[readytofixmyselffirst]

Hello,

There is no shortage of married, non-MLC people, who have affairs. Let them to it.

Thanks Anjae, I often over diagnose MLC over the following

I just responded, "Oh, so he's a dou@he then.

There is a lot more of that then I want to accept.

It's funny because when I was with my ex for 18 years, I never cheated. Not once. Even when we were having issues and she had OM, I never strayed. I had opportunities but I have always prided myself on being loyal and not wanting the mess.

For example, there was a real cute speech therapist. Very cute. Also 20 years younger. We spoke often and had a lot of fun at work- even rumors that we were an item. I never saw her or met her outside of work. However, I could have pushed my limits and probably taken advantage of the situation. But, It would have been a mess. I was by no means ready for any relationship and she needed a mentor and a guide not an idiot.

Now she is married and I am remarried. We still keep in contact and we are good friends. The way it should be.

Maybe my dad is a great example. He's like me only smaller, but a very engaging and charming guy. Ladies love him. However, he has never strayed or even thought about straying. 59 years of marriage and he still is all over her.

Great role model.

I am in a new marriage and everything is great. Why ruin something that is great for a fling? A moment of passion and a lifetime of regret. To ruin a reputation and career for nothing. I love my wife and my family too much to hurt them like that.

Besides, I watched Fatal Attraction....that movie scared me. A Lot....Maybe all men should have to watch that movie every six months as a training film.

As much as I hate the OP, at least with MLC, there is the need for the fix, the depression and the avoidance that the OP will make them feel better, even heal them, to give them the life they feel they are missing out on. Their affair is terrible and destructive, but at least MLC has some explanation.

But the ones that cheat because the opportunity rises, that's even worse. It's like a killer telling the police. "I did it because I wanted to know what it feels like."

Just my opinion,

(((((Ready)))))

[Anjae]

You're welcome, Ready. As LBS and in a forum dedicated to MLC, we tend to see all cheating as MLC. It isn't. And MLC requires more than an affair. Some MLCers never have OW/OM, I didn't, others here didn't. My wallower cousin didn't, my single friends who had (are having) MLC didn't.

Many people of both genders are engaging and charming and ladies/gentlemen love them. It does not mean those people are going to have affairs.

Thanks Anjae, I often over diagnose MLC over the following

Why ruin something that is great for a fling? A moment of passion and a lifetime of regret. To ruin a reputation and career for nothing. I love my wife and my family too much to hurt them like that.

So much this. Even if, with MLCer, it is a little more complicate because MLCers tend to leave their spouse and establish a years long relatioship with OW/OM.

I am single, I could date any guy I wanted to. However, I don't want to date just any guy and just because. I am something meaninful. It is interesting, cheaters always seem to find people to cheat with, single people who want quality have it far more difficult. I think the operative word is quality.

Besides, I watched Fatal Attraction....that movie scared me. A Lot....Maybe all men should have to watch that movie every six months as a training film.

I don't know, Ready. Many men love that crazyness that they equal with great sex. It is probably great sex, but ... There are also many men who love drama, the more the better.

I am not a man, but I pass the crazy and the drama. I want quality, kindness, peace and quietness.

[sachat3]

As a general rule, when someone cheats it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the person they are with. It’s not a case of “oh he cheated on her so he doesn’t love her”. Typically you could cheat on the love of your life. It totally 110% depends on how you feel about yourself. Even if your with the love of your life if you have low self esteem, your quote likely to cheat. Out of women who cheat, a vast majority of them have just had a child and are feeling low. So I don’t think it’s about cheating because they can, there is much usually a much deeper rooted issue that causing them to cheat. Because if someone was to cheat because let’s just say they needed an easy lay, why not go to a brothel? Where your guaranteed one? It tends to be they need some kind of thrill that isn’t just the biology of the hokey pokey weather your cheating because or MLC or not. Also again why you find some people will cheat on every single person they have ever been with and some people don’t even think about it.

[Anjae]

Of course cheating has all to with the cheater and the cheater issues.

Because if someone was to cheat because let’s just say they needed an easy lay, why not go to a brothel?

Moral reasons to start with. Paying for sex is a boundary some people do not cross. It can also land you in troubles with the law in several places. Some people who cheat just want an easy lay. It still has all to with them, but that is all they want.

