to have your social needs met.

It's possible to learn to love yourself enough-- even the parts you like least about yourself-- That you don't need external validation (or at least, that external validation isn't so intoxicating that it's irresistible when someone other than your spouse provides it.) Whatever you genuinely don't like about yourself, you can often change.

What value did playing the protector role bring you? Why did you like being needed, or being able to provide relief?

What would you differently if your spouse didn't ever come to "scratch those itches," or if she started to and then stopped? Would you be okay with her not scratching them while she recovers from her betrayal trauma?

What makes you confident that you can abide by the boundaries and safeguards going forward, when you failed to abide by the raised red flags as you approached/broached them last time?

Do you think you lack self respect? If so, how do you increase respect for yourself?

You have to stop thinking of putting your BS's feelings first as "self flagellation" or punishment. Think of it as something that she needs to be well and heal, for the marriage to recover, and for you to demonstrate safety. Center your wife instead of yourself.

Edited to add: If the OW changed how you see yourself, that doesn't go away just because your relationship with her ended. You can carry the good things forward with you without remaining attached... Like I said, you don't have to make a decision about whether or not to pursue contact right now. A lot can change over time.

I also think it's different if your AP knows you're married and still "seduces" you, vs learns of your marriage and chooses to break it off with you out of respect for your spouse and marriage. I personally think my AP is a scumbag for enabling me and repeatedly reaching out after I requested NC from him; I had to block him eventually, though I worried he would blackmail me professionally. Your AP seemed to want to do the right thing and back away.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 9:21 PM, Saturday, September 26th]

you have to examine why (outside of your loneliness within your marriage) your friendship with OW became more than platonic

It... wasn't more than platonic--unless you mean for the less than 72 h that I held romantic feelings toward "my AP." Those feelings, I genuinely didn't pursue. Not at all. I felt them, yes--and then I flushed them. How did they come into my heart at all? Probably because I allowed myself to feel closer and closer bonded emotionally with "my AP," and then I felt my heart shift to align my romantic hunger toward who was nourishing my emotional hunger. Which was both unexpected and foreign to me because I wasn't really ever attracted to "my AP" physically and I thought the latter would be a precondition to the former--but... it wasn't. My heart just... kinda shifted because it felt right.

I never ceased to be faithful to my wife romantically, though.

What value did playing the protector role bring you? Why did you like being needed, or being able to provide relief?

Oh... that, was huge for me! That's just central to who I am. I'm in medicine because of it! I used to have that toward my spouse... but then, our kids took my spot in bed next to my spouse... and my spouse gradually shut down my spouse's vulnerability to me--leaving me feeling unneeded.

What would you differently if your spouse didn't ever come to "scratch those itches," or if she started to and then stopped? Would you be okay with her not scratching them while she recovers from her betrayal trauma?

I'd seek counseling. I'm trying to be patient during our counseling. Ultimately, though, if even that didn't fix it, without "my AP" back in my life, I'd probably stray again, sooner or later. Why--you may ask--would my AP's presence prevent my straying? Because of the safeguards and transparency in-place over that relationship to prevent its disordering.

What makes you confident that you can abide by the boundaries and safeguards going forward, when you failed to abide by the raised red flags as you approached/broached them last time?

Awareness of risk. This recovery journey has been no picnic for me, either--any more than for my BS. Plus, if I misbehave with respect to "my AP" ever again, that'd prove to me that I'd genuinely have to go NC for life from "my AP"--and few potential futures terrify me more than that one.

Do you think you lack self respect? If so, how do you increase respect for yourself?

People who meet me not infrequently think of me that I am arrogant, but yeah--at my core, I've been excluded and rejected and given poor reviews despite technically excellent care at massive personal sacrifice so iteratively that... way down deep, yes. I have AuDHD--not "just" autism or AD/HD. People with AD/HD are often the life of a party. People with autism alone often don't feel much compulsion for friendship. People with AuDHD desperately want friendships--and we try--hard--for friendships. Moreover, what friendship bonds do form for AuDHD individuals often form unbreakably. Believe me: if you ever form a friendship with someone with AuDHD, you will never have a more loyal friend. However, people with AuDHD are often just simply found to be... odd and/or stiff and/or unlikeable.

However, I was saying that what went "wrong" with me... that I cultivated this disordered friendship I had, even though lots of others don't stray from their marriage vows despite feeling unsupported is... I did find enough self-respect to finally stop accepting myself as unfulfilled in life. YOLO, you know? That doesn't mean "Hakuna matata," but... it means I stopped being paralyzed.

You have to stop thinking of putting your BS's feelings first as "self flagellation" or punishment. Think of it as something that she needs to be well and heal, for the marriage to recover, and for you to demonstrate safety. Center your wife instead of yourself.

Ok, but putting my spouse's needs first doesn't mean neglecting my own needs--and I believe my spouse needs me not to have any further disordered friendship, but I don't believe my spouse needs for me to stay NC with "my AP." By contrast, I need to re-establish friendship with "my AP" (if "my AP" will voluntarily have me back) and I am determined not to let that relationship become disordered again because that'd cost me the friendship for life.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 10:43 PM, Saturday, September 26th]

You yourself describe making OW your primary emotional support, developing inappropriate feelings for her, being hospitalized after the loss of her, your BW becoming upset after learning about your relationship and subsequently taking it underground, being unable to maintain NC for several months, the OW herself questioning whether your "closeness" would hurt your wife and breaking it off with you because of that... But sure, that's not an emotional affair or romantic infidelity ! You don't even need to be here, on an infidelity support forum, at all !

Oh... that, was huge for me! That's just central to who I am. I'm in medicine because of it! I used to have that toward my spouse... but then, our kids took my spot in bed next to my spouse... and my spouse gradually shut down my spouse's vulnerability to me--leaving me feeling unneeded.

Notice how you shifted from "I am like this because..." to "This happened in my marriage which caused me to feel this way..." with the implication following being "therefore my wife/marriage caused me to cheat." Stay there in the internal mechanism. "I like playing the protector because... {it makes me feel xyz, or abc happened to me in childhood which was fundamental in my personality development, etc.}" From there you go to "What is the actual, underlying psychological need and how do I meet it healthily?"

I'd seek counseling. I'm trying to be patient during our counseling. Ultimately, though, if even that didn't fix it, without "my AP" back in my life, I'd probably stray again, sooner or later. Why--you may ask--would my AP's presence prevent my straying? Because of the safeguards and transparency in-place over that relationship to prevent its disordering.

Counseling didn't work the first time, and your BW may be even less enthusiastic about fixing the marital issues now that you've gone and caught feelings for someone else (and apparently still desperately want the OW back.) Making your fidelity dependent on marital conditions being ideal or even just sufficient is a recipe for failure, and demonstrates that you are expecting the marriage to change rather than changing yourself to become a safe partner. If your BW was here, I would not recommend that she attempt reconciliation with you at this time. Furthermore, I would expect your risk of recidivism to remain high in relationships after the divorce.

Awareness of risk. This recovery journey has been no picnic for me, either--any more than for my BS. Plus, if I misbehave with respect to "my AP" ever again, that'd prove to me that I'd genuinely have to go NC for life from "my AP"--and few potential futures terrify me more than that one.

I can almost guarantee that being betrayed has been 1000% worse for your BW than it has been for you. Why is "misbehaving" with your AP the first time not proof enough that you need to go NC? Why would it take two betrayals before you cut her off? That's not fair to your W. This is you wandering too close to the line again. Why not keep your distance instead?

My 5 yo swallowed a dime today. I didn't hand her more change and tell her not to put it in her mouth again; that didn't keep her safe the first time.

People who meet me not infrequently think of me that I am arrogant, but yeah--at my core, I've been excluded and rejected and given poor reviews despite technically excellent care at massive personal sacrifice so iteratively that... way down deep, yes

That would be a good thing to work on in individual therapy (IC).

