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Question to those men reconciling.

Do you ever fully heal from the emasculation? Or just come to some level of acceptance with it? At almost 2 years out im feeling like this is probably unforgivable for me. Does that mean i D? Beats me. Maybe some kind of acceptance. I do enjoy her company and we get along well.

Once I realized my wife's poor choices had nothing to do with me (and that did take some time) -- there is no emasculation. I'm not made weaker by anything she did. It's not a competition if you don't know that you're in one.

She lowered her standards for temporary selfish gain.

I kept my end of the deal.

I kept my word.

I did my job as a father.

I'm a far better man than the AP who stepped out on his wife and kids. My wife's brokenness was not a mark against anything about me or my mad skills in the bedroom.

Self affirmation is not something we tend to do as men, but it's needed.

No doubt there are times when jealousy or hurt comes back.

A good IC can help you work on the self-worth issues that underlie this.

As said by oldwounds, you are a FAR better man the her AP. And the more you believe that the less emasculated you feel and you act.

Your intimacy with your WS may also come into play. As our sex life has improved so has my own confidence. Beyond the bedroom feeling loved and appreciated will help here as well.

Never easy and there may always be insecurity from this, but you can reclaim your self worth and confidence.

It's not a competition if you don't know that you're in one.

I needed to read this today. Great way of framing it.

The feeling of being emasculated is a very real struggle for most men - at least in my experience. I’m approaching the 3-year mark since D-Day - and the waves of feeling emasculated come and go. The way Oldwounds framed this is one of the best responses I’ve ever seen.

Humbled123, if you’re like me your “meta-cognition” on this makes it very difficult for people to try to talk you out of the feeling of being emasculated. I have not been in IC, but since being more active on this forum I’ve seen how crucial this is and I’m going to sign up for IC before the end of this month. I think some kind of IC is key.

I’ve also found that this topic of emasculation seems to be not talked about much in adultery/infidelity literature or perhaps within the therapeutic community. It also seems to be a sub rosa topic among men, except perhaps for here at SI, where you will find a lot about it. Women truly seem not to understand it - almost as if this experience is for someone from a different planet.

Our first MC tried to tell me in a kindly way that I was being a stubborn caveman about it. That didn’t help. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of a recognition in our broader culture that infidelity among women is much more widespread now than the “statistics” would indicate, and that emasculation is a very real and fundamental part of the betrayed husband’s experience that MUST be dealt with.

In some ways this realization that men have been overlooked in this way — or even dismissed — has helped me because it has started to help me reclaim my own masculine power. I am authentically a man, a strong man physically and emotionally I’m resilient. I have been a faithful provider, a good father and a great lover. I have not only done my job. I’ve done it well. Being a man of integrity is a very different experience, and one that should be honored, from being a woman. We don’t get very many positive messages about this from the mass media or society at large these days, so we have retake the high ground of our masculinity. Just in the past few days, this realization has started helping me with the feeling of emasculation.

I have been reading a book called The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida this week. It’s a bit on the New Agey side, with some flowery language, but I think it will resonate with most betrayed husbands feeling emasculated. The brief chapters will resonate as true. Start reading it. Start reading “No Mr. Nice Guy.” Start implementing the reprogramming of your thoughts and behaviors as they recommend. Start living as an integral man with a mission, and your woman can either get on board with that or not. If she doesn’t or if the wounds she chose to inflict on you are too great to heal in her presence, then be done with her. Another woman — likely a number of great women — are out there who will be thrilled to follow your lead.

None of what I just typed is a panacea, however, and just know that many other men are here feeling the same overpowering emotions you are. The struggle is real.

Honestly, I never felt emasculated. My FWW didn't take away my manhood. She broke my heart. No doubt about that. She also pissed me off.

Oldwounds is right. Our wives cheating is not a reflection upon us. You're no less of a man because your wife cheated. She's less of a woman because of it.

Infidelity is self-destructive, brother. We are just the collateral damage.

I’ve also found that this topic of emasculation seems to be not talked about much in adultery/infidelity literature or perhaps within the therapeutic community. It also seems to be a sub rosa topic among men, except perhaps for here at SI, where you will find a lot about it. Women truly seem not to understand it - almost as if this experience is for someone from a different planet.

I get it to a point...I just compare it to the depth of pain of being a woman in her 40s and realizing that her WH was screwing women half her age and less and assume it's pretty similar in agony and wreckage of one's self-esteem.

In some ways this realization that men have been overlooked in this way — or even dismissed — has helped me because it has started to help me reclaim my own masculine power. I am authentically a man, a strong man physically and emotionally I’m resilient. I have been a faithful provider, a good father and a great lover. I have not only done my job. I’ve done it well. Being a man of integrity is a very different experience, and one that should be honored, from being a woman. We don’t get very many positive messages about this from the mass media or society at large these days, so we have retake the high ground of our masculinity. Just in the past few days, this realization has started helping me with the feeling of emasculation.

