I suggest trying to transfer those warm and tingly feelings onto your husband. As Dr. Laua Schlessinger has said many times, if you act the part the feeling will follow. It's worth a try, isn't it dear?

What Dan said. Not what raindrop said.

Dan didn't go far enough: she needs to forgive herself for the past and fuck the daylights out of Bob NOW, to get past this. She finds him hot. It was a bad time but it is done. She seems to be traumatized by it, so maybe a bit of therapy will help her deal with that. But otherwise, fuck his brains out and get it over with.

I think the 'why' is irrelevant. Maybe she does it on purpose because she wants to show off how good the chemistry is - maybe it is entirely involuntary. Regardless, the wife has told her to stop making sex eyes at him in public, so she needs to either learn some self control or not socialize with him outside the swinging community.

Frankly, I think the moment her indiscreet behavior actually has a negative consequence for her she'll learn to stop panting whenever he's in a 30-foot radius, but you never know she really might not be able to help it.

Aw, for fuck’s sake. You don’t have to actually drool like a Pavlovian dog around this guy. Keep it in your mind! What are you, four years old? oh, and go buy some panty liners to hide that damp spot in your crotch.

It's called oxytocin, and it's also known as NRE (new relationship energy). Next question?

BG @3, she is fucking the daylights out of Bob on a regular basis. It's not getting it out of her system. "Afterwards I always feel extremely guilty, sick to my stomach over it, and it's worse when we actually do have sex." So the problem is the guilt, and she's feeling guilty not because she's fucking another man but because her feelings for this man are stronger than the feelings for her husband. This is why she feels disloyal.

It seems like she WANTS this to be wrong, that part of the thrill for her is that this is forbidden. Her problem is that it isn't forbidden, both spouses are okay with the arrangement. So she is trying to make it wrong by violating Mrs Bob's boundary of keeping their swinging in the closet. NCA, you are being childish. Yes, there is a lot of programming we humans get to think of monogamy as the only respectable way to conduct a relationship; you seem to have got to the point where you've rejected the idea that you can't fuck more than one person, but you can't wrap your head around the idea that it's okay to have FEELINGS for more than one person. Also, your husband didn't really do you a kindness by asking for DADT because you can't communicate about this with the person you are closest to.

It's also possible NCA has discovered she is not a swinger, but polyamorous. NCA, perhaps you could join a poly meetup group where you can have open conversations with like-minded people who won't judge you. If the price of admission for keeping both these wonderful men in your life is being discreet, learn to be discreet. But perhaps you've learned something about yourself, and it's that what you really want is to be OPENLY polyamorous. My guess is you feel like a CPOS because you're still sneaking around. If hiding this relationship is making you feel this terrible, you might have to risk it by having a conversation with everyone involved about how secret swinging is no longer working for you.

BDF @ 6 She is NOT fucking the daylights out of Bob on a regular basis.

"I will go several months without being around him, rarely think about him."

Re: NCA By once, does she mean a one night stand or once upon a time with this guy. I will assume the former. If the latter, then lies and deceit would complete the troika creating an even greater sense of guilt. Fucking the daylights out of Bob will do nothing for her sense of guilt (A guilty pleasure?)

I'm not a CPOS! Not now, but she was then and that may be the problem. . Continuing guilt over her betrayal of her husband and family? Therapy may help or not. How traumatic was it for her when the guilt kicked (as in what have I done) "Afterwards I always feel extremely guilty, sick to my stomach over it, and it's worse when we actually do have sex." I assume that this occurred after the first time as well.

Her husband forgave her and that may have made it worse. "I have an amazing and supportive husband." On some level she may feel the she deserves.needs to be punished It doesn't seem like her husband punished her very much or at all. (I wonder if she was raised Catholics. As the saying goes "Catholics do guilt, Jews do shame" They are made to feel that they need to be punished for their sins. Could she have unrealized masochistic tendencies?). it would be easier if her husband had. Since he won't, she will punish herself. "Afterwards I always feel extremely guilty, sick to my stomach over it, and it's worse when we actually do have sex." His being nice caring and understanding most likely just intensified her feelings of guilt since they increases, in her mind, the magnitude of her betrayal.

