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Has anyone had the experience of the WS being traumatized by the affair or some specific element of the affair? There is nothing specific that my WW has stated, I’m asking this more pre-emptively. She has all kinds of trauma from stuff in her life, and I have a lot of compassion for her in that. And then she put herself in honestly dangerous situations, sexually exposing herself to a man she really didn’t know well in private spaces, who the hell know what happened. She’s eluded to him pushing past her boundaries in the last sexual encounter. If she were to come out and say that she has additional trauma from the affair, that would seem like a really tough pill for me to swallow, I’m not sure if I could manufacture compassion for that. Anyone experience anything like that in their R journey?

Just seeing that you took so much time, care and effort to ask the question seems to imply that you DO have compassion and care regarding your WS and her trauma. Just saying. Don't discount yourself or your ability to still care for others in the midst of your own trauma and crisis. That's the component that many WS's don't have themselves. They know how to feel sorry for themselves, but when it comes to worrying about others (unselfishly) they tend to fall flat on their face. My only advice there is to be careful when it comes to compassion for the WS. I can't speak for everyone, but I know that in my case, my wife's compassion for my trauma(s) ended up sucking her down the black hole with me for a time, and just hurting her more, because each time she showed care for me, I made everything about me again, or tried to use the trauma as an excuse.

All that being said, there is no reason or responsibility for you to help your WS through her struggles. As you said (and I know this story all too well from my own life) she brought this on herself, with the full knowledge of her existing trauma and what it might do to her. That's not to say that she needs to be "punished"... her whole life is "punishment" simply from having to live with her trauma. But she does need to work through this, and in that effort, you can be supportive and encouraging, but she still needs to walk the path on her own.

What I will suggest is attempting (if you have the will and the want to do so) to use her own struggles to help guide her towards empathy for you. In other words, see this as an opportunity to "lean in towards each other", start conversations, and find a place of bonding and balance. You both are struggling with trauma. You both were affected by the affair. You both aren't sure how to feel or what to do. That's an open door to bond and to answer those questions together.

If there is to be any chance at R (and if that's what you want, I'm just assuming) then the relationship needs to be rebuilt from scratch, almost as if it had never existed (because it kinda doesn't now). A great way to have something in common together when rebuilding, is to share the experience of overcoming the damage. I know in our case, we both learned a lot about ourselves and each other.

I'm not sure if you guys are at the point where you can attempt this now. I see you registered in June last year, and the emotions in those first two years are just all over the place. I know we were no where ready to R in year two. But we were there, still working on ourselves, still fighting for what we wanted eventually, and so when we WERE ready, we had a lot of "don't give up" skills that we needed to survive.

Best of luck to you and your WW Ink.

My wife’s A, based purely on the matter of fact description of one instance was absolute assault. She dismissed it at the time, because she thought even though she was horribly uncomfortable, she must have been willing on some level. She lied to herself as much as anyone else during the A, and some of the trauma of it all didn’t hit her until she told it as it was. She only ever blamed herself for any of it.

So yeah, from the shame to the guilt, I imagine some trauma for some WS. It is different, it isn’t the same of my trauma.

We’re far enough along now, I know she has some of her own healing to do, but she’s in charge of that as I am for my own healing, then we work on the M together.

I’m healed enough that I don’t have to manufacture compassion. I feel empathy for her and wished she hadn’t put herself in that situation. Of course, I wish she hadn’t put our M in that situation. At some point, most of it stays in the past where it belongs. It’s another part of processing it all and moving forward.

my husband was traumatized by the overall experience of the affair and me finding out and the severe emotional turmoil and pain and fear experienced by everyone all around. He was simultaneously caring for his sister in late stage, very painful cancer/hospice, and she died less than two weeks after DDay (traumatic for all of us). It was also the height of the pandemic, which made our jobs and the medical care for his sister much more stressful and harder to navigate. He had severe stress-induced physical symptoms and panic attacks, and even felt like he was having a heart attack at some point. All of those things were very uncharacteristic of him.

