BlogHer - affair - Comments

Wow.

MizSmith — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:56:09 -0500

I absolutely loved reading this. Everything you said is so true. I ended my marriage four years ago and removing the ring was the biggest relief I felt in a long time. I wanted the disconnecton. He was dead weight for me and I knew I could never get what I needed in life with him around. We were young and grew into two very different people. I enjoy growing and challenging myself and he's content being exactly where he is.

My new relationship isn't the greatest and I've dealt with his infidelities. But theres something more in our relationship that made it worth sticking out. I believe we cannot find everything we want in just one person. We've never had the discussion about his affair so to speak, but I'd like to know what he feels I was lacking. Either way there are many times I'd love to have an affair myself. Find what I'm missing from him else where. Fortuantely for my family I have more self control but the temptation is always there. It's just like you said, it's always on his terms, his schedule, his time. What about my plans, my schedule and my time?

www.MizSmith.com

Cheating

oigeli — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:37:08 -0500

Is Your Partner Cheating?

http://digg.com/people/voiceBubble_Is_Your_Partner_Cheating

Having It All

laurie percival — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:57:36 -0500

"What if you can't have a best friend and a passionate love and a tryant and doting husband all in one?"

I have one of those really rare and special relationships with my husband. Where I do have a best friend and doting husband who is also a passionate lover.

[ducks from books being hurled at her from other readers]

I realize that the relationship that I have is rare because I only know one other couple that has it. We have found what works for us and revel in it, but what keeps our relationship strong is the communication and desire we both have to immerse ourselves into each others lives. When you lead very seperated lives, it's hard to make the connections that you really need in order to create a strong bond with someone.

This article is extremely touching, heartbreaking and probably maddening for some, but it is full of truth. Most people do not find all that they are looking for in one person, one relationship. I used to get very upset when I would hear about people cheating. Why not break up or get divorced, I would say. To assume that I knew the intricacies of that person's relationship and what would be best for them was naive. I understand now that marriage, like life is not simple or easy. There is no equation that you can apply to ensure a perfect relationship. Unfortunately more often than not, You + Me does not = Happily Every After.

I wish you the best with your future fires; don't let them completely consume you until you have everything you want.

The disconnect isn't the worst bit, its the ONLY bit.

kazari — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 02:21:27 -0500

Everything else is logistics or practicalities.

The disconnect, is almost impossible to acknowledge, then almost impossible to ignore.

That whole separate schedules thing, the disconnect - we did that. Maybe we're still doing that. But right now he's come home, and we're trying to work it.

It's been... isolating, heart-breaking, grief-inducing... but still, we are trying. I think we can put it back together. I don't know how long it will take.

The first question, i guess - do you want to fix it?

Choosing yourself

Wilma Ham — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:08:44 -0500

To disconnect feels unnatural; it hurts, starves and destroys.

I found the disconnection the hardest thing. I kept trying to connect over and over again until I saw it was no use and until I saw how being disconnected did starve and destroy us both and the children too. When I finally could see the damage it was doing I had the courage to call it quits even when I knew there would be consequences like fights about the kids which I would lose and I did.
However I knew I could overcome all those consequences eventually, once I was no longer starved of love.
I made the right choice, the children are choosing to come back to me and I am once again full of love.

Disconnection kills, it also keeps wars and discrimination and hate alive.

Wilma Ham

www.wilmasblog.com

If only

Laracolvin — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:03:00 -0500

it were as easy as taking off the ring. You are so right. I think back to my recently ended marriage and try to pinpoint a moment when I knew the disconnection was serious. Was it when I couldn't buy greeting cards because I didn't feel them? Was it when I heard a friend of mine say the best choice she ever made in her life was to marry her husband, and I couldn't imagine how that felt? Maybe it was realizing the marriage was no longer safe. It was no longer home. I don't know - but when it breaks - whether it is the first or last time, it is somber and painful and nuanced.

I'm so, so sorry you disconnected - or rather, have to feel all that goes along w/it. It does get better, eventually.

Lara

Notions of Identity

Verbal Abuse

SoMuchMoreThanAMom — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:01:24 -0500

Your husband is always calling you fat? That's verbal abuse.

You don't have to earn his love and respect by DOING more or EARNING more. If he loved you, he would treat you as if he loved you. It is not your responsibility to make things as perfect as possible for him.

What's in this for you? You're being called mean-spirited names and running your a-- off trying to make him love you ? Why? What's he doing for you?

http://somuchmorethanamom.wordpress.com/

Nothing Like Giving Up

SoMuchMoreThanAMom — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:57:31 -0500

Wow. Just like that he gave up. That doesn't sound like he was actually committed to begin with.

Marriage isn't all wine and roses, fireworks and intense passion. That's just the beginning of any relationship. It always fades. That doesn't mean the relationship wasn't "meant to be". Marriage is just life and it takes work. I don't know how long you were married, but for him to not even want to try, to talk, go to counseling, just take off the ring and go back to being single?!

