From: http:menweb.org/necesinf.htm
By James Dolan

This paragraph was helpful to both H and me...

<<So the infidel spouse plunges into his sin and drinks deeply of the empurpled world of the forbidden. He experiences the demons of isolation and alienation, bewilderment slashing at his understanding of himself. He is in an agony of shame, paranoia, guilt, lust, fear, lust, and fear. His life is a death march, an impossibility that goes on 22 hours a day. However, there are those moments of the sublime that take place in the rented room, the hotel, the park, the out of town business trip, at her apartment. Somehow, life has been compressed into the stolen moments with her. He is an addict, drinking a dark elixir. He does not know that his behavior is a compulsive attempt to blot out the pain of being NOBODY....>>

The last sentence hit like a rock...At the time of his A, H was feeling like a loser at work and I was very successful...He was feeling like a NOBODY...NOBODY...That is such a powerful word...I know he also felt like NOBODY growing up when neither of his parents was there for him...He pretty much raised himself, and I have a picture in my head of a lonely little boy turning to food and later other addictions for comfort and company...He kept on with the A because when he was with her and especially helping her with her problems, he felt like SOMEBODY, and he was fighting to feel like SOMEBODY as a drowning man fights for air...Of course he had a hard time giving the A up...If he gave her up, it would be back to being a completely insignificant NOBODY...The need to feel like SOMEBOY in this world must be one of the strongest needs...After all, if we are not somebody, why take up space in this world?

The word NOBODY also struck me because I realized his A made me feel like a NOBODY..If the one person who was supposed to really love me in this whole world could be more into hanging out with OW, then I must be a NOBODY...When I was growing up my mother was a NOBODY...My father repeatedly cheated on her and disrespected her...We all thought she was a NOBODY though I never put that word on it until this morning when I read this article...When we went to family parties and whatever, my dad was charismatic and the center of attention and SOMEBODY...Therefore the WS has the power to be somebody and the BS is the insignificant NOBODY...The picture of H out having fun with OW while I was home crying was the exact scene I witnessed so many times in my adolescence...my mom home crying on the living room couch while dad was out doing his thing...I was the NOBODY, completely insignificant in this world...

These insights led me to an epiphany this morning that my mother was NOT a nobody...She
just made a bad choice in marriage and was afraid to get out of it...I AM NOT A NOBODY EITHER!! I married a man with some issues and he is working on them....But that does not make me the nobody that I have been letting it feel like I am...Even if H needs to cheat again and I need to leave him (my biggest fear) , I will still be a SOMEBODY in this world...

I hope this helps some of you as it has helped me!!!

Marie: Sounds like you are rising above all the netative family role models and doing wonderful homework on yourself. Congratulations to you.

My situation with parents was similar, though I don't think my father had an A. But mom was always crying because he was emotionally (and physically) abusive to her. My father died of a massive heart attack at 48, while my mother, at 82, is the matriarch of the family, still lives in the family home and mows her own grass. I am much more like my dad (fun, driven, type A, musical), and have always struggled with my quest for male approval (dad didn't really care for me either) I have made many mistakes because of this trait and I work at recovery every day.

The thing that resonates with me from the article is that so many of us have had damaged childhoods with negative coping skills modeled for us. In my case, I just seem to reach out to guys who have had similar wounds, who remind me of my father in some way. Someone said that the relationship conflicts we have are due to us trying to heal a pain from the past with a person of the present.

Thanks for the article, it is a good one.

Judy