We were both severely traumatized in different ways by the whole experience and everything that went down, honestly. It took us both over a year and a half to stop feeling jittery, adrenaline filled, constantly on edge, and emotionally dysregulated.

[This message edited by Grieving at 9:08 PM, Friday, March 3rd]

What I will suggest is attempting (if you have the will and the want to do so) to use her own struggles to help guide her towards empathy for you. In other words, see this as an opportunity to "lean in towards each other", start conversations, and find a place of bonding and balance. You both are struggling with trauma. You both were affected by the affair. You both aren't sure how to feel or what to do. That's an open door to bond and to answer those questions together

DaddyDom, I just want to say that your comment is so helpful. I am struggling to find a way to guide my spouse toward empathy for what I am experiencing, and I think you just helped me figure out what I might do differently.

She’s eluded to him pushing past her boundaries in the last sexual encounter. If she were to come out and say that she has additional trauma

I honestly don't think there is a right or wrong answer here. This is a tough situation for both of you to be in. The first person that a wayward betrays is themselves. They betray their own stated boundaries in a number of different realms. That isn't said to minimize your pain and trauma, but waywards inflict upon themselves all sorts of trauma too. That trauma looks a little different, but having been on both sides of this coin as a MH, there is trauma on both sides that at least in my experience felt/feels about equal in magnitude.

I think something important here to keep in mind is that you do certainly have compassion for your wife, otherwise you wouldn't be struggling with this to ask the group. In fact, I think it is not that you do/don't have compassion, but you are kind of wrestling with the "where/what line does my compassion for her begin to wane?" and that is because in this example, she put herself into a situation with man she doesn't really know. Thus is another one of the major fallacies that waywards delude themselves into thinking that they know the AP so well, that they connect at a different level than they do with their own OBS, which is why they get the feelings and rush of all those hormones that tell them "we are so compatible, I know them so well." The reality is that to the WS, the AP is just mirroring and manipulating them to hear what they want to hear, and that creates that false sense of "knowing them" because well...they are mirroring you...who by definition and default you know better than anyone else on the planet...so you are essentially obsessing over yourself, which is kind of textbook wayward behavior.

Anywho, I digress, your wife in her delusion put her physical self at risk with someone she barely knew (although she thought she knew him) and I'm guessing from the sounds of it he pushed too far past a boundary for her. So you as the BH are now conflicted because in a sense your wife was what some would call "sexually assaulted" by someone and that someone happens to be her AP with whom she willingly consented to physical intimacy with, but if she didn't consent, that is what we colloquially will call assault or even rape. I mean, I think that we accept now that even a married couple that has regularly and repeatedly consented to sexual activity can still be guilty of sexual assault/rape of their partner if there is not consent.

Again, I think what you are struggling with (and please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm trying to help with a different perspective) is the dual nature of being very hurt and traumatized by your wife's betrayal but also sympathetic and showing empathy and compassion towards her because her AP, her partner in the betrayal, assaulted her.

For a thought, change the scenario. Instead of her having an affair, let's say that in a different hypothetical universe she doesn't know AP, but that same man rapes her (again, I don't know any specific details that would lead to it, just a hypothetical). So your wife is raped by this same man and the only difference in the circumstances is that rather than being her AP, they had no previous relationship and she had not betrayed you in any way like she has. I don't know you at all other than what you posted, but your empathy and compassion would be off the charts. You and your wife would both be deeply traumatized by the experience and through no fault of either of your own, your marriage would be irrevocably changed, albeit in a different way than it has been back here in the real world where she cheated on you but may have been raped/assaulted by AP as well.

Here are my thoughts and I will leave you with this. It is a tough spot that you are in, but I think there can be two thoughts in your head at the same time. If you show compassion to your wife for this "pushing past her boundaries" that is in no way a tacit acceptance of the broader behavior and the circumstances she put herself in for that to occur. In other words, showing her kindness and compassion for this does not let her off the hook for the betrayal, which is really the larger issue which she needs to show you her compassion and understanding as you wrestle with the bomb that went off in your marriage. My other thought, and maybe I'm projecting myself here, is that showing compassion and being empathetic is part of who you are, but your rational brain is struggling with "hey now, this woman just metaphorically knifed you in the heart by having an affair, you can't possibly be willing to be kind to her about this" but your instincts/gut are saying that the right play is to do the opposite since you are by nature that person. I would say, give yourself permission to show some compassion here, but be clear that you aren't accepting of her behaviors that lead her there.

Last thing (I know, I ranted a bit), since you mentioned you are on an R journey, this boundary pushing is also something that you two and use to be on the same side. The two of you can be united in the front that AP is a dirty scumbag. That agreement is something that the two of you can build on slowly as part of R, so as fucked up as it may seem, this is an opportunity to put some building blocks in place for an R foundation if that is what both of you want and how you treat it.

I'm not generally a fan of looking for problems you don't have. Presumably your plate is a little full.

Maybe cross this bridge if you get to it InkHulk. I imagine this type of thing is very fact-specific so its probably better to deal in actuals vs. hypotheses. As I've said to you before, it's great to have compassion but part of me is wondering if this is simply your brain going through another iteration of the big-bad-wolf AP/victimized wife narrative.

I had weak boundaries for many years, and that included with my H. I conceptually understood boundaries, but in a moment-by-moment basis I could not manage the complexity of cutting off people that I cared about, of telling people that I liked "No," or even harder for me, of using longer sentences to actually explain to people when their actions were offensive to me. I will never be good at this type of stuff, but I've gotten much, much better.

So I do feel traumatized by my A, but as a free-thinking and self-empowered adult, I cannot see myself as a victim in this situation. I am traumatized by what I did to myself, by what I allowed, by my own poor choices and lack of self-respect. I think back and wince in shame. I can no longer channel that woman's thoughts. Why did she do this to herself? Where was her dignity? What was she even thinking?

Your WW needs to own a lot of this, own that she let someone "push past her boundaries." Then are they actually boundaries? Many would say No. If you have real boundaries, then people don't push past them without major consequences: being cut off, cut out, injured, facing charges, public shaming, etc. If these were real boundaries, she would have charged him with rape. Anything other than that is on her (unless she is a child). Can she be traumatized by who she was? By how poorly she behaved? By how weak her boundaries were? By the way she let people do whatever they wanted? Yes. But that is not an excuse to gain pity or even a line of thinking to share with you. A WS trying to save their M must deal with their shame and humiliation and personal damage alone and in IC. It is not their opportunity for self pity. The perpetrator of the crime cannot in good conscience turn to their victims for support. Inappropriate. So this shame and trauma she feels as she looks back should just give her a focus for her work in IC. That's it.

Hurt people do hurt people. But her "hurts" need to be faced and healed in IC. That is her work alone. That is how she becomes a safe partner for you. Taking the victim role regarding the A is a red flag of remorselessness, selfishness and a lack of empathy. Your boundaries need to be firm with her: There will be no talk of you as the victim of anything or of your trauma. Please do that work in IC. Period.

Unfortunately I think it's really hard for the BS to know. First, you don't really know whether any of it is true. Second, they constructed an elaborate web of lies, justifications, and compartmentalization to isolate themselves from the reality of what they were doing. Barring outright assault, would it not insulate them from any trauma from that reality? And if it was assault, would that not shatter the web of lies?

I'm not sure that feeling the emotional impact of something well after the fact qualifies as trauma in the same way as something whose impact is so great that it is unavoidable and immediate.

