SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

As Ive walked the digital halls of this and other infidelity forums looking for clues to help me find answers to my decades old betrayal, one aspect that Ive tried to wrestle to the ground deals with the massive hit to my ego. In boxing parlence it was a hard body blow followed by a left cross and a right upper cut that put my ego on the mat. It was down for the count for a long time.

Now, as Ive descibed before, I came from a chaotic and abusive home and looked to build the exact opposite as a young husband and father. Going into that marriage, my self esteem wasnt the greatest but I was making serious strides when the unthinkable happened....my first wife betrayed me with my then best friend and, BAM, my ego was basically knocked unconscious. It took years to recover and heal.

That said, as Ive read the accounts of others there are repeated attempts to help the betrayed by stating things along the line of, "Its not about you or your worth, its about them (the wayward) and their deficiencies" and therefore, the betrayed shouldnt feel less of themself and should move forward in strength with their head held high, taking no thought for the titanic hit to their ego. I am not in that camp. When dealing with an emotionally battered and bloodied faithful-yet-betrayed spouse, I commiserate but offer the hope of healing through time and hard work.

I also recognize that as with IQ's, EQ's may run very differently in different people. Deep feelers/the accutely empathetic and altrustic are, to my mind, very vulnerable to the long term impact to self-worth.

These are my musings of late.

Thoughts?

[This message edited by DobleTraicion at 4:46 PM, Wednesday, March 5th]

Do you think you could have stopped her from cheating by being a better man?

Therefore, the betrayed shouldnt feel less of themself and should move forward in strength with their head held high, taking no thought for the titanic hit to their ego. I am not in that camp. When dealing with an emotionally battered and bloodied faithful-yet-betrayed spouse, I commiserate but offer the hope of healing through time and hard work.

Knowing something is not the same as internalizing it. Words or thoughts are not instant healers. After all we re talking about the deepest trauma in someone’s life.

I think when you see me say this, because I am in that camp, I do believe this to be true. Know that I do not expect anyone to say "you are right, I feel better!"

It’s more when one gets to the later stages of healing this is the clarity a lot of us reach.

Suffering is often caused by the narrative we place around the and I agree people first have to process the grief and that timeline is different for everyone. But in the end, blaming yourself for who you are and what you have offered is only helpful to the extent of self evaluation of who you want to be moving forward. Not for feeling bad about yourself.

But it doesn’t hurt to share the end goal. The end goal in my opinion is after the bs takes lots of actions and has many epiphanies over a long period of time that should lead one into feeling whole without their spouse. When I say this, keep in mind I prefer 100 percent to be with mine. I would absolutely feel devastated should the relationship end. But the needle has moved over time to know that I will grieve but then be okay again. My life will not be over, I am whole I can make myself happy and if I like me, or dare say love me, there is no longer the self abandonment that says "I am unlovable or less valuable because he didn’t see my value"

And people can go in and out of this all the time as our ego exists to ensure our survival.

But your spouses decision to cheat should not be a reflection of you. It’s not to say that you are perfect, but no one is. Their lack of appreciation for the things you do bring to the table is nothing more than their own perception. That’s why I try and get folks to begin to entertain the idea that maybe they can appreciate who they are and what they have to offer. It’s through that someone will finally lay down a toxic relationship or learn to demand more for themselves. It’s a way of saying - okay your ws wants to do all this over here- let’s not lay down what it is YOU want. Let’s not abandon all the good and uniqueness that is you just because your spouse did.

You are lovable, and there are plenty of things to appreciate about you. If you do not believe that the best step is to start paying attention to that. When you have that certainty of who you are and what you have to offer it often does lessen the sting of someone else missing that.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:54 PM, Wednesday, March 5th]

You didn't ask me, TiF, but yes. Yes. I do. Part of me thinks my W would not have cheated if I had been a better man, if I had understood her better.

But thinking something doesn't make it true. My W has never said the above. When she talked about her reasons, they were all about her.

