So you want your spouse and your AP? Marriage vows have the words: excluding all others for a reason.

Go ask your BS if it is acceptable for you to still have a relationship with your AP.

I can tell you that as a BS if my H has any contact with his slut, it's off to divorce court. I remind him of that from time to time.

StormPetrel, I am dismayed by your tone. I respect your pain and your situation but this was too harsh. Peace is struggling with issues that we all, as flawed and complex humans, deal with in one form or another. So much of life has been setup as binary, and perhaps that is needlessly or incorrectly so. Also, Peace seems very much to be asking these questions from a position it would appear you would agree with and respect, that of putting the BS and their marriage first. Perhaps a group for the CS perspective and struggle just isn't that helpful to you?

Hmm, I thought I was explicit in stating that I am not interested in starting or maintaining a friendship with my AP, especially at this time and possibly/probably never in the future - I am still firmly, totally committed to no contact. I simply asked if anyone else had experience doing so, because I can't imagine a way of making that work without serious emotional distress or massive-"that's-messed-up"-ness.


Specifically, StormPetrel, I agree with Non, your responses to me have come across quite harsh - though I have generally appreciated your stark viewpoint and experience in other posts over my time reading posts on this site. I know that my marriage vows put love and commitment and support for each other first, not regular doses of heavy handed guilt, shame, and entrapment to the exclusion of all friendships for our entire lives. (and yes, I majorly f'kd up, and I have learned from that and am making amends, while growing stronger with my BS without giving up our unique selves in the process).

I am quite confident that my marriage vows allow for friendships, and in fact my marriage can be better because of quality friendships, and actually could be even better if I had a friendship that filled some of the intellectual, communication style, and interest gaps in my relationship with my spouse. In fact, I know that regular shame and guilt trips, whether for a past affair (a serious mistake and harm caused by me) or for simple things like not cooking dinner on time or being slow to clean up something, etc, are damaging to the marital relationship and, if continued, would by themselves be destructive to a marital relationship. I say that because historically, that is a problem I've faced with my spouse; my BS' history of using quiet and subtle shame, sometimes direct and drawn out shame was a destructive force that perpetuated and maintained the distance in our relationship. We recognize that my BS' use of shame goes deep the very foundations of how he learned to communicate from his family and it is also how he treats himself in his own head, but Storm, if you are willing to accept the perspective of a once-cheater-but-now-no-longer-and-never-will-be-again, the use of shame and guilt in any relationship, especially a marriage, breeds resentment, pain, and damages any foundation for love. Without love, there is no marriage. Without love, vows are meaningless. Personally, that is a deal breaker for me. My vows connect me to my spouse forever, as does our creation of a blessed family together. But, in protection of my mind, heart, soul and spirit, and in protection of my children, I will not stay in a marriage if it were to turn emotionally loveless (though still committed to each other and even still loving each other as people), sexless, and that regularly uses shame as a communication and manipulation tool (intentional or not). To me, having experienced that shame directly to varying degrees over the years, that so easily falls into emotional abuse. And while now I will continue to hear out and listen to his pain and anger at what I did and how it hurt him for as long as needed, I will also not accept being shamed and guilted for the rest of my life - that is prison and punishment, not a marriage and as I explained, it hurts my BS' spirit and soul, too.

So my BS and I both have reasons to work on trusting each other, and rebuilding a foundation of love and understanding and appreciation of each other. Yes, my affair was a more serious, hurtful transgression. But, that affair is over and done, and a thing of the past, that will never happen again, and I want no contact with my AP and I pursue no contact with my AP. BUT that doesn't diminish the harm that regular shaming and guilt-trips and lack of forgiveness (for things other than the affair) will do a relationship.

Peace, so much of what you write resonates! I can’t do it justice now (commuting and small screen/keyboard) or soon (about to embark on a family gem mining vacation) but I want to come back to this. In the meantime, warmth and healing to all.

