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surviving rebuilding after emotional affair
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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 198497" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Maybe I have a different take on this. </p><p></p><p>when it comes to this sort of relationship (his with this woman) a lot of blokes just don't get it. They don't get how women are in relationships because blokes can be very different. A woman wants a lot more emotionally in a relationship and also will read a lot more emotionally into it as well. </p><p></p><p>When a bloke is in a committed relationship, that is where his thoughts and emotions lie. His loyalties also. Totally. </p><p></p><p>A bloke like that is a treasure not to be discarded lightly. A bloke like that can also be very vulnerable to a "needy" female "friend". He may feel sufficiently secure in his relationship with his partner, to not see the dangers in his friendship. Because from his point of view, there IS no danger, his heart is committed.</p><p></p><p>So why the danger? Because if the woman is at all predatory (and some women are just like that, because they desperately crave attention and they also desperately crave what is not theirs to have) then he can find himself caught up in conflicting emotions and eventually conflicting loyalties.</p><p></p><p>The woman may not have been deliberately predatory; she may have begun by leaning on a bloke who seemed to care about her feelings. The guy, on the other hand, may have simply been trying to keep a woman safe to begin with, at the back of his mind is the question, how would he want HIS woman to be treated, if she had a problem and needed to talk?</p><p></p><p>Jennifer, he's 37. So I assume she is definitely over 30? Which, in old-fashioned parlance, means she's definitely on the shelf, has not found the partner in life she wants and by her age, all the best blokes are taken. A woman her age can't be too fussy or scrupulous, it is amazing how some people can justify their actions.</p><p></p><p>From what you say, it sounds to me like she was out to get her claws into him. To ring you up the way she did - that is not the action of a woman merely leaning on him for friendship. However, his reaction to you when you got her call then rang him - that does not sound to me to be the reaction of a man with a guilty conscience. The first thing a bloke would do is not just to deny that anything happened, but to deny absolutely everything, including the woman's existence. He will try to pretend she's just a random wrong number, if he can get away with it. But your boyfriend has admitted to a great deal that he didn't really have to.</p><p></p><p>Just because this woman wanted to believe that she and your guy have a deep, loving and committed relationship, doesn't mean HE thinks that way.</p><p></p><p>However, that doesn't mean he's not feeling guilty about it all now, with the benefit of hindsight. OF COURSE a guy is going to feel flattered, especially once he's into his 30s and heading beyond, at being pursued by another woman. Even having another woman say to him, "You're so supportive, I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have you to talk me through this," is flattering to a guy's ego. It doesn't matter that he has you at home - he knows he's secure with you (or rather, he thought he was) - here is independent affirmation that he IS still attractive in an absolute sense.</p><p></p><p>I don't think he was being deceptive, beyond perhaps downplaying stuff he felt was unimportant but was concerned you would read into it more than there was. Certainly in HIS mind, I don't think he was being deceptive.</p><p></p><p>Please do not underestimate the damage a scheming woman can do to a relationship, especially if she sets her mind to it. It needn't be a love relationship she's trying to destroy, either. I've seen a scheming woman trying (and succeeding) in breaking up friendships between other women, in breaking up families and in damaging a person's reputation. I've had it happen to me, and I was only one of the victims, I was only on the fringes. Her main target was her former best friend (my good friend then and now) of whom she was jealous - they were good friends when my friend was poor and out of work as well as single; when my friend applied for a high-powered job and got it, the woman was angry - she accused my friend of lying on her application. When my friend became romantically involved with a doctor, her friend tried to seduce him; out of loyalty, he said nothing. It nearly split them up when my friend found out (which is what her 'friend' wanted, of course). </p><p></p><p>With your partner, Jennifer - if he began by being a shoulder for this woman to cry on, she would have used tat and made more opportunities to have more crises for him to help her through. It can quickly get to a point where he is unable to extricate himself without fearing she could do herself harm, or make him feel like a heel for walking away when she is most in need. She would accuse him of leading her on, of encouraging her to fall in love with him (I suspect he did nothing of the sort) and tis would be leverage for him to continue. If she was behaving like this it would have made it even harder for him to be honest with you about what she was doing - it becomes like blackmail and he wouldn't have been able to think rationally about how to get himself out of this mess.</p><p></p><p>Jennifer, the biggest question you need to consider here - think hard. An emotional relationship still has to be two-way. it is only him being unfaithful, if he is feeling for her, what he should only be feeling for you. What she feels (or claims to feel) is not the issue here - if his heart is yours completely, it doesn't matter how many women are trying to woo him, he is yours and that is that.