SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So, my WW cheated. I confronted her with undeniable evidence. She denied (basically, "space aliens must have put that stuff in my suitcase").

So I arranged to find them together. And the usual pain, drama and misery followed. We stayed together, I think a big mistake for both of us, but I don’t regret the mistake. We subsequently had kids and very pleasant lives. Not as much love as I would have wanted, but, you can’t have everything, can you.

But supposing WW had done things the right way, the ethical way so often mentioned. Suppose she had come to me before she had ever found herself attracted to the AP, and said, "I want a divorce. No, I am not cheating; no, there is no one else. But I want to get away from you so I can look for someone else." (I appreciate she might have only become unhappy with our marriage when she found herself attracted to the AP, but give me some latitude, here.)

Would that have hurt less? I think it might have hurt more. There are still vows being broken ("till death do us part"). I can’t decide if it is still a betrayal. We all say that cheating is never about the BS. But getting dumped is undeniably about you.

My WW stayed with me. Whatever her reasons, I couldn’t have been all bad.

I think if she had dumped me, I would have felt all bad.

I think it would hurt, but less, and not traumatize comparably.
When you are cheated on, you get the combination of relationship death with betrayal and lies. I will never be convinced that a relationship ending with truth and honor is not less impactful.

Here’s a similar question. My H had a typical midlife crisis affair wherein he planned to D me to be with the much younger OW.

I believe there’s an affair and then there’s an affair with D - which just adds more pain to the whole situation. I was being kicked to the curb for a much younger model.

Funny thing is physically I was in much better shape and thinner, educated etc. but at the time my H was blinded with the "shiny new toy" mentality.

Would it have hurt less if she was honest and ended your marriage? No. I don’t think so. But I believe you may have at least had some respect for recognizing she tried to do the right thing.

A few times I was very honest with my H. I would tell him this: please don’t cheat on me. If you feel you need something else just please be honest. I will get over it but I will at least still respect you.

I hope this helps you.

Ironically enough I just posted a similar question to yours!

In response to your question though, I think the feeling of rejection is hard no matter the circumstances. Also, everyone handles rejection differently.

I agree with the previous comments. Being "dumped" by your spouse via a S or D would hurt, but compile that hurt with an A and its now amplified to infinity. There are so many other components associated with the hurt now … a "breakup hurt" doesn’t last a lifetime, but an "affair hurt" is a forever loss.

[This message edited by Heartbrokenwife23 at 5:50 AM, Wednesday, February 26th]

This is a strange one for me and I get quite confused about my feelings. This is my second marriage and second marriage with infidelity.

When my first marriage ended I was obviously devastated but just picked myself up and got on with it. I always assumed an affair but wasn’t confirmed for a month or so after we separated. That affair really didn’t bother me all that much. It actually made a lot of sense why my marriage ended and I guess gave me some sort of closure. In the end she seems more bothered by me than I am of her and I’m honestly happy they made a good life together. I hate to say it but they are much better suited than me and my ex ever were

But this A in this marriage has destroyed me. It just seemed so pointless and dumb, especially when WH swears he loved/loves me BUT didn’t consider how it all would hurt me or destroy the family 🤦🏽‍♀️. We are currently still married and trying to R.

I often wonder if it’s the combination of two marriages with infidelity that makes this hurt so much more but I will never truly know.

Suppose she had come to me before she had ever found herself attracted to the AP, and said, "I want a divorce. No, I am not cheating; no, there is no one else. But I want to get away from you so I can look for someone else."

I question the premise that this is the thinking behind all As, if you're saying it is.

My W would have said, 'I'm really fucked up, and I hope you'll stick with me as I work it out.' I think many WSes would say that.

I see immense pain in the end of any love relationship in which one partner wants to continue and one wants to break up.

We all say that cheating is never about the BS. But getting dumped is undeniably about you.

I will challenge this.

Someone deciding they want to experience themselves in other relationships, want more sexual variety, etc is firmly about them. Some people get married and realize that isn’t what they want. It would t matter who they are married to. Beautiful, interesting, awesome people are dumped every day.

It’s not that anyone enjoys it, but some people are good at understanding that compatibility and fit or lack there of is in the eye of the beholder. So it’s never helpful to go in and try and see ourselves or our worth through someone else’s lens. It has nothing to do with who you are- or your lovability but the right person for you will see you in a positive light.

