[Benjamin Fry]

I hadnít seen your last post when I made my recent one. It must have arrived as I was working on my answer. I didnít intend it to look like I was ignoring what you had said.

From your five responses it is clear that you have taken great offence at my suggestion that your wife ìwas sufficiently damaged to marry someone like meî. This is largely my fault since I was lazy in explaining what I was attempting to say. I was responding to your speculation about your wifeís own issues and wanted to agree with you that I couldnít usefully speculate about the exact nature of her issues since she was not here in the forum to communicate with us. However I wanted to validate your conjecture that there probably were some issues there which she might need to look at. I made that conclusion on the basis that we usually make our way through life with partners and friends of approximately equal levels of psychological damage. Hence my comment.

It was meant to reassure you that you were not out of your mind to suggest that she may have problems that contribute to your marriage issues. It was not meant to suggest that you were not worthy of her. I acknowledge that this was not clear and regret any pain that this may have caused you.

Regarding your friend who has been overly interested in your wife, you are right that I didnít know the whole picture. The man you describe is more predatory than at first presented and therefore perhaps you have some grounds for genuine resentment. Perhaps therefore my comments were misdirected. However donít let this distract you from your own role in your own marriage. The ìotherî woman or man is always just a catalyst for a pre-existing problem.

Your reaction over the last 24 hours is however quite interesting and maybe there is something useful that you can take away from it. Usually we only take insults to heart (perceived or intended) when we deep down unconsciously already believe in them. You could have just ignored what I said and written me off as a dangerous lunatic (as you eventually did once you had the support of your friend) but clearly this notion got under your skin and, significantly, stayed with you for some time.

This suggests that you perhaps do actually fear that your wife made a mistake in marrying you. Or perhaps, more fundamentally, that you fear that you are in some way a ìmistakeî. This might easily have been the message that your very confusing childhood left you with. If so, then this could also help to explain why you wanted your wife to sleep with another man. Perhaps you always felt that she was with the wrong person, because you were ìwrongî. You being ìwrongî, your relationships being with the ìwrongî person, and women sleeping with the ìwrongî men does seem to be the theme from your childhood history that is surfacing in the present. Even I am now all ìwrongî (which might just be because I am, or could be a projection from your male relationships in the past). Maybe you can at least take away from this an awareness of how complicated and difficult these things can to fully understand. I hope that you can find some help with these issues with your counsellor.

Iím sorry that Iíve been unable to help you with this problem. I wish you all the best in finding a way forward from this difficult time and hope that things get better for you soon.

[Ford Prefect]

I just wanted to thank both of you for engaging in this conversation and for Zephyer for (1) really feeling some strong emotions about Benjamin's comments and (2) taking the time to writing them out intelligently and being persistent and continuing to submit them. I have benefitted greatly from this conversation (along with another one on this forum) and it's giving me the courage to sit down and submit my own questions. I'm starting to feel that I'm not alone in feeling 'damaged' or 'weird' or whatever other pegoritive term I can think of to describe me, and seeing the obvious intelligence, sincerity and willingness to persevere exhibited by Zephyer has given me some real hope.

Thanks to both of you for your time and efforts.

[Benjamin Fry]

Iíd second that. Contacting you feelings and expressing them is the royal road to the healing of the psyche. It is a lot harder than it sounds. The slow pace, safety and confidentiality of this forum can greatly facilitate it. Zephyer has given a perfect example of how to do that constructively.

[marina]

PS When you thank this predator for preying on your wife, dont forget to offer to return the favour some time!!

Seriously, I am not wishing to make light of your obvious confusion in your marriage right now. You obviously feel responsible in some way for the affair and yet hurt at the same time. The fact that you have even mentioned to your wife that you would be excited by her sleeping with someone else does send her a confusing message. Most women are actually flattered by a some possessiveness and would question why you would suggest this to her. It is a hurtful suggestion (I am a woman) and cheapens this private and loving act between you. Don't forget she chose to act on it, but was probably only doing this out of hurt.

I would suggest that you don't keep striving to provide financially for your wife and invest more time emotionally in your marriage. Buying gifts is not evidence of love. It is that spark that exists between you that you need to ignite. Could you take a relaxing holiday together and spend some quality time rediscovering what is important in your relationship?

Go easy on yourself right now, you are obviously hurting a lot, but an affair does not signify the end of your marriage.

[Zephyer]

I would just like to advise anybody with similar fantasies to mine as apparently there are other men that go through this. Never ever try and full fill them!!!!! The fantasy is totally different to the reality!! Marina was right to suggest that I go on holiday with my wife and that's what we did and things were going well, but when we came back and I had to go away again, my wife just went very cold towards me and even suggested that we don't need to tell each other everything and lead private lives. One can only live like this for so long, it may work out but probably not.