2 married women have my heart

This is my first time sharing this kind of honesty... In elementary school I was bullied....severly. I changed schools in eighth grade to escape the bullying. In the new school, my goal was to get in good with the in crowd so as not to suffer the same fate. There will always be a pecking order no matter where you go. I was asked to be a girls partner for a drill teem dance routine in 9th grade. The girl that asked me was a "bottom feeder" and I later found she asked me because I was new and she believed I wouldn't share the view of her as everyone else did. She believed herself tainted. I considered myself above her because everyone else did and I wanted to be considered one of them because I believed that I would be safe from ever being bullied again if I was in with the popular people. (Definately not my finest moment). Later that year, some guys were giving me a hard time and she came out of no where and stood up for me. 3 yrs later, I was asked to help with a drama play where she was the main character. During a rehearsal, 3 days before the play this girl lost her voice. I can still see her vividly in my mind. She was a tough girl. She tried to say the line 3 times and each time when nothing came out, she would suck it up and try again. Frustration finally got the better and she walked off stage in my direction, covering her face so no one would see. Something happened inside me and I forgot all about my quest for self preservation. I grabbed her as she walked by, wrapped her up, and held her tightly as she cried. We had developed an un-spoken trust after that. We graduated in 1999 and I didn't see her again until 2-3yrs later. I had moved away from home. One random Saturday night, I was walking up to a bank ATM and this women was walking past me. It was the girl from school. It was clear that she was in a relationship because she was pregnant. We were happy to see each other and she said she was moving away with her man to start a new life. "Bye" she said and went about her way. I just stood there wondering what just happened and if i should say something. I finally saw she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen up to that point. I wanted to stop her but what could I say? I was married in 2006 to an amazing women. We had our differences but our marriage was healthy. It lacked communication on a level that i needed but my wife loves me and that's what I always wanted. Early last year, I ran across this girl from my past via social media. We have become the best of friends. We have been able to work out a lot of the problems that plagued us when we were younger due to either we are the same in a lot of ways, we can understand each other's language very well, or we are both from each other's past and can offer one another a perspective of what it looked like the other was going through at that time. My friends marriage is not nearly as secure as mine and she found belonging in talking to me when belonging was not available anywhere else. I found communication, understanding, and friendship in a way that I needed. For months this went on. We eventually both came to the same crossroads within 1day of each other that things worked too well between us and that or hearts belong to another. We both love dearly who we are married to and we both have survived trials on our lives that were too difficult to make it through only to have our marriages torn apart by each other. Our friendship has changed but we still care for one another. Aside from my loving and understanding wife , this friend of mine is my best friend and If I truly care for my best friend and my wife, I must only encourage the progress and well being of my friends marriage when speaking with her. I want her to be happy and loved and I know that I could love her as she desperately needs. I also know that if I show this side of me again to my friend at any time that it will only make things complicated in an already difficult situation for my friend and I want to help my friend....not hurt her. So as is my life now. My marriage has become better from this experience as has my friends. But everyday, I'm lost in thought when I'm not with my wife about how I miss my friend, how I love my friend, how I love 2 women dearly ......but have no one I can tell how I sometimes hurt. The love I feel will never go away. At best, it will get quiter. How can I manage a love I can never have so as to not torment me. How do I live with such a weight? Can it even be done? I wouldn't trade my life with my wife for anything, but I have to acknowledge that it is a shame that we as human beings are incapable of having 2 lives to live.

Sorry but I disagree. The fact is, you DO have feelings over and above mere platonic friendship with this woman; feelings that by your own admission you CANNOT suppress despite them still being in their infancy; feelings which are supposed to remain for and towards your wife EXCLUSIVELY - as per the marital vow "forsaking all others..until death do ye part". Thus already this is an affair, despite the emotional merely hasn't yet had any chance to become expressed/confirmed via the physical. Cheating is cheating. So if you can't kill those romantic feelings in order that the only woman in the world who can evoke such in you is your wife, then you need to cut all contact - NOW, before they become so big that you step more distinctly over that line to where this split loyalty of yours can no longer be denied or played down.

I appreciate the posts ......I really do. I'm actually seeing a therapist for a lot of the issues that I have and I have brought up the issue with my friend. I have spoken a small amount about this with someone I know and she said " wait, I thought your wife was supposed to be your best friend?" I asked her if she had a best friend. She answered yes. I said then tell your friend she is no longer necessary because you are married. It sounds different when you look at it like that. When I finally understood that a best friend ( which I've never had before) is what I had in my midst, I was devastated that I was not hers. She expressed her feelings why that was and I don't disagree. On top of that, I already understood why us being best friends would not be possible. 1st she lives states away, I never see her. 2nd we discussed that being the friends we were naturally was possible but only with boundaries in place, 3rd I understand my role more than ever as......not a best friend, but the best friend I can be. In my mind, though I've never had one, best friends would be joined at the hip almost, in person and in the mind. If you search best friends on the Internet, the social image of this is always 2 females. My friend actually said once she wished I were female. Guys are more part of the group, the gang, one of the guys.......vs a single best friend. My therapist believes I don't favor the group due to being bullied. I see that but also, I feel a safety ( no risk of ridicule) in my female friend. The problems are: the distance. Best friends should be more accessible. Some times you need a physical shoulder to cry on. However, even if we lived in the same place, we can't hang out as female friends do, it would be frowned upon and I get why. Not only that, because of our gender, the chemicals in the brain could eventually turn this into a physical affair......there's no way I nor her could say it wouldn't happen because of what we are. So..., it's one of those impossible situations. A true friend is hard to come by and who they are,....sometimes you have no control over. So I love my friend as a best friend would but it hurts me that it's impossible to be best friends in any other way. My wife IS my best friend in the sense that she knows things about me no one else does or when we sit at a table and someone says something, my wife and I will look at each other and we know what the other is thinking. Or we have inside jokes because we have spent so much time together and so on. In this way, my friend and I couldn't be best friends if we wanted to. My wife does come first. In my mind, wife and best friend are separate, the significance of wife is above best friend. There are many reasons I have for thinking like I do but in a nut shell, if I could only have 1 friend in my entire life, my friend I would take above all I have ever had. My wife and my friend are the 2 I trust in with all my heart and the only 2 at this point in my life I feel I can truly be myself. For some....this would say it all. The issue is not will we make a big mistake...we made sure we defined our new friendship before anything else. And the solution is not breaking all contact. Not only would I hurt my friend and cause agony for myself......but it would not make a difference as to how I feel. If you truly love someone, nothing stops it. If a tragedy took place to where my friend or my wife were taken from this life, I don't stop loving them because they are no longer here with me.....I will love them for the rest of my life. Love is an absolute. Real love you can't just turn off. I've went on long enough. All this being said, I felt peace when you said it was ok to love my friend. I guess its just natural to miss the ones you love. But rest assured, my wife will never be replaced. She made me what I am today, I'm nothing with out her. That's why she's my wife. :)

But transference..........you never know...?

