SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Asking for help in self awareness and improvement.

How have you as a WS come to acceptance and humility?
What actions have worked for you to help change from the selfish, arrogant person you were that allowed you to give yourself permission to cheat and lie and hurt people?
What have you done to stop being defensive?

For me, it was the same answer for all three questions. I had to get to know myself on a much deeper level than I had ever even realized existed, and figure out my "why's" about pretty much everything. Once I was able to identify the parts of me that led to my "infidelity brain", I had to make specific and purposeful changes in the way I thought and felt about things. That's the nutshell version.

Look, none of us grows up hoping to one day be a cheater and a liar. The day we got married, we didn't think, "Well, this person will do until I find someone to affair down with, then I'll really be happy". No, instead, we all had the best of intentions. We wanted to be good people. We wanted a happy marriage, a family, a life together. We exchanged rings and vows and pledged our undying love and fidelity to our spouses. And we meant it when we said it. So what happened?

Since this is a site about infidelity, we often describe waywards and their broken thinking in terms of their infidelity. To be honest with you however, as a recovering wayward, it can sometimes do more harm than good to come at it from that point of view, as it seems to imply that what is broken is somehow related to the marriage. It's not. There are lots of people out there with the same broken thinking patterns as waywards, but who haven't had an affair. Instead, they end up being self-destructive in other ways. Many of them turn into addicts of one sort or another. Some are violent and/or have anger issues. Some become drifters, losing job after job, relationship after relationship. Some take a different approach and become narcs. Or homeless people. Many just live broken lives never knowing any better.

Asking yourself, "Why did I cheat?" is a good start, but it really is just a first step, as good as any. Let me ask you a very different question however. Why didn't you stick your head in the toilet and flush it today?

Now, you are probably thinking that's a ridiculous question, and it is, but still, for just a moment, think about it. It's not a trick question at all. There is nothing stopping you from doing that, right? If you wanted to flush your head, you could, right now even. People wouldn't even know, and no one else would get hurt or be affected. You could do it to your heart's content. So why aren't you doing it?

Well, let's go down that road. Together.

One good reason not to do that is that it's gross as hell. I don't want to stick my head where I and everyone else shits.
Also, I just respect myself more than that. I see flushing my head as not only gross, but demeaning, and stupid if I'm to be honest. I'm not that stupid.
There are other reasons. It would make my hair look gross. I would get toilet water up my nose in and in my eyes and that would probably get me sick. My clothes would get ruined from kneeling on the floor. If people caught me doing it I'd be embarrassed. I wouldn't want to get hooked on it and end up thinking about flushing my head every chance I get. Others won't want to be with me or even get to know me if they knew I was a head flusher. I don't feel I could ever talk to others about my problem because no one else could possibly understand this unique and embarrassing situation I've gotten myself into.

As you can see, the reasons to not flush my head are personal ones. I don't want to be a head flusher, and people who do flush their heads sound really gross to me. They seem mentally ill in fact, and I wonder if they do that gross thing, what other gross things do I not know about them? What I'm not worried about however is my relationship with the toilet. It isn't the toilet's fault that I flush my head, despite how cool and refreshing the water may feel. It is all on me. Something in me led me to do this gross thing.

Okay, now, replace "head flusher" with "cheater".

The reason people don't cheat is much the same as why they don't flush their heads. It's because they have more self-respect for themselves than that. They see it as gross and beneath them, and don't want to be seen as that kind of person, and don't want to live that kind of life. In fact, for most people, the mere thought of it is so very offensive that they can't even go down that road to begin with. People don't cheat because they have self-respect and integrity.

But you did. You chose to cheat. So did I. And so many others here. We chose to flush our heads despite how utterly gross it is. Why?

Well, if people who have self-love, integrity and healthy boundaries don't cheat, then it makes sense that people who do cheat... lack those things.

And THAT is where your journey begins.

WHY did you not respect yourself more to begin with? WHY did not see how gross cheating was and make a hard boundary that you would never cross? WHY would you choose to be someone you aren't proud of being? WHAT drove you to demean yourself? And WHY are you so damn angry when someone brings it up?

These are questions you need to answer. Not to me of course, but to yourself. Hopefully in therapy.

Let me get you started. Here are some questions to ponder, as they tie into everything else...

What is your first memory of feeling SHAME? What caused it, who was there, how did it end up? How did you view yourself while feeling shame? Did others try to help or protect you? How did you (or did you not) cope with those feelings? Do you still feel shame when you think about it? What could have happened differently? What do think that you or others could have done to help mitigate the shame and instead help restore your sense of pride?