Sounds like you are much better off without him.

http://somuchmorethanamom.wordpress.com/

I think it's unrealistic to

caudelac — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:56:38 -0500

I think it's unrealistic to expect that, being in a relationship, you won't anymore feel alone. Alone is the human condition. We feel alone with our friends, our family, our lovers, most of the time. It's our gift. We are individuals.

Sometimes, for moments, we don't, and those are lovely. But if we don't know who we are when we're alone, if we are running from that alone so madly and so desperately that we demand from our lover-- who also feels alone, by god, because they are also a human being-- this meshy-togetherness all of the time, then of course there will be an implosion. Our spouse is not a stuffed toy, to be carried around like Calvin carries Hobbes, and then sits in the playroom when we have other duties. They have lives of their own, that go on when we're not around. I think it is realising this that makes a lot of men feel alone and neglected. They hate to think of what their dolls are doing when the nursery door is shut, and they expect them to return to their places quick as light, and be sitting on the bedcover with a smile when they return.

I'm sorry to hear that your husband couldn't figure this the hell out.

Remarkable Story

maxreduce — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 08:12:23 -0500

I was totally mad at first when I read it until am finish.I am married for a year now and still making some necessary adjustment to make things out better and perfect as possible. Life is indeed mysterious and full of surprises and you will never know.

I have this fear that my husband will look for another women since he always telling me how fat I am after giving birth. What I did is I tried to make myself busy and make money for him or act as a provider but still is isn't enough. All that's in my head now is to prepare for things that I am scared of that when it comes I will be enough ready to face it.

I might know a secret about Elizabeth Edwards...

puella — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:31:59 -0500

While it might seem obvious that she has been slapped down emotionally by John, consider the possibility that she is soooo over him and has been since she made it through the first bout of cancer.

I've been there, done that (cancer, surgery, straying spouse) and I can't tell you how little the fidelity of my spouse matters to me from this perspective. I know I'm not the only one because there is fascinating research that shows the increased likelihood of marriages to break up after the woman has brain surgery (my particular focus)...and get this...overwhelmingly because the woman leaves the man.

After you look death in the face-I speak for strong women here, Elizabeth is one-facing the joke of the affair John had is just that, a joke.

My theory: Elizabeth is sooooo over him, and would be soooo out the door if it wouldn't be a political/media circus. I guarantee you this: she puts up with nothing when they are behind closed doors and is doing only the things that she finds meaningful to herself, her life, her mission. She is no victim, she has been freed from the confines of the fairy-tale myth unscathed women muck through.

marriage is tough!

Julia Stonestreet Smith — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 00:13:28 -0500

I'm not sure I know what the answer is but it feels like the direction we're heading with the nuclear family puts incredible pressure on a marriage. It's a couple out there on their own with kids...hanging together for years and sometimes getting bored or drifting apart. I wonder if smaller communities with stronger bonds tend to have less cheating because everyone knows everyone? In those communities there might be more support for the couple and the family so that these rifts don't develop. WAIT A MINUTE! I guess cheating has been going on forever no matter what the community context...

this is good stuff

Julia Stonestreet Smith

writing weekly wisdom for YOU at:

http://www.leoninetimes.blogspot.com

The funny thing about this post is

Suzanne Reisman — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:31:38 -0500

that while I am very interested in the topic and hopeful that marriage will change in the future to better accommodate our needs as human beings, I'm committed to monogamy for myself. Not only because I fear hurting (and losing) my husband and admit that I'd absolutely be devastated if I found out that he had an affair, but also because it seems like the simpler way to go. It's not like I haven't been attracted to other people (for example, I don't think that fantasies of running away with Daniel Craig for a steamy weekend count as cheating), but I don't feel the need to act on it. (Not that Daniel Craig asked me to run away for a steamy weekend, but if he did, I'd force myself to say no for the aforementioned reasons.)

Suzanne Reisman, Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants

it is ever evolving

mommalittle.com — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:02:23 -0500

I've often thought about what marriage would be like for my children, but oddly, never beyond that. Without a doubt, you are very correct about how different it will be. Which leads me to a thought I had after the news of Edwards affair broke. Now, I'm in no way suggesting that the Edwards had an open relationship because Elizabeth's cancer made sex difficult or, frankly, unbearable, but I thought it was interesting that no one assumed that could be the case. Not 2 weeks ago, Oprah aired an episode upon this very subject and the couples in "open" relationships all looked like PTA parents. They weren't carrying whips while licking their lips at the audience. I hate that John jeopardized the party I love for his own ambition, but I hate more that leaders are put through a political litmus test. Most of our most successful leaders have been dirty dogs.

Also, I found the Guttmacher statistics very interresting, especially the more partners one has from 18 to the first marriage, the more likely they are to committ adultry. As soon as I read that, I thought of all the married and divorced people I know and that really seemed to be indicative of their future monogomy or lack there of.

GREAT POST!

Come share a laugh!

http://mommalittle.com

very insightful assessment of marriage

Suzanne Reisman — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:06:46 -0500

You are so right on in every way! Marriage has changed so much over time, and it is interesting to think about what it will look like in the future.

Suzanne Reisman, Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants