I can't believe I am thinking about

Did it, twice. Had a totally fucked up marriage. Abusive alcoholic husband. Is it an excuse? I guess not. I should have just left him instead of cheating on him but life is complicated.

What is missing in your marriage that causes you to even consider an extramarital affair? If you can't pinpoint any dissatisfaction, keep looking. The dissatisfaction is there. Identify it, confront it, work through it.

Ah, just saw your response about your mother-in-law moving in with you. You may not enjoy her presence there but I doubt the solution to the problem lies in you having an affair.

Your problem is with you and your wife, not you're mother in law. If you've failed to insist on having a relationship with your wife which promotes open and honest communication, then the blame for it's failure rests with you. Your mother-in-law is a convenient way to lay the blame elsewhere and justify doing whatever is convenient in making you feel more of a man and more in control.

 

Pretty much what MixedMedia said. For my comment, substitute 'sex' for 'approval, companionship, and respect,' especially from our spouses. All of which can take a hit when parents move in.
My mother-in-law's mom moved in with her while my parents were living with us. We often escaped together to vent. MIL and I are 25 years apart, but our stories were similar. The parents forgot to act like guests, or at least grateful someone was providing a roof over their heads. They forgot they were not in charge, that we didn't have to do things their way. They stayed up late at night, TV and heat both cranked, when we had to work the next morning. They rearranged our friggin' furniture. They corrected us, to the point of nagging. They played guilt trips on us when they weren't getting what they wanted. They acted like toddlers, playing spouse against spouse, trying to divide and conquer. They repeatedly put themselves between their hosts, acted disrespectfully, and down-talked us to each other as well as to other family members. Constant friction disrupted what little private "couple time" that we had. The approval/companionship/respect we used to have with our spouses and thought we had from our parents was just gone.
Even half of that could make a person dream of greener pastures. Hell, I did. If any of that sounds familiar, I'm sure it is even harder that you lost your mother (the other person with whom you hopefully had unconditional love).

If my story doesn't touch a nerve at all, my other guess is that it's hard to see your spouse constantly close with her mother when you have recently lost your own. Especially if they don't include you in their special "circle." I am sorry for your loss.

 

If it's just thoughts, and you never intend to do any acting on it, then don't worry. Fantasies are allowed, and fantasizing about people you know is part of the deal. It's okay, and it helps "blow off steam," acting as a release valve to prevent doing anything you'd really regret afterward.

But if you're really considering taking action, really thinking of having the affair, I recommend not doing so. It's not that I don't get falling out of love with your spouse; and it's not that I don't get wanting to be with someone other than to whom you're married. And I can only sympathize with the various unfortunate occurrences that might be exacerbating your yearnings for freedom, some blow for your own individuality.

But honesty has got to come first and foremost. If you're going to hook up with someone not your wife, fine: but tell her and break up with her first. Whatever problems there might be in the relationship, everyone deserves honesty, and if they don't, you do. You deserve to be an honorable person. Because when all else is said and done, whatever you might gain or lose in your life, you always have yourself first of all. And you deserve for yourself to be someone you like and respect.

 

i was gonna chime in but Levite said it for me
do everything you can to correct whatever short commings you find in yourself (as it pertains to the relationship)
express every problem you find in your spouse
address everything in your relationship that needs addressing and work to fix them
when you've done all this and find then that you don't want to be in the relationship, part as friends
regardless of what you do, you WILL look back on this time in your life. Try and look back with the satisfaction that you did what was right for you and the person you once gave your life to

 

Hi, SirLance.

On this board, I've seen 'Shall I ... Shan't I' threads started by people who want confirmation. You've taken it to another level. As far as I am concerned, you are already solving the problem. You've got your Strong Principles, you know you are not going to do it, and you are going to explore the sense of 'Wanting', until you've sorted what you Really want. Then you'll want that. It will be more thought out, and you'll mentally and emotionally test and check the idea alongside of your Strong Principles until it is agreeable with them. You will know and, because you're bringing it here, we will know.

In a way, you've Already gone outside your marriage.

Check the following phrase:

"By coming here, you've Gone Outside Your Marriage."
You are sharing intimate stuff outside of your marriage.

If what I've just said feels totally NOT fitting, then throw it away and accept my apologies for being waaay off base.

I'm trying to say you're doing extra-marital stuff with your Pants On. You're doing extra-marital Thinking.

I AM pushing the message of my agreement at you that the stuff WITHIN your present situation is not enough ... it is not enough ... to such an extent that you've gone into personal crisis rather than just sit and put up with it or hope that things will just feel better by themselves. An earlier poster reckons the issue is an emotional rather than a sexual one. I'm following that line of thinking, too.

Your wife and you have your ups and downs. Somone else is living amongst you, AND (respects for your loss, SirLance) you mother has recently died. WHAT do you need? I, a stranger, do my best to guess, from what you've written, WHAT do you need. I can 'feel' an extramarital affair is a surefire way of distracting intensely away from feelings of 'just' being at home in your present situation. Life would suddenly get Incredibly Exciting for you ... there'd be 'openness to attraction and attractiveness', there'd be romance and then heat of passion, there'd be intrigue and frissons, and there'd be an opportunity for you to have long and agonising internal conversations - 'valiant tragic hero', and 'nasteh dirty-dog' skirmishes with your soul as the battleground. I stand with you on the mountain top and wave my hand toward all this territory which could be yours.

Trust me ... whatever problems you've got at home will shrink to trivia and blow away on the breeze of your greater excitements elsewhere. You may leave your discomfort, your claustrophobia and your grief and frustration at home. More specifically, you may leave at home those feelings you'd rather leave at home ... you know them better than I.

You know them so well, that I can only imagine how you're getting to know them better Now or at least begin to clarify them, or just notice their important direction.

Wouldn't it be great to explore all of them? As .. heck ... YOU'VE Already Said is you're Intent on doing this thoroughly "help me understand what is really behind this".

"Understand what is really behind this". Rather than becoming a panting dick, you keep your dick in your pants and, instead, become a private dick, sleuthing and hunting down high quality information which lets you define and take the wisest routes, which shall honour your principles - your sacred life-learnings at the same time as you explore them.

In conclusion, re-reading what I've written to you, SirLance, I don't think I've really added anything. I reckon I've just tried to take two lines you've written, haul them up your flag-pole, illuminate them with floodlights, televise it ...

.... on ALL channels. Primetime and every one of your neurons is sitting, gawping at it. The screen is so big and bright that your message blazed through even when the eyelids are closed. The sound system is Sensurround ... the thunder of your own voice wakens the sleeping and the forgotten.

That whatever you do or don't do, you shall not go behind Your Own back: that whatever you talk yourself OUT of, you may talk yourself INTO stuff you know you'll accept a month, a year, two, five years from now; that you continue the tough yet simple honest answering you're already doing.

Respect and best wishes to you.

 

That a total stranger would take the time and thought to post as all here have totally confirms my opinion of the TFP. I've been part of this community for a while, and you get honest answers here. Maybe not the ones you want to hear, but honest ones.

Zen, thank you.

I don't know how this will come out, but I am (with the help of you all) figuring out that this is about escape (I don't remember extra-marital affairs being a part of SERE, though...).

I want out, because I am not at peace and I see escape as a way to find peace.

It is not, however, and I know that from personal experience.

I'll keep you all posted!

 

I had opportunities, but, for various reasons, never acted on them. I don't know if I could have handled the guilt, though. Once it's done, there's no turning back. Could your relationship, with your wife, ever feel the same, knowing what you do?

 

An affair is like a heavy rock lifted over your head. The question is not whether it's going to stay up there, but who it's going to hurt when it falls. Been there. Worth it? Maybe.
My advice: Do NOT fall in love with the other woman.

 

The disturbing thing is that my ex cheated on me. I know exactly how it feels. Then she decided he was "the one."

So it would only hurt my mrs, and I don't want to do that. That is part of why I am so disturbed by this mindset.