I'm afraid I don't buy any of this nor believe you're in therapy. You wouldn't be the first man to come onto a predominantly female forum to try to get some kind of idea of how the missus, the family and social circle would react if they all found out he were embroiled in a budding affair, nor to try to guarantee leniency by in the first instance trying to soft soap his 'audience' with a sad (and very lengthy) violin rendition. 'Oh, poor baby', go all the maternal instincts, 'how on EARTH can we not show gentle clemency to one who is not a monster but a poor, wee victim like us?'. Violins and all other forms of manipulation don't work on me, and victim is as victim *does* - which you tellingly fail to one iota do. It's actions I go by. You know - that pithy thing called evidence? Buckle up.. 1. "In my mind, wife and best friend are separate, the significance of wife is above best friend." Lie and lie: You and only you CHOSE to create a thread title which demonstrates how your mind is demeaning and devaluing the natural and rightfully greater status of your WIFE in comparison to the mere long-distance, emotional mistress: "Two married women". Wow. I'd love to see your wife's reaction if SHE saw that?! Also in your opening thread, you admit your wife loves YOU (in a way which indicates the fact pleases you) but say nothing when it comes to your feelings for and towards *her*. It's merely about how 'amazing' she is, how you merely care for her (EQUALLY with the mistress, note!), and how she made you what you are today (which obviously means successful). Conclusion: you love that your wife loves you, and you like the lifestyle you have with her, and the fact she's always supported you, full-stop. You then cite lack of communication - the biggie - phased in such a way as to suggest it's down to her. 'Wow', think the audience without even realising it, 'a woman who fails what most women can do standing on their heads? There must be something WRONG with her or she must not care about her relationship that much'. Up yet more goes the sympathy towards you, down it goes towards her. Only once disapproving feedback is in do you start upping the ante about how much your wife means to you and how wonderful she is...a case of too little, too late (didn't work). Already, this crystal-clearly demonstrates the start of the psychological process, called Demonising, that a cheating spouse undergoes in order to lessen/diminish his guilty conscience. If the wife is carelessly failing in her wifely duties, you (so you hope) are that much more JUSTIFIED for seeking to get this and certain other humanistic needs fulfilled from another quarter. 3. In response to it "having to be" pointed out to purportedly brainless you that you're having an emotional affair and being and that the only just, reasonable, logical, loving thing to do in cutting all contact - which all men who DON'T wish to risk hurting their wives and families do - your laughable response is that this "female friend" is the only friend-worthy/capable fish to be found in the sea...an attitude that those falling or already in love become psychologically prey to ("Nothing compares 2U"). We then see nothing on your part of the horrified reaction befitting an until-then allegedly clueless man on being enlightened about the fact he's already committing adultery. Just yet more selfish, self-serving justification after justification about why you "must" persevere with contact, "have no other choice", how it's "impossible", and - le piece de laughable resistance - how this liaison is actually BENEFITTING your wife and marriage! (I've heard some ridiculous excuses in my time but that one takes the biscuit!) Furthermore, we at the same time see in black & white your sense of protectiveness and loyalty flying automatically towards this other woman and yourself as you hope to convince us how ceasing contact would seriously detriment the welfares of the pair of you (boo-hoo), and SOD HOW STOPPING WOULD BENEFIT YOUR WIFE/MARRIAGE AND THE DEVASTATION OTHERWISE TO BOTH! Not a dicky bird on that score. Course not, because again, according to the world authority that is you (despite it runs counter to the worldwide opionion on the matter), it's GOOD for her! Again, I'd love to be a fly on the wall watching your wife's reaction to such irrefutable clarity as all that! I imagine she'd be STRAIGHT on the phone to her solicitor! 4. In actual fact, those who've known genuine victimhood in their lives are *significantly* less inclined - to the point of RARE - to do *anything* that could knowingly victimise another individual, least of all their so-called soulmate, and thereby risk firmly associating themselves with the horrid perpetrators of this world, including their past own. Not so you, apparently. (Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice.) 5. "this friend of mine is my best friend and If I truly care for my best friend and my wife, I must only encourage the progress and well being of my friends marriage when speaking with her." Translation: I must tread carefully so I don't scare off this woman before I've primed her into wanting a full-blown affair with me (or alert her husband as might have him coming after me with a big stick), nor lose my wife. Typical 'want my cake and eat it' cheater attitude. If you REALLY cared one iota about not risking her marriage, nor yours for that matter, it's called, CEASE WORKING ON HER! And note the order of priority: my best friend and my wife. Yeah, put wife at the end of the queue where she (in your mind) belongs, why don't you. Again, I'd love to see your wife picking up on that. Which she would. Because I did (as I'm sure did silent many) and I'm not even the one married to you. 6. After a very brief mention of your alleged therapist, you quote only the advice of 'someone you know' as if *she* is the mine of enlightening information whilst your therapist has none. Curiouser and curiouser. 7. Yes, of course you 'appreciate the [responses]'. When dipping a litmus paper into a social pool in the hope of it displaying a tone of permissiveness or laxity - who wouldn't?! Seemingly, you also appreciate having come away from this exercise with a brand new self-justifications and (you hope) -exoneration tool, called, Transference! "I really couldn't help it, wifey, plus it wasn't *really* an affair, it was just transference (which is something beyond anyone's control), meaning, you surely have to pity and forgive me?". Pff. If she's as amazing as you claim, I doubt that very much. I've seen it all before and I've seen you before, and COULD go on and on and on with yet more evidence, but suffice it to say: Permission to cheat with a cleaner conscience, DENIED! And I really, truly wouldn't like to be you *WHEN* your wife and family, friends, colleagues, etc., find out. Which they will. Because truth always outs and not everyone is as gullible as you'd hope or are used to in your own little world. You have been warned. Do the decent thing in leaving this other woman (and her poor husband) alone, as well, considering you found her such a social no-no until the day you saw from her state of pregnancy that contrary to what you'd always believed, there WERE other men who wanted her (coo, fancy that!). It's nobody's fault but yours if you went and married a woman you had so little in common with (aside from her social status facilitation) that you and she aren't on the same wavelength or ran out of conversation or, more commonly, that she finally held up her hands in defeat as she turned her attentions elsewhere. The solution, however, is NOT to start another romantic relationship on the side (for which there is *no* justification). Either divorce your wife or cut contact with this other woman whilst insisting you and your wife seek marital counselling... like any decent man who truly hadn't until now had a clue what he was up to would.

........ My first thought is (dare I say) you seem to have some skin in a similar game that is on a personal level......sorry I struck a sensitive nerve. You gave me a lot of information but I gotta be honest, you lost me on some of it. I mean, I get the idea....but....well some of it was just hard to understand just what you were saying. It's good though because that which I did understand was more than enough. I Consider myself to be a good conversationalist and am interested in your perspective. I would like to go on with this but only if your willing to keep responding to me.....unless your done with me ....which is a safe bet you only would be because your out of breath.......( that was a joke). Shall I go on or are you convinced I'm a lieing monster of a preditor and will waste no more time on me? I understand if you won't...

Yes, "ha-ha", your infidelity is such a joking matter, isn't it. (Jesus wept, are there NO depths to which you won't sink?!) No, this is not flicking any nerve of mine - aside from the moral one (including caring about the welfare of the world and its occupants rather than just myself- COO, WHO'D HAVE THOUGHT THAT POSSIBLE! Not you, clearly). So, Nice try, highly typical try, but not nice enough. Same goes for you "a-duh-a-duuuh" playing dumb in claiming not to understand most of what I was saying (again, typical reaction, WHICH I was waiting for) (damn, should have placed a bet!). You really are quite textbook, aren't you. Still, very satisfying to see the Poor Wickle Victim-Nice Guy veil publicly drop some via the oh-so-subtle attempt to discredit my powers of OBJECTIVE perception and thereby judgement by claiming personal issues and paranoia on my part. *Fail* Oh, but I do have experience alright. THREE DECADES' worth. Thus ZERO sympathy for you. More's the pity for you, eh. Yes, I'm done with you. For the VERY simple reason that - knowing perp or self-deluding fool subject to cognitive dissonance/confirmation bias, this needs no discussion nor ever did to begin with. Either continue to cheat (and hope against hope that your wife is deaf, blind and stupid) or stop it at once FULL-STOP and invest all that emotion into your marriage where it belongs. Hardly Sophie's Choice or rocket science, let alone warranting any super-human mental strength. Just a working moral compass. Why - do you have one? The answer to that lies in what you do next. And I don't mean on here.

You don't seem like the type that's going to back down but if you won't do it for the satisfaction, do it for the silent many anticipating you taking the chance to finish me off... ( :) also a joke)

Well.............. Alright then. I really thought you would be willing to continue this conversation with me. Sorry for the humor, it's my defense mechanism......I would tell you who pointed that out in me but ur opinion seems firm that I am a liar on all fronts. A couple things: I had no idea this site was predominately anything. The only specific I was looking for was honesty.....which I definately found. You never know, you could have learned something from me maybe. But if you consider yourself such an advocate of the people and have such a talent of dispensing wisdom as you do, consider this........one should not judge the difficulty of the task at hand for someone else....( though we all do anyway) you don't know who people are or where they have been. I'll just say I'm sure you perceive this as an excuse to justify being where I currently am in this situation.....as in (it's not my fault) but rather the above statement is more like food for thought for future reference. I'll be honest, I've never been "castrated" so bad in my life. Your right about one thing though, if I truly care for both of these women as I feel I do,.....I need to do what's in both their best interests.

FYI, my wife and my friends husband already know what had been going on hence why our marriages had grown to a more mature level. What no one knows is that I acknowledged to my self that I do love 2 women.

If you acknowledge you love the other woman too as in having more than friendship feelings then you are crossing the boundaries of friendship and breaching the trust of marriage. It is the case of emotional affair and emotional affair is Cheating, period. How will you react if it was your wife who had a similar thing going and not you? Stop messing your thoughts and mind. If require take specific counseling.

