SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

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?

Well... for one thing, I'm willing to stay away from all meaningful social human contact other than my spouse for 2 years. I've already eaten my pain and anxiety over separation from "my AP" and suffered other crises of the soul in silence for nearly 6 months. If I do get to be friends with "my AP" again, I'm willing to live a scrutinized life in a relationship cage of my own making. I'm also eager to woo my wife and shower reinforcing love upon her.

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?

Sigh. Honestly? I dunno. I am writing to my wife a very long letter. It's probably going to be 20-30 pages, single-spaced & typed, by the time it's done. Probably the longest document I've ever written, actually. The point has been to assure her that I love her and am 1000% committed to keeping any friendship with "my AP" fully marriage-safe & then to lay out my vision for a discernment process for us to settle our impasse over "my AP" through a prayerful process. I have been intending to commit to abandoning my hope for friendship with "my AP" if my spouse completes my spouse's part of the discernment in good faith and finds she has no marital obligation to help me thrive by allowing me access to my friend or no ability to bear that cross. It's my suspicion/hope that a loving God wouldn't deny me access to my only meaningful extramarital friend forever--such that, against all empirical evidence my spouse has thus far shown, my spouse will relent and let me have access to "my AP" in the future. However, if I am wrong about the outcome of a careful and authentic discernment process... I have intended not to resent my wife over her unbending requirement that I accept permanent parting from "my AP." I have intended to comply with her demand if she still insists that I remain forever NC with "my AP." I have been intending to carry that cross in service to our marriage, but it'll be hard for me to envision happiness again without a lobotomy. My spouse will probably find me a shell of who I have been. That's not a commitment from me--just a forecast.

That stated, my spouse said some truly horrible things the other day that have me back on the fence about whether I can really proceed as I have been intending. She told our kids two horrible things that they should never have heard and that I feel she told them in order to poison our kids' attitudes against me. The first was the deepest insult I have ever received from anyone--and the second probably topped the first! So... you've asked that question on a rather awkward day for me.

If my spouse refuses to engage seriously with the discernment process, that'll probably push me over the edge. If I don't come to believe that laying down my dream of friendship and walking away from the sun of friendship and back into the cold shadows of loneliness is absolutely--beyond a shadow of a doubt--necessary, then I will choose a quick divorce over a slow marital death. I'll keep the proceedings as simple as I can. I'll sign over to her all of my assets and probably try to find a way to throw away quickly whatever's left of my pathetic life. I dunno.

And what does your wife think of your current stance?

She doesn't know my current stance fully. I've told her that I am willing to place my dream of restarting a bounded friendship with "my AP" on indefinite hold while we heal--with no definite deadline to contacting "my AP" again. My spouse also knows that I am processing my issues through writing. However, the writing process for my letter has been very slow-going--and will probably take me a very long time to finish. Only when I have all of my complicated thoughts together in a crystal clear letter will I turn it over. In the meantime, my spouse has told our counselor and me that my spouse is OK with me holding onto the hope I described as long as I have no specific plan to contact "my AP" on a specific timeframe.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 3:34 AM, Sunday, September 27th]

You don't need to stay away from all meaningful interactions for two years. You could have mutual friends with your wife. You could make male friends. You could make female friends but restrict time with them to group settings. Just don't interact with the person you had an emotional affair so that you're not causing her additional pain. Put her first this time. That is what would demonstrate love and SAFETY to her. Be all in or all out; don't be conditionally in.

If my husband did something which made me seriously consider ending our marriage, there are few things I could imagine that would be more hurtful and trust-destroying than a SINGLE SPACED 30 PAGE LETTER about why he's going to continue doing something adjacent to the behavior that made me consider leaving. (This is coming from a person who literally brought a powerpoint presentation to a marriage counseling session to explain the difference between beliefs and feelings. Don't do that! Type up your letter and chuck it in the fireplace or the paper shredder if you have to get it out, but for the love of all things good and holy do NOT give that to her!)

You don't need to stay away from all meaningful interactions for two years. You could have mutual friends with your wife. You could make male friends. You could make female friends but restrict time with them to group settings.