Now, same questions, but use the word ANGER instead of shame. Work through your earliest thoughts of anger.

Anger and shame destroy our self-respect and our empathy. They are not feelings that promote pride and self-love. But notice how often they pop up when we discuss infidelity. In order to understand why you did the things you did, and why you react the way you do now, you first have to understand how you process shame and anger, and what tools you have to deal with them in a healthy way.

Once you understand these things, the rest is straightforward. (Not simple, but straightforward). Every time you get angry (for example), you stop, and think, and get to the core of the anger. Why are you angry? Why are you reacting that way? And then you choose a new way to feel and react. You say to yourself, "No. I don't want to be an angry, mean person, and I don't want to feel and react this way. I am going to calm down. I am going to handle what's going on in a better way. I'm going to do whatever it takes to walk away from this with some self-respect. And you keep feeding those new messages to your brain, over and over and over and over... until they replace the old, broken programming. It works. But you have to really be committed to it.

For me, I realized the shame I was carrying made me fragile to criticism, slights, me feeling unlovable.

I also figured out through therapy that the shame I had been carrying started when I was young and snowballed from there. I had to learn where it came from, piece by piece and heal those parts of me.

I had to find ways that I was whole on my own, and this took years, therapy, lots of digging up bones. At some point I came to the point where I recognized I was redeemable through creating a new recent history. That is built day by day of conscious living, analyzing my motivations for things, and becoming aware enough of my thoughts and changing them. Realizing how much I lied to myself, and finding better truths to believe in.

Recognizing that we do not have to be perfect, and we are still worthy and lovable. What I think I am talking about is self compassion. We can’t have compassion for others without it. And when we have those things you will find you can also sit down and have an honest and open conversation about something with the person you love and accept their feedback, and become more aware of their needs without taking everything so personally.

I actually had the opposite problem that you do - I had less problem taking constructive feedback but couldn’t offer it myself. But we have the same core issue causing it- a need to heal, to stop sleep walking, and being open to challenging ourselves towards our highest self.

I feel like you keep hustling to satisfy something in your relationship. You want to keep your marriage which is normal. But you can’t just do this to save your relationship but out of a need to also save yourself. I hope you find that helpful as it’s how I mean it to be.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:07 AM, Wednesday, February 23rd]

Have you read the following posts?

Things that every WS needs to know - HUFI-PUFI

Discovering your whys... - DaddyDom

The Work - Foreverlabeled

What are your thoughts on them? Have you tried to apply any of it?

I know you're looking for a quick fix but you should know by now it doesn't work that way.

Stopping being defensive was the hardest one for me. I'm still working on it even in regular day-to-day stuff.

What helped me was to categorize my "defenses" and justifications as "background" to the offense I caused. These were the background issues going on that factored into my decision to do something irresponsible or hurtful. It doesn't change my need to be accountable- the background doesn't excuse my choices. The background is my work to do- my homework assignment. It doesn't belong to the hurt my spouse is going through from my choices. It is mine alone and therefore something I am not allowed to dump on my BH when he's hurting.

By categorizing my justifications and defenses as background that is not immediately important to the situation, it helps me focus more on what IS immediately important- I did something irresponsible/hurtful and BH is HURTING. BH's HURT is first. My background isn't unimportant, but it isn't IMMEDIATELY important, ya know?

Like, your kid breaks their arm climbing a tree. Sure they shouldn't have been climbing in the first place. However, are you going to bring that up while on the road to the hospital? Heck NO! The arm is broken, the child is hurting and needs help and support. The tree climbing is the background that needs to wait. Our hurts and internal turmoil is the same. It needs to wait until we have addressed the break in our BS's.

I have to remind myself when I'm becoming defensive of these things. If BH is hurting, it is my IMMEDIATE job to help his hurt. When or if he asks for my background (is healed/calm enough to be curious) THEN I can share. But only when asked. He may never ask, and I have to be ok with that. My "background" is mine to own and mine to work on. BH can walk along side me and support me in dealing with it, but it is not his job to fix it or validate it when I have hurt him.

Hope this helps. It helps me to write this stuff out- to teach is to learn twice. And boy do I need to keep learning!

