SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This is her issue. The only thing you can do is say how you feel. But even with what you said I would not change my advice. The woman has to work on herself and while it may seem weak the way she is worried you will find someone else it’s normal to react to the uncertainty when you have not done the work on yourself. If she can’t master this, then she will never become reconciliation material.

I never thought my husband would cheat, though he did, my version of a reaction was the certainty that I just proved how unlovable I was and why would he ever love me again. It’s just a different version of the same song. The ws has created instability but then has a hard time existing in it. But it’s not harder to her than it is for you and in my opinion I would give her how you feel and she will either figure it out and provide you with that relief or she will just continue to make everything about her and her feelings more important. I hope she chooses wisely.

Another question for WS. Have you ever let your affair partner into your house without having sex with them? My wife has trickle truth this out about 3 years after Dday that she had let him in our house and that he had been drinking but nothing happened sexually while he was there. The more I think about this, the harder I believe it. I feel like she has gaslighted me a few times on some real obvious situations. I have heard it said that you should trust your gut feeling on these things. Just wanted to get the WS's perspective on this question. I pretty much know what the BS's will say.

Thanks,

Lost1313

It's been a year since d day, and all physical activity was stopped when I found out what my wife was up to. She says she hates him now, and I'm pretty reasonably convinced that's true. However, she also says she's absolutely disgusted that she got physical with him at all. The thought and memories of what they did together make her sick.

I'm less convinced of that. Surely she enjoyed it or she wouldn't have gone back 2 more times for more? Are any of you disgusted not just with the fact that you betrayed your husband, but also disgusted with the actual physical acts you did with AP? I can't help but wonder if there are some pleasant memories of the actual sex acts they did together.

Hi pogre-

I wrote an answer on the previous page to aspect north that I think is appropriate to use as the basis for my answer to your question, but I will make some specific comments to you after the repeat:

"First, without making sweeping generalizations of all women, the vast majority of women who I have met through this site including myself cheated for emotional reasons. The refrain is they didn’t feel seen in their marriage and a lot of times it is because they lost sight of themselves. An affair often is the culmination of trying to experience themselves, or a different version of themselves, and there is a great amount of escapism. This is in essence why you often hear "playing a role".

I wanted to be younger, sexier, more exciting than the woman on a hamster wheel drowning in the demands of a career and family life. I wanted to feel cherished (yes I realize how stupid this sounds now) and have this deeply romantic experience."

Often the truth of the matter, in that affair we often feel like we have the upper hand and using our sexuality can be part of that. We understand that can be a big power to use in a situation that is unstable We imagine being the ultimate to someone. The sad thing is we don’t see it’s as even more performative than the hamster wheel we were on.

Women are known to sexually stimulated by emotional connection, and if they believe they have that in a romantic scenario sex is far more attainable regardless of its overall quality. I also had sex with my ap exactly three times. Same as your wife. I had low expectations about it because I know myself enough that I don’t really have the full benefits of sex if I am not totally comfortable with someone.

I really found it mostly awkward and sort of like an out of body experience, but it was part of the romantic fantasy I had. I was chasing love I wasn’t giving myself.

I definitely felt overwhelming humiliation about the sex after the affair. Women are conditioned to have a complex relationship with their sexuality. Good girls don’t, slut shaming, and other factors of knowing what I did was so atrocious that I have no good feelings about it at all. Even this many years later if I allow myself to recall any of it, I can get a little sick to my stomach and feel a flush of humiliation. It’s not as debilitating to me now as it was back then.

It’s very complex, but it seems to align with your wife’s descriptions.

I understand as a man, who has likely always been faithful, you see it differently, and I understand why you have difficulty connecting it all. You probably feel like if you were ever to cheat or be tempted to cheat it would be to get different or better sex. And while I believe women can be sexually motivated to cheat, that isn’t as common as it is with men.

Now I won’t be you- the sex was consensual. I don’t do anything I didn’t want to do. But, it wasn’t the draw. I had as much great quality sex as I wanted at home and a husband would have probably entertained any fantasy I wanted to live out. The affair sex was more about this is what it escalates to.

I hope that helps but I absolutely believe that what your wife is saying is entirely possible and actually quite probable.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:55 PM, Thursday, April 9th]

Lost- I didn’t ignore you, I just do not have this as part of my scenario. Perhaps another ws will be along to answer.

I believe that your wife has a lot of shame surrounding what she did and having you know all the things is intensely terrifying to her. I know it is very difficult to tell the details but know you do deserve them and do not deserve to be lied to or to have such a long term affair to be expected to be brushed under the rug.

I believe most of your posts stem from the continual rug sweeping your wife keeps insisting on, but it comes often as a grave cost to you.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:59 PM, Thursday, April 9th]

When did your A start? Like when did you KNOW you were cheating?

Where you couldn't justify it in your thoughts anymore as anything other than infidelity and why didn't you stop then?

[This message edited by TrayDee at 8:44 PM, Wednesday, April 22nd]

What books you would recommend for a fellow wayward to understand the other side? something that can really speak to you at a deeper level, not about the observable fallout, but books that allow you to somewhat understand and relate with your betrayed partner.

Wife asked what she can do to understand what I have been through. She can’t fully grasp why things she did long time ago and kept hidden or trickled truths positioned here where she stands today and how she can help to move on and improve herself to have a chance to rebuild.

She fears conversations for they make her crumble. while I am open to talk if and when she is ready to meet me where I am today, her emotions overwhelm her and I observe she can’t process what is being discussed with me.