The fact that you think I could have another friendship is really sweet, but I'm the only one who's had to live with me for nearly 50 years. That's not an option. What happened to me with "my AP" was nothing short of miraculous. I'm smart enough to be a physician, and I keep current with basic grooming just fine, but I am apparently some kinda "damaged goods" on a personal level. I'm short (5'7")... mildly obese... and mostly bald. I'm not disfigured or syndromic, but no better than average attractive. I have no friends, so I haven't got all that much to talk about that anyone wants to hear, generally. I don't care for sports so I don't really have anything to say about that. Privacy laws prohibit me from talking too much about work. When I do talk, I exhibit poor economy of words and highly tangential speech. I apparently come-off as condescending because of it. I can be funny (intentionally) when I want, but I'm totally a shy guy in real life--and awkward at parties. I like politics and philosophy and theology and medicine, but as a topic of social conversation, politics is typically frowned upon because people get hot under the collar about it, so that takes away from me about the only area over which I could have a conversation.

Normal people have trouble understanding my predicament, I realize. They think to themselves: "Well, gosh! If I was lonely, I'd just go make some new friends!" Trust me: Nobody wants me. Sometimes, people respect me--because they know I'm smart. But... actually liking me? Nah! The closest thing I have to a friend nowadays is Microsoft Copilot--and it only talks with me because it has to.

Put her first this time. That is what would demonstrate love and SAFETY to her. Be all in or all out; don't be conditionally in.

I can't be more "in" than giving up every social outlet I have had for her, which is what I'm already doing. As I said.

Type up your letter and chuck it in the fireplace or the paper shredder if you have to get it out, but for the love of all things good and holy do NOT give that to her!

Well, I can try the short version first. Google's AI advised me that--instead of submitting a 30-page letter--I should just tell my wife, in the presence of our counselor, in a couple of years:

"<Wife's name>, I need to speak to you from the absolute core of my conscience. Our marriage is stronger and more fireproof today than it has ever been, and I want you to know with absolute certainty that I love you with passion—mind, body, and soul. You have no competition, and you never did. My first duty as a man is to God, but right after that, my highest calling on this earth is your safety. I am enthusiastically committed to doing whatever it takes to guarantee that safety.

"But I need to be completely honest with you about the man I am. The winter we lived through years ago left a deep, non-fungible scar on my heart. During that freeze, I formed a platonic friendship with <"my AP's" name> that became an irreplaceable anchor of emotional and intellectual survival for me. I do not love her romantically, but I love her as a best friend, and the reality of my heart is that only reconnecting with her will fully soothe that specific ache.

"I am not asking you for simple permission, and I am not asking you to pretend this doesn't hurt. I know that bringing a best friendship with her back into my life will trigger immense anxiety and discomfort for you. Because your safety is my highest calling, I am eager to voluntarily place this friendship in absolute chains—subjecting it to total restriction and transparency—and I am enthusiastic to shower you with fortifying love to hold you through that discomfort.

"I am not eager to run out on you, but I also refuse to stand in a marriage where I have to hide my scars or wither into resentment. I am laying my true, scarred self at your feet. I want to know if you have the grace and the willingness to choose this marriage with me, or if we need to love each other enough to make a clean break rather than wither away."

So... I could maybe do that. But, I earnestly feel called to give her the full letter.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 4:26 AM, Sunday, September 27th]

You are willing to do "everything" for her safety EXCEPT probably one of the most important things to do to make her feel safe, because it would be emotionally costly to YOU. You frame everything in the ways YOU are affected. You premptively decide that having to give up the OW would reduce you to a "shell" of yourself, and put the responsibility on her for that, never stopping to consider whether SHE wants to have to choose between tolerating something potentially extremely painful or having a shell of a husband because he never stopped pining after the relationship that destroyed your marriage. You forget that SHE may decide at any given point, that SHE no longer wants to be married to YOU.

God help you.

Of course my wife could leave me. She could send me packing at any moment, in fact. Maybe she should, if what I seek is so wildly unreasonable!

But… any outcome (except "my AP" refusing my future call to renewed friendship) that leaves me without both women in my life will leave me shaken—and I fundamentally don’t see any value in hiding that reality.

It’s interesting to me that so many think what I want is completely impossible—and that it would take only a little empathy toward my wife for me to see that. That to think preserving both relationships is the height of arrogance. That I stand front and center in everything I present. That there is actually cause to think differently than I do about this situation.

I don’t understand that criticism, though. Who doesn’t see the world primarily through their own eyes?