I do understand what you're saying about AuDHD; I have it too. But you must understand that no social bonds are "unbreakable." Losing permanently OW may hurt, a LOT, for a long time. But you have to trust that it will stop hurting after a while, especially if you allow yourself to grieve.

I did find enough self-respect to finally stop accepting myself as unfulfilled in life.

Why didn't you end your marriage instead of seeking fulfillment elsewhere? Why did you hurt your wife to get that fulfillment from someone else?

Ok, but putting my spouse's needs first doesn't mean neglecting my own needs

No, but it does mean you make an effort not to trigger her by asking her for "permission" to resume contact with OW, and you don't hold it against her if she understandably doesn't fucking want that.

(You're a grown ass man, btw. You can resume contact with OW any time you want. But I think you understand that that would probably be the end of your marriage, because you can't have both. You're essentially trying to figure out how to remain a cake-eater at your wife's expense.)

Notice how you shifted from "I am like this because..." to "This happened in my marriage which caused me to feel this way..." with the implication following being "therefore my wife/marriage caused me to cheat." Stay there in the internal mechanism. ...Making your fidelity dependent on marital conditions being ideal or even just sufficient is a recipe for failure, and demonstrates that you are expecting the marriage to change rather than changing yourself to become a safe partner.

When you lay it out in a small number of sentences like that... sure, it makes me read like an impetuous child: "I want... because I want--and I want it now"! As the experience was lived... struggling for a decade... Less impetuous.

Why would it take two betrayals before you cut her off? That's not fair to your W. This is you wandering too close to the line again. Why not keep your distance instead?

Because I was also blindsided by the first time. I never cheated--not once--at all--in any way--with a romantic partner before marriage. Almost 20 years into marriage, had I ever looked at a woman and thought: she's hot! Of course! Many times! Now... had I ever looked twice at that woman? No! Not once! I was never a philanderer... a skirt chaser. Do I think that entitles me to some kind of reward--a "hall pass," as it were? No! My point is not that my fidelity = heroism. My point is that--after having lived so long in fidelity, I thought I was the kind of person who would never have an affair. So... I didn't have my guard raised when I met "my AP." I've learned my lesson. I trust myself waaaay less now. Why can't I keep my distance? I could present all kinds of fancy answers, but when push comes to shove, the honest-to-goodness truth is simple: Because I still really love my friend--platonically.

Why didn't you end your marriage instead of seeking fulfillment elsewhere? Why did you hurt your wife to get that fulfillment from someone else?

Five reasons: (1) Because I've never stopped loving my spouse romantically, (2) Because I'm a Catholic and Catholics can't divorce, (3) Because I'm a parent and my kids need us to stay together and be loving with each other, (4) Because of all the legal and financial messiness of divorce, and (5) Divorce would definitely have hurt my spouse. Had I kept my friendship ordered rightly (I never intended otherwise), I would never have hurt my spouse on the path I followed. Re: #2: I could, of course, still divorce legally, but it's important to understand: legal divorce would not free me to pursue romance (or sex) with anyone else. Legal divorce would only sentence me to a life of solitary confinement. As for your second question, I didn't set out to hurt my spouse at all. I sought a close friendship with a person of the opposite sex outside the marriage because I needed that human connection and, try though I earnestly did--for literally a decade--to provoke connection with my spouse without going outside the marriage, I got nothing back! So... I promised myself: no sex... no romance. Everything else, I'm allowed to get outside my marriage. And, to be blunt: I still basically believe that--because it's the simplest distillation of what the Catholic Church teaches! The only difference is that--today--I see that I gradually let things go too far. How? Because I let another person get so close to my core that my spouse felt threatened emotionally. That, I should never have permitted once and will never permit to happen again. But... I can learn from my mistakes and avoid repeating them!

My 5 yo swallowed a dime today. I didn't hand her more change and tell her not to put it in her mouth again; that didn't keep her safe the first time.