Now, she entered her A with a LOT of therapy under her belt; she was a therapist, after all. So she was trained in discerning what she needed to own and what she didn't own. I knew the difference, too.

So it was pretty easy for me to accept the truth - the the A was the WS's to won - even while taking the hit to my self-esteem. With less pre-A therapy, I believe I would have had a harder time recovering.

But that doesn't change another truth: the hit to my self-esteem was my problem to solve.

It's like any other injury. If one gets hurt, the person who gets hurt has to go through recovery - perhaps surgery, physical therapy, etc. If one doesn't do what is required for recovery, one probably won't recover.

@DT,

I think your boxing metaphor is the best I've ever read - it's not just one hit. It's hit after hit in a short time, and it hurts much more than just one punch.

We all have our own style. I guess we post here to express our own POV in our own style. That may help the poster recover.

But reaching the thread-starters is also important, and no one knows what will help thread-starters. IMO, it's great that there are so many different styles and POVS on SI - that makes it more likely that one of us will find the words that help.

With respect to self-esteem, I think all BSes are with you. IMO, that doesn't minimize your pain or mine or theirs. IMO, it casts light on it and makes it more real - with so many of us knowing our self-esteem is under attack, it's hard to argue that it's imaginary. I agree that people high on feeling and empathy may have more difficulty healing.

Recovery is hard work, Worth it, though.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:24 PM, Wednesday, March 5th]

Do you think you could have stopped her from cheating by being a better man?

Looking in hindsight and with the benefit of years of work behind me, no, not at all.

However, the me back then had a lot of my ego tied up in the success of my marriage and family. That, as a man, I was enough, maybe even more than enough for my wife. That illusion came crashing down upon the revelation of her treason. The fact that it was with my then best friend was an impact multiplier that is hard to describe even to this day.

I do think also that life experience or lack thereof and the context of that experience has a lot to do with how the faithful spouse handles this world-rocking experience as it pertains to self worth in particular.

I think it’s really difficult to get away from equating self worth and your spouse. To me, part of being married was the ego boost of having been chosen by my wife. She could have done way better than me, but she vowed to choose me above all others. That’s a hellva compliment. Of course, I’m here, so she forgot about that. Dday 1 was a massive blow to my self worth. A combination of being told by her that I had caused her to turn to someone else and me believing it and my own self blame.

Being told repeatedly that I was not responsible for her actions really helped me see it. More so, I realized that there was no infidelity clause in our vows. We never said it was ok to step out if x or y happened. It doesn’t matter if AP was actually everything that she pretended him to be.

More so, my self worth isn’t tied to her, and no other person to include my kids makes me good or bad. Just as ww is responsible for her affair and her own feelings about her self, I am responsible for me.

To me, it’s unhealthy to tie your own personal value into the actions of others. I know when I was at my lowest, it was extremely unhealthy and I didn’t get better/heal until I took control of myself. It’s hard for sure, but I feel strongly that it’s necessary. Remember You have no control over what others do.

About 6-8 weeks after my d-day I encountered the OM and a group of is friends. I was working, in uniform and with some other cops. He saw me and taunted me with some comment like "Hey – there is the cop whose bitch needed me to give her a good time!". I responded spur-of-the-moment with "Didn’t recognize you in clothes, but man! Your d##k really shrunk fast when you saw me. Still piss sitting?". I think I managed to verbally hit him harder than he did me, but no denying it rubbed at my already damaged kidney-ego.
I get the ego-hit, and it takes time and logic to deal with it.
-

I think rape is one of the vilest crimes anyone can experience, so I want to start by stating I’m not equating rape with infidelity.

But... I do think we betrayed people share a lot of the emotions rape-victims experience. I think a lot of victims of crime and fraud do so too, but maybe rape is the instance that has most recognition in the last years.

Back in the days a rape victim would be faced with questions like did you lead him on, why did you walk through the park, were you drunk, wearing a low-cut dress... This has changed (well... in most places...), and we now work under the assumption that no is no, and that rape is not caused by the victim.
As far as infidelity goes I guess we still sense a social environment where people are saying that there is a reason she/he cheated, that we were not attentive, never at home, had body-odor or whatever. We sense that society is judging us as failures – maybe us men as lacking in masculinity, women as sexually inadequate.