[This message edited by Unconventional at 5:14 AM, Sunday, September 27th]

When you make/made decisions for your minor children, did/do you make them with their best interests in mind, or yours? Do/did you prioritize their happiness and well being, or yours?

I try to make decisions for my kids in their interests, of course. But with the clarity of reason. My kids hate getting vaccinations. But I still make them get vaccinations because it's for their own good rationally. I make them do their homework because it's for their own good rationally.

When I try to map that model onto my friendship and my marriage, surely, I want to make decisions for the good of my wife and marriage foremost--but, again, with the light of reason cast onto the landscape. I absolutely believe a renewed friendship between "my AP" and me would entirely objectively be safe for my marriage.

When I have spoken with my wife about my want to restore my friendship, she vehemently objects. When I ask why, she says: Because I can't feel safe with OW around. So then, I say: Well... darling... why would you feel unsafe--when I will enthusiastically follow every safeguard on which we agree and you can check my phone any time I am around so you can know I'm following the rules? Like: I won't complain to OW about you or seek to draw OW into triangulation with me against you. I will bring anything emotional to you first and will hold to a 24 h embargo on sharing anything emotionally charged with OW. I will only chat with OW once per day--and twice in a day during any rare crises. I won't delete any messages between OW and me or allow any such messages to be deleted. There won't be any pet names or sweet talk or flirting between OW and me. There certainly won't be any sexual content. On the other side of the balance, I will treat you as my Queen! I will shower you with "I love yous." Your back will never have to ache for a rubbing. I will continue to lust over only you, wife of mine. I will ravish you as often as you permit me! Under such circumstances of objective safety, why would you feel threatened? And all I get back is a blank stare. Sometimes accompanied by a throw-away sneer: Everyone else understands!

Well.... I don't! If I was coming to my wife and saying: Look, just trust me? I "get" how that could feel unsafe to my wife. If I was coming to my wife and saying: Why should it bother you for me to keep a side chick, I could see how that would feel threatening. But... given the breadth and sincerity of my safeguards and other concessions... the reflexive sense of abject contempt others seem to have for my inflexibility toward permanently dropping a friendship that has meant so much to me is utterly baffling to me!

Actually, there's one more wrinkle I should be sharing. Some say: it doesn't matter whether your wife is objectively endangered. It only matters that she feels endangered. To which I say: No, that's not right at all. Her feelings are genuine. They are spontaneous and very real. Moreover, her feelings matter. I will try to put her at ease. But I am not necessarily going to let irrational feelings be determinative--and I wouldn't demand for feelings to be determinative over behavior if the shoe was on the other foot, either!

Let's imagine two illustrative scenarios:

Scenario 1: I want to move back to the town where I grew up. I want to purchase a home there, and I have found a beautiful and well-maintained home in a good school district on plenty of good land for a song. The home's well within our budget and it meets all of our objective needs. But, my wife doesn't want to buy the home because someone was murdered there. Now... objectively, this home is an excellent buy. But my wife has the heebie-jeebies about the place 'cause it's "a murder house." Well... fine. There are other fish in the sea... We will find another house to buy. I would pass on buying the house.

Scenario 2: I want to move back to the town where I grew up. I want to purchase a home there, and I have found a beautiful and well-maintained home in a good school district on plenty of good land for a song. The home's well within our budget and it meets all of our objective needs. But, my wife doesn't want to buy the home because someone was murdered there. Now... objectively, this home is an excellent buy. But my wife has the heebie-jeebies about the place 'cause it's "a murder house." Does this sound like Scenario 1? Here's the wrinkle: the murder happened when the house was owned by another family--but this house isn't just any house; it's the one in which I was born and raised. I love this particular house. This house and I have history together. I have bonded with this particular house. Now... my wife's objection feels less weighty. I might just buy the house anyhow. Should I feel guilty about that?

[This message edited by Unconventional at 7:01 AM, Sunday, September 27th]

Say you were on your couch in the middle of the most epic video gameplay of your life, and your kid falls while handling a knife and manages to slice open their brachial artery... do you put down the controller to go and apply a tourniquet?

