SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

During the past (2) months I asked my marriage counselor for success stories. She looked at me with a horrified look on her face.

Bottom line is this, if your spouse pair bonded with another human being (mainly on the WW side) it's over.

Realize it, don't waste any more time. I sincerely wish you all the best but it will never work out.

Also during the past (2) months, I have researched thru friends, the web and books for non-success R stories. There were millions.

Unicorns do not exist.

Life will get better, just not with a cheating spouse.

Never crazy about absolute terms. I believe it takes certain conditions. Among them perhaps a predisposition for being able to stomach this sort of thing and some degree of codependency.

There are clearly people out there that can do this but I suspect a small minority.

Sorry it didn’t work out for you, what is to be gained by your post?

  Moving to General

I am also curious what the purpose of your post is.

Is infidelity excruciatingly difficult to overcome, and is reconciliation impossible for many people? Sure. But there are also people who say it’s been possible for them—people on this site, even, and at least one couple I know in real life. I’m not prepared to call those people liars. 🤷‍♀️ Blanket statements about all relationships are rarely useful or accurate, in my opinion.

I’m sorry you’re here, though, and very sorry your spouse betrayed you. It’s very painful, and I wish you healing.

I guess that is one narrative you can weave, pair bonding equals all hope lost. But it seems like you are trying to make a numbers argument as well, and nothing I’ve seen says it’s 0 to 1 million. There are some kind folks around here that would mess up that donut. Are you feeling hopeless right now?

I can appreciate saditsover’s post. I agree there are no absolute, 100% statements to be made, but I’d also agree that some relationships are just unsalvageable. In lots of scenarios, mine included, we might be holding on to hopes that are no more than wishful thinking.

Our MC has been in the counseling biz for 40-years now — he said if both people wanted to save the marriage it was a 50-50 shot. He never made any false promises or gave us false hope, he just showed us a path through if we both worked at it.

He later told us, he was a BS and his M ended in D. His WS never tried to save the M, and he was fine as a single dad.

Anyway, I’m no myth. No unicorns in the yard.

About 7-years later my life is good.

Everybody finds a way through, regardless of the path they choose.

R isn't for everyone. In fact, my XWH couldn't do the work to be a safe partner. It is extremely difficult and if both partners aren't in 100%, then it won't work.

I understand you are disappointed. If a narrative of a reconciliation being a myth helps you to come to terms with your own situation, then go for such a narrative. Like you said, there are plenty of indicators reconciliation really is a myth. We have people here posting years and decades after DDay, still struggling, or suddenly realizing it was a deal-breaker for them, or they gradually lost love for their WS. We have people claiming to be happily reconciled, and then you read some of their posts and wonder whether they really are happy. There are people whose DDays were just a few years ago, and they claim they reconciled – you don’t know how they will feel in a few more years. Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive research on this topic (honestly, I’m not even sure whether such research would be possible), and even if there was, it wouldn’t matter much. Psychology is not an exact science – situations are different, people are different, it deals with abstract constructs which are hard (impossible?) to measure, and so on. So, even if we would have some numbers on this topic, general trends or something, it wouldn’t really matter for your marriage, and your reconciliation. I’d say it really depends on how you and your wife feel about it.

My (somewhat naïve, and very simple) stance is: anything is possible, if you really want it. Or, in this case, if both BS and WS want to reconcile, and if they want it more than anything else.

For the folks asking the point of the post:

Bottom line is this, if your spouse pair bonded with another human being (mainly on the WW side) it's over.

Realize it, don't waste any more time. I sincerely wish you all the best but it will never work out.

It’s my understanding that the OP is trying to save BSs time and energy. I also gather from his post that people who think they are in R are only fooling themselves and it’s just a matter of time…….valuable, precious time.

Think of it as a public service message.

But then again, I could be wrong.

Depends on if I believe in pair bonding in the first place, then deciding if that's happened...

I agree exit affairs are not fit for R.

Typical cake eating, depends on what's worth salvaging other than the relationship. The relationship isn't a good enough reason to try R by itself, IMO.

R is possible. It's just never like it was before. You can't change things back but you can change them for the better.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 12:49 PM, Tuesday, February 28th]

Well I thought I’d never get the marriage specialness back again but here I am, in a unicorn situation.

Joking aside, who decides it is over? Your counsellor? Life is very nuanced and there are no absolutes, perhaps that is the beauty of it.

Whilst I cannot say that infidelity was a good part of our marriage, nor can I say that it was an easy journey, 5 years later we have a really good marriage, better than before and we already had a good marriage, and I can say it was worth all the hard work we have both put in. The work didn’t stop either, we both learned to actively invest in our relationship, something we didn’t consciously do before.

Not every WS deserves the effort, that’s true, but that doesn’t mean success stories don’t exist.