There are different types of cheating/affairs. For some is is merely because they can, for others it is because they are looking for something that they think is missing (in them, even if they may blame the spouse and/or marriage), others are sex addicts.

Sure, people may, and do cheat, on people they love, including the love of their live, but their love isn't that big, is it? Because if the issue is that they suffer from low self-esteem, then they don't really love anyone else that much.

If someone cheats of every person they have been with that person has serious issues. MLCers may cheat on all their alienators while in crisis, which would be connected to MLC. Not all MLCers cheat on OW/OM, many don't. They tranfer monogamy to OW/OM.

I can think of several ways of a woman who just had a child to feel better/less depressed than an affair. And how exactly does a woman who has just had a child has time and the will for an affair? For some reason, men whose wives are pregnant also cheat a lot.

What has always confused me with affairs, is where do people find time for them. A married person, with kids and a job still has time and energy for an affair? Or even married without kids, where to you find the time? Why do people like to be into such a mess and waste so much time with something useless, be it for the cheater or for OW/OM?

And way do so many OW (it is usually OW) waste their lives waiting for a married man who is never going to leave the wife? The OW of married woman tends to be more practical, enjoy it while it is good, then jump out. Here I am talking about non-MLC affairs.

[Evertrying]

What has always confused me with affairs, is where do people find time for them. A married person, with kids and a job still has time and energy for an affair? Or even married without kids, where to you find the time? Why do people like to be into such a mess and waste so much time with something useless, be it for the cheater or for OW/OM?

This is EXACTLY what I asked my H. He told me that eventually it became too much and leading a double life left him feeling exhausted and worthless. In addition, the affair he started thinking it was the answer to his crappy life, realized this outside "fix" wasn't fixing what was on the inside. Don't get me wrong, he STILL has SO much work to do but he knows the affair wasn't the answer.

His OW was a co-worker so they saw each other at work everyday and snuck away on their lunch hour to screw at her house. The house she shared with her H. (Class act I know,,,) So their affair was Monday through Friday from 8-5. He never stayed out late, never spent the weekend with her and never spent any money on her. It was all about ego kibbles and the occasional afternoon delight.

Towards the end of the affair, she wanted more and more of his time and she became very needy and he was at the end of his rope. Things, just as you stated, were starting to get messy.

My H tells me over and over again he was lost and having NO coping skills and feeling old, he got himself into a toxic waste dump. Again, MLCer not thinking straight.

Granted he is dealing with his other MLC demons, but it's his rodeo, his clowns. I am no longer riding that bull. 

[barbiedoll]

What has always confused me with affairs, is where do people find time for them. A married person, with kids and a job still has time and energy for an affair?

.

This was my question after I discovered what he was actually doing . You do look "backwards " and try to figure out how the hell I ever missed any clue whatsoever. He was NEVER really missing. He never ( not once) went anywhere on the weekends, came home after work, she was not a co-worker etc. Prior to him leaving, he was not absent for any periods of time that made me take notice.

I had planned ( and paid for ) a trip to Cuba with 3 of my daughters and he was "pushing" me to go . Hmmmm?. I wonder why?. He spent 3 days with her in a hotel while I was gone. I went away again later in the summer...and he did the same thing. Both of these weekends away were places he had jobs to inspect... so he worked while she sat in a motel room...... Clueless me.  I discovered ( during confession time) that he was taking afternoon's off work or he was starting his day late and went to her house. He is his own boss, so he had no one to answer to. Had I not gone on vacation, not sure how he would ever have seen much of her .  Of course , after he left our home, he was not really having an "affair" ( sure) and could do whatever he wanted. And I bet he did.

After he moved out he quit his job and started to work for his brother 5 hours away. Again, he never really saw much of her from what I can tell. I believe he stayed with her on weekends when he came to town...and that is less than a mile from me and his own family .  Of course , I do not believe "I have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth". She certainly settled for "crumbs" of a man.

[Anjae]

Mr J was also never missing. I later found out he would meet OW in hotels when he was djing out of the capital - his djing start before he left and OW1. The only time he was late, he phoned, saying he had missed the bus and would be home by dinner time. It was quite plausible. However, unlike what he told me, he didn't spend the time waiting for the next bus reading by the seaside, it was the first time OW1 went to meet him.

They also had a stolen kiss in a train/tube station in the capital. Mr J was on his work round, stop be the station, spend a couple of minutes with OW1, they kissed, he left. She was with a female friend and terrified the friend would see them. Can you say ridiculous and teenage like? 