Being a man of integrity is, btw, the hottest thing on earth. It is the sexiest most manly thing that there is. It's beyond muscles, beyond any size of any body part, beyond bank account, beyond bravado. I love men. I love your strength, I love your dedication to your family, I get all butterflied up when I see a man out doing things with his kids. It tears me to pieces when a man I'm with sees me struggling to fix something and does it for me or helps me with it. Yes, sure, I can do things on my own (have for a looong time) and I don't "need" a man, but I find it sexy to have a partner who will step up and help me with things I'm ignorant about doing. I find men who don't look at other women while we're out together to be outrageously hot. I find a man who can be an emotional support and allows me to emotionally support him to be straight up Thor-level manly. A man who will stand for me and with me is just...whew, I'm getting all hot and bothered, lol. I find all that far sexier than a man working out at the gym while bragging to his buddies about all the chicks he's banging. That dude is not a man. All that is far hotter than the guy who avoids emotions unless he needs to whine about everyone else being mean and leaves everything to me to handle as if I'm his mom. That is also not a man. The world is full of man-babies. Real men are to be cherished and adored.

Real men get cheated on far too often. Man-babies are the ones typically doing the cheating. If there's a competition with those types, you win hands down.

Honestly, I never felt emasculated.

I’m glad for you. YMMV - I think it’s far more common than not. Especially with the right set of conditions - like sex that violated your home, a double betrayal involving someone you thought was a friend, etc.

It’s hard for me to “talk myself out” of an authentic experience. I’m not saying you did that, I’m saying for me if I feel deeply, biologically as an authentic man that Ive been emasculated then that seems to be a genuine and authentic experience. And I think given how often one hears about it, that it is more likely than not a pre-programmed part of the human masculine experience, probably DNA deep. One might say it’s Shakespearean or Biblical too; there’s a reason jealous emasculated husbands are a common theme in literature going back about 5,000 years. It’s not because we’re fragile or because we’re the victims of “toxic masculinity” - it’s because we’re men. It is more often true for men that physical sex is one of the deepest ways we express romantic love for a partner. When this has been violated, it is different for a man and it wounds a core part of our identity (women are obviously traumatized by a cheating husband having sex with another woman, and I’m not trying to dismiss that - I’m saying it’s different).

I do think it’s true that it has far too often been dismissed or ignored. The way that most infidelity literature is written seems geared toward women. The way that most therapists seems to handle infidelity is to not regard masculine pain or to hope that whistling past the graveyard will make it go away. Or to use pretty words to try to talk a man out of it (this actually might work for a single therapy session, but it never seems to be permanent).

I think it needs to be talked about openly, acknowledged as a reality, and men need to share about it with each other. A recognition of the unique nature of how betrayed husbands experience infidelity is needed within the larger culture in my view. And women who are married or thinking about getting married need to be warned that this is a special, and especially toxic, experience for men. So if they are thinking about betraying a husband for a lark or a fling, they’d better consider it very carefully before acting.

[This message edited by Thumos at 3:50 PM, August 20th (Tuesday)]

I also think this is why more men seem to leave after being betrayed. They do a cost-benefits analysis and realize that the WW has intentionally targeted the very core of their lived, authentic experience as man.

This is not theoretical. It’s almost always why you will read or hear a man say that being betrayed was like having their, ahem, metaphorically cut off, while being stabbed in the back and having their heart ripped out all at once. You rarely hear or read a BW use the same language suggesting something was cut off.

Think of it this way - when people talk about having a “heartache” it’s because they are describing a real physical experience and have used an accurate term to describe it. Their heart center physically aches. When betrayed husbands say it felt like their balls were cut off, they are talking about an actual physical experience. The emotional pain is that bad and it’s that different for a man. I’m not saying it’s worse than what a betrayed woman feels; I’m saying it’s different.

So Humbled, I would say you are having an authentic experience. You can make your way through it, not around it.

[This message edited by Thumos at 4:02 PM, August 20th (Tuesday)]

Humbled - why do you feel emasculated? I'm not denying that you have a right to feel that way, but in order to address our feelings we have to understand where they are coming from. Have you talked to your wife about this? Have you talked to a counselor?

Regarding your question about D or R, if you don't know, then you don't know. It's your right to decide what you want to do. The one piece of advice I will give though is that when you make that decision, you will want to know that 10 years down the road you will be able to look back on it and know that it was the right thing to do.