ETA: I’ve just read your story, unfortunately you haven’t got a good candidate for reconciliation. Ironically she’ll probably become one once the divorce is rolling.

[This message edited by Luna10 at 3:35 PM, Tuesday, February 28th]

I think this is a great topic.

I have to be straight-up here. I do see too many sad men here, years out from their WW's affair, who say that they R'd or that they are in R. They are stuck in a marriage however, with a WW who hardly seems to respect them and whom they don't even seem to like very much. These men seem to be walking around like they got their balls cut off! Ouch!

(I realize that may sound harsh, but sometimes people need to read the politically incorrect truth.)

There ARE happy R stories on here, but they are few and far between. I don't think I have ever heard of ANY happy R stories where the BH insisted on R right from the start. In all the happy R stories I have read, the BH took a firm line to Get Himself Out Of Infidelity, i.e., file for Divorce. That seemed to be what kick-started the WW's journey through Regret and then Remorse, to become a safe partner.

As for myself, when I found out she cheated--long long time ago (2006), I tried to save it aka Pick-Me Dance. I cringe of how I acted then. That it did not work turned out to be the best thing for me. Sometimes the best miracles out there are the prayers God Decides To NOT Answer!

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 1:05 AM, Wednesday, March 1st]

During the past (2) months I asked my marriage counselor for success stories. She looked at me with a horrified look on her face.

Also, you might have a marriage counselor who is both really bad and really honest. I’ve found two bad ones out of three myself, this third one seems pretty good. But the honesty part is interesting to me, because I’m pretty sure all MC’s are motivated to say they have good results. If yours is saying they have none, I wonder what keeps them in their profession.

R is possible. It's just never like it was before. You can't change things back but you can change them for the better.

I think this is an important point. I don’t want R to look like getting us back to where we were before. We were ok, but the same shit that made my WW susceptible to cheating was a huge anchor on our relationship. So here is our chance to let it all go, do the open heart surgery to fix it, and then build something much better. And she might not do the work, I can’t control that. But if she does, then I want to meet that with an open and gracious heart, God knows that is what I would want if I was in her shoes. Do unto others…

Bottom line is this, if your spouse pair bonded with another human being (mainly on the WW side) it's over.

Realize it, don't waste any more time. I sincerely wish you all the best but it will never work out.

I definitely could have written this after my D with my 1st H. This was why...when my 2nd H confessed to his A...I immediately told him the M was over...no emotion whatsoever. There was NO WAY I was ever going to put myself through what I went through with my 1st H!! Yet here I am...almost 9 years after Dday...living out my "happily ever after"!!!

I think you make a great point about the "pair bonding" aspect. I have read where that IS often on the WW's side...but not always. My H felt that if he could say he lurved the adultery co-conspirator...then it would make him FEEL better than just saying he wanted to fuck a stranger. In HIS words...everything was EASY for them...they didn't have to work at anything. Isn't that soooooo ROMANTIC??!!

The thing is...there is NO "pair bonding" in an A. An A is simply two SELFISH people who USE each other to get what they each WANT. I took in everything my H said about his adultery co-conspirator. Then I used HIS words to show him just how SELFISH they really were to each other. Of course...the TRUTH actually came from his adultery co-conspirator when she replied to his NC message. OMG...I WISH every Betrayed could see the affair bubble POP like I did when my H saw for himself that his adultery co-conspirator USED him just like he USED her!!!

Life will get better, just not with a cheating spouse.

ABSOLUTELY!! I 100% AGREE with this statement. In order for R to be successful...BOTH parties have to be ALL IN. EVERY A is a dealbreaker. PERIOD. You have to then decide if you both want to make a NEW deal...or void the deal altogether and go for D. Some M's are worth saving...like my 2nd M. Some are not...like my 1st M. I have never regretted either decision!!

I have a successful R story!! I truly didn't think it was possible...until it was. I am very HAPPY again...and even more importantly...I am at PEACE. Life CAN be good...and marriages CAN thrive...despite an A. I am living proof of that!!! I am not the ONLY one on this site who is. Heck...this site was formed BECAUSE of a successful R story!!

From what I have read about your situation...you may want to go for D. As long as your WW is romanticizing her A...she won't be all in for R. The reality of her situation MIGHT make her snap out of her selfishness...but that isn't YOUR problem anymore. YOU have a CHOICE now in what you want YOUR LIFE to look like going forward Dear Sir. My prayer for you is to have the BEST one it can be!!!

You write as a BS who wanted to R but didn't. If that's right, I'm sorry you've experienced being betrayed, and I'm sorry you didn't get the resolution you wanted.

But giving a sour grapes response is not on a direct healing path. It's much better to work on accepting your reality than to lash out at others who are on a path to R - because make no mistake: R is possible when both partners do the necessary work.