First of all, thanks for treating me like a person. I make mistakes as people do. I honestly had no idea that an emotional affair even existed. I didn't know that connecting with someone on such a deep level could be bad. I had no idea until one day, my wife brought me a list of 10 reasons your having an emotional affair. I was guilty of 6 out of 10. I have tried hard to project myself into my wife's shoes in order to ask myself how I would handle things. How would they affect me. What, if anything, I could be ok with. I didn't come here to get permission to cheat, I wanted to know how I should cope with the way I feel inside. My wife is the love of my life, the love I have for my friend doesn't compare. I don't love my friend like my wife, or a sibling, or my family, it's just different. If I break off the friendship, that doesn't change my heart. Stop telling me it will. If council ing specificly for this is what I should seek then I will try anything once but to be honest I dont see myself rushing right out and doing it right away. The therapy I'm currently in......... I didn't start going because of this thing with my friend and I. .....since this is anonymous, I'm in therapy because I was bullied, my mom was a victim of incest among many other terrible things that took place when she was a child and had developed DID ( multiple personalities) sometimes as a child I had interaction with this other side which was too much for a child to understand (yes I'm saying I have mom issues) I was raised by liars and have severe trust issues, around age 5-6 I was molested by a babysitter and I don't remember anything really being done about it. My mom cheated on my dad twice and from 8th grade on and,at times, seemed like a contest as to who could move in and out of the house the most.i couldn't talk to my parents either. They would see something was bothering me and they would hound me to tell them. When I finally would they would simply say oh, we were afraid it was something important, and walk off. I didn't feel safe telling them things. I finally would out of desperation to get them to stop asking. They only seemed concerned it was drugs or whatever it was they considered important. Not only was I cornered in to telling them, and after I gathered the courage to tell them, it never made me feel better and I was humiliated for even telling them in the first place. ( this means I didn't feel safe with my parents).My parents were not bad people.....they did the best they could. THEY ARE NOT THE REASON I got involved with my friend like I did. My friend was raped by her cousin at age 10-12. I don't know if it was because it was her cousin that did it, or if because it happened several times and she said she began to like it that she started to feel this tainted feeling. She also was the outcast at school. We found we had more than a few things in common. I didn't trust my wife ever because she wouldn't talk to me. My wife and I talk now and we both know why we didn't communicate first. She came from a family where it was easier and more comfortable to just pretend everything is great. My wife admits that her parents never spoke about issues at hand. My wife also said that they made her feel like it was not ok to discuss things. I began talking to my wife by asking her about herself in order to test the water. I had tried in the years before my wife to relate to people, it never worked out but I'm thinking now the reason for that was due to my communication skills were terrible. I grew up an only child so I had a hard time relating to kids my own age. My mom was the type where she would say "don't walk too close to that lamp, it could fall on you and crush you". So she preferred me to be inside all the time. As long as I was in my room or in front of the TV then she was good. Anyway, poor social skills, so I began to feel that I was unacceptable.i felt like Who I was inside was offensive to everyone so I hid myself from everyone, I developed a an alter ego that was Taylor made based on what other people around me seemed to consider acceptable and favorable. This facade went on for years, even after I met my wife. When I began to communicate on a deep level, I didn't feel like I was welcome to talk about things that made me vulnerable so I tried to see if my wife would share things with me in order for us to begin to relate. Her answers were always one word answers. Mostly no and eventually I don't know. I finally decided that either her life at home was as uneventful as it sounded or she just did not want to talk to me about things. Things I did tell her about myself...she never commented on. I never knew how what I had just told her made her feel. She wasn't supportive, she didn't act interested, I didn't know if she was judging my like other people I tried to relate to in the past. As far as I was concerned, I was talking with my parents again. ( I didn't feel safe with my wife). As far as my wife knew, we were communicating. I told her about the babysitter and I told her during an argument out of submission and she only asked "guy or girl" I said a guy and she never said another word about it. She never asked me any questions, she never acted like she cared. I dIsnt know if she was disgusted with me or what and I was too hurt by her lack of caring and too ashamed to ask what she was thinking. After that I just decided that "this is the way it is", and I stopped trying to communicate and held on to my alter ego. THIS IS NOT THE REASON I got involved with my friend like I did. Maybe it was that my friend and I had our unspoken trust back before we had taken on our alter egos. Maybe it was because we needed something in life that we just didn't have in our marriages, I really don't know why things progressed as they did between us.....as I began to tell about myself, my friend would actually talk back and offer support and advice. But yes one thing was for sure and that was that I liked it. It felt good to be listened to, it felt good to have some one that related to me and told me things like I wasn't alone. Our friendship uncovered things in me that lay buried from years ago. Things that I couldn't ignore anymore and had to be delt with. My friend first suggested the idea of therapy to me after our friendship broke and we backed away from each other. I was completely against the idea at first, my friend talked me into it. My friend wanted to go to but has difficulty commiting to the idea due to mostly fear of discussing these things in her childhood with a stranger. I've been in therapy since October. The things I learn that regard my friend and I both concerning our problems snd our spouses, I forward this information in the hopes she can find insight in something, anything. I do the same with my wife. Since everything that has happened, my wife and I inderstand way more about each other because our marriage was shaken up the way it was. Woke us both up if you will. This same thing helped my friend and her husband have some " what do we really want out of this marriage" conversations and they have been able to break down doors because of it. I got involved with my friend like I did because I found something in her I wasn't getting in my marriage. I did this. My friend admitted that she was , at times, using me to make herself feel better. We did this. I have to admit that our lives and marriages have reached a higher level of maturity due to our interaction. I'm grateful for that. Our marriages are not perfect, we both still have lots of work to do, and we are trying to do things in a healthier way than the way we were. I've only taken the time to say all this so that I can admit that I am a weak man and can't bring myself to end a friendship with someone who has played such a life changing role in my marriage and in my self. She is my friend and will always be. I can't help but love her. I came to this website to find what other people considered to be the truth in their eyes. Thus far, I have had light shed on things that I could not see before. Aside from that, it felt good that I didn't have to feel like an awful person for loving another person......who just happened to be this girl from my past and is married as am I. I understand what is said about my wife should be the one and only one. I agree. But I can't undo everything that has happened and I can't un-feel what I feel. I understand how I have cheated. If breaking the friendship off and seeking specific counseling is all the advice I get then that's what I have to work with. I thought this would be a safe place to tell my story and ask for a solution but if I'm going to be considered a lieing, cheating, poor excuse of a man, you will only do so after you know everything. I appreciate what advice I got. Thanks for listening

