[BrandNew]

As a woman, the PA bothers me more than the EA.  I think we share emotional intimacy with many people in our lives.  You should hear me and my girlfriends talk.    
I don't expect one person to meet all of my emotional needs.  But a spouse is the ONLY one that we share our bodies with and that felt deeply intimate, private and special.  That is gone forever for me.  The PA is definitely the issue that I feel I will not be able to get past.  (Also, the mind movies are hell on earth  )

[Synicca]

oh yah...BN, I get what you mean about the mind movies...I try not to think about that at all costs...
(to bad that just made me think of it) ugh!!

but, I just change the channel, LOL! when I was a kid and I had bad dreams, I would tell my mom about them and say, "but, I'm ok mom, I just changed the channel" She didnt understand what I meant until I said "well, I just think of something happy and it goes away"

[kikki]

As a woman, the PA bothers me more than the EA.  I think we share emotional intimacy with many people in our lives.  You should hear me and my girlfriends talk.    
I don't expect one person to meet all of my emotional needs.  But a spouse is the ONLY one that we share our bodies with and that felt deeply intimate, private and special.

BN - ditto for me.  I must be an unusual female, because I also find the PA more heartwrenching.
I'm not saying that I find the EA easy - not at all, just that this cuts to my core more ....

[Synicca]

I wonder why...since I am like a total freak when it comes to why the mind works the way it does. LOL!!


I think I am gonna look this up...

( I bet it has something to do with the fact that a woman is more...(emotional)

[Synicca]

ok, I found 3 so far....very interesting...has nothing to do with MLC...but same feelings even though.

#1 http://www.surviveinfidelityhq.com/an-emotional-affair-is-worse-than-a-physical-one/

#2 http://nitawriter.wordpress.com/2007/09/25/what-kills-a-marriage/

#3 http://www.cheating-spouse-alert.com/emotional-affair-vsphysical.html

Still looking up ones on why some women have a harder time with EA's..but I can see why in just these 3 articles

[Stillpraying]

As a woman, the PA bothers me more than the EA.  I think we share emotional intimacy with many people in our lives.  You should hear me and my girlfriends talk.    
I don't expect one person to meet all of my emotional needs.  But a spouse is the ONLY one that we share our bodies with and that felt deeply intimate, private and special.  That is gone forever for me.  The PA is definitely the issue that I feel I will not be able to get past.  (Also, the mind movies are hell on earth  )

Ditto for me too.
I am also upset about the emotional affair because H has been so blase about talking to all the women at work.  I am upset because I wrote him a letter 2 years ago when I noticed him being emotionally distant to me.  So it's something I brought to his attention and he CHOSE to ignore it and continue to open up emotionally to the women at work including Hairdresser ow.

I didn't know why he didn't want to sit up and chat with me like he used to until all this came out in the open 5 months ago.  I felt very betrayed but the fact that he could take me away for a weekend and then just drop me like a hot potato and go bond himself with OW makes me sick.  I feel humiliated. 

The kids also say she is unattractive and annoying.  I get that H had emotional needs he wanted filled but it never occurred to him that I also needed that and if perhasp he paid me some more attention he may have got what he wanted to???  No, he's just thrown himself at this needy person and ruined the bond we had.

[Patience]

It's always made sense to me that the PA included an EA.  I know for a fact that the EA began for my H before the PA with the same OW.  This was why it was so difficult for him to let go of her.  I suspect that with an MLCer most PA include an EA component.  Many are trying to save the OW. (knight in shining armor thing).   (sorry guys, I don't know about the OM so much).  At a certain point I saw messages H "secretly" sent to her on FB.  They were odd little "love notes."  I didn't know what they were until after BDs, but in hindsight I knew what the odd messages were about and to whom they were directed.  Those messages and other things that indicated an emotional connection still hurt my heart more than the physical affair.  Those will be the last pieces that I am able to move past. 

He does now know that the emotional connection was not real, and is able to see her and it for what it was, but I also know it felt like something real to him at the time.  That does still hurt, but not as much as it did before.

[stayingthecourse]

I find the EA more upsetting.  I don't like the PA either but I think the EA is more upsetting.  When my H admitted to the EA, he had just left me.  I guess the thought that I could be replaced, just like that, after all of our years together, was really really painful.  Knowing I would have to have really deep feelings involved to just leave my life behind,  plays into how I feel about my H having an EA.  If it were only "sex" I think I could get past it easier - having to compete (for lack of a better word) with feelings that are strong enough to make my H leave us behind is gut wrenching to say the least. 

[Mamma Bear]

  Hi everyone I'm back from Wildwood. EA and PA both suck.
  Luckily I am finally seeing it for what it is. He doesn't have a game plan and is running around trying to be "not depressed."
  I just saw him. H  came over to say "Hi" and "How was our trip?"
  Pouring rain here. We stood in driveway talking. Then we came inside... He's now unemployed. True happiness. Talking about going back to school for medical coding. LOL LOL I know people who do that and they are very good at it. H wouldn't be. He can't work a computer well at all and he never was organized about things. That would be  a bad mix H as a medical coder.
     Anyway I try and think of the PA like when I was in college living in a dorm.   Everyone was sleeping around and then breaking up a few months later. Didn't matter.  I wasn't crying when someone broke up with me. if I broke up with someone it didn't matter either. like ' who cares'
 I am now totally convinced that H is taking the vicodin, drinking wine in the daytime and ACTING as if he has a new life.
  He's not pretending to be happy. He's not bringing her around his family or my kids. I can tell from our encounters that he is NOT RIGHT IN THE HEAD! Whatever emotional attachment he has with Bowser is transient and shallow.
  When he wakes up he will see all of this and realize why people were looking at him like 
  But until then he is just a confused,depressed,frightened know- it- all trying to get through the day. If sharing an apt w/ an ugly,desperate, damaged under achiever is a rush for junior then so be it. Time will tell. God is working on him! 
   Oh and the Ds told me today that she must smoke a lot because all the ashtrays in her apt are overflowing and piled up high. H doesn't smoke. LOL LOL  They also told me that time they met her (the only time) back in March, she smells like a wet dog!!!  LOL  WTF?   Poor H He must be so messed up in his head. Really. You can't make this s**t up.
  I knew they told me the apt was a mess but come on you have a cute guy living with you. He's married and you still took him in. Can you empty the ashtray and not smell?   

[Synicca]

WELCOME BACK Mamma!!! 

Always nice to get your take on things, right along with all that wonderful humor!