I think most men do struggle with feelings of emasculation when dealing with infidelity. It's a huge kick in the nuts to be dealt. But as others have mentioned, this has nothing to do with you - it was simply beyond your control. Are you still internalizing or blaming yourself for this? Your wife's choices were a reflection on her at that time. Just as your choices are a reflection on you. And as for what measure is that of a man... it's all about the choices he makes moving forward.

Once I realized my wife's poor choices had nothing to do with me (and that did take some time) -- there is no emasculation. I'm not made weaker by anything she did. It's not a competition if you don't know that you're in one.

This was when the heavy weight was lifted off of me. For so long I thought I had caused my WS's A. When I realized it had nothing to do with me my whole view of the A, our M, and my WS changed.

For me, it came when I stood up for myself and said I wasn't going to put up with infidelity or lies any longer. For me, it ended in D, but I think the same concept can lead to R, if the WS is going to commit. Mine did not.

It the most difficult thing to get over. This is what I battle every day. The emasculation. I wish I could get over this and the mind movies.

There’s a level of injustice when behind your back your spouse is cheating on you. When another man schemes with her. It feels unjust because it’s not a level playing field. You feel emasculated because usually you don’t got the chance to confront them. They are both cowards and broken. I’d respect a man who came to me and said I want to sleep with your wife. It would be a brave man. But cheaters aren’t brave. They’re bereft of integrity, they’re broken.

I can tell you that if I had known I would have crushed him. He is so scared of me that the mention of my name terrifies him.

Yet, this didn’t concern him during the affair. He ran like a rat when I found out. He ran so fast he went to the police and told them that he’s scared. The police asked him what I had done to him. And he said “nothing”. They told him to go home and not have affairs. One of his friends told me about it. I could t stop laughing. What a weak human being. I think the emasculation he is feeling now scared out of his mind is some level of comfort for me.

I would never break the law to “right” my feeling of injustice and emasculation. I got him back legally in the way he’s hurt the most. By exposing him to his wife, parents, siblings and Church community. Punching the hell out of him would land me in jail. But this is not the Middle Ages and we can’t do that anymore (damn). We can, I guess, but I’d rather spend my time with my three gorgeous children than in jail. I think he would probably have preferred that id make him eat out of a straw for a long time than me outing him to his community. He’s a coward either way.

My integrity is EVERYTHING. So feeling emasculated is the hardest thing to accept out of this horrid experience finding out your wife cheated. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over it. I read somewhere that your upbringing and being humiliated can have an impact in how you view your masculinity. So, humiliation as an adult brings back memories of being humiliated when young.

As you note, the overwhelming majority of betrayed men here on SI report feeling emasculated by a WW’s sexual A. It is so ubiquitous one has to believe it is virtually universal.

We’ve seen betrayed women describing something similar, a feeling of having their femininity nullified, “effemulated” if you will.

However, I have noted a distinct pattern to the actual items that are enumerated by betrayed spouses. Betrayed wives tend to talk about characteristics of the AP, and/or the A, that suggest their WH enjoyed sex with the AP more than with the BW. The AP was younger, prettier, bigger/firmer boobs, higher ass, etc. Or, she was sexually aggressive, or did sexual stuff to/for the WH that the BW had not done.

In contrast, betrayed husbands tend to talk about things their WW did for the AP sexually, compared to things the AP did to “win” the sex. They talk about how quickly an A ramped up to sex, or how enthusiastically the WW went “full porn star” for the AP, or how all he had to do was text a smiley face and she would leave home and give him a BJ in his car. The reason BH’s focus on this is that, for men, the degree and quantity of sexual enthusiasm that a woman shows toward a man is a reflection of how much value she places in him as a sexual man. We BH’s feel emasculated when our WW’s express a sense that they value an AP as a sexual man over us. I have seen a handful of betrayed husbands express hurt over the idea that their WW’s AP was younger or more handsome, but not that many.

Both men and women want to feel desired. Based on what I have observed, though, women measure a man’s desire through his expressions about his feelings in terms of how much he enjoys or values sex with her. In contrast, men measure a woman’s desire through the level of her voluntary sexual actions vis-à-vis what the man must do to elicit those actions. Ironically, this tends to cause WW’s to say exactly the wrong thing when they try to minimize: “It meant nothing,” etc. A betrayed husband hears this as: “Therefore, you mean less than nothing to me, as a sexual man.”

Punching the hell out of him would land me in jail. But this is not the Middle Ages and we can’t do that anymore (damn).

*This guy* Believe it or not, it didn't help me with how I felt. I've never felt less of a man than I do now. I know I shouldn't, but I haven't accepted it wasn't my fault yet. I also wonder if I'll ever feel whole, as long as my WW is around.

I read somewhere that your upbringing and being humiliated can have an impact in how you view your masculinity.