I got a third of the way through and... all I was hearing is that your boundaries got STRETCHED to where even YOU can't contain yourself to well-behaved ground. Yes, you can, and you're not amongst people who can't or haven't done this or similar or equal (or harder) themselves in their time. It's called mettle - specifically, self-discipline. It's not something that stands by your side daily and comes to your aid of its own volition. It's something you grit your teeth then awaken, gather together and exert in place. And once you've done it once you can turn it on again and again at will (practise makes perfect). But you simply don't want to. Obviously because you feel the world and its occupants owe you. "They were bad so why shouldn't I be?". That's what I'm hearing. Answer: Because otherwise you're going to do nothing but slide down a slippery slope to Sh*tville where you'll be unhappy and remain so FOR YEARS. Not so your wife. She could divorce you and have you out of her hair (and another man in it) in under 2 years. It's YOU who is in the process of harming you and no-one else. Stand back and you'll see how you're edging closer and closer to destroying all you've spent years working for and building. You may want to strip SOME of it out, and rightly so, but the solution is not to nurclear-bomb the entire planet on which it all sits. That's not a solution, it's just a childish *reaction*. Because otherwise you are not qualified to complain about what 'they' did to you. You are actively becoming ONE OF THEM when what you SHOULD be doing is showing them how easily, in fact, it's done (*without* it requiring self-combusting on the spot like they'd all have you believe - you now included). It takes FAR more time and mental energy to mount a campaign of misbehaviour than it does to walk a clean, straight line. YES, you'll go through a period of grieving for/detaching from this woman from your past, but that pain won't be a FRACTION of the pain you'll go through if you don't. You'd better trust me on that or god help you and your next 10, 20 years. What mess and misery you'll end up in will be TEN times worse than anything you had to endure in your early years! Nobody SAID choosing to do the right things every day you're awake was p*ss-simple or pain-free. Who told you it was? But the end rewards make it more than worthwhile. Enough of these mere excuses in the way of cleaning up your act or in the way of your succeeding even if you did try. Already we now see you admitting that your wife IS bothered and has been for a while, and other glaring contradictions, in with playing the innocent and ignorant, to your prior claims and aspersions. So get real, finally, cut the crap and join the world of adults wherein difficult, even short-term painful-to-self decisions have to be taken every single damn day. No pain, NO GAIN. Having a rotten childhood or other run of bad experiences is NOT some get-out-of-jail-free card. You do NOT get special dispensation to commit crimes just because you had certain of them against you as if getting to commit crimes yourself is your compensation. Those crimes don't NEED compensating because they were DUMBELLS meant to make you get fitter, stronger and more resilient than you otherwise would had you had a more normal childhood, not weights to squish you into and through the floorboards on a never-ending downwards trajectory. That result is a CHOICE, one out of two. So start raising and lowering the buggers instead of standing there whinging that you're surrounded by the things (- lucky you!). Jeez, I shudder to imagine what the state of your mouth is like. I'm betting you also shy away from ever visiting your dentist's, just because you can't tolerate of face the thought of tolerating the pain and discomfort that the treatment demands you so briefly suffer as your PAYMENT for resultant said gleaming gnashers. EVERYTHING in life that's worth having and which places you firmly in Happy Land demands the toll fee of short-term sufferance. Every...thing. No exceptions. And that's to ensure you want it badly enough, to separate the wheat (those who do) from the chaff (those who are too stupid or lazy-minded to know they should). Survival of the (mentally) fittest. You're not five years old. You haven't just SUDDENLY become aware of what constitutes cheating and what is innocent and maritally acceptable. You knew all along from having had PLENTY of frames of reference to take note of, if not originating from inside your own individual home life. Well, if you feel that bad in the inside then I would have thought it IMPERATIVE to get it tackled - BEFORE it could come out into the environment to create havoc as stores yet more issues for your later life. In short, every single thing you say, claim, refute and (now semi-) refuse to do is just yet MORE weight added to the argument of why you should be ending this liaison, not less. NOBODY ANYWHERE can help you to do your workload if you won't do your half because like any relationship, success relies on the execution coming from a two-personed team, 100% effort each. It's one set of mental cylindry plus another (hopefully superior) set equals TWO minds (or, likewise, two-and-a-half if the therapist is indeed superior) tackling one path obstacle - NO CONTEST! Problem: Nil, Team: 1, game, set and match, no temptation on your path to a contented life that you can't ever subsequently face and punch or kick from your path with the minimum of effort. This "friendship" with this woman from your past is not your salvation but your path to downfall. The fact you re-met her when categorically unavailable PROVES it! I cannot make it any clearer than that. Your path to salvation begins when you end it on your own or seek a face-to-face professional from whom to borrow the brains and energy enough to end it whereby the pain or hardship is lessened and foreshortened both. Make your choice: high road where the sun shines brightest and warmest using your past trials and tribulations as your TOOLS for getting there in record time *or* low road where the other sun-less yellow-bellies inhabit, shunted THERE in record time because you're allowing those dumbells to sit motionless in your hands and on your chest doing nothing but weighing you down, down, down.... It's just a matter of making the right - THE CLEVER - choice and then pumping. But it is NOT Sophie's Choice, not by a long stretch of the imagination. I and anyone else here have nothing more to say to or discuss with you and zero reason to unless and until you end that affair. Berbom. Otherwise, it'd be like us trying to coach an alcoholic towards sobriety when he has a magically replenish-able whisky bottle surgically attached to his lips. Capiche? Oh, and news for you: yes, your parents ARE why you're currently cheating. Or rather, the fact you can't work out (because they didn't/wouldn't nurture your powers of processing and imagination) who did what and when and how as resulted in your mum cheating and are therefore trying to work it out from LIVING IT YOURSELF. It's called re-enactment and is perfectly common. You're not the expert here so stop pretending you are. If you were, you wouldn't even be IN this mess. Expert on how to do all the things it takes to be happy is as expert *does*, which is, IS HAPPY. Duuh? Hardly rocket science? You're like an amateur tennis coach trying to tell grand-slam winners how to win and how not to win Wimbledon, when, actually, you know sh*t. OTHER THAN THE FACT YOU'RE COMMITTING AN EMOTIONAL CRIME AS MAKES YOU MAC-FEEL MAC-BETTER FOR ALL OF 5 MAC-MINUTES BEFORE GOING ONTO CONTRACT A *TERMINAL* STOMACH CANCER. You don't escape victimhood by trying to pass yourself off as a perpetrator. Bullies are The Bullied...it's pass-the-rotten-parcel - take your sh*t out on / foist it into the hands of someone else. You escape victimhood by having the muscle power (from said dumbells) to deal with them the minute they decide to try anything. And if you can't do that, you take the only other escape route, which is, GET UP AND LEAVE THE PARCEL-PASSING CIRCLE, WALK AWAY. If your wife is a mini mum-&-dad then you indeed DID make the wrong choice - comfortable discomfort zone in preference to challenging comfort zone. Either start using those dumbells or take them to a therapist to be shown how to do the right thing between [a] getting marital counselling to bring your marriage back more towards the ideal (including lots of talking/sharing/relating towards understanding your respective pasts) or [b] divorcing your wife and re-pursuing your ideal relationship (be it this past woman or someone new). Option C, doing nothing except for continuing this slow-burning affair, is the door to the dank, dark, smelly, windowless, all-round miserable snake-pit of a basement. HOWEVER, that is not to say it excludes you calling a formal separation from this friend until you've both got each other out of your romantic or needy systems and THEN re-embarking on contact - this time as purely platonic friends with similar PAST histories and issues. It's not talk time, it's action stations THEN talk. Until you take the necessary action you're not even READY to talk. UNTIL then - don't complain to me about the fact you underwent the effects of a perfectly normal life mechanism called, social judgement, when we see for a FACT that it's that very hard admonishment which LED to your getting that bit more real in your admission, finally, about having to face up to doing only whatever passes as a right thing. What you've just said is tantamount to this: My tummy is feeling a bit better but I really resent you for having given me medicine that tasted so horrid. Well, the two tend to be mutually inclusive. Certainly, the faster-acting medication, anyway. Funny how that works, eh. But I won't believe YOU believe those words until they become irreversible actions in reality. And nor will anyone else with any intelligence.

I was sure I wouldn't be back but......today happened to be wearing on my nerves a little. Just for the record, I'm not stupid, but you CAN be difficult to understand. I always thought I had a big vocabulary....had to look some of this stuff up. I even had to google Sophie's choice. (Sounds tragic) I know I'm my own worst enemy in this while my wife and friend are the innocents waiting to get hurt. I don't want to be that but I am going to have to work myself up to this. I mean, I'm afraid to, but I guess that's why I came here. I do appreciate you talking to me in a way that wasn't so harsh. I made the comment about I struck a nerve of yours.....not to try and 1-up you but because I felt you were being excessively mean. But it looks like your a professional of some sort and that method of speaking to someone must be one of your tools you have. I know you said don't speak unless I've acted but I speak to let you know where I'm at. I never thought I would say thanks but I'm feeling better already. I've asked myself how long do I really think I could go on like this. I'll be back........Thanks for speaking to me about this.

"I made the comment about I struck a nerve of yours.....not to try and 1-up you but because I felt you were being excessively mean." Yeah, yeah, yeeeaah, here's my 'I really believe you' face ---> :-p Anyway, I was talking about undermining, not 1-upping. (That was you.) It's quite simple: You needed a damn good reality slapping; you GOT one; IT (according to you) WORKED - so what's yer point? Maybe if people had pandered to and pussy-footed around you a lot less in the past, you wouldn't BE in the position you're in. Think about that one. And count yerself lucky: if I were your spouse your head would be skillet-shaped by now. But, anyway, let's NOT focus on the blah-blah-blahs/he said-she said and how, shall we? It's *actions*: So what concrete progress have you made in the last NEARLY 2 WHOLE WEEKS? Answer - eff-all. All you're telling me is that since we 'spoke', you're ego's ceased smarting and you're THINKING about ending it. "Ermahgeerd, gev 'im a gold midil!". You're just buying time again - this time your excuse being how you're 'afraid' to make the jump you've allegedly decided to make. So what? / Welcome to the world of consequences! That you find the thought of doing the upstanding deed / reversing the sh*tty deed UNPLEASANT, that you're even in a position to find anything ANYTHING is your own silly fault. Nobody forced you, no-one coerced you at gunpoint, did they? I'll stop being harsh or dismissive on you when you stop making one excuse after the other and dithering like a geriatric snail on Mogodon. Best I can offer. Take it or leave it. (Oh, and you're effing welcome. ;-p) You'll be back, will you, Arnie? I'LL LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR POST TELLING ME IT'S OVER, THEN, SHALL I????? When will that one be, then - next year? PS: "I'm Woderwick"

I enjoy a puzzle sometimes but I got nothing on "I'm woderwick". ( nothing but monte Python that is). I couldn't talk to my friend like you said I should. I took the cowards way out and just walked away. If she texts me, my answers are short and cold. When she asks to talk I say I'm just too busy right now. I know you expected more.

