"To Tanya I was the perfect betrayed spouse. Every morning she would wake up and wonder what would I do to screw up my relationship with Doug and make her look better. It wasn’t really that hard. I was a scared, powerless wife who didn’t know any other way to save my marriage. I was dealing with infidelity the only way I knew how."
"I know that in a long-term marriage a man tends to show his love by working hard, taking care of things around the house, being a security blanket, etc. But for a man to display that they want you and they will do anything just to be with you…well I guess that is why emotional affairs are so addicting."
"It seems to me that it’s a common thread that for some reason, the cheating spouse thinks that the other person cares more for them than his own spouse does. I firmly believe that it is usually not the case. It’s just that there isn’t enough time, opportunity or energy to give the spouse as much attention as in the past due to all the stuff that life throws at us. But the poor little deprived spouse isn’t getting enough attention, so they wander to the arms of another person."
"She received all the benefits of a perfect marriage because she got the best of him at all times. His focus was completely on her as he saved all interesting conversations, jokes and fun times for her, while I received only the leftovers, which barely consisted of a “Hi, how was your day?”"
"You know I have this image in my mind that I play over and over again: Doug leaving to be with her and then he realizes how much he loves me and how unhappy he was with her. He comes running home and begs forgiveness and we live happily ever after. Things really didn’t pan out that way though. Instead, I begged him not to leave. I told him I was sorry for everything I had done in the past – and he stayed. Not the best way to save a marriage and maintain your self-esteem after an affair."
"During the third phase of recovery after cheating or an affair you feel sometimes very happy and sometimes very sad. You are wondering if you can ever fully trust your cheating spouse again. This is the phase during which you are finally starting to realize and accept that your relationship with your spouse will be permanently different from now on. You are starting to accept that you can never return back to the way things were before cheating took place."
"I have given this a lot of thought and I wanted more than anything to have that much attention from Doug. Then I really started thinking about how much effort he did put into his affair, and realized that it didn’t take that much effort at all. Heck, he worked with Tanya, so all he had to do was show up at work every day, take frequent breaks to talk to her, and take her out to lunch. He wasn’t making dinner for her, or getting up early with the kids so she could sleep in. He was only going to work!"
"The affair partners validate each other and their 'unhappiness' with their marriage, yet ignoring all the good things their spouses have done for them and the needs they have indeed met, and are probably still meeting."
"My therapist says that one reason I want this so much is because I’m disillusioned. No longer do I hold him above other men thinking that he is wiser, smarter, more loving, etc…I’ve realized that he’s human with all the faults that go along with that. He is no longer on that pedestal that I placed him. Our marriage isn’t above others and our love isn’t strong enough to conquer all and we aren’t living the fairy tale. That the absolute trust I had in us and our marriage, in him, was destined to fail from the beginning. Pretty disillusioned, right?"
"The one choosing to leave has had time to think about, reflect upon and weigh the options and to emotionally detach themselves from the marriage. The other spouse, who is caught by surprise, is normally mistreated and left to feel abandoned. There is a huge imbalance of power with the one leaving being the one in control of most aspects of whether or not the marriage will continue."
"However, what the cheater needs to realize it that their lies, the intimacy that they stole from their marriages and the conscience effort they made to bring another person into their lives has produced trauma. It is real. It is extremely painful and they are the only person who can make it go away."
- Emotional Affair Journey
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