Cheaters Anonymous Community Group
This is a support group for cheating spouses looking for understanding and strength. Betrayed spouses are welcome to post ONLY if they can do so in a supportive manner (no bashing...these posts will be deleted), and please do not comment on 'Cheaters Only' posts.
So, the summer is over and we're all back to the "real world". It occcured to me that I might need to be worried about maintaining NC. My AP and I have a couple of pretty brief but specific ways in which we could cross paths, which both our BSs know and which (at least I would think on their BS's part) still causes them unneeded and unhelpful angst. I say "unneeded" because neither of us want to break NC and even if we did, this would about the last place/way we would want to. We've been quite successful so far but I think alot of that was based on prior shared knowledge of "safe days", "dangerous times of day" and the like. As more time goes by, we have no way of knowing if anything has changed. There should be a way to just go "Time out! We're all adults here and we've got to take care of some logistics. Blansday at flurbteen o'clock is no longer safe because I now have to pick up my veeblefetzer at that time. We're good? OK, time in." Sigh. Humans and their complexities.
Why not give them a free pass?
If your BS has reason to worry that you could cross paths, and you continue to never not ever cross paths ever because you arranged not to, wouldn't that raise suspicion? Wouldn't it be better to say, if your BS asked, "have you run into that person",that "no, I haven't run into them, but I did see them in passing recently and went the the other way/crossed the street/ignored them/hid in a bush/ducked in a bathroom/pretend to be a tree/whatever to avoid them"?
Sounds to me like the answer here is really simple. To avoid contact to keep no contact, just avoid it. If you happen to literally bump into each other, be civil, say I'm sorry, top of the morning to you, and be off on your merry way.
Don't sweat the small stuff like worrying about that, and just be confident in your ability to be strong and keep no contact, and to be civil if it did happen.
Though I did enjoy your amusing depiction of a conversation. When we deal in this really serious and often upsetting arena here, it can be nice to read such light-heartedness. thanks for that bit.
You are not going to see each other in the mall and grab each other throw down right and hump like rabbits, so why worry. treat them like any other person.
My biggest concern isn't me and my AP (everytime I write that, I hear "Me and my Bobby McGee", which isn't even . . . never mind). We are quite capable of being practical, and brutally, cold-bloodedly totally fine in the moment. One of the things I admire most about them. (No promises about tears after, on either part.) The problem is that, for either/both of us, even saying to our BSs "yes, but hid in a bush" would unleash a torrent of pain and mistrust, regardless of how innocent or unavoidable or whatever the almost contact was. I still have to report NC every time and the days that are known to be 'safe" are much better for all concerned. I'd just like a way to know if there are any big changes, so that even near misses could be avoided. But, yeah, not actually *being* a teenager, I wont' break NC to protect NC.
You're welcome and thank-you for the support and response.
I know for my BS, the mere thought that I might encounter my AP, or that he might encounter him, is painful. So visits to local places where that *could* happen, like the market or the same roads traveled, can trigger him. He has also told me/asked me to stop worrying about changing things I do to protect from those triggers, which I appreciate that he is trying but frankly I will still put book, or phone case, or whatever might have a distant/perceived/not real but assumed association with my AP away and out of sight, or gone altogether to minimize that risk.
In my case, I have been lucky to not have encountered my BS at all, which is really weird and seemingly unlikely, but also not really hard to do (I've gone years without seeing people, before they show up again). Yet, my BS seems to grow suspicious of that a bit because it seems too unlikely to be the case.
At the same time I hope to not run into my AP (because telling my BS would cause a lot of pain, and I couldn't not tell him, even if it was to say that I told my AP that I want nothing to do with him and nothing more, so I hear your concern), and because I think not running into my AP is a continuing sign to my BS that my AP going to leave me, and us, alone. So long as I maintain my BS' trust through continued, complete NC with my AP (which I plan to and want to do), and he continues to trust me, then I hope that my AP's apparently successful and continued avoidance of me works into my AP's favor by currying slightly less animosity and hatred from my BS. Is that a bizarre logic? I don't not getting crazy here and hoping they become friends, or that my AP and I become friends again, but a little less of the nasty feelings from my BS would be good for his healing I think.
In the early weeks post D-Day, my BS worried heavily about me running into my AP, and when I told him that I didn't want to see my AP either or have any contact (I was so so fearful), my BS said to me "why?? because you're afraid of what you'll do?" and despite all the pain, and lack of sleep, and hurt, and fear, and shame I was living in at that moment, I couldn't help but laugh inside thinking nearly the same thing as Memphis said! What did my BS think I'd do? That I'd just jump my AP and start kissing passionately wherever we were??? That never happened during the affair, why would I do that now?!