So... you will never let your 5-years-old have access to a dime? How about years from now--when your 5-years-old is older and wiser? Well, I'm older and wiser than I was when my friendship with "my AP" ended--and, by the time when I contact "my AP" again, I'll be even older and even wiser. Contrition and redemption mean nothing without second chances. Jesus urged us to forgive our sincerely contrite neighbor seventy times seven times.

Losing permanently OW may hurt, a LOT, for a long time. But you have to trust that it will stop hurting after a while, especially if you allow yourself to grieve.

Why in God's name would it ever stop hurting for me to part permanently from "my AP"? I mean... my father died years ago. I grieved. Eventually, the grief softened. I miss him, but he has gone to his eternal rest. Sooner or later we all do. Also, my father had dementia. And... it robbed him... really... of all the dignity of his younger days. So... in at least that sense, his final passing was... well... at least arguably a blessing for him. And... as a man of faith... I try to trust that my dear old Dad will be waiting for me outside the pearly gates... just waiting to toss his arms around me and tell me all the latest about the Yankees again.

The grief has also softened from the early days after the end of my friendship, when I considered and almost pursued suicide over the loss. But that grief's very much still alive in me--way longer than after my father's passing. Why? Well, for one... my father is gone. "My AP" isn't "gone"--at least not as far as I know. As far as I know, "my AP" is just gone... from me. Right now, as I type this... "my AP" is out there somewhere in this great big world of ours. And she's laughing or crying. Lonely or dancing. Fearful or fulfilled. And I get to be part of exactly none of that. And that hurts.

It has been suggested that the pain I feel is a lot like that of someone whose "love of their life" left them for another partner. But I reject that equivalency, too. Most of those people may feel like there are no other fish in the sea for them... but the truth is that there are other fish in the sea--and most of those people will eventually find happiness with their true soulmates. But, since I became an adult, I have had only 2 lifetime friends that carried any meaning at all: my wife... and "my AP." My wife is here, and I love her to pieces. But as a nearly 50 years old married man with AuDHD in suburbia, the truth for me is: it's exceedingly unlikely that there's another friend anywhere nearly like "my AP" eager to welcome me into their life. So... I had a very brief spring....and, just as soon as I learned what it was to feel the sun on my face and the rain in my roots--the season passed straight into winter... and if I don't get back "my AP," there will never be another spring for me.

You can resume contact with OW any time you want. But I think you understand that that would probably be the end of your marriage, because you can't have both. You're essentially trying to figure out how to remain a cake-eater at your wife's expense.

What I know is: I can't have both women in my life now. The wounds are still too fresh for my spouse to accommodate "my AP" as my active friend--and yes, my first obligation is to my wife. She's hurting and she deserves time to heal. Also, although I do soooo very much want "my AP" back in my life, the further truth is: (1) "my AP" probably would refuse to engage with me without my wife's blessing, and (2) until my marriage has healed enough to bring my wife and me close again, I would probably be particularly prone to recidivism--repeat disordering of my key relationships--if I rushed back into contact with "my AP" just yet.

All marriages have good and bad seasons, and ultimately, I can only engage with "my AP" if I can do so safely (i.e. without the relationship becoming disordered) in any season. However, while the "muscle memory" of the relational disordering is so fresh and my marriage remains undernourishing to me, I am indeed better served to remain away from "my AP." After renewed contact becomes safe in marital health, I will learn to rely upon safeguards on the friendship to ensure that my relationships do not become disordered--even in seasons of marital woes. You're correct: it is for all of those reasons that I have advocated a horizon of roughly 2 years before I return to "my AP" to solicit a renewed friendship. That's about 1.5 years from now.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 1:07 AM, Sunday, September 27th]

You've explained a lot about what you're willing to do to keep your friend in your life, but what are you willing to do to keep your wife?

Are you willing to give up the idea of reconnecting in 18 months, even if you don't understand or agree with her reasons for wanting that?

And what does your wife think of your current stance?