That is, the BS has to do the work necessary to let their pain go, the WS has to do the work to change from cheater to good partner, and together they need to build a new M.

Also during the past (2) months, I have researched thru friends, the web and books for non-success R stories. There were millions.

Hmmm ... you can't possibly believe you've effectively reviewed millions of stories in the last 2 months. Do the math.

Besides, what did you search on? I searched on 'unsuccessful reconciliation after infidelity' and 'failed reconciliation after infidelity' and got 557,000 hits for one and under 200,000 hits on the other.

Shirley Glass stated that 20% of the couples she counseled split when both partners said they wanted R. I think that means 80% succeeded in some form or R.

Personally, I think there are no good statistics on the likelihood that R will succeed but that there are enough success stories around to show that R works if both partners do what they need to do.

*****

I found myself wanting to go back to the way our M was before my W's A. I quickly realized R had to do better than that, because W was vulnerable to cheating before the A, and I wanted a W who was much less vulnerable to an A than she was before d-day.

R is possible. Successfully R'ing doesn't make a person morally superior or smarter or stronger or better in any other way than people who don't R. The goal isn't R or D. The goal is to survive and thrive, given the situation one finds themself in.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:00 PM, Tuesday, February 28th]

Obviously, calling reconciliation "mythical" is a gross over-generalization. And I'm with InkHulk when I say that it's shocking that a MC would actually admit to lack of success reconciling couples post infidelty.

But I'm admittedly a reconciliation skeptic, mainly because cheating doesn't happen in a vaccuum. It's usually simply one of many symptoms of the WS's poor character, usually selfishness, lack of accountability, recklessness, disrespect, etc. So while I think it's entirely possible for a WS to stop cheating and perhaps become a better partner, I'd say the odds of having a complete character transplant are low.

Reconciliation-- as we define it on SI as being a complete rebuild of the marriage from the bottom up-- requires infinite patient, humility, and accountability on the part of the WS, with no promise or hope of immediate gratification and reward. They need to put aside whatever grievances they had with the BS and the marriage prior to the affair to deal with the immediate crisis that their actions created. If most WSs were up to the task, they wouldn't have cheated in the first place.

Consequently, I wouldn't characterize most couples who stay together as "reconciled;" in most cases, the word "reconciled" could more suitably be replaced with "rugswept" or "resigned." So while OldWounds's MC said that 50% of marriages survive infidelity, my guess is that only 25% of those marriages that survived are actually alive and thriving; the other 25% are simply hooked up to a ventilator and a feeding tube.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 4:05 PM, Tuesday, February 28th]

Successfully R'ing doesn't make a person morally superior or smarter or stronger or better in any other way than people who don't R. The goal isn't R or D. The goal is to survive and thrive, given the situation one finds themself in.

This x 100

Bottom line is this, if your spouse pair bonded with another human being (mainly on the WW side) it's over.

I'm obviously going to be in the minority here but I agree with this. Maybe a marriage can come back after a ONS with a forthcoming and truly remorseful spouse, but with a LTA there is no coming back IMO. For me my marriage ended and what I have now is nothing more than a piece of paper, my marriage certificate.

Years of a relationship built with someone outside the marriage causes incalculable damage. Time, energy, effort, and emotion all deprived to the BS and given to the AP, things that should have been directed at the marriage. Knowing someone was very much a confidant of my WH and had a front row seat to everything happening in my life and marriage without my knowledge or consent has left me with a tremendous sense of being violated.

I would read about R, about rebuilding a marriage from the ashes during the early days, weeks and months post Dday and at this point 7 years past Dday I look back now and speaking for myself see that as a pipe dream I wish I hadn't bought in to. Wasn't ever going to happen. The betrayal was too deep and too long and I feel robbed of my agency and years of my life I could've used to rebuild a new one for myself and my kids without a cheating, lying, narcissistic WH. All an absolute waste of precious time.

There's not a day that goes by that I don't look back wishing my circumstance was different and I had the ability to abandon a sinking ship because what I am left with now isn't even a shell of a marriage, it's strictly a cohabitation situation. My feelings of love for him are gone, respect gone, trust gone, attraction gone and he knows it.

Betrayal to me is unforgivable, the damage being too great. I have never stayed with a cheater and I can say it was an act of futility and stupidity on my part and have been left with a feeling of betraying myself as a result.

I think Saditsover has every right to express this sentiment. Some may have found that utopia of true reconciliation but being here for years and speaking with others it seems rare and many who did stay are admittedly not happy. All of us here have one thing in common, betrayal, but how we each feel about it, about second chances or heading straight to a divorce attorney is where our stories branch out. What may be good for one may not be good for many others.