[wkramer]

Forgive me if I missed this wkramer but my question is: If your W only wants to have sex twice a year and you are not happy with this situation why didn't you just separate from her, tell her why, and get a divorce first? Why all the deception? It just baffles me why go through all the lying and sneaking around....

Well first of all because I didn't begin my affair with the intention of falling in love and needing a divorce. (I'm sorry of you think that's bad but I might as well be honest).

But mainly because of our circumstances. We lived in the United Arab Emirates where I had a work permit and, because I was employed there, my wife and daughters had residence permits.

If we'd gotten divorced whilst our daughters were still in school my wife and daughters would have had to leave the country. I didn't want that to happen. I wanted my daughters to grow up with two parents around.

[wkramer]

I wanted to chime in here as well..

WK....I only read a small portion of your blog as I dont see any reason to go further into your personal life.

I wont judge you for your choices that you have made...I have been there too. I am no saint.

I think what your doing here is somewhat helpful to me...as I have always wondered what a man thinks when he has cheated because my H has had several PAs in our 25 years together and I often wondered what makes someone do that to their spouse one that they say they love....Did you tell your wife that you loved her while you were having this affair?

Im not going to judge anything....in fact no one should. The only one anyone answers to in the end is God.
SO I wont even try.

I would like to pick your brain though.... If you dont mind?
Syn

Simple: I didn't love her.

We hadn't told each other we loved one another for probably a couple of years before I started having an affair.

I won't be answering to God for the simple reason that I don't believe there is any such thing.

[Synicca]

So I understand that you stayed for your kids....alot of people do that... MY parents did that as well...my father also married his OW...after having many PA's on my mom...again...no judgement from me...and your entitled to have faith or no faith
that is your right as well...

Did you ever consider talking to your wife about staying for the kids and nothing more? or did you?
I am just wondering if there was just no concern for either of you? did you guys ever sit down and discuss
your issues with eachother...or did you feel like there was no point? no reason as you didnt care?

Hope this makes sense?

[Anjae]

wkramer, unlike the others I did read your blog. I find it very similar to the correspondence by husband exchanged with his OW1. Infatuation, fantasy, trips together, the tension of having to lie to the wife, the not knowing very well what you are doing even if you think a lot about the situation.

The blog is not just about sex but there seems to be, at least in the earlier times, an emphasis on sex. For example, you wrote “It's a year today since Anna and I first slept together. Wow.” Not “It’s a year today since Anna and I first meet.”. 

If you really loved Anna, and considering you have been breaking the law for years in Dubai, did you ever stop to think what would happen if you got caught? No, you were not doing it in the beach but, among other things, you have spend the night in her bed in the house she shared with her husband.

Did you ever think that you were spending time, giving attention and affection to Anna rather than putting it into your marriage? By reading you blog I do not get the impression you and your wife lead separated lives. You travelled a lot for work reasons. Still, the blog only starts when you become involved with Anna. Since it happened, obviously, everything changed and you having to lead a double life made an impact, even if imperceptible, on your marriage.

Was it worthy not to had dinner with your father because you were with Anna? Granted, you could had not guessed he was going to have an heart attack and die, still, you could had went and have dinner with your dad without Anna, couldn’t you? Why didn’t you did it? Afraid that Anna may not be happy with the situation? I’m certain she would have not been but I think it was one of those things that come with the territory.

I’m truly sorry if it upsets you but everything in your blog, even the “This isn’t the story of a mid-life crisis. This is the story of a crisis that has lasted all of my adult life. Well, all my adult life apart from the last 6 hours or so.” screams mid life crisis in bold flashy letters.

[Trustandlove]

I've read some as well; of course we only have your perspective on it, wkramer, not anyone else's.  We have to take your word for it that your wife wouldn't need a place like this, and all that.

Not all affairs are MLC; neither can we discount that, however.  It is interesting to hear the perspective from the other side, as it were. 

What strikes me is the fact that not loving your wife is used for justification for everything else.  And the absolute insistence on putting yourself first.  Yes, you wanted your daughters to grow up with two parents around, but what about after they left school?  Do they not still need parents?   You have made the conscious decision that for your daughters, the concept "parents" will always be split, so that every occasion forever in the future will be affected.   And they will always be seeing you putting the time and energy into your new family, which is a constant reminder of what you wouldn't do for them. 

Please don't think that I'm saying that they don't/won't have a good relationship with you; however, it always will be the formative experience for them.  You were putting energy into an adulterous affair while you were living at home with them; even if they didn't know it consciously they will have felt the effects of not having that attention from you. 

It is a myth that parents being happy is all that matters; long-term studies that have been recently published show that the effects of split families follow children throughout their lives. 

A piece in your blog that I wanted to comment on was where you say that your ex-MIL should see you now, so involved with the baby.  You could always have made the choice to be more involved with your daughters, however its seems that not loving your wife was also justification for not giving more to your family. 

And AnneJ is right, by giving time, attention and affection to someone other than your wife and daughters your marriage did suffer.  It cannot be otherwise.  But turning it around and saying that it's OK because you didn't love her (or the marriage wasn't good or she wasn't right in some way) puts the blame and responsibility elsewhere, and keeps you from examining and changing your own behaviour. 

Love is an active verb, a choice.  A choice of the heart and mind, of the mind because the heart doesn't always feel like loving. 

It is interesting to read that for you, the fact that others got hurt is a regrettable thing, however fully justifiable because for you everything's wonderful.   That your personal happiness is more important than anyone else's. 

I think that may be the driving force behind many adulterers, whether MLC or not, that ultimate selfishness.   Again, it is interesting to hear it from that side. 

