I absolutely hear you, Theo... I don't expect to hear those words from my W, but I can certainly imagine the follow the "I don't feel married" paradigm quite nicely...
starsky, I can imagine you probably have a list of "1001 phrases the WAS in an A say" somewhere in your document file...
girl... so true... you hear one, you've heard them all...
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The A itself is devastating in itself... I can imagine having an "accidental A" and lying by omission... Doesn't make it right... but I understand that...
Or the spouse who really does not want to end the M and has an A to fulfill some missing need in their life that is not being met by the spouse... I understand that... The "courtesan" on the side...
I guess... for me... it's more of the question of the spouse... who is in the middle of the exit strategy... trying to do it all on the sly... trying to get their ducks in a row before they bomb... the lies associated with that... THOSE are the ones that are hard to understand...
"I love you but I'm not IN love with you"... ok... we all can know or pretend to know unconditional love... sure... I love all of you on this board and am not IN love with you...
But... I'm also not opposed to telling y'all that I don't love you... and I don't want to be married to you... you're all ...
When they have one foot out the door... they really don't want to be with us... but they aren't prepared to tell the LBS... so the lies start...
What's that?
What's the thing that's going on in their minds that is making it so difficult to emotionally let go of us that they have to lie to protect some other thoughts they are having... even if they are sure they are doing the "right" thing... but they have to lie about it...
I don't know... I don't know if I can even put words to what I think they're thinking to rationalize the lies... and the deceit... that in their minds... aren't lies and deceit... yet as mentioned, they will tell some, but not the people who they generally seek the opinion of... when they are troubled by something...
You're going to drive yourself crazy, trying to decipher the undecipherable. The brain of someone caught up in affair is awash in PEAs, and the person is seething with entitlement, resentment and guilt. You are trying to project your own current, rational, moral thoughts and values onto a woman who is none of those things, at least not right now.
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