Furthermore – just like a rape-victim might be told repeatedly that they are victims, they question their actions: why did I let him kiss me, why did I dress up, why did I accept the ride with him...
Along with the why did I questions; why did I trust her, why did I miss this, why did I not stop this earlier, why did I not leave, why did I beg her to stay, why did I not notice what was missing, why did she need him rather than me, why did she give him BJ’s when she hardly looks at me...

Our logic tells us we are innocent. Yet this gnaws at us, and if we allow it to gnaw it festers. It becomes the second and third and fourth punch.

Personally I would never accept a relationship if I felt inferior in it. I think people can reconcile, but I also warn that it’s hard, and it’s not only the relationship that needs to do the work, but also the people themselves. Part of that is coming to terms with that the tired old adage is true: They cheat despite you, not because of you.

Bigger. I like your point about the shame we feel as the betrayed.

But what really stood out to me was the fact that the OM spoke so poorly of your former fiancée. His reference to women is awful.

Knowing something is not the same as internalizing it. Words or thoughts are not instant healers. After all we re talking about the deepest trauma in someone’s life.

I think when you see me say this, because I am in that camp, I do believe this to be true. Know that I do not expect anyone to say "you are right, I feel better!"

It’s more when one gets to the later stages of healing this is the clarity a lot of us reach.

Thanks Hiking. I know I can rely on you for "finer tooth comb" thinking. The fact that youve had to wrestle with this from both sides gives considerable weight to the bredth and depth of your feedback imo.

My initial post may be better stated as pertaining to the early stages of the trauma. My thinking is that to propose this (its not you, its all on the wayward) early on is almost counter productive. That it can be taken as disregarding their traumatized ego. I think that if someone had told me something similar, I would have looked at them cross eyed, with little or no comprehension due to the pain fog that I was dealing with then.

But it doesn’t hurt to share the end goal. The end goal in my opinion is after the bs takes lots of actions and has many epiphanies over a long period of time that should lead one into feeling whole without their spouse. When I say this, keep in mind I prefer 100 percent to be with mine. I would absolutely feel devastated should the relationship end. But the needle has moved over time to know that I will grieve but then be okay again. My life will not be over, I am whole I can make myself happy and if I like me, or dare say love me, there is no longer the self abandonment that says "I am unlovable or less valuable because he didn’t see my value"

And people can go in and out of this all the time as our ego exists to ensure our survival.

*Bolded emphasis in your quote is mine.

I agree with a lot of this in principle. I think timing of introducing this concept is critical. Its like being in the ER after a critical injury and being triaged that you were not responsible for the accident and in time youll come to realize this and ferl a lot better about yourself. Having said that, maturity, FoO issues, personality type, EQ, and life experience all play their part in how a newly betrayed processes the impact on their ego.

You are lovable, and there are plenty of things to appreciate about you. If you do not believe that the best step is to start paying attention to that. When you have that certainty of who you are and what you have to offer it often does lessen the sting of someone else missing that.

I am fond of saying that if you dont stand up for/believe in yourself, who will?

I think it is a matter of holding out future hope of recovery without diminishing the deleterious impact on the betrayeds ego and validating their feelings in that regard.

Two sides of the same coin perhaps?

Thanks again.

My ego took a really big hit with all the A's I discovered. I had a RA after one of them. A#2 with MOW my ego took a hit again because I had re-connected with xWS and thought we had a good thing going, actually was attracted to him again. She was 20 years younger than me and that really hurt plus the continued lying and multiple times catching him after I thought it had ended really re-enforced that I was not worth being with. His complaints about our sex not being enough (we were averaging 2-3x a week) and he made me feel awful about myself when we didn't have sex. Often times I felt coerced. Eventually his attitude about sex and me feeling pressure ruined the sex for me. I was convinced this A was because of our lack of sex and my attitude about it. I felt damaged sexually and eventually felt repulsed towards xWS. Later on we tried R and I started re-attaching to him, sex life was improving and then False R hit. This is when I knew it wasn't about me or the sex I knew it was a him problem. From there I built myself back up and eventually left the M.