Thanks to all. MIganger, that is very helpful; I am incredibly defensive and it is totally absurd because I am the Ahole that caused this and my justifications and reasons don't matter to or make better BW's pain one bit. I will try this concept and I keep background in the background for me to process and work through. This will also help me stop giving word salad and smarmy answers when what she really needs is my active listening and empathy for her pain. As you said, BW's pain is the immediate and only concern...not my BS rationale. Thank you.

I can’t really anything to the excellent posts by DaddyDom, HO and MIgander.

when what she really needs is my active listening and empathy for her pain. As you said, BW's pain is the immediate and only concern...not my BS rationale.

No.

She does not need your active listening. Whether she wants or needs your empathy is a question you should ask her. She may not want or need anything from you. Frankly, it’s about what you need to do on your own. Active listening is just a tool. "I statements" are nice but don’t really do anything. It seems like you are looking for an easy solution. "If I do these 3 things then [fill in the blank]."

What are you doing to work on yourself? Real empathy takes time will only come after you’ve truly delved deep and fully understand what it is you’ve done and how much you’ve hurt her. When you get there, then the words "active listening" won’t be part of your vocabulary. You will naturally listen to her, hear her, and internalize what she says. No fancy tools required.

The fact that you have a rationale at all to me means you haven’t really spent time working on yourself at all. How can you expect to have empathy for her when you’re still rationalizing what you did? I don’t get it.

As far as her pain is concerned, your job is not to run to her to "fix" her pain. You’re job is to let her know that you are there for her in whatever capacity she needs when she’s in pain. Sometimes that might be to be a verbal punching bag, other times it’s HB, or a shoulder to cry on, and other times it’ll be to just give her space and leave her alone. Again, working on yourself, digging deep to really understand the magnitude of what you did and so on will help you get to that place where all of this will come naturally rather than "give me 3 tools to fix this" ever could.

I think the hardest part for me is taking all the ownership when we are madhatters. I had the affair first for a long time. He had an affair second for half the time that I did. We are in an ok place when I take all ownership and support him in every way and work on myself. If I have any feelings about his affair or relationships, they are not valid because I caused everything. He still communicates and sees his affair partners because I owe that to him for breaking our vows. He would not be in the place he is if I hadn’t done what I had done. He refuses to do IC because it won’t help him, he is processing on his own. I have never had boundaries, self love was minimal. Just get through things and shove your feelings down was my MO until the last year. How do I balance being humble and owning everything with not getting walked all over when I never had boundaries or the ability to stand up to myself until recently. I need to bring it up in MC but don’t even know how to articulate it. Maybe this is how I articulate it?

But on the other hand, I caused all of it. So whatever consequences that came along are because of me. I understand that. So I continue to work on myself and supporting him. And let him do anything and say anything because I owe him that. Because I broke us. Is that the correct way to view it? If that is the case, it is much easier to grasp. Do I remove his actions out of the equation because I was the cause of his actions and just continue doing the work I’ve been doing with no expectations from him except that of the betrayed spouse. I completely understand if that is how it should be. I just need input so I can put that thought of him doing work on himself to rest.

Hey Copec,

Your actions did not cause him to DECIDE to cheat. He DECIDED to cheat.

Your actions caused the pain and devastation within him. He was the one who DECIDED to take that pain and turn it into CHEATING.

You are the cause of his pain and devastation. You are NOT responsible for his DECISION to cheat.

He made a conscious DECISION to cheat. He knew full well the pain cheating caused and DECIDED to do it anyway. There is something that was broken in him long before you cheated.

Think of it this way, you burned his house down. Instead of suing you in court (appropriate response), he burned yours down too. Now you're both left with wrecks of your former lives to live in. If he wasn't broken inside already, he would have decided to IC, MC, 180, D, S, what have you (healthy responses). Instead he CHOSE an affair. It was too hard for him to do internal reflection and work, so he decided to pour a can of gasoline on you and light the match.

You are NOT responsible for his cheating. HE is. The sooner HE owns it, the sooner you guys can have an M to even think of working on.

The sooner you can change your perspective and gain an appropriate understanding of your responsibilities moving forward, the better. Once you can grasp this (appropriate responsibility) for yourself, you can set healthy boundaries for your self and begin your own healing.

Good luck, and I hope you can find some clarity.

ETA: your affair doesn't give him a free pass to continue his. There's plenty of spouses on here who were waywards first until their spouses cheated on them. Please go to the Madhatter thread here in ICR and check it out. There's a lot of experienced waywards here who are madhatters in their own right.

[This message edited by MIgander at 2:04 PM, Tuesday, March 1st]