(Correct - Life Of Brian. Because you were trying to guess who/what I am like it had anything to do with the price of fish.) NOPE, YOU DID HER A GIANT FAVOUR, WELL BLOODY DONE! Acute rather than chronic pain, with her left to have to sit and work out what was her own issue rather than have it spoonfed to her. Not that she'd even NEED to work it out because presumably she's not Benny from Crossroads? So in actual fact, you did BETTER than I expected. Put it this way, midwives don't spend hours snipping little bits off the umbilicus, do they. There's a reason for that. She'll probably conclude your wife found out and set the condition of no more contact other than the purely perfunctory and for her to be allowed to examine every purely loose-end-tying text. GOOD! EXCELLENT! You've just earned yourself this (and don't whinge because I give it out very rarely): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRhjWdr-LAA Sorry I was such a COW. But you needed it. Plus, it's great fun (mwa-ha). ;-) And, after you've watched that vid, tell me if and how this development has automatically had a good knock-on effect to your marriage?

I'll get back to you on your link. Just so we are on the same page. Everyone ( wife, friend, friends husband) knew about everything that has happened. I was the only one that knew my dilemma. ( loving 2 women). My friend was never involved with me in a way where she was consciously being unfaithful but the friendship remained intact till now. At best, she's going to wonder what she did wrong. She feel she deserves an explanation but I'm too much of a coward.

I meant to say I feel she deserves an explanation. I wonder what be harder for her this path I've chosen leaving her to think she was to blame for my sudden cold shoulder, or me saying to her how it is and letting it fall from there.........I'm not going to go back and try the other way now that I've already stopped talking....what do u think

Those types of emotional affairs never do get started wittingly. They're the ones wherein features this sort of statement: "It just happened. I don't know how it did or when it started, it just did". One head in the sand meets another head in the sand, needs match or agendas gel, and - voila! But I repeat: she is not Benny from Crossroads; on some level she would have been aware alright. And neither you nor she need a therapist you can get that attached to or the situation becomes like self-medication via whatever addictive substance that as well as failing to treat or fix the original problem becomes a new problem all its own. If she needs an explanation and really won't give up trying to get one - AND ONLY IF - then I suggest all you type is: "Not your fault, but current circumstances (which I'm not comfortable discussing) dictate that our friendship is inappropriate at this particular juncture and for the time being. So sorry. Take care." Anything more than that would give her an opening to start levering away at, to start arguing and thereby re-striking up a conversation (which, if she wasn't letting things lie, would indicate that was her aim)... meaning, you'd pretty soon find yourself right back at square one. But I repeat: short 'n sharp / cruel to be kind is far kinder than long and drawn-out / kind representing cruel. As personable as she might be, start seeing her as crack cocaine, with this representing your going cold turkey, and then your correct attitude and behaviour will automatically follow. You're cocaine for her, too, but that's her side of things for HER to deal with, not you. Now, then, do you have kids? Also, you didn't answer my final question about your marriage? ...which is rather revealing. So if you're incapable to that incredible extent of giving your wife/marriage even two seconds'-worth of focus then I think maybe you SHOULD send that message, if you really think it'll make it easier for you to close that chapter and move on to the next. But I repeat: it's just a statement. Do NOT enter into any conversation with her. If she rattles the bars of your ego's cage to try to *provoke or antagonise* a response - if the crack cocaine is trying to entice you into taking another hit - be forewarned and aware of that tactic and refuse to rise to the bait. "Just Say No" (in your head). You've put one foot on the path to Happyville. Don't screw it up.

I didn't answer your question about marriage because I hadn't watched your link yet. I spoke about my friend first because it matters to me if you have the right idea or not about her. She took steps in the right direction first and does want to maintain friendship. It's just difficult to slam the door in someone's face like that and not wonder how they feel. .........it just bothers me but it is what it is. Now that's out of the way. Seeing a therapist is one of the best decisions I've ever made in my adult life. I believe to make the choice to see a therapist says there is more right with me than wrong. I've been able to address some issues that I've been carrying around for years and years. I recommend it to anyone that's in a place in they're life that truly wants to change the way view themselves and the world around them. No we don't have kids after 9 yrs. but are working on it. My wife needs a surgery to up our chances from 5% to up over 90%. I smell a rebuttal coming....but.... My wife and I have a great marriage, we always did. It just needed to be healthier for me. My wife that everything was great and nothing needed to change, while even though I got a long great with my wife and life was good, I never felt truly connected to my wife like I wanted. To some degree, this will never happen. We are just two different people. When I spoke to my friend, she spoke to me about what I had to say. My wife simply says I'm sorry to everything. This kind of existential, deep feeling connection is not something that comes naturally to my wife and my therapist informed me that it was wrong of me to expect my wife to be something she wasn't. I'm short, this part of me I will have to live without. But my wife is amazing. I've always loved her......I think to best describe our relationship is like 2 roommates........with benefits. Things from her past never bothered her and any problem in her life was simple for her to get over being she was equipped for it. She's one of those people. I on the other hand, I maule things over and over. I think most people can agree that when you need someone to talk to.......you need some that talks to you. My wife doesn't care for that. But she does try now. Before all this, she had an attitude of if you don't like it then tough. As in, no effort in the marriage, no 60/40 . She was still great but even you can't deny that any relationship of any kind will fail if both aren't putting in 60/40. I tried to present myself with all my flaws but was taking baby steps by seeing if she could first relate to me and second accept the me that was always ridiculed for being a little " out in left field". She wouldn't talk to me and after what seemed like a life time of people being put off by my insides, I wasn't about to risk spoiling my relationship with the one I married. This means I didn't feel safe with her. After all this, she finally told me he story, she tries to understand things now, she tries to talk to me, she acts like she gives a shit about me in that way now. After all this time we have been married, I was convinced things would never change and it would seem they have because of my friend. (In one form or another). No, my wife can't communicate with me as my friend could, but all I really need is to see the effort. She tries and so I try. Did that answer your question? But wtf with the silent monk thing??

The Silent Monk/Hallelujia clip is what I dish out when someone deserves definite recognition for having done something that took real mental strength to do and, against odds (because most people opt to be lazy), succeeded, as well as ran counter to sleazeball behaviour, *and/or* expresses the sentiment, 'Finally!'. With you it was both, in that order of precedence, but, as you can now tell, wasn't connected to the question about you and your wife. PS: If you'd come back not having done it and making excuses, you'd have got Joe Dolce's "Shuddupa You' Face". ;-D You haven't slammed the door, you've simply shut it firmly but calmly. And, like I said, unless she's a hamper short of a picnic she'll work it out, simply because you're a man and she a woman, you're both married, and the conversation had long started to become too personal which equates to too intimate. Your feelings as expressed in your thread title said it all about where you at least were resultantly now at. I don't disagree whatsoever that your action is testament to your intrinsic self as opposed to what this, of-late, surface struggling was suggesting. But it was touch and go there for a while, wasn't it. You so nearly slid down that slippery slope. Hence the Silent Monks clip. Having an affair - be that on the thick end of the wedge where you're actually fully in-love and/or sh*gging or the thin end where you start to grow ever dependent via sharing personal thoughts and feelings which create supply & demand (needs getting created or brought to the surface and met) and which decorum states are rights belonging to ones spouse - is simply one of a multitude of psychological versions of cutting/self-harm, but done through A. N. Other. And cutting comes mainly from frustration. You can't smell my rebuttal from here, that's the beauty of the ether. (LOL, sorry, couldn't resist) But seriously, it's not possible to call a marriage great if it lacks health or is heavily loaded on one side but not another. You can say it's good but has potential to be great. Diff/all the diff. So, anyway, now you've decided to seek proper, professional, NON-BONDABLE help, which means you now mean business PLUS will get you far further ahead at a far-far-FAR quicker rate than with that other [no pun intended] lay woman. That you were confiding in someone other than her was a symptom of this. In summary, therefore, you are obviously 'sitting on' a marriage that is quite good but could be blow-your-socks-off fantastic. Imagine that!? And that's why I said you'd put one foot (two, now, actually) onto the path to Happyville. What you reap is what you sow. So your mission, if you choose to accept it (which you have), is to remove your mental block from the path (think felled tree) so that you and she can go further up the Love Mountain path. The man, you see, is still the one who leads - regardless of any modern, man-made 'isms' - meaning, ones wife is the *responsive* party, still looks to the man to set the whole tone and example. Think choccie bar dispenser machine: 10p gets you Whole Milk; 50p gets you a family-sized Fruit 'n Nut. You can't expect the choccie machine to put in its own coins, even just to encourage you to start, doesn't work like that. It really, truly, is that simple and that easy. We're not complex, we're just complicated (diff/diff). So the process is actually, YOU DA MAN, YOU DA BOSS, YOU FIRST, and you were meant to keep asking and asking for her to discuss things that meant a lot to you AND, SIMULTANEOUSLY, warm her up to the point where refusing you would have made her feel downright Take-Taker-ish considering all the loving effort YOU were putting in. And let's be honest, this wife of yours has never known an era that *didn't* feature this road-block of yours, has she. She's only ever had 10 Pences. You'll see.... You'll look back and see that you were caught in this Catch 22 situation with her (no greater denomination = no motivation to pay out Fruit 'n Nut, no Fruit 'n Nut = no motivation to put in greater denomination). Your past friend was the first half of the required catalyst and this forum (you getting your 'rebuttal' spanked) was the second half. But you were the executor of both so you get the credit. Just out of interest, is your therapist a man or a woman?