[This message edited by crazyblindsided at 6:32 PM, Wednesday, March 5th]

DT

I agree timing is important. However, I am not allowed to post in the JFO forum. Generally I state the "it’s not about you it’s their defect" very lightly if someone is early out. I am louder about it if it’s been years. Because by that time it’s truly self abandonment and not really initial shock and grief.

However I tend to think if the bs comes to this board feeling to blame and they are doing the pick me dance to try and get the person to stay, it’s sort of worse in the long run.

It’s important to place the accountability on the ws very early. Because until the ws takes on that accountability there is no real way to think about going into the process of reconciliation. Being nicer and better for them brings in no growth.

So my reason for stating it up front is as bruised and battered as they are, if they are blaming themselves instead of insisting on accountability it’s likely to bring more pain than someone on an anonymous forum saying "this isn’t about you, it’s about them, they are the one being selfish and not using integrity". It puts the onus where it belongs.

I feel for those of us who have healed (at least to the extent that we are likely going to) to not share that early in when we can see they are talking about trying harder as a spouse, is to hand them over to their ws to rugsweep.

I think ultimately that is worse. But I can’t know for sure. One of the benefits I had to the timing of my husbands affair is regardless of everything I knew without his accountability and diligence to work on himself then we were going nowhere. But I had the perspective already my whys were nothing to do with him.

The idea of R of course involves shame that has to be overcome by both the ws and bs. I liked biggers example of rape because we have placed shame on the victim since the inception of time. And we do the same to a bs. "You must not be worth being faithful to" "you must not satisfy their needs" and it’s a stigma that I can’t see how trying to remove is actually harmful to the bs even if they can’t yet relate?

However if it truly is, I want to know that. I am not here at all to make a situation worse for someone.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:38 PM, Wednesday, March 5th]

But that doesn't change another truth: the hit to my self-esteem was my problem to solve.

It's like any other injury. If one gets hurt, the person who gets hurt has to go through recovery - perhaps surgery, physical therapy, etc. If one doesn't do what is required for recovery, one probably won't recover.

@DT,

I think your boxing metaphor is the best I've ever read - it's not just one hit. It's hit after hit in a short time, and it hurts much more than just one punch.

Thanks sisoon. Using your analogy, though it is up to the injured to take the steps needed to recover, this generally includes a group to help with initial triage (which I never availed myself of which prolonged my pain) and subsequent healing steps. I know you are onboard with this thinking.

Yeh, the boxing analigy is the closest I could come to the hard impact to my ego at the time....down for the count.

With respect to self-esteem, I think all BSes are with you. IMO, that doesn't minimize your pain or mine or theirs. IMO, it casts light on it and makes it more real - with so many of us knowing our self-esteem is under attack, it's hard to argue that it's imaginary. I agree that people high on feeling and empathy may have more difficulty healing.

Recovery is hard work, Worth it, though.

I do believe this is true. That much, dare I say the majority, of the pain is wrapped up in the ego impact and subsequent drop in perceived self worth. It is a big deal. I think when many betrayeds come here, their egos look like Rocky in the corner ring saying, "Cut me Mick".

Recovery absolutely is necessary and so very worth it, that I can attest to as well.

I think it’s really difficult to get away from equating self worth and your spouse. To me, part of being married was the ego boost of having been chosen by my wife. She could have done way better than me, but she vowed to choose me above all others. That’s a hellva compliment. Of course, I’m here, so she forgot about that. Dday 1 was a massive blow to my self worth. A combination of being told by her that I had caused her to turn to someone else and me believing it and my own self blame.

Thanks HINHF.

*Bolded quote is my emphasis.

I appreciate you calling out self blame as it resonates with me. The over responsible party naturally turns to the self guilt while the delinquent party is only too happy to pile on more. Pathetic.

