Hello Wildgopher:

Your obsession story pretty much matches a recent experience I had as a musician. I am happily married and 100% committed to my (2nd) wife.

While working at a club away from home, I somehow became emotionally fascinated with a certain woman and became increasingly infatuated with her. Thanks to a lot of psychological studies and work in various programs plus a serious dedication to my marriage, I steadfastly avoided any intimate or personal contacts with the object of my desires even though I'd see her often at the "gig". I was quite surprised and my emotional reacts to this person, who is nothing at all like the kind of babe I would be attracted to so I realized that I was having some kind of childhood feelings event - maybe she looked like or reminded me of some girl I was in love with in the 1st grade?

My strategy was to constantly remind myself that I am a married man and am not in the market for an affair OF ANY KIND! I would let babes who came to flirt, like the band singer, know that I AM MARRIED. I cheated on my 1st wife but that's another story.

Now I have a profoundly HONEST and respectful marriage with my now wife so I finally told her what had been going on with me at that gig after it was over and she said with a smile "I knew!"

Anyway, back to how I coped with my unusually strong and amazing feelings was by using some mind control methods that I learned from Eckhart Tolle teachings, realizing that I was caught in a psychological drama probably from early childhood issues and plain old will power to stay away from this seductive woman as much as I could and CONSTANTLY remind myself that I am a committed, happily MARRIED MAN! I would never deliberately cheat on my wife although I've looked at some porn now and then.

What helped me "get over" the object of my obsessions was that she got romantically involved with the MARRIED trombone man so I was now off the hook. I felt a little jealous and irritated that he was married but I slowly let all of that go and was damned glad I didn't push it with her or my marriage would be ruined all for nothing.

I won't find fault with or diss the woman I was attracted to and am still puzzled at my helplessly childish needs and desires to connect with her. It took a lot of effort and will power to stay away and not get sucked into an affair that I am sure she wanted with me as we were playing "eyeball games" (my phrase) for a while and came very close on a few occasions to getting intimately close.

I will look into that "attachment disorder" thing for my own benefit on this obsessing issue. I thought my helpless reactions had something to do with Codependency but it might be something even deeper from my troubled past. I that I was having unmet childhood needs reactions to a person that I did not know and never got to know at all! Maybe like falling in love/lust with a dream character?

But I'm sure glad that it's over now and hope she and the married trombone guy are happy now. I don't see any of them any more so I have no idea how things turned out but I don't need to obsess about that either!

Thanks for bringing this issue to the board,
jim