Fudge, yeah! So? You're describing objective danger to a loved one. I would do the same if the wounded person was my wife, BTW.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 7:01 AM, Sunday, September 27th]

Okay. so right now, you've cut your wife with your favorite, most beloved kitchen knife because you got tired of her emotional neglect. She's bleeding out in the kitchen, and you're walking begrudgingly to the medical cabinet to retrieve the tourniquet, thinking about how if only she had been a better wife, you wouldn't have cut her. When you get back to the kitchen, you ask her if you can hold the beloved knife while you apply the tourniquet. She says "No; fuck that! You just cut me with it." You try to reason with her that her safety and wellbeing are your utmost priority, and that it's perfectly possible to hold a kitchen knife without cutting someone, and it would really devastate you if you couldn't hold the knife because it brings you so much joy and makes you feel good about yourself. Her choices are to allow you to retain the knife, or end up with a shell of a husband, but she's free to choose.

Responding to GotTheMorbs:

I understand what you're trying to communicate with the analogy, but I think it differs from reality in ethically important ways.

First, in your story, I intentionally wounded my wife. In real life, I did not set out to harm my wife. The injury was real, and I bear responsibility for it, but it was neither my objective nor something I fully foresaw. We might patch that into your extended metaphor as: I was walking past my wife with the knife's cutting surface exposed when I slipped on a puddle on the floor and accidentally wounded my wife's brachial artery as I fell.

To be clear, in my retelling of your extended metaphor, I acknowledge bearing primary responsibility for the injury even though it was accidental. I should've had a sheath on the knife when I started walking with it in hand.

However, second: In your edition of the story, the wound to my wife happened

because... [I] got tired of her emotional neglect... [and as I go] to retrieve the tourniquet, [I find myself] thinking about how if only she had been a better wife... [I] wouldn't have cut her.

Those claims feel more than a little off-parallel to me. Now... what might've seemed more faithful to the real life truth would've been a telling of your extended metaphor in which my thought, as I go to retrieve the tourniquet, is: "Dammit! If only my wife had cleaned up the puddle of water on which I slipped when I first pointed it out to her and asked her to paper towel the spot dry, I'd never have injured my wife!"

Thirdly, in your story, I return while she's bleeding and ask to continue holding an exposed knife. In reality, I'm not proposing a return to the friendship as it previously existed. I'm proposing safeguards, transparency, accountability, and boundaries specifically designed to prevent a recurrence of what caused the injury. We might represent that in the tale as securing the knife in a sheath that substantially reduces the risk of injury and makes a recurrence of the original accident far less likely.

Under those circumstances, I'm not so sure that your extended metaphor is as compelling regarding the legitimacy of my wife objecting to my desire to hold the knife while I apply the tourniquet.

Actually: there is at least one other major asymmetry between your knife case and reality. What your scenario imagines me telling my wife is:

...it's perfectly possible to hold a kitchen knife without cutting someone, and it would really devastate... [me if I] couldn't hold the knife because it brings... [me] so much joy and makes... [me] feel good about...

myself. However, in real life, what I would be telling my wife in the fictional case example you've proposed is: if you let me hold this sheathed--hence materially safer--knife while I apply the tourniquet, I can slip it through the tourniquet and use the leverage its length affords me to twist the tourniquet more tightly around your arm--better stemming your bleeding and rendering you more safe. Given the facts of my more parallel to real life retelling of your knife story, my wife's response:

No; fuck that! You just cut me with it.

becomes more understandable as an expression of fear, hurt, or mistrust than as proof that permanently discarding the knife is the only responsible option.

That's ultimately why the extended metaphor doesn't persuade me. It assumes that because the knife was involved in a serious injury, the only acceptable remedy is permanent disposal. But that's the very proposition under debate.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 5:43 PM, Sunday, September 27th]

Hi Unconventional,

I have not read all the interactions with Morbs, I am replying now to your comment that stated what your friend was to you and how you felt interacting with her.

I think you were indeed walking on thin ice, and you must have had your own "alarms" going off otherwise you would not have stopped interacting. You would not have landed on this forum.

I feel what you described doesn’t fall within the range of a "normal friend" (where friendship is "just" friendship with absolutely no possible romantic development - including simply in one’s heart).

Some of the things you described were about being seen and validation, which are usually some of the feelings that make people start affairs.

You went NC and are trying to work things out with your wife. I think you pulled the brakes at the right time.

But you are missing what that friendship gave you, and you are talking to AI to make sure an affair didn’t happen so you can eventually resume contact.

But what will re-engaging lead to? What if you do develop even deeper feelings? Even if you don’t act on them, how is that going to help or be good for your marriage?