Mene, I think we all define our masculinity given the influences we have growing up. My father was a fairly good role model in many respects (not so much in some). I had a few other good role models (an uncle, older male cousin, neighbors). I defined my sense of masculinity through literature and history, too. Even movies and TV shows, to a lesser degree. I means, seriously, who doesn't want to be James Bond?

I grew up measuring myself against my fellow boys and men. Whether it was sports or games, fellow sailors (Navy vet), whatever... I've never defined my masculinity by the woman I was with. It never occurred to me to consider my wife's love and fidelity as a measure of my masculinity.

I've read from plenty of BHs who truly felt (feel) emasculated by their WW and her affair(s). I've also read from BHs who never gave it much thought. To be blunt about it, I think men who feel emasculated by their WWs have to wonder if they believe something about themselves that isn't necessarily true.

For instance, being betrayed by your wife doesn't take away your manhood, or alter your role in this world as a man, a husband, a father, whatever. Your role hasn't changed. Being a betrayed husband isn't a role, it doesn't define who you are. It's just a (shitty fucking) fact of life.

Let me put this another way. I've never once considered a BH any less of a man because his wife betrayed him. I don't consider D or R to be more "manly." Come to think of it, I don't consider D or R to be more "womanly," either.

Infidelity changed me, as a betrayed spouse, but it does not define who am I.

...but I haven't accepted it wasn't my fault yet.

It's the first big hurdle in recovery. This is your brain doing it's job by trying to figure out what you could have done differently to have avoided the trauma and then trying to figure out how to avoid the same trauma in the future. It's a mind-fuck, isn't it?

I've been around SI for a while. I've read from all sorts of BHs. Some I greatly admire. Some, to be honest, I think are putzes. The only thing we ALL have in common is that we married broken women who betrayed us.

[This message edited by Unhinged at 9:07 PM, August 20th (Tuesday)]

If it's truly a deal breaker then I don't see much fixing it because you are around the one that put you where you are on a daily basis. A tough reminder for sure.

Thanks for sharing this information on this topic. It is the one I struggle with most. It’s a cruel thing to face because you’re fighting your perception. Sure, perceptions can be changed, as it’s a mindset you have to work on. But it takes time. A lot of time and a readjustment that isn’t easy to do.

Being a man of integrity is, btw, the hottest thing on earth. It is the sexiest most manly thing that there is. It's beyond muscles, beyond any size of any body part, beyond bank account, beyond bravado. I love men. I love your strength, I love your dedication to your family, I get all butterflied up when I see a man out doing things with his kids. It tears me to pieces when a man I'm with sees me struggling to fix something and does it for me or helps me with it. Yes, sure, I can do things on my own (have for a looong time) and I don't "need" a man, but I find it sexy to have a partner who will step up and help me with things I'm ignorant about doing. I find men who don't look at other women while we're out together to be outrageously hot. I find a man who can be an emotional support and allows me to emotionally support him to be straight up Thor-level manly. A man who will stand for me and with me is just...whew, I'm getting all hot and bothered, lol. I find all that far sexier than a man working out at the gym while bragging to his buddies about all the chicks he's banging. That dude is not a man. All that is far hotter than the guy who avoids emotions unless he needs to whine about everyone else being mean and leaves everything to me to handle as if I'm his mom. That is also not a man. The world is full of man-babies. Real men are to be cherished and adored.

Real men get cheated on far too often. Man-babies are the ones typically doing the cheating. If there's a competition with those types, you win hands down.

"Man-babies" can't cheat unless there are women for them to cheat with.

You have no idea how incredibly dispiriting it is for men like me and others to realize that acting like an asshole with women works. It effectively goes against my very nature and everything I believe in deep down. Yet, in 2019, for too many men, it's a sad truth.

You have no idea how incredibly dispiriting it is for men like me and others to realize that acting like an asshole with women works. It effectively goes against my very nature and everything I believe in deep down. Yet, in 2019, for too many men, it's a sad truth.

Yep. And not just in 2019, but in 1919 and in 1019 and 1050 B.C. And it will be that way in 2119 too. One of the sad things that sinks in for many BH’s.

Thumos,

There is a balance between what men and women want, a dance. Both are valid. Sometimes one side of the dance dominates more than the other.

Men are driven to establish themselves, be something, become "a man." Women tend to have different drives. With women there is more of a cyclical thing, birth/death. Equally valid to me as a man. (These are all generalities and not meant to put anyone here into a box!)

In my time on the manosphere forums, I pointed out that the whole game/player bit is not really male centric. It's female centric, trying to ping a woman's emotions. There are genuinely volatile men, but most men find that approach personally wearing. I got it, understood it, just did not particularly want it.

So there needs to be a balance in society between men trying to establish themselves and women's different needs.