</p><p></p><p>If you feel you need to extract every little detail and to punish him in the process, you risk losing him needlessly. If, however, he has been emotionally disloyal then you do need to find out exactly how it happened and to make a decision - do you want to work on the relationship to rebuild it, or do you want to end it?</p><p></p><p>If he is the kind to easily fall for every scheming woman who sets her cap t him, or is the sort of bloke who will take advantage of a genuinely needy and helpless woman purely to boost his own ego at being needed, then you need to decide if you can live with this. But if he is a guy who is utterly committed to you but who is a big softie who cannot distinguish a genuine sob story from a scheming witch, then I think you need to forgive him but yes, have relationship counselling so HE can understand how this has hurt you and also how HE can protect himself form such misunderstandings in the future.</p><p></p><p>I am lucky, I have a good man in my life. However, there have been times in the past when he has had close friendships with other females. A couple of these predated our marriage, and were, as far as he was concerned, just friendships. However, I could see what he could not - to those women, I was an intruder. I was resented. husband introduced me to one of them, he had told me all about this girl as someone I would get on with well. He couldn't see the look in her eyes - she loathed me on sight. Probably even before she saw me - because he was mine, and because of that, he couldn't see how she really felt about him. She was NOT happy to meet me because that was when she saw how he looked at me. That was when she knew that not only had she lost, but she never had a snowball's chance in purgatory of ever winning.</p><p></p><p>Very early on, even before I got together with husband, I realised that jealousy was pointless. Any bloke of mine who had a wandering eye, could keep on wandering. I had a boyfriend at the time who tried to make me jealous - it was as if he needed it to boost his ego. But as far as I was concerned, if any woman could take him away from me, she was welcome to him. The sooner she succeeded, the better. If a man of mine ever left me for another woman, he was not worthy to be my man.</p><p></p><p>So if a man of mine ever strayed from me emotionally, then he never was mine to begin with.</p><p></p><p>There have been times when husband has been emotionally supportive to a female friend or acquaintance. However, because he knows I don't get jealous, he has always told me everything. This has meant that if at any time the woman he was supporting was not really needy but was, in fact, a schemer, he was never in a position to be emotionally blackmailed into continuing to see her and into being secretive. If ever he felt out of his depth, he would tell her to call me and talk to me about it, because another woman's point of view could be helpful!</p><p></p><p>Jennifer, go to counselling. If he goes too, good. You only need to know, where he is concerned - how committed is he to you, emotionally, now? And has that always been so? </p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 198497, member: 1991"] Maybe I have a different take on this. when it comes to this sort of relationship (his with this woman) a lot of blokes just don't get it. They don't get how women are in relationships because blokes can be very different. A woman wants a lot more emotionally in a relationship and also will read a lot more emotionally into it as well. When a bloke is in a committed relationship, that is where his thoughts and emotions lie. His loyalties also. Totally. A bloke like that is a treasure not to be discarded lightly. A bloke like that can also be very vulnerable to a "needy" female "friend". He may feel sufficiently secure in his relationship with his partner, to not see the dangers in his friendship. Because from his point of view, there IS no danger, his heart is committed. So why the danger? Because if the woman is at all predatory (and some women are just like that, because they desperately crave attention and they also desperately crave what is not theirs to have) then he can find himself caught up in conflicting emotions and eventually conflicting loyalties. The woman may not have been deliberately predatory; she may have begun by leaning on a bloke who seemed to care about her feelings. The guy, on the other hand, may have simply been trying to keep a woman safe to begin with, at the back of his mind is the question, how would he want HIS woman to be treated, if she had a problem and needed to talk? Jennifer, he's 37. So I assume she is definitely over 30? Which, in old-fashioned parlance, means she's definitely on the shelf, has not found the partner in life she wants and by her age, all the best blokes are taken. A woman her age can't be too fussy or scrupulous, it is amazing how some people can justify their actions. From what you say, it sounds to me like she was out to get her claws into him. To ring you up the way she did - that is not the action of a woman merely leaning on him for friendship. However, his reaction to you when you got her call then rang him - that does not sound to me to be the reaction of a man with a guilty conscience. The first thing a bloke would do is not just to deny that anything happened, but to deny absolutely everything, including the woman's existence. He will try to pretend she's just a random wrong number, if he can get away with it. But your boyfriend has admitted to a great deal that he didn't really have to. Just because this woman wanted to believe that she and your guy have a deep, loving and committed relationship, doesn't mean HE thinks that way. However, that doesn't mean he's not feeling guilty about it all now, with the benefit of hindsight. OF COURSE a guy is going to feel flattered, especially once