She's a woman. Any real friend I ever had that I was comfortable talking about sensitive things were always women. I was always told by them that I was easy to talk to. I don't know if I said this earlier but when looking for a therapist, I noticed I was stepping over the male therapists, no matter how qualified, and sifting through the females. This does not mean I will trust any female, but i would trust a woman long before a man. I think I did mention this...

Trust a woman long before a man? That's interesting - WHY would you? Don't you know that some people are moreover nice people and some are moreover rhymes-with-punts, and that whatever proportion out of each just happen to have t*ts as opposed to the rest just happening to have danglies? Do I take it from this that the majority of men you've ever had any dealings with turned out to be from the punting sector? Or do you mean only in a therapy situation specifically?

Ok.....so first if you and I are going to be chat buddies...... One of the things my friend and I used to do to let the other know that we were not finished talking yet.....we would type MORE... Time is sometimes short. I've been worked over bad by a female or 2 in my day. Males still had respect for their nemesis but women, in my opinion, there is nothing a woman isn't capable of. Im not a male chauvinist but a joke I use to make my point is.....why was Ghenhis Kaun unsuccessful in conquering the world after he came so close?............Because he wasn't female. But I've some real POS guys before. Mean people suck in general. More...

Also why the questions, just what are you concerning this site anyway? I hear what u say, gender means nothing. I have a good female friend I wouldn't trust with anything aensitive. Let me give an example of not wanting to share with a guy. So as u read earlier my friend was raped several times at the age of 10-12. She finds a friend to confide this sensitive information in and all is good. She feels connected to someone and begins to feel she can trust. Sometime later, his new friend of hers makes s joke just for the sake of a good ribbing "Slept with any of your other cousins lately?" Yea, that's real -ucking funny. Now my friend is humiliated, trust even less than before she took the leap, and regrets letting someone in............ This did not actually happen to my friend. In this example, my friend is me, and though I didn't actually tell another make about my sexual abuse, I did tell something else that was very sensitive to me and this is what I got for my trouble. Yes......your right, depends on the MALE I choose to tell, but I group them all the same at this point in my life. Guys have this thing I noticed where they bond by cutting each other up in a playful way. This is where I and males I have met differ and where females and I can agree. I don't want to be made fun of even if it is considered all in good sport. I let someone in to a dark corner in my life, it's because I want connected with, because I want to be taken seriously, because what I have in there hurts me deeply and I want someone to feel and understand that. I'm not a girly guy by any means (as other men may call me) just because I have feelings. More....

Not sure chat buddies is the word for it (I don't do small-talk), but you can keep this thread going for as long as you feel a need to. Certainly, it could act to highlight whatever little side-issues you might want to raise with your therapist to ensure a thorough "bonce spring-clean" while you've got her? Other than that, I'm not about to tread on some therapist's toes (because it's still a form of cheating). But I don't mind helping to bring any erstwhile, niggly stuff to your attention. May as well get your money's-worth, eh! I'm confused, though. I asked why you trust women over men but you've come back with reasons why you don't trust women. We've all been worked over, as you put it. It's part and parcel of the lucky-dip searching and sifting process that is finding your optimum soulmate out of the total poo, and is what helps prime you to be ready for them so that you don't needlessly stuff it up... shows you what rough or weird-shaped edges of yours need honing and what mental muscles need concerted pumping in accordance with your perfect-for-you type. Yes, agree 'the female of the species is more deadly than the male'. But, generally, I find they have to be pushed a lot further than males before they lose the plot and let their egos out to wreak actual havoc other than just with the mouth (- natures way of making sure kids' main carer don't end up murdering the little darlings, LOL). So, six of one, half a dozen of the other, every cloud has a silver lining/every silver lining has a cloud and all that. Here - have one of each from my own archive: Why did God invent women? Because sheep can't type. Why did God invent men? Because vibrators can't mow the lawn. (Speak to my agent, LOL) Roger, over...

ROFL! Total POOL. (Was that a Freudian? :-D)

As I was saying, just imagine what that would do to a woman such as my friend to take something that was hard enough to bring to the surface in the first place and then have to deal with being made a joke of because of that's just how the gender interacts with itself. " If i didn't like us, I wouldn't give us shit!" they would say. There is hardly any discretion with guys like that. To feel like my friend would have to put up with something like that just sickens me. So......I just don't trust to build a friendship like that with another male because...... It may not even exist for lack of a better way of putting it. My mom was a victim of incest and was whored out to her fathers friends. My dad thinks I don't trust males because she may have instilled in me that males are not to be trusted. I do know for a fact I saw her treating the mail grandchildren different than the female grandchildren while I was growing up. My therapist believed it was more due to the fact that male friends are usually a group, "the wolf pack", and the only time I saw the group growing up is when I was being beaten down by them. ........thus why I favor the idea of the one best friend which seems to be a primarily female only based relationship. i should probably stop for now.

Nope, bar the last sentance I didn't understand that first paragraph, sorry. Want to try again? Ugh, your poor mum! But - news for your dad: your mother would have had nothing *to* instil, nor any bias, had it not been for his having given her direct and monumental reason to (cheeky f***er!). Your dad is trying to curry dispensation by playing the Boys Together card. Ignore, ignore, ignore. That she feels that way enough to express it on the outside is his 'goes around, comes around'. His fault for allowing himself to behave so unconscionably without having thought through the consequences. Why should you probably stop for now? Is the memory upsetting you? If it is then you and your therapist clearly have deeper depths to excavate in that there hole. Why would your on-ice friend ever have to put up with 'something like that'?

First I will say that auto correct on my phone makes a mess of everything. Second I meant that it takes a lot for me to bring something up that's painful if I need to talk about it. If I tell a male (which I've tried before) they listen to you but then RAZ you for it later because that's what guys seem to like to do. I put it in terms of as if I were my friend telling another female about what had happened to me, and later having the friend I confided in RAZ me for something that was hard to tell someone in the first place (rape). I haven't known women to do that to each other. Instead, I believed women to support each other on a subject like that......not make fun of it. "if I didn't like ya, I wouldn't give ya shit!" This is what guys say to justify giving me a hard time.......except there is no end to it. (Auto correct didn't interfere this time) I loved my friend because she handled my troubling issues with care and sensitivity. Why not tell my wife these things in the first place? I did some of these things.......she really didn't "handle them at all" I love my wife to death but she doesn't communicate the way I do and so I don't feel the support I've needed in the past. That's the best way I can explain it. We are working on it. Third my mom and dad were divorced years ago because a marriage counselor told him that in the end if you can't save your marriage, then save yourself. My mom is way to long of a story to get into so I won't. Fourth I said I should probably stop for now only to let you catch up. I already forgot my friend and I would say END when we were done. The truth is, I just don't feel comfortable letting other males see my true self......what ever the reason. Just because I spoke to a female didn't mean I fully trusted them and bared all. I mean I naturally trust females far more easily than males. As far as my friend goes....? I don't know why really. Maybe it was just because we both really needed something that, up to that point, we had not been able to get. My friend, above other female friends I've had, excluding my wife, just had a way of speaking to me and vice versa that we both easily understood it seemed. We had similar back grounds, experience's, views, understanding. It came easy. FYI my friend had done a better job of stepping back than I did once we figured out things were "working too well" between us. That's how I came to write on this site in the first place. Aside from all I said, I was having a very difficult time disconnecting from her. ( on the inside) she had done a better job dealing with this but still wanted to maintain a strong friendship. The only thing that changed between us is obvious boundaries and we spoke less but we still interacted. That's what I was asking before. Was it ok to love my friend (on the inside). Over the last while though, I believe I've come to understand that I needed her friendship WAY more than she needed mine. I feel this is why I have trouble letting it go. Time helps to take care of things. Ok I told you all that so I could tell you this... So your not my chat buddy.... And why would you be? I'm here running off at the mouth about things that don't matter to anyone expecting to feel some kind of connection from you that I don't feel with my wife. I'm doing the same thing I must have done with my friend. I was tight lipped when my friend and I started to really talk and now after her, I don't know how to shut it off. This is rediculous. I found myself looking forward to chatting with you because it would seem I'm looking for connection any place I can get it. Your right , I should be getting this from my wife but I feel that maybe this is something I should learn to live without. My wife meets my needs and beyond in many ways and I need her for other and more important reasons than this communication, connection, meeting of the minds thing. But it just seems that she cannot meet this need as I need it and that's not her fault. I wonder how I fall short. Ahh there's the question right there.......would she even answer me, talk to me about it? She hasn't yet. What I'm saying is I need to stop this. If it's not my friend, then it's you, if not you than someone else I'll seek connection from. Clearly the problem is inside me. I did without connection like I had with my friend for so long. Now that I know what it tastes like, how do I go with out? This is going to be the last message I will write due to all the reasons I've just given. If you have some ground breaking, life changing advice, now would be good time. Thanks for talking to me.