He e-mailed OW1 from work and called her either when he left in the morning, during his lunch break on his way home. The only thing he did I thought suspicious was Messenger (the good old one, not Facebook one) and wanting the computer for himself. We used to be side by side often using the computer. One day he started to freak that I was there with him, as it was often the case. I asked him why he was freaking since he had always done it. Had he something to hide? No, no, I don't have anything to hide, he said. Then he went back not to mind if I was around.

He didn't spend nights away aside from those ones he was djing out of town, he would be home for dinner., etc. But, in Mr J's case, OW1 lived in another city, some 200km away. She had a job, he still had his pre-MLC job. Even after he left they only meet on weekends, aside from some holidays = Mr J went djing abroad. And during the weekends, he would be djing Friday and Saturday. She always had to leave Sunday after lunch, and, at a point, she could only come to the capital by Saturday. After he left, he went to see her once or twice on a weekend.

With me, or without me in the capital, he spend most of his time alone during OW1 be it when she was hidden or in the open. OW1 spend countless nights, be it when they were hidden or open in clubs while he was djing.

OW2 lived on the other side of the river from our capital, pretty much a wider part of the capital and was always in our capital. When OW2 come along I was back home, he was alone. Time for OW2 or anyone else would be the same, since he no longer had a marriage/spouse.

One fine thing with Mr J djing while he had already left, but I was still around. Some nights, for whatever reason he wanted me to go see him djing even if OW1 was there. "You can come, no one his going to bother you, you can be with me, she will with her friends, away from the dj booth". Really? How hillarious is that? The wife you don't want can be on the dj booth, and have drinks for free, and the woman of your life, the big love of your life, has to seat in some dark corner with her friends because you do not want her in the dj booth.  You can't make this stuff up.

Of course he got a no.

After OW1 was no more, but before OW2 truly become OW1, one of the times he come to dj here back in early 2008, he texted, inviting me to go see him djing. That he was alone (meaning no woman), that he would put my name on the guest list (not that I needed, if I wanted to go I would be on the guest list anyway), that he would pay for my drinks, taxis, etc. Me? Thank you, but no. That night he texted a bit, until he had to start his set.

What does the meaning of such texting? Mostly that MLCers cannot be alone, not even when they are in a club waiting for their dj set to start. If there is no one else, and if they are in limbo because OW is not more and a new OW still isn't really OW, why not try the wife you don't want? Anyone is better than no one. 

[Evertrying]

To me, anyway, I think the MLCer's that either end their affairs on their own or end them after they are caught, realize the OW/OM isn't what they truly want. Since they are so selfish and self-centered, it's all about what the OW/OM can do to make THEM happy. They have no desire to make the OW/OM happy. They think it's truw wuv, but it's all about what THEY get out of the relationship. I know my H didn't care that his AP was crying and throwing a fit at 5:00 when my H wanted to come home. He just let her cry and didn't care she wasn't happy. All. He. Cared. About. Was. Himself. Period.

Maybe these are the ones that come out of the crisis quicker, I don't know. But I think once they start to come to the conclusion that outside fixes don't fix what's going on inside of them, they go one step closer to the end of the tunnel.

The issue my H has now is that he doesn't want to look into the deep, dark hole inside himself because it hurts to look there and it would mean he needs to do the work. It's much easier to blame everyone else for your demons and issues that have put you were you are.

I am just living everyday the best I can for me, and let God do what he does.

[sachat3]

I agree everything.

I couldn’t understand why my H was with his Ow. She was an obvious affair down. Then they went away together BEFORE EVEN BEING OFFICIALLY A COUPLE and she bought him a £400 Apple Watch. She began paying for trips away to show off on Instagram and it soon became apparent. When we were together we had one wage coming in a house to run and three kids to support. Money was extremely tight. It’s clear his motivation is money. But that will soon run out!

[Evertrying]

 BEFORE EVEN BEING OFFICIALLY A COUPLE

This is where my H's affair was so different. Maybe because his AP was married too I don't know. But they did everything to keep their affair a secret. They told no one. No social media posts, no PDA, nothing. They did NOT want to be deemed an "official couple". They were so worried about being caught, but they were so stupid. I am sure people that worked with them couldn't help but notice they went to lunch together all the time and spent their breaks together. It's not rocket science to see that two people spending that much time together are more than just friends.