[HeartTattoo]

http://www.ted.com/talks/esther_perel_rethinking_infidelity_a_talk_for_anyone_who_has_ever_loved

This link has been traveling around over several threads, but I wanted to post it here & since the old "Links/blogs/articles" thread had 15 pages, I thought I'd start a new thread.

Old thread is here-- http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=2790.0

[bookwrmmom]

So glad I finally had the time to listen to that. Sounds like my life!

[Bailmor]

I watched this the other day and found myself shaking my head quite a bit.  It was a great video to watch to confirm what a MLCer is thinking and or doing.   

[Anjae]

I've listed to it. What Ester Perel says in her talk has been said a million times by many of us here on the board.

Also, she is talking about normal affairs, not about MLC. MLC is totally different than an affair. It includes an affair/infidelity but it is not an affair.

She says of the affair “there is a single act of transgression", that she then adds can destroy a marriage. In MLC there are a million acts of transgression and sometimes the affair in itself is not the worst one.

“a secretive relationship”, not in MLC. MLCers live with OW/OM and that does not end the no longer secretive relationship.

“the fact that you can never have your lover keeps you wanting, that in itself is a desire machine”, again, does not apply to MLC. MLCer live with the lover. For years on end in many cases. They marry the affair partner, they have children with the affair partner.

To me, talks or articles about normal affairs are of little use for MLC. The MLCer is not going to want to solve things, is not going the affair once it is on the open.

Also, MLCer drag LBS to courts, cut us off financially, you name it. It is a totally different game.

I take for her talk that, one way or another, pretty much everyone is going to cheat, since cheating/infidality can be many different things.

The other thing I take from her talk, since there is a duality between the one that is hurt and feels betrayed (the one that is cheated upon) and the one who grows and learns (the cheater), that maybe one needs to be on both sides of the fence to really understand the feeling of both sides.

The affair it not created by imagination, it is created by hormones and brain chemicals. The neurobiology of an affair is a well known thing. Proust was a writer. But one could consider that the neurobiology of the affair could be understand as imagination.

Healing from a spouse's MLC is a million times more difficult than healing from a normal affair.

[xyzcf]

“a secretive relationship”, not in MLC. MLCers live with OW/OM and that does not end the no longer secretive relationship.

MLCer live with the lover. For years on end in many cases. They marry the affair partner, they have children with the affair partner.

I don't think that you can say this about all MLCers. Many have kept the OW secret for years, even after they divorce, even after they leave for various reasons.

She was not specifically referring to MLC but that doesn't mean that the LBSer does not experience similar feelings as someone's partner who cheats but is not in MLC. I could really relate to what she was saying for my situation.

[Anjae]

OK, maybe I should have said most MLCers. But how many in this board have MLCer who have lived in secret for years on end with their OW/OM? They have keep the affair a secret for a while, sometimes years, but once it gets in the open, it does not die.

And if it does, they jump to the next OW/OM. The MLCer parading OW/OM is one the things RCR talks about and that many of us have seen happening. MLCers want a relationship with OW/OM, not to keep them a secret forever.

I cannot recall here in the board whose husband has keep the OW a secret for years after he has left and even divorce. Maybe some members have such MLCers, but pretty much every story tends to start with "I do not believe there is OW in my situation" to change into "he just got has OW" or "he is just living with OW".

Granted, some MLCers never have OW/OM, but those are not having and affair.

I can't really relate. I'm not dealing with a husband who had an affair. I'm dealing with a man who had been living with OW for nearly 6 years and who has been with her for practically 7 years. That is hardly a situation where the desire that comes with the secret can be sustained.

I'm also dealing with a man that stops at nothing from lying to court, etc. Most cheaters will admit to the cheating, let alone in court, let alone when there is a stack of black & white evidence before their eyes proving the situation.

It was not from an affair that I had to deal from. The affair was a small part of it. Is OW2 and affair? She was never a secret, they never meet in secret, that thing does not seem to end. She is pretty much the person Mr J choose to be with. They are not having an affair, they are living together, having a relationship, while he still happens to be legally married to me.

That is the other difference. In a normal affair, affair partners do not tend to live together. That would spoil the affair. In MLC they live with someone else while married to another. For me there is a huge difference between and affair and living with someone while married.

I probably do not even want to know why would someone who looks utterly miserable and is always drunk says he is happy and wants to stay in such relationship. Nothing to do with coming back to the marriage (there is no marriage to come back to, there hasn't been one for many years), just too complicated for me to understand why to remain in drunk and unhappiness land for so long.

[Ready2Transform]

I get what you're saying Anjae about how this doesn't cover the experience of the MLC LBS as a whole, but I agree with xyz too that, when just compartmentalizing the affair portion of the MLC, this really speaks to many aspects of my experience. One of the best things I've seen so far in putting a healthy voice to this (though having to process it alone makes it far different than if we were a reconciling couple). "Staying is the new shame." True words.

[ruggedendurance]

I cannot recall here in the board whose husband has keep the OW a secret for years after he has left and even divorce. Maybe some members have such MLCers, but pretty much every story tends to start with "I do not believe there is OW in my situation" to change into "he just got has OW" or "he is just living with OW

I never believe xw was having an affair.   I was never jealous.   I was never suspecting.   After she ran out of here and I found out about her "secret" phone........... I still never suspected an affair..

Well.   She had been dating this jackwagon for several months before she stormed out.......  Then.   About a month ago.  I am trying to find a suit coat to wear to my mothers funeral service and I find a cashmere coat that I haven't worn in quite some time.

When I put it on....... it doesn't fit.    I check the pockets and it has a business card from one of her old boyfriends.   It has some receipts from 2009......  3yrs before bd.........

So.   I could put up with an incident of casual sex.    She was drunk and caught up in the moment.  Or some such nonsense.   I could understand that.

Cheating?    Running around?   Inviting ex-boyfriends to the house?

It is just too much....

[Anjae]

...when just compartmentalizing the affair portion of the MLC, this really speaks to many aspects of my experience.

But even when it comes to the affair part, in MLC is is only valid for the very early stages of the affair. Then it no longer applies.

...(though having to process it alone makes it far different than if we were a reconciling couple).

But that is the thing, even if we were reconciling we could never only just process the affair situation. The affair would be a tiny portion of the whole. Also, the length of time that goes by. It is one thing to process, and start to work on the couple/marriage/relationship when the affair is found out. It is another to try to process/do the work many years down the road when we know perfectly well what our spouse has been up to.

"Staying is the new shame." True words.

Sort of. I dare say pretty much all of us were willing to stay, and wanted our MLCer to stay when the affair/the first affair was found out. But there is no staying with a MLCer, even if the LBS would want to.

And I know couples who stayed together after a normal affair.

[Anjae]

rugge, most of our spouses star conducting their affairs in secret. That is the normal nature of affairs.

The difference is our spouses carry on having the affair, or affairs, in pubic. Even going so far as to live with the affair partner. Or to marry the affair partner.

Some of us suspecte something was going on, others didn't. But none of our spouses did what people who have affairs tend to do, try to sort it out, especially is the cheated part is willing to accept that their spouse had an affair and still wants to be married.

Our spouses just left. Be it after 3 years or 6 months of a secret affair. Gone. At least until the MLC, or the Replay part of it, is over. Which may take several years.