She should see a therapist. Even more important, She really, really needs to talk to her husband about her feelings of guilt.

More on a possible need to be punished. This is very twisty. She knows how she feels afterwards, does she react the way she does towards Bob because she wants to be punished.

As I said, she needs to see a therapist/psychoanalyst to sort out what's going on in her head

NCA, I hear that you "don't like these sensations...always feel extremely guilty, sick to my stomach over it".

I think Dan's final paragraph nails it.

You can work on this. Try to become comfortable with that it's not cheating anymore, it's safe now, it's honorable now. Forgive yourself for being imperfect long ago (we're all imperfect). Spend some time working on feeling these feelings, make peace with them and with yourself.

If you're one of those people who isn't great at self-awareness, a therapist could be particularly helpful. (I think a Somatic therapist would be a good choice.)

@9: Hardly honorable. Setting a bad example for her kids, treating her husband like yesterday's newspaper. That's the 'self-awareness' she needs.

Hacha @7, NRE can certainly persist for a year, particularly if they sometimes don't see each other for months.

Skeptic @8, it depends on what you mean by "regular." The point is that they have indeed had sex, multiple times, including once with his wife, post the affair and confession, so banging him isn't going to solve NCA's problem.

Interesting theory that she doesn't have closure because she hasn't been punished. Or at least, not the way she wanted to be. Her husband imposing the DADT is in a sense punishment, since she can't go to him and ask for a spanking or other "punishment" for having been such a "dirty slut" (if she thinks that will help resolve her conflict). Reminds me of the joke where the masochist begs the sadist to whip and beat him, and the sadist says, "No." It's not clear to me whether she's feeling guilty over the past cheating or over the feelings she's caught for Bob. She needs to sort that out, potentially with a therapist, and forgive herself for what her husband has already forgiven.

The easiest solution to the chemistry, if it's that, is avoidance

Hopefully Bob doesn't live near by

Maybe it's just the memory of mind blowing sex

Can a person just turn it off if it is chemistry

I would expect she would crave being fucked by him

BDF

I would call it intermittent and sporadic, not regular

Is it helping the lw that her liaison with Bob is dadt, not on a basis e.g. once a month negotiated with her husband. Why has he asked for dadt? Is it that he's made insecure by how sexually compelling she finds Bob? The lw is clear she doesn't love Bob--this is primarily a matter of lust. So why is she writing to Dan--if her extramarital connection presents no threat to the security of her marriage and heavy-duty childcare arrangements? Is it that she feels guilty? Or is there a threat? I have the sense she should ask her husband for help working out some sort of framework for keeping her connection with Bob in its place.

@6. Bi. Does she have feelings for Bob? It's either 'no' or she's being coy or evasive. Good point about her likely being poly by emotional style and having an urge for her lust to be forbidden.

@5. Donny. Good, stern point.

@9. a skeptic. Is her question actually about her uncomfortable feelings or is she afraid that she will do something stupid like ask Bob to run off with her? What do you think?

Her terms with Bob are now on the level, and she has nothing to be ashamed of.

@14:

Is it that he's made insecure by how sexually compelling she finds Bob?

Yep. And isn't that kind of mean of her to keep it going? Why isn't she considering that?

"Dan, I don't like these sensations
I'm not in love with Bob
I will go several months without being around him, rarely think about him
I feel so out of control
I always feel extremely guilty, sick to my stomach over it
it's worse when we actually do have sex"
If she was telling the truth, if it was worse to have sex with Bob than not, she would stop having sex with Bob and try to make friends with other couples. But she doesn't want to do that. She wants to feel better about having sex with Bob, it's starting to become distracting enough to write to Dan. And she has a hard time treating Mrs Bob respectfully. I think she would make her life better if she tried to focus on her husband instead of Bob, and maybe arrange a schedule to see him and get guilty and contrite before public events if she can't avoid him. Maybe it's just grass is greener syndrome on overdrive. Or maybe she is very attracted to polyamory, maybe moreso than she is devoted to her husband or Bob, in which case I defer to BDF's expertise.

