Robinpost1 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 7:25 pm
Would you be open to them forming a more emotional attachment?
No; that’s a hard line for me. In many ways it’s been a blessing that both of them have treated this so two-dimensionally.
Robinpost1 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 7:25 pm
I wonder if part of his apprehension is the drama around her situation. She blew his whole life up. He’s divorced now. His friend group has changed. He is a single father, his kids may one day resent him for blowing up his family. I’m not saying it’s her fault, he cheated obviously. But while you might view it as ‘no strings attached sex’ for F, there are undoubtedly emotions that run deep for him around this.
He has no context about your situation with your wife. And if what your wife says is true, he thinks she is just cheating. While I’m sure there was a time that the cheating element was fun and exciting for him, he’s now lived those consequences to their fullest and is reminded of them all day every day. I guarantee you there are serious emotions for him around her, his divorce and the chance that you “catch her cheating” again.
I completely agree with you. I remind my wife at times that this is likely emotionally stressful for him.
Robinpost1 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 7:25 pm
Your wife insisting that it continues with this narrative of her cheating may not be helpful to getting past Fs emotions around this.While it gives her some control over the situation, she is hindering their relationship and avoiding the heavy conversations.
My gut is that she feels if she tells him I know, he’ll think it’s too fucked up—and he’ll think it’s bull shit that we blew up his marriage and are now having fun with it after. She won’t risk that response because she wants to keep relationship going.
My perspective is that’s a fair projection of what could happen. It would be hard to explain to him that the sex wasn’t the issue for me—and it really wasn’t—it was all the other malicious stuff she was doing.
Robinpost1 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 7:25 pm
As much as we may think protecting someone from the truth may be helpful, lying never improves relationships. I wonder what other walls she’s put up that keep F from leaning back in. There was a time he was 100% into her. He risked and lost everything for her. She paid no price, he did. He may even feel used by her because of this. I’m not saying that this is right or justified, just exploring what F may be thinking.
When they were affair partners they had a shared bond. Neither of them was happy. They both had the fantasy of leaving their partner for someone else that made them happy. Now F has to live with the reality that your wife chose you, not him. And he is alone. Whether he gets to fuck her every now and then is little in comparison to picturing living your life with someone else.
If he can’t picture having that with her, then he may see her as a roadblock to accomplishing that with someone else. He may have resentment that she got away with it and he didn’t.
I’d love to see them explore their relationship but there are some hurdles they’d have to over come. Some emotional conversations to be had. Maybe if your wife explored these feelings with you first she’d be open to at least giving F some kind of closure. She likely has survivors guilt and could be avoiding these talks with F intentionally.
As always. Thanks for posting
I disagree with most of that. I don’t think he was ever 100% into her—I’m not convinced that she was even the only other girl he was seeing at the time.
I also really don’t think he fantasized about leaving his wife for mine. I think he proved that when he dumped her as soon as I found out. He wanted her for sex—full stop.
As for my wife, I believe she considered that romantic fantasy in the very early days, even before they fucked. I think she imagined him saving her from her depression. But once they started fucking and he began playing his mind games, she recognized she didn’t want a future with him. She wanted him for validation and an escape—same as now.
My wife wants no emotional conversations with him—perhaps even less so than he does, and he doesn’t want them either. She doesn’t want this to become complicated or chat about their lives. She does have survivor’s guilt, so it makes sense—hearing about his parenting schedule makes her feel like a POS. She likes that they barely exchange a word on visits and doesn’t want that to change.
I know many of you see this as something else, and maybe it is, but I have to go with what I’m seeing and hearing. And I’ll be honest, if I didn’t have access to her communications, I’d have stopped posting here because I’d have become a paranoid mess lol. But as long as I’m confident that I understand their dynamic, I’m clam.