SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am really struggling with having no contact with my AP. The loneliness and longing to talk to him is killing me. Trying to distract myself is not helping. I am just preoccupied constantly with thoughts of him. And wondering how someone who said they love me, can just turn those feelings off. I really wish I could.
My preoccupation, and constantly looking at my phone hoping he contacts me, is starting to interfere with my other responsibilities.

And wondering how someone who said they love me, can just turn those feelings off.

Try and focus on this part. It may take some brain rewiring by focusing on the negatives to start to turn the tide of your despair.

You could try setting aside a set time to write about what your feeling, so in the meantime you can try and regain your focus, knowing you'll have your time to let it out.

How are you doing?

I know that it doesn’t feel this way right now and you are unlikely to believe me. However, affairs are not about love.

Love is wanting the best for the other person- which means by definition you would not start a relationship when you are not available to the other. You would not want their family to break up. You would not drop the other like a hot potato when the wife learns what has been happening.

Affairs are about escapism. They start often with two unhappy people who give each other validation. The instability and secrecy of the relationship leads to a push pull dynamic in which the highs are very high and the lows are very low. Each low takes each high to a higher place. It creates a chemical dependency in your brain that can create an addiction.

This feels like love, but what you will one day realize it was just a boot of bad decisions that gave you hope for the future that you were/are not feeling with your current situation.

The only way to help yourself is to try and produce more happy chemicals yourself. For me- I took up running. Any exercise/sunshine can help. There are foods you can eat that help your brain chemistry. Sometimes it takes medication, which sounds extreme but this is deeply related to the obsessive/compulsive type of issues.

Change the channel in your brain as much as possible. Stay busy. It’s hell. I have been there. But it’s not the dude, it’s the reliance on him to make you feel better/to save you. And I am not trying to be cruel here but the chances of him returning are very remote. Any contact you have will start the high/low cycle again.

Read the Wikipedia definition of limerance.

Also there are some great articles by dr. Frank Pittman on romantic infidelity. I remember being introduced to those articles and realizing that I was having a predictable psychological reaction to having an affair. It helped me see it wasn’t special.
You are in withdrawal. There is a great article posted to the top of this forum called Maia’s guide to withdrawal. It seems extreme but if you research it, you will see what I mean.

It’s really hard to realize that what you did didn’t have a higher meaning to it. But it does- just jot the one you are fixated on. The higher meaning and your new purpose is to learn to grow a life you do not want to escape from, which includes working out having thinking that you do not need to escape from. Your thoughts are not always true, and your emotions are based on your thoughts.

I am trying to read as much as I can about limerance. Logically, I understand that I am really in love with the feelings I got from those highs. And my mind attributes those to my AP. I know I am not alone, but a part of me did think that we would one day be together. Maybe it wasn’t as much thinking as it was wanting/wishing. We had been in an on again off again emotional affair for about 8 years. It wasn’t until about the last year and a half that we started talking about an actual future together. I am and have been in a worse place in my marriage than he has been. So yes, it was definitely escapism for me.
And deep down, I still want him to want a future with me. We have gone NC and I am dealing with it and I am not contacting him but I still hope and wish he contacts me. I don’t want to be this tethered to someone. I want to just forget about him. I read everywhere that you have to go through the grief. But honestly, I don’t know how to do that or what it means to actually do that.
I know in my head that we will never be together but I don’t know how to make my heart and my desires catch up with my head.