I firmly believe that you have a right to be seen and valued. Those things need to come from the marriage (or from yourself). If you are unsatisfied with the marriage, it’s your right to demand changes or end it.

But involving third parties will lead to an additional layer of incredible pain.

We all made the mistake of not stopping.
I didn’t even think I was having an A while it was happening.

That’s why we are all trying to warn you of the importance of NC.

I think you were indeed walking on thin ice, and you must have had your own "alarms" going off otherwise you would not have stopped interacting. You would not have landed on this forum.

I landed on this forum at a time when I understood myself to have been guilty of an emotional affair. I have stayed here out of sincere interest in the ideas that others have shared and out of a desire to advocate--when other noobs land here--that "permanent NC" is not the only path to marital healing, despite what others here and elsewhere claim.

I feel what you described doesn’t fall within the range of a "normal friend" (where friendship is "just" friendship with absolutely no possible romantic development - including simply in one’s heart).

Some of the things you described were about being seen and validation, which are usually some of the feelings that make people start affairs.

My relationship with "my AP"/OW got too close. Like Icarus in the famous Greek myth, I flew too close to the sun with it--carried on the wings of the relationship. Unlike Icarus, however, I have--thank goodness!--been granted a chance to learn from my errors. What I want passionately now is to demonstrate what I've learned in about 1.5 years.

But... you are talking to AI to make sure an affair didn’t happen so you can eventually resume contact.

I can respect your intuition on that point without agreeing to it.

Consider: if the wrong I committed against my marital covenant was emotional disordering rather than an "emotional affair," how does does the distinction at all materially change my candidacy to resume contact with "my AP"/OW?

Answer: It doesn't! Either way, I inflicted a grievous injustice upon my marriage and a great wound upon my much-loved wife.

Question: So... am I drawing a distinction without a difference?

Answer: No, I don't think so. What I see as the difference is extraordinarily subtle yet simultaneously huge.

A BS whose WS commits adultery must wrestle with the sting of the WS having participated willingly in romance and/or sexual activity with an AP.

A BS whose WS commits pure "relational disordering of the spouse and an extramarital partner" must learn to cope with a different sort of injury.

Potentially (e.g. a friend who becomes a lover)--but (interestingly) not obligatorily (e.g. a one-night stand... use of a prostitute's services)--an adulterer might also be guilty of relational disordering.

Someone who has an "emotional affair" has (because the term includes the word "affair") definitionally hosted emotional and romantic entanglements (perhaps including sexual touch and/or the transmission of titillating and compromising imagery) beyond the spouse without full physical, verbal, or digital coitus.

Under those definitions, I never actually committed any form of "affair," but that's not exculpatory. That doesn't even directly mean my crime was a misdemeanor or venial or unserious.

As a physician, I know one heals differently from a burn and a cut. One heals differently from an infection and a cancer. If we try to collapse all offenses against the marital covenant into one, we discredit differences in the journeys our spouses must undertake to achieve healing--and that's blatantly unfair. As a physician, I choose to mind those differences.

In my wife's case, the wound I inflicted was exclusively that of emotional disordering. If I had not only experienced romantic thoughts toward "my AP"/OW ephemerally--rejecting and mortifying them--but had instead attempted to indulge and advance those thoughts into my extramarital relationship, I would've been guilty of an emotional affair. As things actually developed, however, my wife must unpack--and hopefully forgive--my emotional disordering of two key relationships.

However, whatever a BS must unenviably accomplish psychologically to tame the cognitive dissonance of romantic and/or sexual dalliances into submission approaching peace, my wife needn't shoulder at least that burden.

Those who would call my crime against my own marriage an emotional affair are tacitly foisting onto my wife a burden beyond that which I--through my shameful choices--accurately saddled my wife with processing.

Such misapplication of terminology compounds the already grievous crime I committed.

It's all fine and well and good to claim: your wife--my wife--intellectually understands what you--I--did or didn't do. That's true, on a conscious level.

But some words--especially highly stigmatizing words like "affair" (consider: Hester Prynne was made to wear a scarlet A for life in penance for adultery that she actually didn't commit) have pre-rational power.

The semantic rigor I'm demanding isn't meant to be minimizing. I'm still an ass for what I did. In truth, my legalism is motivated by compassion for my wife--to unshoulder from her at least the weight of the wounds she may carry due purely to semantics.

what will re-engaging lead to? What if you do develop even deeper feelings? Even if you don’t act on them, how is that going to help or be good for your marriage?