Being told repeatedly that I was not responsible for her actions really helped me see it. More so, I realized that there was no infidelity clause in our vows. We never said it was ok to step out if x or y happened. It doesn’t matter if AP was actually everything that she pretended him to be.

More so, my self worth isn’t tied to her, and no other person to include my kids makes me good or bad. Just as ww is responsible for her affair and her own feelings about her self, I am responsible for me.

To me, it’s unhealthy to tie your own personal value into the actions of others. I know when I was at my lowest, it was extremely unhealthy and I didn’t get better/heal until I took control of myself. It’s hard for sure, but I feel strongly that it’s necessary. Remember You have no control over what others do.

I absolutely agree with all of this in principle but could not have heard or comprehended this early on as I was so punch drunk. Its felt like life force being drained from me. Way down the road, some of this sunk in, but the pain had to be processed first.

I do think infidelity delivers a special hit to the self worth of those of us who had bad family situations as children and were determined to create something better and do better than our parents. As a young adult I was very cognizant of wanting to choose a good partner and create a loving family. I was totally fine with being single, but if I was going to partner up with someone, I wanted a quality relationship. After getting married, I poured a lot of my soul and identity and worth into being a good wife and mother and creating a healthy, happy, stable, and fulfilling relationship and family life. I worried a lot about whether I was a good enough wife and mother and was super vigilant about avoiding the dysfunctional patterns of my family of origin. I found a lot of self worth and value in breaking those patterns. When my husband cheated on me, I felt not only the gut punch of emotional and sexual betrayal, but also the collapse of what I had worked for and invested in. I felt worthless for a long time, and still have flashes of that feeling.

It’s possible to reconstruct your self worth, or ego if that’s how you think about it. I’m not all the way there, but the sense of worth I’ve developed in the aftermath of betrayal is on a much stronger foundation. It’s a gut punch for sure, and your boxing metaphor is right on, but we can pick ourselves up and recover and heal. It’s really hard though, and I’m sorry for all of us who’ve had to deal with this.

Oh, and I meant to say that as a deep feeler and acute empathizer, one of the best things I’m in the process of doing is turning that empathy on myself. That’s another piece of the ego/self worth puzzle, for me at least.

Being told repeatedly that I was not responsible for her actions really helped me see it. More so, I realized that there was no infidelity clause in our vows. We never said it was ok to step out if x or y happened. It doesn’t matter if AP was actually everything that she pretended him to be.

More so, my self worth isn’t tied to her, and no other person to include my kids makes me good or bad. Just as ww is responsible for her affair and her own feelings about her self, I am responsible for me.

To me, it’s unhealthy to tie your own personal value into the actions of others. I know when I was at my lowest, it was extremely unhealthy and I didn’t get better/heal until I took control of myself. It’s hard for sure, but I feel strongly that it’s necessary. Remember You have no control over what others do.

I absolutely agree with all of this in principle but could not have heard or comprehended this early on as I was so punch drunk. Its felt like life force being drained from me. Way down the road, some of this sunk in, but the pain had to be processed first.

As much as a person may not be able to hear this right from the get go (or at least not understand the depth of it) it is important for us that have been through infidelity to post the signs for those that are new to it. For that matter it is important to revisit this whenever the infidelity crosses ones mind.

Many people come here looking for help. Advice needed, what can i do, i am hurting, please help, ..... While not everyone's situation nor their path out of infidelity is the same. The truths that can be shared are very important.

DT,

Have a look at this another way. What you posted:

In boxing parlence it was a hard body blow followed by a left cross and a right upper cut that put my ego on the mat. It was down for the count for a long time.

This could have affected the ego if it were a boxing match where the opponents are aware of the intentions of the other.

The problem here is that an A is a streetfight, a mugging if you will. You were sucker-punched. Ego does not come into play here, as you were hit when you did not expect to be hit.

When my XF confessed she cheated with her ex, I did get hit and got knocked out. Thing is, I knew the problem was not with me, but with my XF. She was the one that sucker punched me when I was not expecting anything from her direction.