Affairs largely begin due to the betrayer not appreciating or having gratitude over their life or spouse. That is not a reflection that their spouse is lacking. It’s all individual perception. In my case I even started to blame being married for my unhappiness because I had made myself a martyr, and felt that being married meant a level of servitude that I was too tired to keep up with. But that’s because I neglected my own needs so there was no balance.

I have no strong opinion of what hurts worse, but that at least the person who wants to leave likely does not have the character deficit that a ws has. I am not sure there is the same feeling of "I didn’t know them after all", there is likely more honesty being exercised. This would save many here trickle truth, gaslighting, and some of the many hurtful things the ws does and says. I have a hard time ignoring that so many have said more damage occurred after dday than the affair itself.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:54 PM, Wednesday, February 26th]

Rejection by the one person who you trust the most in the world is painful, period dot. But rejection without deception is some measure better than the alternative. And, the bigger plus is that the earlier in life the rejection takes place the more opportunities you have to find the mate who really wants to be with you; and if it happens as you proposed, there would be no kids whose lives would be affected, no pensions being split, no trying to solve the mystery of when, who, where, how many, what, and the big one: why. Your life may suck for a while, but unlike with the discovery of betrayal, you wouldn’t need to try to go back in your memory or calendars or phone records or social media histories and try to make sense of your life. She just didn’t want to be married to you. As hikingout said, that wouldn’t necessarily be true because of you, she may just wish not to be married. A gunshot to the chest, but better than a bullet in the back by the one who was supposedly watching your back.

I have learned from the stories on this site that you never really know what you will tolerate until the stuff hits the fan, but I believe that I would have done better with the straight forward kiss-off. The initial trauma would be the same but I would have been better off in the long run if ww had told me that she thought she’d made a great mistake and wanted out. I would have been devastated, and not having the experience I now have, I probably would have fought for the marriage, aka played the pick me game. Today, I would take the hit, lick my wounds, and then start dating. The earlier in the relationship, the easier it would be to recover.

Bumping after spam-attack

There is no easy way for this. I was cheated on and dumped by my wife and who I thought was my best friend. It’s like when you’re walking down the sidewalk enjoying the day and out of nowhere a car jumps the curb and runs you over.The problem was as I was laying there trying to get my composure I see who’s driving the car and it’s my wife.Everything happening at once or just saying that I don’t want to be married to you anymore both sucks but the latter way you find out destroys your soul.

Hindsight is always 20/20. Getting dumped out of the blue would hurt intensely in the moment but I don’t think I would have the long-term pain and scars I have now.

A good friend of mine got married 2 weeks after we did. I was in the wedding. We even lived next door to one another in an apartment complex the first 2 years after getting married. A week or so after he had celebrated his 5th wedding anniversary, I stopped by to see him at his job. He looked like he had been hit by a truck. His wife told him on their Anniversary that she is a lesbian and was leaving him. I couldn’t believe it. I went home and told my wife. Several other people we knew who had been married around the same time as us never made it to 5 years either. I bragged to her about us "making it". Little did I know she was fresh off her 4th affair since we had been married. Now, that haunts me……

My friend who got divorced met the love of his life a few years later. Married her and had 2 great kids. That moment of pain helped pave the way life for a much better life. I’m honestly jealous. Had I been dumped, would I have found a true life partner instead of a serial cheater? Maybe. Maybe not. But I would have been hard-pressed to wind up with someone "worse".

I also believe whether getting dumped or getting cheated on, it’s not about me. This is firmly on the cheater (or the dumper). She would have been this way no matter who she married. I just wish she hadn’t dragged me along with her…..

I even asked her "if this is who you wanted to be and how you wanted to live, why didn't you just leave"? Her answer "I loved our life together".

Say WHAT????? That's a twisted ass way of showing it…….

I disagree that getting dumped is all about you. Relationships require care and maintenance by both parties. From experience you can't make it work all on your own. Someone broken enough to cheat is also broken enough to forget to care for their side of the relationship. Your spouse walking away with minimal effort to repair a relationship that was entered into with the ideal that until death do us part is going to hurt almost as bad as getting cheated on.