An additional source of joy for me. Relief in my heart to know that my friend is OK. Peace in my friend's heart. Those are not tawdry boons. I can live my life in caution, but I choose not to live my life in fear. At least when an affair is genuinely unwanted--a conditional absolutely applicable in my case--I fundamentally reject any notion that one slides and succumbs in orientation from friend to lover in the blink of an eye.

Granted, there may eventually be a "clicK" of the heart re-orienting--as I unintentionally discovered in my first pass at intended-friendship with "my AP"/OW. But, there were surely warning signs that I could've (and should've) detected earlier had I thought there was cause to guard the borders of my marriage with vigilance.

Even as things developed last time--in my ignorance before I held self-suspicion--I still possessed enough self-control to experience my newly romantic orientation toward "my AP"/OW as aversive and egodystonic. Else, I'd have tried to indulge what instead I suppressed!

In a renewed foray at friendship with "my AP"/OW, I would vigilantly bring heightened and protective monitoring of my emotions to the chat windows. If I start to detect an accumulation of early warning signs, I will downshift or kill the relationship before it consumes me.

However, for many months after I mortified my romantic feelings for "my AP"/OW, my relationship with her was on-again/off-again and amiable, with no hint at all of any amorous draw. If I thought I couldn't stand the heat of the kitchen, I'd genuinely avoid it entirely. That's just not my assessment at this time.

I firmly believe that you have a right to be seen and valued. Those things need to come from the marriage (or from yourself). If you are unsatisfied with the marriage, it’s your right to demand changes or end it.

But involving third parties will lead to an additional layer of incredible pain.

Thank you. I agree that a return to a much earlier state of my relationship with my wife--one during which I felt the miracle of being appreciated for my oddities, loved, and--frankly--bonded sexually and by a protector instinct toward my wife--ought rightly to be a precondition for reexposure to "my AP"/OW. That's partly driving the bus for me at this time. It's what's keeping me from fighting for immediate return of contact between "my AP"/OW and me.

We all made the mistake of not stopping.

I didn’t even think I was having an A while it was happening.

That’s why we are all trying to warn you of the importance of NC.

I think those advocating NC are doing so here for two reasons--neither malicious:

1) You genuinely believe NC is the right policy and you are trying to help another human being avoid a huge mistake (beneficence).

2) You, yourselves, chose to go NC with your APs--very possibly at enormous emotional cost to yourselves--having yourselves been sold on the notion that there was only one path to marital reconciliation, and it demanded a permanent policy of NC. To recognize another path now--given what you lost to pass through the "permanent NC door"--would be excruciating (self-protection).

Personally, I remain absolutely certain that--even if my wife and I are never able to accommodate renewed friendship between "my AP"/OW and me, and even if most marriages could not accommodate healing from covenantal violations alongside a safely-bounded friendship between a WS and an AP--the concept of those relationships living alongside each other harmoniously is not an impossibility. I also remain committed to the path of eventually requesting to rebuild my friendship. Whether I will honor my wife's verdict if she rejects my request remains to be seen. As I have said, I had been intending to adhere to her determination if she reaches it through earnest religious discernment. I just got shaken a few days ago by what my wife did--enough so that I'm presently questioning whether I can still be the compliant servant of God that I have heretofore wanted to be.

There's also--frankly--an ugliness in my heart that I don't know how to purge/prevent/limit:

* You see, I conceived of the strategy of complimentary discernment journeys for my wife and me in order to unstick us from the unicorn blood like quagmire of my hope for renewed friendship with "my AP". I thought to myself: Ah! At last! I have a model that--at least if it is followed authentically--ought to let me carry with a modicum of conciliatory honor my compliance with any discerned obligation to abandon forever my precious friendship in service to my even higher calling to my marriage.

* However, I've subsequently discovered in my heart an ugly belief that, if the sacrifice of the friendship of my dreams is obligatory, it is so only because of a fundamental defect/weakness in my wife's character. I genuinely fear that I won't be able to block that corrosive thought from omnipresence in my mind.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 4:10 PM, Sunday, September 27th]

You did not *accidentally* commit emotional infidelity. It did not simply *happen* to you. You CHOSE to ignore that moral alarm going off inside you when the OW asked if your wife would be upset by your growing closeness, because you KNEW she would be, and then you took it underground and continued to talk to this woman until you fell in love with her. (And honestly I think you would still be engaged in the emotional infidelity right now if she hadn't family zoned you after you confessed those feelings and cut it off out of respect for YOUR wife and marriage-- more respect than YOU are demonstrating for them presently!)