I am not her therapist so I can’t help her, Still she really wants to know. Do you think books can help her to achieve her clarity without the barriers of emotional confrontation?

Thank you

Traydee

I knew I crossed a line when I kissed her for the first time.

My AP was an exgf from my 20’s. I had always harbored some guilt about how I broke up with her back then. So when she reach out on Facebook, I was glad to talk to her.

Like so many other A, this one started out innocently enough. We were just catching up. Over time, the discussions became more personal. But since I hadn’t touched her, I didn’t think it was cheating.

Then came the day I met her for lunch. I walked her back to her car and that’s when we kissed. Up to that point, I was able to justify everything. But not after that. At least insofar as being able to say it wasn’t an affair. I was still able to justify the affair for a lot longer.

Traydee-

Early. When we began texting. And the place in time that I knew there was no explaining it away was with the first round of photos exchanged. I definitely knew because I cried for a long time after, and then I ignored that as a sign and kept going anyway.

I was hard in that I didn’t care about anything. This is not my natural state of being. My norm is I care a lot. I am conscientious and empathetic and forgiving and loving. It was a place in time that I didn’t care if I lived or died- the numbness I felt inside made me extremely apathetic towards everything. It was like BASE jumping off a cliff in many ways.

Thanks ff4152 and hikingout for your answers.

I am often fascinated by how the wayward mindset distorts thinking, how different people from different backgrounds and different experiences can react so similarly.

Then came the day I met her for lunch. I walked her back to her car and that’s when we kissed. Up to that point, I was able to justify everything. But not after that. At least insofar as being able to say it wasn’t an affair. I was still able to justify the affair for a lot longer.

Early. When we began texting. And the place in time that I knew there was no explaining it away was with the first round of photos exchanged. I definitely knew because I cried for a long time after, and then I ignored that as a sign and kept going anyway.

What I see here is people who were doing things that may have crossed some boundries but nothing earth shattering. Having reached a point where they did something that they KNEW crossed a point where there was no explaining it away Yet pressed the gas instead of the Brakes.

If you had it to do over from that specific point....

ff4152 with that kiss
hikingout with those photos

Knowing what you know now, could you have extricated yourself from the situation, and if so what would you do differently?

I know that there are a thousand places where an A could have been ended and the damage done not be nearly as bad as it turned out.

Was there a point where inertia took over and you could not have stopped it, even if you wanted to at THAT time?

TrayDee

Knowing what I know now, I would have avoided the entire A. The very idea of cheating on my wife is alien and repugnant to me.

The idea that I couldn’t have stopped it is false. TBH, any WS who makes this claim is full of shit. No one held a gun to my head. No one forced me to cheat. Deep down, I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I simply didn’t care.

IMO the bottom line is this. I cheated because I wanted to. All the FOO talk and childhood trauma talk aside, WS KNOW what they’re doing was wrong. But we just went ahead and did it anyway.

I don’t know-

In hindsight it would have been smarter and easier to extricate myself.

At the time and place I was in I didn’t want to. Imagine being flatlined numb and suddenly feeling like you just came alive.

It isn’t he had the power to do that, it was a combo of the adrenaline from the elicitness of doing something I shouldn’t, as well as this drive to be seen for something else other than a vessel that existed to meet the needs of other people. Everything felt so demanding because I had no boundaries. Saying no made me feel worthless. And when I did say no then my husband said things that I internalized as things I should feel guilty about. It reinforced that my life was out of control.

And in reality, it was actually normal marital conflict, but any conflict to me was catastrophic. It touched my inner toxic shame and reinforced there was something wrong with me.

It was the contrast of how badly I was managing my life, and the ability to just give up and escape. And in tha contrqst, I dint want to stop.

I cried because I knew it was wrong, and not who I wanted to be. But the person I had been to this point I didn’t want to be her either.

Justifications only come when you are pushing yourself to do something you shouldn’t. And when you want to do it badly enough, you will come up with some whoppers to tell yourself.

I want to emphasize it’s not because this person was great or hot or special. It was the escapism that I was seeking.

I do not have any pattern of monogamy being hard for me. What I do have a pattern for is avoidance and escapism. I ironically could not see if I had time for an affair that I could make time to create a life I didn’t need to escape from. I knew I was pressing a detonator button but I could not see it was a nuclear bomb instead of a stick of dynamite.

I have had to teach myself boundaries and to listen to my inner voice and know my needs and wants matter and I have to make time for that. The person I today would have no problem ignoring opportunities to escape because I have peace and calm that gives me the luxury of taking time to apply logic and reason, and it’s something I fiercely protect. But I do think it took something nuclear to go off for me to start sorting through all that- wish it hadn’t been an affair. I could have taken my other escapes prior to that to an extreme but I see it now as those were just things that led to this lowest point in my life.

So the shorter answer is I don’t know because I didn’t want to stop. The part of me that is decent cried but that part of me was just drug along for the ride.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:52 PM, Tuesday, April 28th]

hikingout

Thank You for this:

And in reality, it was actually normal marital conflict, but any conflict to me was catastrophic. It touched my inner toxic shame and reinforced there was something wrong with me.

It was the contrast of how badly I was managing my life, and the ability to just give up and escape. And in tha contrqst, I dint want to stop.

It pretty much describes my wife and sharing this helps!!

Lost1313

Hikingout, I just wanted to say thank you for your thoughtful reply. We're on a pretty good path, but with only a year in I'm still just trying to wrap my mind around all of it. I really appreciate the feedback. Thank you.