Do you mean they take the p*ss? Do they really? What gits! I would have put it down to their being embarrassed and at a loss to know what else to say were it not for the fact they do it at a later occasion rather than at the time. Are they that desperate for comedic material or that socially awkward they have no respect for sensitivities and subjects that are off-limits? Or are you somewhat enviable to these male friends of yours, meaning they can't resist the temptation to pull you down a peg later on when they assume you're adequately over it in terms of emotional arousal? Or is it their kack-handed way of trying to make you make light of the situation to cheer you up? Mum and dad, noted. "she had done a better job dealing with this but still wanted to maintain a strong friendship." Yes, but most people aren't very good at compartmentalising and not blurring lines/crossing boundaries, even unwittingly. That's precisely why therapists and psychiatrists have strict time limits as well as codes of ethics that prohibit the development of personal attachments. As pack animals, we humans are empathetic thus very 'contagious', and falling in love (through mutually-compatible needs getting repeatedly met), even against our best wills and intentions, too easy. As a therapist, if you choose to eschew normal demarcation then it has to be because you're impervious (tried and tested) due to an especially independent and determined mind/will and sense of self. Plus, playing rescuer (giver) and dependent (taker) inevitably ruins the friendship at some point anyway. There comes a time when, back to full strength, the 'victim' can't tolerate being reminded every time they look at you of their past inordinate vulnerability and the rescuer unable to tolerate being stuck in this dynamic where they're constantly expected as usual to give and never start taking. It's similar to when some people detest family get-togethers because they feel shoved straight back into a past pack status and role from which they would wish to have long disassociated themselves. And two people are still a pack as still calls for 'positioning'. So Rescuer-Rescued is absolutely not a dynamic that's conducive to equal and democratic friendship afterwards. In actual fact, therefore, you having temporarily pulled the plug counts as your having saved and preserved this friendship. Come the time when that aspect of your feelings towards her has long gone and you try to re-spark contact, she'll be too intrigued to know what on earth happened to tell you to "do one", and, once then fully-informed about your having had to pull out due to falling artificially yet convincingly in-love (or cupboard-love) in terms of that one part, will then understand and appreciate too well (as well as be flattered) to be capable of staying bitter and holding a grudge. Or she will if she's a true friend, anyway, meaning, it's a useful test. Win/Win. Instant gratification sacrificed for the greater, longer-term good. Karma Kredits, as I call them, coming your way (watch that space). "I'm doing the same thing I must have done with my friend. / Now that I know what it tastes like, how do I go with out?" Nope. Because, unlike your on-ice friend, I am an island whenever I'm wearing my adviser hat. IT TAKES TWO. So I consider this an intellectual connection, not emotional...a puzzle that begs to be unravelled and re-laid straight (or at least loosened for your therapist). There's the difference that makes ALL the difference. Plus, you don't even know what gender I am (ah-hah!) ;-). No-one here does, actually, except for the owner (and he ain't sayin' nuffin'). I get called 'she' and 'he' in equal measure and don't give one iota of a sh*t either way. Nope, this is a completely safe environment on that score. Your difficulty (or less than optimacy) with your wife is on the emotional level. She's perfectly capable like anyone else of listening, sympathising and helping but...RESENTMENT. Even having that roadblock effectively hold her at arm's length from you would cause that - no-one's fault, just the situation's. She just needs more incentive (coins). Saying that, however, spouses are only supposed to come to your aid within reason. Anything over and above the fairly immediately solvable is too much for ones loved-one because they're involved, meaning, if you're unhappy, it affects them and they're unhappy. She doesn't want to get laden, as she knows she would, with a sense of helplessness. The way around that is to foie gras her with fun and positivity both romantic and otherwise in order to counter that load (think set of scales and keeping them balanced). THEN she'll be more geared to taking it on without it dragging her down. That simple, that easy. But, ref going without, it has to be someone(s) because, as I say, we're co-dependent, cooperative creatures by design with uncontrollable humanistic needs to match, and the isolated and alienated go mad pretty damned quickly. Frighteningly so, actually. Well - take your male friends and, nuff said! LOL Well, it's up to you but I'm not going anywhere. If you do decide against, might I recommend you get yourself a Wilson? ;-D

...And not go boating with him! LOL

You gave yourself away once a while back. :) but since you don't care:)

I doubt that very much, but, yep, couldn't give a fiddler's pluck. When's your next session? Are you doing weekly, twice-weekly or fortnightly?

Believing is not knowing. ;) I was going weekly but my therapist suggested that I had made such improvement that maybe we could cut it back to once a month. Plus we were digging up things that made me question if they really needed to be rembered or not. Anyway, my wife and I are currently in the middle of moving, maybe Utah, maybe Oregon, don't know. We sold our house and have to be out soon. I will see my therapist one last time because , in my mind, I've developed a bond with her.......even if I'm paying her. (Yea,yea.....I know I said I was done with this site)

"Was" going weekly? You make it sound as if it were a course. You can only have had a couple of 50-minute sessions, surely? I thought you had this incredible urge towards opening up and sharing about the annals of your past as your primary reason behind being unable to bear to stop talking to that married ex-schoolfriend of yours? I mean, what length of 'past' are we talking about here? Six months' worth?

PS: Why are you relocating? And why states away to Utah or Oregon? Surely if you had a new job lined up as was why you were selling your house, you'd know more precisely than that where you were headed and would have ensured to have purchased a house to move to? How does your wife feel about moving hundreds of miles away without yet having a new home ready and waiting for you? Or are you intending to stay in motels until you find a rental?

1 hr. To 1 1/2 hr. Sessions Once a week since the end oct./ first of nov. (don't remember which) up until a month and a half ago is how often I went to therapy. Length of past: my whole life. Reason for not able to bear not talking to my friend: third my past, third the natural ease of intellectual communication, third just a cool person. Relocating: lost a pregnancy, change of scenery, time to just move on and do something else. We moved to Idaho 7 yrs ago by more or less throwing a dart at a map. No family, no dream job in Idaho. Wife having surgery to "uncomplicate" conception. In between pregnancies....have the opportunity for an adventure. Live in Oregon for a short time or perminately or move to Utah closer to family for a short time or Perminately. Want to build a house but only want to do it once.....looking for the perminate place to start a family. Getting older, running out of time for such "wing-it" life style. Came to the point in our lives where marriage has evolved into what it currently is. Time to have children. Will have $25000 in pocket from house. No debt. Collage paid for, vehicles paid for. Wife said she would follow me anywhere so though I desire to have a 50/50 joint decision, I make the decision that is best for both and future kids. ( or I try to).............in short, we're in a position to ask our selves " now what shall we do"?

You and your wife lost a pregnancy? Oh, good grief, why on earth didn't you say so earlier?! The mist clears. Did you and she get offered counselling at the time?

I guess because i didn't come here to talk about that. No counseling, my therapist on several occasions encouraged me to bring my wife before and after the pregnancy loss but I always said not yet only because I wanted to work on me first. So that was hard on us. Hard on me because it always pissed me off, even as a child, for adults to practice the "do as I say, not as I do" thing. So I was developing what I considered to be good habits so by the time the child was old enough to learn from me, I would be teaching by example. I rested my hand on my wife's stomach when watching tv. Little things like that. When it happened, it was hard for me to handle because I was living for it all ready and was taken away in an instant. We are fine now. We later lost a 2nd pregnancy but it wasnt near as far along as the first was. We are ok with what's going on concerning that and the complications we had will soon be gone......and that's all I have to say about that.

What the Hell.... Where did you go Soulmate??? I need some guidance and you just took off on me. Im sure you have other "irons in the fire" but I need some guidance here..