Peace, I don’t have direct experience to share. Wish I did! Your post, though really prompted some thinking on my part, and I think three things. First, the methodology of any friendship would have to be as close to foolproof as possible. You are quite firm about your desire to protect your BS and work on your marriage, and I agree with you. For them, for ourselves, for everyone – our first job *has* to be protecting our BS. Even this site, for example, would be a trigger for my BS. So I never access it when I am around them. I never do so from devices at home. I rarely do so from my phone and am quite meticulous about erasing all traces when I do. (Would that my AP had been so meticulous . . . ;-) ) I have set my site settings appropriately and I am discreet in my writing. Any methodology of friendship would have to be this foolproof, or more. My AP and I could, for example, use a couple of methods through which it would basically be impossible for our BSs to further hurt themselves even if they were trying to know something and, more relevantly, it would also basically be impossible for us to further hurt them through happenstance or inattention.

Second, a friendship would involve deceit. There’s no point in tip toeing around that fact. One of the many things I always appreciated about my relationship with my AP is that we never excused or rationalized what we were doing. We certainly had our reasons, but they weren’t ameliorative. So the questions then are is the friendship worth it and can you truly handle the level of deceit required for that relatively benign activity? In my case, I believe the answer is yes to the first question. More than yes, in a way. I truly believe that a friendship would benefit everyone in our situation – even more than NC is doing now, as weird as that may seem. Hard to tell in your case and obviously only you really know the answer. The answer to the second question, though, seems pretty obvious – no. :-)

I understand. The same is true for my AP. As much as you may want the friendship, it seems pretty clear that all of your focus, ability and energy needs to be devoted to your marriage, and that – further – that is truly what you want at this time. (You know, just me and my little crystal ball over here . . . ) It is important to know that and act on it. I hope your AP is “supporting” you in that. Maybe that will change for you, or even my AP, over time. But until you truly can handle that, if ever, initiating a friendship would cause more trouble than it is worth.

Which makes my third thought pretty irrelevant at this point but, for the sake of completeness, it is: do you believe you could keep a friendship in the proper context? The last thing I want to do is have another affair. And, oddly, I don’t think it would be all that difficult for me and my AP to stick to that context. It was the beginning and by far the most valuable, enriching and missed part of our relationship. Our individual situations would also tend to reinforce that. You mention that you and your AP began as friends as well. Maybe the same would be true for y’all as well. But, fwiw, that’s another key question that anyone contemplating a friendship would have to answer.

Thanks, Peace, for allowing me to ruminate about all this. I know it isn’t directly the response you were looking for but I found the topic germane and useful so thanks.

Maintaining contact with exes, APs, and others is only setting ourselves up to do more damage. It allows us to demoralize ourselves. Whether we realize it at the time or later on the damage we do to ourselves takes a toll of serious depth.
The thrills we seek for the attention and affection only shows that we are weak. Can we not get the same thrills jumping out of a plane, driving a race car, riding the highways at night on a motorcycle or going deep sea fishing with your loved ones.
We choice our own morals and levels of self-esteem.

For a long time, I wanted to figure out a way to stay friends with AP because I saw the friendship as separate from the affair. And also as something AP wanted. But as I move farther and farther away I am starting to realize 1. It was always an affair for me. I wasn’t really “friends “ with AP before I started feeling emotionally attached. In fact, I work now to remind myself that I viewed him as a messy, lazy coworker who got paid the same if not more than me while doing less work. So we weren’t friends and 2. AP says the friendship was important to him but also admitted his marriage had basically been over for three years and he was living as coparents with wife until their kids were grown. So I’m not really sure I was ever a “friend” to him either.
What I’m saying is for me, I thought the friendship was important but really, the “friendship “ was just the early stages of the affair. So I really can’t be friends with AP. It wasn’t a thing to begin with.

There often seems to be a natural draw for taking a failed romantic relationship into a "friendship," since that way you don't lose the person entirely and you can make it seem all the more innocent. Unfortunately, there is no way for it to work. Any fragment of a friendship - no matter how sincere your intentions - will be weighed down by the past. All the questions of "should we" or "should we not" will come back. right away, as well as painful memory of the hurt and unfinished business. Wrap it up now and move on. You will know you're successful when you stop even caring about the person as a "friend" or anything else. Otherwise, it's all more spinning and suffering, and you've had enough of that already.