Skeptic @13, you're clearly not poly. I would call whatever you want to call it beside the point, because BG @3's theory that she can get over this crush by fucking the guy does not hold water because she is already fucking the guy and still has these feelings. Let me know if you want that explained again.

Harriet @14: "Why has he asked for dadt? Is it that he's made insecure by how sexually compelling she finds Bob?" Or is it because he also wants to bang other people and not have to tell her about it? Some people would rather not engage in "endless talk," as one DADT proponent put it, about their metamours. If NCA is unhappy with the DADT aspect, as I suspect, she should be the one to ask her husband why this is his preference.

Harriet @15, the entire letter is about the feelings she has for Bob. "I get slightly breathless, my skin tingles, and every interaction between us is charged. He will just smile at me from across the room and I get instantly wet." I call those feelings. Too coy and evasive for you? "I've never had this strange, uncomfortable FEELING as I've had around Bob." "I'm not in love with Bob—so why these intense FEELINGS?" But you knew that, since in the next breath you ask "is her question actually about her uncomfortable feelings." I'm not sure how you can perceive that she both does and does not have feelings...

I don't know why, but what jumped into mind was, "From him who hath not shall be taken away even that DADT agreement which he hath."

I'll hope that LW's next marriage is with a highly enthusiastic cuckold.

@16. Raindrop. Why isn't she considering that?

Because her sense is, all in all, that her husband gets a pretty good deal. She's younger than he is; he gets sex pretty much when he asks, and she's raising his kids. She is doing something that, stereotypically, men have proposed to their wives, not the other way round in swinging (though that might not be true in this case). There is a thread of entitlement running through her letter; but one reason she's so conflicted is that it's not the main note, which is an ambivalence about the strength of the chemistry she has with Bob.

Imv it's not reasonable for ask her to give Bob up; but the couple should together think of some way of making their marriage bombproof (or, as it were, Bob-proof) re her potentially unbridled lust for other men.

@18. Bi. I get the impression that their lifestyle is of swinging, with--at any rate before the big Bob thing came up--any of their extramarital partners being considered to have the same emotional weight as swinging (i.e. not much, for them). But her feelings for Bob would seem to be more consequential and to require more careful handling. I think it also consistent with the letter that usually they just swing--that her husband, with his age-lowered libido, doesn't have sex privately with any women they meet on their nights out. She got off on Bob so much that her husband felt it was only being even-handed to grant her permission to fuck him outside of the usual scope of their extramural sex.

@19. Bi. What's a feeling and what's a sensation? Curiosity, affinity, identification--I think these have to be feelings. Lust--maybe that can just be a sensation. To an extent the distinction is going to be arbitrary. But I can just about accept that ... 'a prickle of lust ran up my spine' is realistic--because lust is a sensation--and 'a prickle of identification ran up my spine' is not, is awkward--because identification is a feeling. So ... does she have feelings in my terms or not? She is describing sensations (in my terms). She has said and wants us to believe that she only has sensations for Bob, for occasional sidepiece Bob. However I would think she has feelings.

I think of lust as a feeling/emotion. "A prickle of fear (dread, horror, pain, numbness, awe) ran up my spine" all work." A prickle of happiness (hunger, snarkiness, ticklishness, silliness) ran up my spine" don't.

Hey everyone, I'm NCA. Thanks for input! I just wanted to clarify a few things...

My husband is very active in the swinger world with me and although we full swap, it's always together. My CPOS moment was a one time thing, not an affair and I told him a couple days later. Bob and his wife don't go to the swinger events, they are a part of another non-swinging group we belong to and only see each other about a handful of times a year. Like I said in my letter, I rarely think about Bob unless he's right in front of me and it's mainly him making the looks or passing touches. My body just instinctively responds and then here comes the guilt because it feels like I have no control over my own body and mind. We both do a pretty good job of playing acquaintances during the day, but at night it all just intensifies. I have shared with my hubs about the feelings I get around Bob and he is sympathetic -- and glad I don't have that for him because he said it's more sex than he could take.