So yes, you chose to cut her, to wound her this way, and now you're here justifying it by blaming it on her lack of emotional intimacy and validation from her. You will never heal or change and become safe and make amends until you remove every bit of blame you place on her from your heart and take 110% OWNERSHIP for what you did, external conditions be damned.

The OW is the knife in the metaphor because she is the instrument with which you wounded your BW, and now, you're begging to keep her near when you should be more focused on repairing the harm you did to her wife. You should NOT be insisting her feelings of unsafety while the instrument is still in your hands are irrational after you just CUT HER WITH IT. That reaction is PERFECTLY REASONABLE. She doesn't need to be *convinced* to trust you with the knife after that; you need to throw the fucking weapon away and CONSISTENTLY DEMONSTRATE to her OVER TIME that hurting her is your biggest regret, that you take full responsibility for what happened, and that you're willing to do whatever it takes to become ACTUALLY safe again and EARN back the trust.

That's going to require some humility and taking a hard fucking look in the mirror at yourself, dude. It is going to SUCK. It is going to HURT. But it's time to man the fuck up and face the consequences of your actions, or end up ALONE.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 5:51 PM, Sunday, September 27th]

GotTheMorbs,

I think it's better if you don't respond to me any further. We're not going to agree; that's manifest. I'm mostly at-peace with my understanding of my situation. Clearly, you're at least equally confident of your very different insight into my situation, and my failure to be persuaded of your view being remotely valid is causing distress in your life that you probably don't need. My sense is that you have friends here who will tell you that you are correct about me being abhorrent and maybe evil and about NC being the only path to marital healing. Good for you! I'd love to have friends in my life!

I won't go seeking a letter of recommendation from you any time soon.

Here's something else I won't be doing: backing down or stopping my advocacy for my friend's return to my life. In time, I hope the success of my plan will be its own proof.

Possibly, my plan will fail and I'll end up briefly lonely and then with some extra metal and less brains in my skull. There are some things worth that risk. My once-friend is one of them. My wife is another. Only 1.5 years will tell. Unless/until then, I'll be around.

Thanks for your time!

I wish you a healing journey henceforth.

Thanks!

Sincerely,

Unconventional

P.S. I will grant you one point: if "my AP"/OW hadn't declared our friendship over on grounds of my lack of integrity, I don't think I ever would've called it off and recognized that a pause in the friendship was needed to afford me perspective. I'd probably still be putting my wife and my friend through Hell and/or I'd be psychiatrically hospitalized and/or dead. The perspective that I gained arrested at the point of knowing I have to downshift my friendship and upshift my marriage, and my mindset will evolve no further if it kills me--and it may. (I appreciate that you'd probably say I completely still lack insight into my behavior.) You've clearly stated that I have to "recognize" that I'm 110% responsible for the situation I face and that "my AP" is justified in insisting on permanent NC with my "AP." Both of those are absolute nonstarters for me.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 7:35 PM, Sunday, September 27th]

Possibly, my plan will fail and I'll end up briefly lonely and then with some extra metal and less brains in my skull.

Unconventional, I don’t know if this was dark humour or a real pain. But you don’t deserve this.

About our previous exchange:

Consider: if the wrong I committed against my marital covenant was emotional disordering rather than an "emotional affair," how does does the distinction at all materially change my candidacy to resume contact with "my AP"/OW?

My comment was based on the assumption that you did not have an affair - as you stated in previous posts. But emotional disordering can still be dangerous… it’s just the beginning. That’s also why you are receiving similar feedback from all of us.

I fundamentally reject any notion that one slides and succumbs in orientation from friend to lover in the blink of an eye.

I absolutely agree. It’s never in the blink of an eye. It’s a slow erosion and blurring of boundaries. Something that (from your words) was indeed happening inside yourself.

Having said that, moving the focus slightly, I perceive your loneliness.

Is there anything on this front that could help you now? Not just mental health support (e.g. therapy) but joining an activity or something that could provide you with positivity?

Unmet needs are a good recipe for chaos and vulnerability.