Being dumped – as in a final act – would at least give you a baseline day to start working at personal recovery.
A major part of the damage and pain of infidelity is that even if we catch them in the act (like I did) or get a fully detailed confession right away we are left with a gazillion questions. Each question and each answer with the possibility of tearing off any scab of recovery our emotional wounds might have gotten.
I think recovery from trauma follows a generic pattern. This is why we say it takes two years to understand if R is worth it, to feel better and so on. The same two years are what newly widowed people are told, those that lose a job, lose a child... basically most major traumas we experience take this golden two year period. Might be 12 months for some, might be 36 months for others, but 2 years seems to be some general consensus.

Your spouse or GF or BF tells you that it’s over and then acts on it... Chances are you are at day 1 of the next 700 of misery. Tomorrow you "only" have 699 left.
Your spouse tells you he/she has a lover... you have tomorrow and the day after and the day after... to get some level of truth and acceptance of what took place (note acceptance is not the same as agreeing to it or forgiving – it’s simply acknowledging your spouse did cheat). You might start your 700 day journey a month from now, or 5 months, or a year. Or... if your WS isn’t doing their part – NEVER.

An old but (at the time) well known survey on divorced people revealed that something like 5-60% regretted divorce 12 months after D, and stated that they COULD have worked things out. Same group – surveyed at the 18-24 month mark – nearly 100% were HAPPY with the divorce and the decision. Again... the 2 year mark.

This is a great topic, and one that I don't remember seeing before on SI. I've typed and backspaced many times trying to figure out what I think about it. I'll have to chew on it some more.

Being dumped hurts a lot, but I think being betrayed and lied to was far worse. Being betrayed felt like being dumped and stabbed in the back by the person who is supposed to have your back. At least with being dumped you could start to heal and move on in life. Being cheated on especially if you stay with the WS felt like a life sentence, at least for me it did. When I D'd I was able to put it behind me and heal and move on.

Now being dumped for someone else would be more terrible than just being dumped. All my own opinion of course.

I would have at least liked to have been given the option.

H cheated just after our 1 yr anniversary. Before kids and home ownership. No assets.
Could have made a clean break. He waited to tell me 42 yrs later.

He tells me now that he remembers thinking he had made a mistake getting married. I think this is an excuse he came up with after the fact because he had to come up with a "why".

Who knows what I would have done back then.

So back to your question. Would it have hurt more if he had asked to divorce after 1 yr (no A), asked for divorce after 1 yr (A) or tell me 42 yrs later and make me wonder if he spent our entire M filled with regret?

All of it sucks, but the betrayal hands down is the worst. Had he not cheated and asked for a divorce my heart would have been broken, but I would have survived. Hell, I was only 22. I would certainly have more respect for him.

Whether it is about you or about them:

I must admit to be having HUGE problems with this. I will elaborate.

I think most of us, by the time we get to adolescence, see that some of our peers seem to have a much easier time attracting the opposite gender than the rest of us do. Why is it? Is it about them (the people being attracted that is) or is it about us? Whatever it is, telling someone who is unpopular that it is about the other people, is really of cold comfort.

And then we come to see the shenanigans that take place in dating. Say Boy asks Girl to prom, and Girl says yes (because no one else had asked her yet), but then Girl backs out when the boy she really wanted to go with, finally asks her out. We can console Boy and say that it was all about Girl and that she acted badly, but Boy still feels 'less than'. See, things like this seem to happen to this particular Boy all too much. He sees how things like this don't happen to his classmate who has all the swag.

OR, to put the shoe on the other foot, Boy asks Girl to prom, but then when at Prom, Boy is trying to dance with someone else--the same someone else that a lot of the other boys are trying to dance with, who was it, oh yeah she was the one voted Homecoming Queen. We can console Girl and say that it was all about Boy, but damn it, Girl still feels used and less than as well. These types of things sure don't seem to happen to the Homecoming queen.

So we start to see, or perhaps more accurately get an imprinting on how these things work, and this seems to carry over to adult relationships. We see couples who are truly in love marry with each other--the way we were taught it was. BUT, we also see one partner settle for another. She married him even though she wasn't really in love with him, because he seemed like a good provider. He married her even though he wasn't really attracted to her, because even though looks may fade, her good cooking won't and besides he didn't have it in him to break her heart and be alone. Meanwhile, we see that dating and attraction does become easier when we 'level up our game' so to speak. It seems that these hard things that we are told 'are all about the other person' seem to happen less and less to us.

In general, we see that the Mating Dance is pretty rough. What we have seen on the Discovery Channel and those reality TV shows is all too close to the truth!