I've been in therapy for over 15 years, but hadn't brought it up because I started seeing a new therapist after mine moved and I hadn't seen Bob in six months or so. I feel like I'm a pretty self aware person, but I hadn't been able to figure out that strange feeling Bob gives me since it's never happened before with anyone else and it doesn't seem to go away. My question was prompted by a recent meeting we both attended --and yet again I succumbed. Thanks Dan for your excellent advice as usual!!!

I actually did talk to my hubs yesterday about it all. Again, he was sympathetic and said he could help me with avoiding Bob since it was making me feel so guilty if that's what I wanted. I'm a very lucky woman and deeply love my husband. Sadly I do want to avoid Bob -- I like the other group we belong to and don't want to lose those friends, I don't want to put Bob's wife in a shitty position where people think her husband is running around, I don't
want people to think I'm running around on my husband, and I don't like the gossip that circulates.

Harriet, re how people work, feelings vs sensation, I think that most feelings are internal reflections, once removed from sensations. Sensory nerves produce sensations, the memory of a sensation produces a feeling. Feelings also produce involuntary reflexes, butterflies in the stomach, tingles up the spine, swollen genitals, but I don't think these are direct sensations, I usually still call them feelings even though they are technically involuntary physical responses to feelings. We can act on our own body to produce our own sensations directly, I tend to think of sensations as only our most direct perception of physical events happening to our body and related to sensory rather than motor nerves. Emotions seem to be a subset of feelings, more related to the way we internally process events. And our actions or voluntary responses are the things that reflect our character and test our integrity. I think these are interesting questions in exploring how much choice we have vs determinism.

Zappo, Thanks for writing in. I'm sorry if I came across as harsh. It sounds like you are treating your husband with respect.. even though I was concerned that he said he was glad you were not as attracted to him as Bob, that sounds like he was stifling his love of your affection. I'm glad it sounds like you are taking steps to eliminate the Bob problem from your priorities. If I may take a stab in the dark, if Bob is treading over boundaries and you are attracted to him, he does things that feel designed to make you respond sexually at uncomfortable times... a somewhat dangerous attraction feels different from being attracted to someone with whom you share a good life. Most of the time it doesn't feel great to mix bad feelings with good.. maybe these mixed feelings are compelling, a reason to shake things up in your life, a sign that you have some extra energy for additional risk, only maybe choose one that can benefit your family more.

@23. Philophile. To me, a feeling like love is closer to an established pattern of action, a routine, a role in a relationship that a person enacts (and which is accompanied by certain characteristic affects) than it is to a reflection of feelings. So I'd think some feelings are a way off being sensations.

Harriet, our language has many definitions for feelings. One definition of feelings is "the sensation of touching or being touched", but most definitions involve emotions or mental impressions. I like to think of my senses (not just the 5 standard senses) as input, my mental functions or "feeling and thinking" as my processing rules (you can see some evidence of how I process through my involuntary reactions), and my voluntary actions as my controllable output, my choice, how others will judge me, and how I judge my own mental state and integrity, whether what I say I care about is where I am devoting my energy etc. I also try to pay attention to my involuntary reactions and make sure I understand them, what they are telling me about what my body needs. I try to make sure I'm doing what I want, and avoid "how'd that happen", unaware voluntary actions.

There are many definitions of love, too, some are actions, some are feelings. The feeling of caring for another's happiness is best expressed by actions that show care for their happiness, the feeling of being attracted or attached to another is best expressed by actions that show care for their health and happiness, the feeling of lust for another is best expressed by showing appreciation for their sexual satisfaction.. The actions of love have some standards but most acts of love are social or personal constructs, the actions performed as a response to the feeling of attraction/affection.. whatever works.. most commonly the action of love refers to mutually pleasurable sex in all its forms..

What is most interesting about love to me at the moment, is that it doesn't exist as a pure single emotion, but with disappointment/sadness, with anger and fear when there is bad communication or lack of integrity.. how to balance the mixed desires of love and safety.. so far my only answer is 'slowly and carefully'.

BDF @ 18 I refer you to Zappo @ 22 Her being poly is irrelevant. Her issues are guilt and her physical/emotional response to Bob, which she really dislikes, intensely (as in sick to her stomach) As I hoped, she is seeing a therapist (15 years worth), but sadly (perhaps not unexpectedly) that has not identified the source of or a solution for her guilt or physical/emotional response to Bob.