[wkramer]

Did you ever consider talking to your wife about staying for the kids and nothing more? or did you?
I am just wondering if there was just no concern for either of you? did you guys ever sit down and discuss
your issues with eachother...or did you feel like there was no point? no reason as you didnt care?

I knew there were problems in my marriage for a long time. I wanted to "fix" those problems.

I asked my ex-wife repeatedly if she would come to counselling with me but she didn't want to. I realise now, although I didn't then, that going by myself could have been a viable option.

Eventually I concluded that there wasn't any point in discussing these things and towards the end of our marriage I simply didn't care.

I suppose in hindsight it is obvious that we were never very good at communicating with each other.

[wkramer]

The blog is not just about sex but there seems to be, at least in the earlier times, an emphasis on sex. For example, you wrote “It's a year today since Anna and I first slept together. Wow.” Not “It’s a year today since Anna and I first meet.”. 

Perhaps the earlier times do concentrate on sex but, and I apologise for being so blunt, when you can count on two hands the number of times you've had sex in the last several years it is a novelty to suddenly be having a lot more of it.

I didn't write "...a year today since we first met" because I'd met her before.

If you really loved Anna, and considering you have been breaking the law for years in Dubai, did you ever stop to think what would happen if you got caught?

No not really. It was a very minor concern and not something that ever really troubled me. The authorities in the UAE turn a blind eye to the behavior of western expatriates so I simply didn't believe we'd ever get caught.

Did you ever think that you were spending time, giving attention and affection to Anna rather than putting it into your marriage?

No I didn't ever think that. I'd tried to invest time in my marriage earlier in my life and got nothing in return for that investment.

By reading you blog I do not get the impression you and your wife lead separated lives.

We had two school age children together so we didn't leave entirely separate lives. Our daughters were the only real overlap in our lives though.

Was it worthy not to had dinner with your father because you were with Anna? Granted, you could had not guessed he was going to have an heart attack and die, still, you could had went and have dinner with your dad without Anna, couldn’t you? Why didn’t you did it? Afraid that Anna may not be happy with the situation? I’m certain she would have not been but I think it was one of those things that come with the territory.

Anna wouldn't have had a problem with me going for dinner with my dad by myself.

I wish I'd gone out for dinner with my dad one last time - of course I do. But I didn't and nothing I ever do will change that.

I don't blame Anna or myself for the fact that I didn't. Some times when I was in London I had to work late so I didn't see him. If he'd died on one of those occasions would it be appropriate to blame my employer? Other times he wouldn't be available because he had other arrangements with his friends. If he'd died on one of those occasions would it be appropriate to blame his friends?

I’m truly sorry if it upsets you but everything in your blog, even the “This isn’t the story of a mid-life crisis. This is the story of a crisis that has lasted all of my adult life. Well, all my adult life apart from the last 6 hours or so.” screams mid life crisis in bold flashy letters.

Well I think you're wrong but reasonable people can agree to disagree.

Let me ask you this though. Even if it was a MLC does that make the feelings any less real? Does it mean that the love I feel for my wife is somehow different to other people's love?

[Anjae]

wkramer, thanks for asking my questions.
I figured you have met Anna before. But it really was a very emphatic cheer up for anniversary of the first time you sleep together. Ok, I can get that if sex is a scarce thing in a marriage it can be something one finds a novelty and an exciting one.
If you were getting nothing in return in your marriage earlier in life why did you not break it? Daughters or no daughters, no one stays in a marriage for over 20 years if they are getting nothing. I know several people, with children, that ended their marriages, sometimes when the kids were very small, because things were not working for them. Clean break, not moving out when, finally, there is someone else on the side.
Reading your blog the idea that passes is that your daughters were not the only reason yours and your first wife lives overlapped but that may be just may impression from the reading.
No, it would had not be appropriated to blame your employer. No it would be appropriated to blame Anna. If there was anyone to blame it would had been yourself. The difference between not having dinner with your dad because you were working late and because you did not want to turn up with Anna is that the first was a genuine reason. You were working. The second was an excuse for an action, being with Anna, that you knew was not very correct.
Yes, reasonable people can agree to disagree.
If it is MLC the feelings you feel during it are real in the sense that, to you, they feel real, they feel like the real thing. But if it is MLC, when the crisis is over, you will find yourself asking what happened to you. If it is MLC it not love, I’m talking of real love, that you feel for your wife. It is infatuation, excitement and trepidation, all induced by the chemical “war” that is going on inside your brain.

Do you know that feeling we all have had when we were teens and everything looked so real and we were so certain, just to discover, in our early twenties, that, after all, it was not the real thing? MLC “love” is like that.

Even if it is not MLC, a relationship started with adultery and deceit does not start on a very solid or good ground. All the anxieties and anguish that you wrote about in the blog, for the duration of the affair, are likely to come back again after the initial time together. You and Anna are still together, on the open, for a very short time. All the excitement of those times is still present, even if you do not realise it.

Of course that, like in everything, there are always exceptions.

May I ask what have you done if Anna, or someone else, had not turned up? Had you stayed in your first marriage?

[Doc Hudson]

I think what your doing here is somewhat helpful to me...as I have always wondered what a man thinks when he has cheated because my H has had several PAs in our 25 years together and I often wondered what makes someone do that to their spouse one that they say they love...

Ladies, there is a difference between being a man and being a male.  Just because some guy presumably has testicles and is over 18 years old, that doesn't make him a man.   Learning this difference will help YOU understand your situation a whole lot better. 

[Doc Hudson]

Let's just say that this guy is in MLC.   Why are you guys voluntarily engaging an MLCr?  Don't you have enough of that in your lives already?