My ego was fine (still is), but my psyche took a hit regarding trusting people. That took a while to recover, but thankfully my ego remained intact.

RR

I think I understand the point of the thread better.

I don't think there is a magic bullet of advice to give. Many BS are unable to receive certain advice early on. A lot of learning must be first hand to really stick. I don't think it is counter productive to tell someone "it's not your fault. Whatever you did or didn't do didn't make your WS cheat."

About 6-8 weeks after my d-day I encountered the OM and a group of is friends. I was working, in uniform and with some other cops. He saw me and taunted me with some comment like "Hey – there is the cop whose bitch needed me to give her a good time!". I responded spur-of-the-moment with "Didn’t recognize you in clothes, but man! Your d##k really shrunk fast when you saw me. Still piss sitting?". I think I managed to verbally hit him harder than he did me, but no denying it rubbed at my already damaged kidney-ego.
I get the ego-hit, and it takes time and logic to deal with it.

Thanks for sharing this Bigger. I agree that you gave at least as good as you got. Well done to be that quick and deliver such a riposte....I kind of lived vicariously through that re-telling and have read it 5 times already

As far as infidelity goes I guess we still sense a social environment where people are saying that there is a reason she/he cheated, that we were not attentive, never at home, had body-odor or whatever. We sense that society is judging us as failures – maybe us men as lacking in masculinity, women as sexually inadequate.

Furthermore – just like a rape-victim might be told repeatedly that they are victims, they question their actions: why did I let him kiss me, why did I dress up, why did I accept the ride with him...
Along with the why did I questions; why did I trust her, why did I miss this, why did I not stop this earlier, why did I not leave, why did I beg her to stay, why did I not notice what was missing, why did she need him rather than me, why did she give him BJ’s when she hardly looks at me...

Our logic tells us we are innocent. Yet this gnaws at us, and if we allow it to gnaw it festers. It becomes the second and third and fourth punch.

This is very insightful imo and is something that all newly betrayeds should hear due to the level of empathy contained. As Mountford said, "To commiserate is sometimes more than to give, for money is external to a man's self, but he who bestows compassion communicates his own soul". Thanks for this.

They cheat despite you, not because of you

.

Yeh, very very true but it took me quite a while to allow this to sink in.

Thanks again.

I do think infidelity delivers a special hit to the self worth of those of us who had bad family situations as children and were determined to create something better and do better than our parents. As a young adult I was very cognizant of wanting to choose a good partner and create a loving family. I was totally fine with being single, but if I was going to partner up with someone, I wanted a quality relationship. After getting married, I poured a lot of my soul and identity and worth into being a good wife and mother and creating a healthy, happy, stable, and fulfilling relationship and family life. I worried a lot about whether I was a good enough wife and mother and was super vigilant about avoiding the dysfunctional patterns of my family of origin. I found a lot of self worth and value in breaking those patterns. When my husband cheated on me, I felt not only the gut punch of emotional and sexual betrayal, but also the collapse of what I had worked for and invested in. I felt worthless for a long time, and still have flashes of that feeling.

It’s possible to reconstruct your self worth, or ego if that’s how you think about it. I’m not all the way there, but the sense of worth I’ve developed in the aftermath of betrayal is on a much stronger foundation. It’s a gut punch for sure, and your boxing metaphor is right on, but we can pick ourselves up and recover and heal. It’s really hard though, and I’m sorry for all of us who’ve had to deal with this.

Thank you Grieving. This really reached me...to the point that I got a bit misty eyed.

I dont think you can overstate the the horrific impact of marital treason on the betrayed. I think sometimes we unwittingly try to minimize it due to the sheer level of pain it causes to focus on it, even when trying to heal. For those of us who come from abusive home backgrounds and then try to cultivate tge exact opposite in our marriage and family only to be abused in a measure even greater, well, its hard to describe the let down and emotional devestation.

BUT, you are right. Move on we must and this requires the healing of our ego as well.

Again, thank you for this.