She isn't fucking Bob, does not want to fuck Bob and intends to avoid Bob. She most definitely does not lust after Bob.

I'm not sure if succumbed means she fucked Bob or if Bob just flirted with her and she had her physical/emotional response. Either of which triggered her feelings of guilt and resulted in her letter. I wonder if Bob is aware of the effect he has on her (a real possibility). If he is and still flirts her then he is a real POS A good person does not intentionally inflict pain on someone (unless the recipient is into that kink)

With avoidance (and absent the trigger of her physical/emotional response to Bob) she may finally be able to her forgive herself.

I'm really glad she took my advice and finally talked with her husband about her feelings. DADT should never have applied in this situation since it prevented her getting his loving support/help to address her issues.

Hi Zappo @22, thanks for checking in. I'm glad you were able to talk with your husband about this. I guess you have made up your mind about what to do, but it still seems odd to me (and to you, too) that you would feel so guilty about something that is, number one, natural (sexual response/desire) and, number two, permissible within the bounds of your relationship, so long as you can keep discreet in public. I would encourage you to speak to your therapist about this because there may be another Bob in your life at some point, and it would be good for you to have analysed these feelings and be better prepared.

Skeptic @27, how could I have possibly been informed by Zappo @22 when I was writing my post @18? She has been fucking Bob and has decided to solve her problem by no longer fucking Bob, no longer being around Bob. She most definitely does lust after Bob, that's the source of the guilt she feels. She said in black and white that she has had sex with Bob on multiple occasions after the cheating incident, including once as a threesome with Bob's wife. YOUR being poly versus not is relevant to interpreting what "regularly" means, but if you don't understand what "it's worse when we actually do have sex" means (that they actually do have sex), there's no hope here.

Thanks again for the comments guys -- it actually has helped with understanding all this a bit better and I didn't originally realize how much I wanted to talk about it my hubs until it was mentioned. The guilt is

BDF Once again her being poly is irrelevant because her issues extreme guilt and physical/emotional reaction to Bob are not unique to being poly. My suggestions to address those were see a therapist which has for 15 years (since therapy has not worked, if her therapist is neither a psychiatrist or psychologist she might want to see one who is. Maybe she will have better luck with the new therapist once she becomes comfortable with talking about her issues), avoid Bob (which is what she intends to do) and above all else, TALK to her husband about her issues (which she finally did) DADT should never have attached to those issues, but did in her mind. All that accomplished was to prevent to her seeking and receiving the comfort and loving support of her husband. DADT in this situation would be like saying it would apply if she was being stalked or had been raped. As evidenced by husband's apparent reaction, all the husband wanted was not to know the detailed specifics of the sex she was having or who they were.

Zappo if you read this would you please complete your last sentence. My guess is that the guilt you feel is less intense after talking to your husband. I would also suggest you clarify with him what DADT means to him.

PS Zappo, has talking to your husband been more effective than 15 years of therapy?

Also, do you self identify as being poly? As always what you believe yourself to be is more important than any label applied by someone else.

@Skeptic

My last comment was cut off for some reason. After talking it out more, I figured out the guilt was more from knowing I was not being discreet enough. Standing too close, dancing too close, a look here or there. That's where the guilt came in and it was worse after sleeping together because someone may have seen something. The sexual attraction just had me in blinders to everything else around me.

I truly doubt I'm poly -- I don't think I have it in me to have more than one partnership at a time. I'm just a plain ole swinger. I don't even actually talk to Bob. We flirt and talk bubble gum fluff when we are the same get togethers, but never anything real. I actually can't imagine talking like that with him. I think it's just simply what Dan said, an intense sexual connection. A friend of mine said pheromones.

My husband and I have had several talks about it all since and he agreed the DADT did not apply here. I can't say it's helped more than 15 years of therapy, but it has helped me understand the situation much better. My husband knows me so well he was able to put things in a perspective I just couldn't see because I was too close to it and embarrassed by the attraction.