I would love to be able to stay friends with my AP. For me, we were solid friends and confidantes for a long time before the affair started, and I didn't even see the affair possibility coming at first. I think, in theory, that I could be friends with my AP, but in reality it would hurt our BSs too much. Perhaps over time that would change, maybe? In reality, I also think it would be hard to put the sexual appeal aside, for both of us, but I think that may grow easier over time, too. But, with NC, it would be impossible to know for sure. Time and patience and fate will tell, I suppose. For now, I'll keep trudging on.

I have a question :
Why do you want to maintain the relationship with your AP?
I am trying to understand that and I can’t.
I don’t think that someone could handle something like that. Excepting the partner’s AP .
Even if it was an open relationship still this could be red flag if not worst .

I am still friends with the APs I was friends with before we had affairs. My husband knows that I am friends with them.
But the ones that I didn't have a relationship with prior to the affair refuse to even acknowledge my existence now. He has no idea about them.

OIP78, my affair came about after a deep friendship was established, and it all began as more of an emotional affair than a sexual affair anyway. For that reason, I miss my AP because I miss the personal, friendship connection, and how we enhanced each other's lives. The affair threw all that off, and I don't think I can go back to being friends without significant risk (and I wouldn't do it without my BS' knowledge, so that risk would be mitigated, but of course, that is in theory only since at this time my BS would feel betrayed just knowing I miss the friendship and would like to consider it back. He is still very much in his raw feelings - half a year later from D-Day and the initiation of NC with my AP, and his feelings are lessened but still daily and still strong). And ironically perhaps, I think a friendship with my AP could actually hurt my AP's heart more (in some subtle, but real ways) because I think my AP really would want more of a relationship with me as well.

Anyway, I miss the friendship, so that is why I imagine having it back. Affairs aren't only about lust and sex and conquest and adventure after all.

MJ688 - I'd like to hear more about how you being friends with your former APs has worked for you and your husband. I don't plan to make any changes in my situation, but it would be nice to hear a version of post-Affairs that isn't just about the carnal desires (although, I also understand that).

On a side note, I actually think that the key to my husband's healing can only start with forgiveness of my AP. Not accepting that the affair was ok or right or acceptable or anything like that, but I think his continuing projection of all the blame for all his pain onto my AP is keeping his heart in pain. This relates to the friendship question because if my BS could accept and trust me even talking to my AP, then that would be a sign of healing. Again, not to start another affair, but just to be civilized people (not even friends in this example either). (For that matter, If my BS could consider himself even talking with my AP (at the moment,that thought still terrifies me!), not that I want them to get together to hang out any time soon, but the thought of that happening in a civilized way, some day, would mean so much in regards to healing - even if I never spoke to my AP again, some crazy idea that the two of them could work things out and shoot the sh*t over some drinks or something, is certainly a pipe dream in my mind, but the imagery is there and it would mean a lot in regards to healing and honor restoration and even comfort - in a perfect world. (and yes, in a perfect world I wouldn't have cheated! I know!) ) But, that may be just me and how I'm wired; I always wanted my former boyfriends (prior to my marriage) to remain friends and be in my life (loosely, but still there), but that just didn't work for them or for my husband. And, I know of people that are still friends with their exs and have good or decent relationships with their ex's spouses as well, so I'm not just idealizingly dreaming, and No, I don't "want to have my cake and eat it, too", since this is just about friendship and people with shared life experiences not wanting to leave their whole past in a blocked out part of their history. And to be fair, I always imagined being friends with their spouses, too, but I know that that is really hard for some (most?) folks.

I actually did become and stay friends with an ex's wife for some time, about 10 years with regular, but infrequent conversations over social media, but her overall struggle with anxiety won the day and I think that even my very limited, but sincere communications with her (more than with my Ex even! She was much more interesting) was deemed just not needed in her life (oh, and political opinions, not shared with her directly but still "public" may likely have played a role in our the ultimate severing of our communication. Though I still think we would enjoy chatting again if we were to run into each other - so no bad feelings, just no reason to keep a friendship going). And yes, that wasn't an affair, it was a completely time-separate ex-boyfriend and his later wife, and that makes the situation very different, of course, but I still think it helps me understand the bigger part of why I'm even asking this question related to my AP. I have this idea of "why can't we all just get along?" that has pervaded through my life. But, I know it is not that easy for most people.