Anyway on that note, it is why I find the 'it was all about the WS' issues and had nothing to do with the BS' a bunch of happy horseshit that makes it easier for the BS to justify attempting R and why I react so disparagingly to what I see as 'mental gymnastics'. It feels to me actually like a LIE.

Anyway @Formerpeopleperson, I do hope this has some relevance to you and why you posted this thread....

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 7:48 PM, Thursday, February 27th]

For some people, they would still treat you the same way they treat other people (badly) even if you are the homecoming queen.

They just don’t care about anyone but themselves.

It’s nothing but a game to them.

Very good friend of mine - stunningly beautiful. Very nice person. She always said she had a hard time dating because too many men wanted her on their arm just b/c she was beautiful and made them look good. They never cared about her.

Tough way to live.

Absolutely, @The1stWife. I have to say that my heart goes out to your friend, that has to absolutely suck getting used like that as 'arm-candy', instead of being acknowledged as a human being with a heart and feelings, who is looking to find love--and who deserves someone who will love her genuinely

My jaded view of things does persist, deep down. And I don't know how to shake it. This, despite knowing that there are men AND women out there who have a heart of gold.

ETA: But anyway, yeah. Life is too short to be waiting for your intimate partner to finally get a clue.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 8:05 PM, Thursday, February 27th]

WBFA,

I think sometimes people do marry for the wrong reasons. In fact, I think that it happens a lot. I can really understand what you are saying.

Where I think my lens on this differs is the person making the decision to marry for the wrong reasons, that is a decision that represents them and not the true value of the person they married. In fact, when you think about when these marriages dissolve the person they "settled for" often goes and finds someone who treats them much better. Who looks at them with their lens of appreciation.

When we talk about the decisions being about the ws, all we are saying is the ws did not have a lens that appreciated or valued what they have. They likely do not have an outlook on life that they would value or appreciate anyone long term. But their rejection, betrayal or abandonment does not mean they married a low value unlovable person.

Basing our worth on the lens of one person is not logical. That’s why we encourage people here to focus on their own value, making their life as good as they can. Because when one can look at themselves and see their worth and value and pursue the things in life they find interesting, then what someone else says is just an opinion.

Now, when it comes to our intimate partner, of course it’s still crushing and painful. But their actions come from their own skewed mind.

Think about Adam Levine, the philandering fool. Married to a gorgeous supermodel with beautiful kids. Does the fact he cheated on her mean she doesn’t have plenty to offer. I know thats extreme because all of us behind the screen probably would not be looked at as an underwear model. But it’s still the same way, he didn’t appreciate his good fortune and spent a lot of time chatting up women who might have been attractive but no more than his wife, many of them far less than his wife. You can see that in so many examples. Is he capable of appreciating her, maybe he is if he changes his perspective and habits.

My husband objectively is more handsome, more successful than the AP. Much younger too. But even more importantly, takes care of me when I am sick, is a hard worker, a good lover, and very kind and generous. It’s me who was the stupid horses ass who didn’t appreciate him.

Do people have affairs to trade up? Sure, people have affairs for all kinds of reasons but, if you are having an affair to trade for better then that too is a statement about you and not the bs. Hell, that’s exactly what my husbands AP wanted.

I have to think you know great men who were cheated on. Do you really think their worth was determined by their lying cheating ws?

So that’s why it’s mysterious to me that you would think this:

"Anyway on that note, it is why I find the 'it was all about the WS' issues and had nothing to do with the BS' a bunch of happy horseshit that makes it easier for the BS to justify attempting R and why I react so disparagingly to what I see as 'mental gymnastics'. It feels to me actually like a LIE."

Do you really think the issue is the bs isn’t worthy of the ws? That the ws was just settling? And if so, you don’t put the responsibility of that on the ws? Just because they think they are settling doesn’t make the bs less. It makes the ws an unappreciative selfish person. It’s always the ws’s issue or they would not do it. It’s their lack of integrity, their lack period.

Edited to add: I guess what you mean is the ws didn’t value you then, they are not going to value you now. And I think that’s valid some of the time. And I think other times almost losing someone does wake you up. For some, they may still be looking at the wrong thing, but for others they may be able to see how wrong they were and see they are the lower value partner and they need to straighten up . It just depends on the situation.

[This message edited by hikingout at 9:12 PM, Thursday, February 27th]