Ty for sharing. I can understand wjy you keep this only for yourself. You are a good man to make the right choices. It apears as if everyone hwre is suggeating that you need to talk to your wife about it. Why? So she knows u r inlove with someone else? No way! Dont do it. But quit beating yourself up. Try to forget her. Hinestly if you want to end the pain but stay with your wife. No morensocial.net work babe. Only way tp forget is out of sight out if mind. May i wish you relief of your tormented heart. Focus

LOL. I did 'take off', yes. I've been 'cheating' on you all week. With the toilet.... "HEEUUUUUUUUGH!" (Gut flu.) I've managed one piddly post tonight but now I'm knackered from still being feak 'n weeble and having lost/chucked-up half a Stone in weight, so it's Bedfordshire for me and I'll be back on tomorrow. [insert Green-faced, baggy-eyed emoticon]

Right then... "I guess because i didn't come here to talk about that." Well, then, maybe this will teach you not to always believe what you think. If one could always be that in-touch with every corner of ones own psyche that they constantly knew exactly where complicated feelings and urges were stemming from, the psychotherapeutic industry would have died a death centuries ago. "No counseling, my therapist on several occasions encouraged me to bring my wife before and after the pregnancy loss but I always said not yet only because I wanted to work on me first." Doh! And why do you think she said that? For the fun of it? *Think*, Grasshopper! "So that was hard on us." Under-statement. "Hard on me because it always pissed me off, even as a child, for adults to practice the "do as I say, not as I do" thing. So I was developing what I considered to be good habits so by the time the child was old enough to learn from me, I would be teaching by example." Other way round, mate - they teach you FAR more than you teach them. But in actual fact, the 'do as I say, not as I do' rank-puller/shutter-upper is wholly valid because there are different and greater rights and privileges open to adults than to children. Were there not, where would be kids' incentives and aspirations for becoming adults rather than remaining at home with the ol' folks forever and ever? Not that I don't appreciate what you're saying: you wanted to get yourself more 'daddy-ready'. But that's where you and wife attending counselling *together* came in. It's "mummy and daddy", a single entity comprised of two units, not either/or. "I rested my hand on my wife's stomach when watching tv. Little things like that. When it happened, it was hard for me to handle because I was living for it all ready and was taken away in an instant." And everyone always immediately rushes forward to comfort the wife, right? "We are fine now. We later lost a 2nd pregnancy but it wasnt near as far along as the first was. We are ok with what's going on concerning that and the complications we had will soon be gone......and that's all I have to say about that." 'New house, new baby'. Ever heard that one? Course you have. It's true. So there you go, now you know what's behind the move *and* behind trying to secure your own 'counselling'/counselling just for you: You're 'owed'. But you need to involve your wife more. If you're owed then so automatically is she (think about it).

I never understood how right you were, soulmate, when you said you had seen my type before. It would seem that my situation is of the "cookie-cutter" nature. A count on how many times you rolled your eyes to my words would be interesting to know. Hope your holidays are good.

I admitted to you once my vocabulary was not as developed as yours. Please answer the best you can without applying your answer directly to me. I'm sure I know how you may address this already but my curiosity risdes in your perspective since, before today, I had no knowledge of such a word or practice and I don't even know how I personally feel about it. What do you yourself know of polyamory and what is your professional opinion of it?

Story of my life. But it wasn't me that was right, it was the truth. However, truth's a mute and us beans its mouthpieces. So I just pointed it out/represented it 'in court'. And I wouldn't worry about my eye-rolling. They roll on a permanent basis these days, so much so I'm like a Fruit Machine on-legs. (I'm just waiting for them to finally rest on two cherries in the hope that a load of coins might cascade out of my a*se ("...which was nice") LOL) It's less about your type, that's a mere detail that just colours all the intricacies slightly differently, produces side-symptoms. It's more about how a situation (dis-ease) affects all or any humans. What gender you are, what type of personality, culture, etc., then dictate in what ways out of a total 'menu' you then react to and DEAL with the situation (- the main symptoms). Two personality-compatible people even inadvertently meeting each other's needs can mimic falling in-love quite convincingly, despite the other vital ingredient (for willingness to succeed *forever, Amen*) is missing, i.e. a certain higher quantum of chemistry. That missing vital is one of the reasons WHY you and that pen-pal never sufficiently hit it off originally when at school and why, you years later seeing her pregnant, your natural male-male competitiveness PLUS your latent, never discharged portion of same (due to dad always having won), PLUS ambition in the form of social status maintenance/elevation (other men want her so nowadays she's finally a symbol of social success) got triggered into play, ...all those elements lumped together making the romantic element (desire) SEEM far stronger than it actually was. Common stuff. It's ALL common stuff. Because we're all human beings. Open marriages are lack of commitment, aka over-self-protectivity/insurance) in consensual motion. If you spread your investment (let's say, left-over disposable income = savings) around between a number of banks then you're not worried about any one of those banks going under, nor indeed the main one (if that's the case) because you've still got the sum of the cash in Bank B, C and D. That might be sensible in a recession, despite the downsides of your earning less interest per capita and more paperwork, etc., etc. *and* - more to the problematic point - your being less likely to receive VIP Customer treatment from either of them. The customer who puts their sum total of savings into any interest-earning account is the customer that's nigh-on *guaranteed* of getting the Red Carpet treatment *and* the higher rate of interest. It's a total waste of time, aka procrastination. It just delays and complicates the inevitable (splat). If you're going to split, just get on with it. Procrastination does not avoid workloads, it allows the workload to GROW whereby it then becomes a mountain too high for any human to even consider tackling. It's another form of self-harm, actually, just a more subtle, less honest version, and a sign of control-freakery having got out of hand, because it's you denying Nature/Fate its own effect and affect (uh-oh - brace-brace-brace!). Fate frowns mightily on people that won't do it's patently obvious bidding ("I'm not just going to let you ig-NORE me, Dan!" (Fatal Attraction). It's a marriage partner interface mechanism between you (the environment/universe contained in your head) and the physical world, Mother Nature. So like any marriage partner that never gets listened to or taken any notice of, it'll start giving you gyp.. via said bodyguard, Fate. And, unfortunately, it's one hell of a heavyweight, meaning, "YOR GONNA BE GOIN' 'OME IN AN AMBERLANCE!". I wouldn't if I were you. Or rather, I wouldn't if she were me (if it's her idea). I really, really wouldn't. It's no more a solution than alcohol for stress and woes. The cure too quickly becomes the newly additional disease. (Oopsie-daisy, forgot you said not to apply it to you.......Oh, well, bit late now... particularly as you yourself applied it to you to begin with: "and I don't even know how I personally feel about it".) (Shall I ruffle your head hair now or later? ;-)) PS: Very good, thank-you. Until last night, Mr Soulmate was away on custody (France) for nearly two weeks and kiddo at his dad's (our Xmas day is going to be tomorrow) which, although I miss him + him terribly, means I get what I need, which is, to be com-puh-LETELY AND UTTERLY on my tod ("haaaaaah!"). Separation, even your mini versions, are a relationship's Noo-Noo (eh-oh!...again-again!), a complete Godsend, which goes for ones relationship with oneself too, as can sneakily 'slide' unnoticed into your relationship with another,...s/he said,...for absolutely no reason at all, just chatting, ...what was the question again?

Polyamory was no ones idea, not mine, not hers. It was concept I ran across when investigating others that posted said situation asking what others thought about it as I once did. Some people I know have been known to give advice based on emotion toward who is asking....hence why I wanted an answer that didn't apply to me, but then, I forgot who I have was dealing with. I supposed I asked because I never knew there was a word for such a thing and that we may have been in the early stages of such.

Okay. Got ya. Gotta dash for now. Mr S is having a well-deserved (oy-oy) nap and is starting to awaken. "Laters!" PS: Do feel free, if you've an inkling, to offer around your advice now that you're wiser?

I'm trying out my infant therapy wings. I rather enjoy it. Definitely something I enjoyed of the relationship my friend and I had. We'll see how it goes. :)

I've seen. IMO, you've got huge potential! :-) Don't stop there, though, will you - we've got a huge queue banking-up!

I guess I'll see what I can do.

"I WANNA LIVE-LIKE COM-MON PEO-PLE.... I WANNA DO-WHAT..-EVER..COMMONPEOPLE DO, WAN-NA SLEEP-WITH COM-MON PEO-PLE,....WANNA SLEEP WITH..COM-MON-PEO-PLE ...LIKE YOU......Well, what else..could I do?... I said,..'I'll see what I can do'." (Cheers for the sing-song! LOL)

Aww dear....

:-D (I'm allowed. It's Christmas.) (That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.)