he's into his 30s and heading beyond, at being pursued by another woman. Even having another woman say to him, "You're so supportive, I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have you to talk me through this," is flattering to a guy's ego. It doesn't matter that he has you at home - he knows he's secure with you (or rather, he thought he was) - here is independent affirmation that he IS still attractive in an absolute sense. I don't think he was being deceptive, beyond perhaps downplaying stuff he felt was unimportant but was concerned you would read into it more than there was. Certainly in HIS mind, I don't think he was being deceptive. Please do not underestimate the damage a scheming woman can do to a relationship, especially if she sets her mind to it. It needn't be a love relationship she's trying to destroy, either. I've seen a scheming woman trying (and succeeding) in breaking up friendships between other women, in breaking up families and in damaging a person's reputation. I've had it happen to me, and I was only one of the victims, I was only on the fringes. Her main target was her former best friend (my good friend then and now) of whom she was jealous - they were good friends when my friend was poor and out of work as well as single; when my friend applied for a high-powered job and got it, the woman was angry - she accused my friend of lying on her application. When my friend became romantically involved with a doctor, her friend tried to seduce him; out of loyalty, he said nothing. It nearly split them up when my friend found out (which is what her 'friend' wanted, of course). With your partner, Jennifer - if he began by being a shoulder for this woman to cry on, she would have used tat and made more opportunities to have more crises for him to help her through. It can quickly get to a point where he is unable to extricate himself without fearing she could do herself harm, or make him feel like a heel for walking away when she is most in need. She would accuse him of leading her on, of encouraging her to fall in love with him (I suspect he did nothing of the sort) and tis would be leverage for him to continue. If she was behaving like this it would have made it even harder for him to be honest with you about what she was doing - it becomes like blackmail and he wouldn't have been able to think rationally about how to get himself out of this mess. Jennifer, the biggest question you need to consider here - think hard. An emotional relationship still has to be two-way. it is only him being unfaithful, if he is feeling for her, what he should only be feeling for you. What she feels (or claims to feel) is not the issue here - if his heart is yours completely, it doesn't matter how many women are trying to woo him, he is yours and that is that. If you feel you need to extract every little detail and to punish him in the process, you risk losing him needlessly. If, however, he has been emotionally disloyal then you do need to find out exactly how it happened and to make a decision - do you want to work on the relationship to rebuild it, or do you want to end it? If he is the kind to easily fall for every scheming woman who sets her cap t him, or is the sort of bloke who will take advantage of a genuinely needy and helpless woman purely to boost his own ego at being needed, then you need to decide if you can live with this. But if he is a guy who is utterly committed to you but who is a big softie who cannot distinguish a genuine sob story from a scheming witch, then I think you need to forgive him but yes, have relationship counselling so HE can understand how this has hurt you and also how HE can protect himself form such misunderstandings in the future. I am lucky, I have a good man in my life. However, there have been times in the past when he has had close friendships with other females. A couple of these predated our marriage, and were, as far as he was concerned, just friendships. However, I could see what he could not - to those women, I was an intruder. I was resented. husband introduced me to one of them, he had told me all about this girl as someone I would get on with well. He couldn't see the look in her eyes - she loathed me on sight. Probably even before she saw me - because he was mine, and because of that, he couldn't see how she really felt about him. She was NOT happy to meet me because that was when she saw how he looked at me. That was when she knew that not only had she lost, but she never had a snowball's chance in purgatory of ever winning. Very early on, even before I got together with husband, I realised that jealousy was pointless. Any bloke of mine who had a wandering eye, could keep on wandering. I had a boyfriend at the time who tried to make me jealous - it was as if he needed it to boost his ego. But as far as I was concerned, if any woman could take him away from me, she was welcome to him. The sooner she succeeded, the better. If a man of mine ever left me for another woman, he was not worthy to be my man. So if a man of mine ever strayed from me emotionally, then he never was mine to begin with. There have been times when husband has been emotionally supportive to a female friend or acquaintance. However, because he knows I don't get jealous, he has always told me everything. This has meant that if at any time the woman he was supporting was not really needy but was, in fact, a schemer, he was never in a position to be emotionally blackmailed into continuing to see her and into being secretive. If ever he felt out of his depth, he would tell her to call me and talk to me about it, because another woman's point of view could be helpful! Jennifer, go to counselling. If he goes too, good. You only need to know, where he is concerned - how committed is he to you, emotionally, now? And has that always been so? Marg [/QUOTE]
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