Finding humor through the pain, when recognizing the absurd! Of course I never pointed that out to my BS at the time, because I actually think he was really thinking something like that. But, for me it was a stroke of an inner smile, and a call to patience as I recognized the irrationality, though understandable, that my BS was working through in his mind.
Still, and I alluded to this above, to this day there are regular times when he is concerned about me possibly arranging contact, and I can't help but think, (and I have to bite my tongue) just for a split second of practicality - "how stupid do you think I am?" - before I push that aside and just try to empathize and accept - "I am not going to hurt you again, because my BS deserves better and because if I did I would also hurt myself and our children" and that's that. The affair is over. I miss my AP in many ways, but I am committed to helping my BS heal and be the best spouse, friend, lover, and parent possible. And the same for me. And I hope, I hope, I hope that is the same for my AP and AP's spouse.
Still, I appreciate some chuckles and lightheartedness through this difficult experience.
You are asking me my view, but it sounds like you are struggling with some kind of your own situation of breaking NC with the justification of preventing damage? It sounds like a tricky situation and risky business, and I empathize with you, but don't really want to advise on hypotheticals. For me, I guess I prefer the absolute, honest certainty of NC. Keeping a clean mind, an honest heart, and no games. Keeping the balance between emotional safety, security, sufficient awareness, and honesty. Stick to no contact and focus on letting life keep moving on as it needs to. No more damage done to broken, fragile, mending hearts. Any and all of them. Being practical and letting go of my AP as best I can (it's hard and I don't totally want to, at least not in my heart, so I'm trying to minimize and integrate maybe? Ack. now I'm confuddling my ideas here), and hoping that my AP is letting me go in their mind, gently, too (enough to live and love freely). I guess the risks of any contact, for me, feels to great - any contact and my BS would fall apart and turn me out. I have no doubt of that. I can't go through that again (there were many long nights filled with motions of leaving or me leaving, only to stay put because there is no other way) or put my family at risk, my kids need both me and my spouse there as their parents, and they need us to be fully loving and kind and amicable to each other and to them, and we couldn't do that if we split or fought over any contact with my AP. And I'm not going to let my marriage end because of an affair. So, the risk is just too great.
But, like you generally implied, I guess there are catch-22 points maybe - damned if you do, and damned if you don't, so which way are you going to go to be less damned? I guess it is just another tough and tight spot that us CS' have to maneuver through as we work to live honestly and build trust with our BS' (and ourselves! :) ) from the fallout of our previous choices. We got ourselves into this mess! Still, I want to be able to look myself in the mirror, to be confident in the person that I know I am, who does not want to hurt anyone, but struggles to live within some of the tight confines of my BS' insecurity. My hope and goal (I have the lead role in this after all) is that the insecurity will relax in time, and in the future while I don't intend to change my behavior or change NC with my AP, I look forward to being less afraid of incidentally having contact with my AP because my BS will be more secure in themselves and more understanding overall. I can hope right?
For now, I prefer sticking to the cookie cutter, straight and forward, rigid path. That is my foundation for strength on this journey to recovery. I hope you find some help from that.
No, I agree with 99% of what you wrote. I really am talking about the analogue, reversed of course, to the yelling fire in a crowded theater limits on the 1st Amendment. Really not even damned if you do, but damned if you don"t. A situation where both the probability of something truly emotionally damaging happening is quite high and the ability of the people in question to avoid the same, with the information they have, is too low, A wildly imbalanced equation.
That is a hope we should all have, both for the sake of our BSs overall emotional health and for that hallmark of some kind of return to normalcy.
I understand and understood what you're saying, and I see the dilemma. I struggle to allow myself to consider the exception, because it would amount to a bit of a battle with myself. Maybe a big battle with myself and determined self concept of staying honest. I may have gone a bit overkill in my explanation, sticking to the hard and fast lines. But, while I stand by that, I may not want to admit to the cause for exception as being possible. I guess I'd rather not admit to or commit to allowing it. Maybe because I'd be afraid of opening that door? And that making it easier to justify opening it again? In any case, I hope the situation or need doesn't present itself to me, and in the meantime I will aim to stick to the hard, steadfast limits of NC, and still being real and as honest as I can be to myself and everyone else.