 

If you don't want to hurt the Mrs, don't. "What she don't know won't hurt her," will come back to bite you in the ass, guaranteed.
--- merged: Mar 15, 2012 at 2:23 PM ---
Sorry about that. Absolutist thinking there. I understand totally being torn between wanting it and not wanting to hurt anyone.
And I must say that the only reason I ended up not getting divorced was that I had the outlet of the affair. In the end, when Mrs. Hat found out, we were made stronger as a couple by it.
Still, if there were anything I could do to ease the pain of the other woman, I would do it. There isn't. There is a special room in hell for me over that.
Hence: Do NOT fall in love.

 

Top & JonieMack are right.

THe issue isn't my MIL, but she does interfere and that is a problem. I want "US" time, and I am not getting it.

I would rather she not be with us, but honestly she has nowhere else to turn, and while I can suggest to my wife that it might be time to think about another option for mom, the truth is there isn't one, so why put her in that position.

I would like to find a way to express my feelings without mrs lance feeling that she is in the middle. Any suggestions?

 

My wife and i have found ourselves in similar situations regarding us time... For us, its 2 samll kids, not MIL, that occupy most of our alone opportunites.

She has already liked a few posts here, so I'm sure my misses will back me up on the opinion that moving mom isnt the solution, especially since you say there are no other options. the solution, IMHO, is to create opportunities for you two to be alone. the only way to do that is to communciate with her. she has to know that this is a big deal to you. i wouldnt tell her you thought about cheating, but you do need to convey the signifigance of the issue.

My wife and i have a unique relationship in that i think we both have set ourselves up to tell each other anything. i have divulged some pretty rough feelings to her in the past, and the marriage didnt implode. and over time, things have gotten better than ever. Don't expect the problem to get fixed overnight, and be prepared to put a lot of time, effort and frustration into the solution. you both have to be aware of the problem, agree to a solution, and hold each other to carrying out that solution.

The answer could be weekend get-aways (could just be to the local watering hole, and a cheap hotel), or even getting MIL outta the house for a little while... But to be honest, your wife probably has the most power/opportunity/ability to conjure a solution. She is your MIL's kid, she knows whats feasible, and what isnt, and has the family card to play to make things happen...

I think you already decided not to cheat, but i have to back up Tophat... if you do, be prepared to lose everything. I've told the wife, i won't have sex with another woman, unless she tells me to! LOL Its the betrayal factor, none of us deserves to be lied to, even by omission...

 

I don't think you're surprised to see that the opinion is overwhelmingly against the affair. I've been there in considering it, for many of the reasons brought up here. I have never done it. I had the fortunate experience of a wonderful friend who was in a similar sort of situation and we supported each other in a way, managing to avoid going down that road.

There is nothing good that can come of this, and as MM said, it's like a drug... inviting, addicting, destructive. There are obviously issues that are affecting your relationship, and this is just a REACTION to those issues; NOT a solution. Communication in a relationship is essential, and within a relationship, sex is as much about communication as it is about procreation/recreation/pleasure. A relationship with bad or missing sex has some communications issues.

Deal with the issues and you will deal with your reaction to them. Just reacting (i.e. the affair) will not resolve those issues.

 

Now, how to turn things around. What it came to with Mrs. Hat and me, it turns out that she feels the same way about my doing dishes, cleaning house, and taking out the garbage as I do about her putting on sexy underwear, hugging and kissing, and good sex daily or more. Understanding the style of displaying love is key.

Us time, in a non-sexual sense, is also key. Now that our eldest is old enough to babysit the youngest, we have a standing date night (Wednesday), and we try to get out at least once more in the week. I do not go out without her. She rearranged her work schedule a bit (She's a teacher, so suffers from bring-work-home-itis), and I adjusted my thinking about chores.

 

I never physically cheated but cyberly I have (had) on both wives, mainly because it was something of a narcotic affect a high that was "it is only cyber and she'll never know." Wife #1 caught me in action and with wife #2, the problems (strife caused by the relationship she had with her pagan high whatever, right after we were married so that we had no time alone, made it easy to make the cyber visits and get bold enough for phone calls, then a trip to Canada where nothing happened. Within a year one of her friends and his girlfriend and her kid were being evicted and she had them move in.... that created a lot of friction and distance between us. I had already done the "run off" which did nothing but ruin the trust even though nothing happened it was fiancially a drain and ruined the trust she had, something I never regained or for that matter cared to regain.