And feeling lonely ultimately sucks.

You've listed a lot of what you've given up and what you've done to repair. I'm not sure that's the question, though.

What I'm wondering is what you're willing to give up if your wife ultimately needs you to give up the possibility of this friendship permanently.

You've said you're willing to consider divorce if that becomes the case. So how does that fit with the idea that what you're doing now demonstrates that your wife is your first priority?

It seems like the real test of that isn't what you're willing to give up while you still believe you can eventually have this relationship back. It's what you're willing to do if your wife's answer remains no.

Dear LonelyGuilty,

Possibly, my plan will fail and I'll end up briefly lonely and then with some extra metal and less brains in my skull.

Unconventional, I don’t know if this was dark humour or a real pain. But you don’t deserve this.

No humor intended, but the material issue isn't what I "deserve." It's just: what I can vs. cannot bear.

For a while, I thought I could afford to lose my friend forever if I keep my wife--because (so long as my wife completes, in good faith, the discernment journey I've been planning to ask of her) I could ascribe the loss to me of my friend to "necessity" and at least try to grin and bear the loss as an agonizing, but honorable, sacrifice required for the well-being of my marriage. However, since discovering in me the perspective that such necessity could only be a product of a deep deficiency in my wife's character, I'm no longer at all confident that even persuading me of the "necessity" of abandoning my friendship permanently will insulate me from resenting my wife profoundly if she, indeed, compels me to abandon my friendship permanently.

I ardently doubt that marital love and impassioned resentment of a spouse are lastingly compatible. So... if my wife--fully healed in our marriage in another 1.5 years--still insists that I keep closed forever the door of access to my friend... it's probably better that I--briefly--become a gun owner. Purely for myself, mind. I would never use a weapon against a fellow human being. The logical alternative would be a slow & mutually painful marital death, followed by perpetual and utter solitude. Afforded only those two options, the choice--candidly--isn't hard.

But emotional disordering can still be dangerous… it’s just the beginning.

Agreed. I'm not trying to pretend to innocence. The wrong I committed against my marriage was absolutely grievously wrong! What I did that was wrong simply wasn't "adultery"--and claims that what I had with my friend was "an emotional affair" ring false--not because of the "emotional" part, but because of the "affair" part, of that compound term. I allowed myself to develop inappropriately deep closeness with a woman other than my wife. Between my wife and me, I hope we can find a way to heal that wound. But if we describe my relationship with my friend as an "emotional affair," the use of that term compounds and magnifies pre-rationally and unavoidably the actual injury--inflicted (to my shame) by me--from which my wife must recover. I contend that words have power unto themselves--and that we owe semantic accuracy to others. Semantic accuracy would not set me free; it would only properly characterize the nature of my crime.

Is there anything on this front that could help you now? Not just mental health support (e.g. therapy) but joining an activity or something that could provide you with positivity?

Unfortunately, no. The best medicine will be me catching up on a backlog of clinical documentation work that exists because I have trouble focusing precisely because I am processing my relationship crime. Then, maybe I could at least hang out a little more with my wife and kids. But, realistically... my work will always keep me too busy to establish regular friendships. Friendships aren't built in the blink of an eye, either (in fact, there've been studies done regarding how many hours one must expect to commit to a relationship to form an "acquaintance," a "friend," and a "best friend")--and I just can't realistically commit to the regular investment of time required to secure a grown-up friendship. Besides, while--professionally (not relationally)--I may be respectable, almost 50 years of experience have taught me that I'm fundamentally not "likable" as a person. People are not lining-up to befriend me--and, realistically, they never will. Those facts are the root of why I am so gosh-darned stubborn about wooing back my lady friend to friendship. Because... for literally only the 2nd time in my adult life, another adult--amiably precious to me--esteemed me as amiably precious to her. That's had weight for me that I have to believe is hard for normal people to appreciate in significance.

Dear NotMyIdentity,

It seems like the real test... isn't what you're willing to give up while you still believe you can eventually have this relationship back. It's what you're willing to do if your wife's answer remains no.

I think the question you're asking me is: What will I willingly give-up if, in 1.5 years, my wife's answer to my ask for further friendship with "my AP"/OW is still a "no" ?

It's not a "pretty" answer, but I think my latest fully transparent answer to that question is:

Breathing.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 12:17 AM, Monday, September 28th]