Once her friend, his girlfriend and her daughter moved in and became houseguests (the people living under the stairs, as I was to call them) that would never leave constantly were in "our" living areas, created much strife and conflict between us.... the marriage was quick to end.

An affair, I found out for me, was just having the attention my spouse didn't give me given to me by someone else. There was never any tension (in fact it released inner tension), it was enjoyable, I got the attention I felt I was lacking and of course there were the compliments that helped because with the spouses there was life and a "routine" and compliments or cherishing the moments together seemed lost and we took each other for granted.

All that said, Psychologically speaking one reason you could have posted and asked that question is, you want to read "it's ok go ahead." Basically, someone writing your bullshit off and you finding an excuse where you don't have to accept the responsibility of your actions because x said it was ok. In that mindset, i say do what you want, but know YOU and YOUR SPOUSE will both live with the consequences for the rest of your lives. It's easy to hide it for awhile, impossible to hide it forever and once it has started it becomes much like MM said a drug, it's a narcotic, a high that you feel you are getting away with something and the object of the affair becomes nothing more than that 'untouchable" toy or object. It becomes a high thinking I can get away with this....... and i got away with that let's go this much further and see what happens.... ok now this much further.... and each time the danger of being caught sometimes consciencely, sometimes not becomes more of a thrill than the sex itself.

Do what you will Sir Lance but again, make sure you can live with the consequences.

 

You came here asking for advice. Here is mine.
Do not have an affair. This is not talking about sex, intimacy, or a break from the same old same old. This is talking about lying to someone, breaking their trust, and betraying them. I prefer a bitter enemy to an untrue friend. At least I know where their intentions lay.
It seems though that is not all of the question. Part of the question seems to be "Should I have sex with someone other than my spouse?" Unfortunately that answer can only be answered by you. If your choise is that you should, then I would hope that you would have enough respect for your spouse to breakup/separate/divorce before doing so.

 

I totally understand what these guys are experiencing. You start feeling like your life is over, that romance, love and sex are not going to happen to you again. You realize that you only live once and that this is your only chance to experience this one life fully and completely. You conclude that things are not going to change in your relationship. At the same time, what you are considering is unthinkable. Yet you are thinking about it. Honestly, it is one of the oldest stories in the world, and that does not make what you are going through less painful and heart wrenching. It's a torturous thing to go through.

OK, I've been there, and I made a choice that was very hard for many people. It was ten years ago, and I am now married and in an incredibly great relationship, one that is honest, vibrant, sexy, romantic - all that I ever hoped for. I have absolutely no doubt that this (my second marriage) will last forever and I have already learned and experienced so much, I almost feel like I've lived two lifetimes.

But, listen, I have a roomful of regrets. One of which is that I did it and another is that I waited so long to do it. I know there are scars, but everyone close to me is doing very very well. I did not do anything casually, it wasn't just about sex and I tried to be honest with everyone throughout the experience. But I know that I made mistakes and that I hurt people. But people get hurt either way.

I wish you both the best. Try to maintain your integrity and your self respect and be honest and as kind as possible with everyone. Talk about it, and get help if you need it - it is out there and it works.

 

a friend of mine has this agreement with his SO: you can look at the menu as long as you don't order anything

of course it's natural to think other ladies are sexy but as long as you have the self-restraint to know that you cannot do what you want to do, and that you've made the Commitment, fantasize all you want and be grateful for what you have and how many other people are jealous of your situation.

or the TFP sex/relationship/politics/masturbation cure: communication with the other party

 

Talk to your wife. Explain that you want more alone time with her. Take her out for dinner. Arrange for your MIL to go out to the movies without the two of you. Book a hotel for a night or two.

Make time for the two of you. Do it and don't feel guilty about it.

I don't know if you can, but I would suggest having a civil conversation with your MIL. Explain that having her live with you guys is not a problem but that the two of you do need to spend time without her. If she doesn't get this, she is being massively selfish but you can still work around it.

 

I have decided NOT to have an affair, and I want to thank all of you for helping me start down the road of figuring out what the hell is going on with me.

Thank you, all.