Many WSs express extreme shame over what they've done when it is revealed even if they seemed shameless when doing it. My WW said after Dday that she was surprised at how little guilt she felt over what she had done. Later in R when I tried to discuss details, the shame triggered panic attacks. Or so she claimed. I'll never know how much of that was real and how much was a tactic to shut down the discussion.

Sorry, Ink. This sounds like just another angle for your WS to avoid responsibility. I think you can have empathy for the emotional difficulty she is having in owning and understanding what she's done. But she's responsible and as OIN suggested, that's for her to deal with in her own IC.

[This message edited by Seeking2Forgive at 12:33 AM, Saturday, March 4th]

She just doesn't want to tell you the details.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

Emergent, I hear you about fishing for problems, today has enough trouble as it is. Put this one under I have a gut feeling that it will come up.

I ask about it with the thought that she’s had so much unresolved trauma from her past, childhood stuff, college rape, and she has not dealt with it and it has resulted in difficulties in communication and the bedroom. Those I have immense compassion for, and frustration of her unwillingness over the years to face them. The A has been the catalyst to face her demons, it’s a big part of her why’s. I’m looking ahead a year from now and her telling me there is still a block in the bedroom or in communication that she traces to the affair. I don’t think I could really accept that. Maybe the answer is unresolved trauma of any kind is not acceptable anymore.

And for the advice that she can’t share her pains with me as it would be inappropriate, I struggle with that. I think I would want her to, I think it would be connecting. Or does that go too far into codependency?

She just doesn't want to tell you the details.

She told me graphic details about the boundary pushing incident. But it’s true we still have a long way to go to get to full disclosure, I’ve already posted on that at length recently.

Oh, we can do a deep dive into the human psyche on this topic.

My ExWW definitely traumatized herself, the part of her who is-was or never was, a very rational, pragmatic, responsible, pious Mother and devoted loving Wife, who was always very concerned with her public image, reputation and, first to judge and denigrate her cheater friends. The devoted Mother who placed our kid’s welfare above all.

The sheer hypocrisy of her very uncharacteristic conduct caused some sort of fracture of mind, like she split from herself into a constant state of internal conflict involving self loathing that is temporarily compensated for by a manic self soothing. From one extreme to the other. She’d go from deep shame and self loathing to defiance and over inflated self confidence and esteem.

She’s never really been the same. She broke herself. I can barely recognize this woman. She now spends her time trying to convince herself and everyone else she’s alright, better than alright, she’s doing better than she ever has, in control, free, liberated, knows exactly what she’s doing, loving life, no regrets…

But it’s obvious,

Infidelity is so incredibly self destructive.

I believe that it is equally, if not more important, for a Wayward to, at the very least, reconcile with themselves. Even if they can’t reconcile with their Betrayed Spouse, they still must truly, holistically reconcile with themselves and follow through with that IC.

I don’t want my ExWW to hate herself. Some level of hating herself is probably what got her into trouble to begin with. And now this…

[This message edited by RealityBlows at 6:21 AM, Saturday, March 4th]

First and foremost, your wife’s healing is her responsibility. No one can heal another person, nor should they self abandon to accommodate the others healing.

You have asked the question, so I am going to offer my ws perspective.

I think there is some conflation between being traumatized and being a victim.

If you murder someone you might very well self traumatizeim the process or during some of the consequences but you are not a victim.

If someone rapes you then you are a victim. Even if you were somewhere you shouldn’t be, and even if

You have had sex with them on prior occasions.

The affair for me was traumatizing, yes. No one made me be there, and no would have been taken as no. I did have poor boundaries, but i take responsibility for everything I did. And all the people I hurt by my actions.

When some people willfully choose to have an affair it can lead to a full on addiction to the flooding of brain with the dopamine.

Gamblers get a huge rush of dopamine when they make bets. They want to stop but they cant. They lose their houses and families, and it still keeps going.

So what I am talking about is not exclusive to affairs. The gambler chose it in the beginning, they didn’t start gambling because of an addiction.

The trauma for me was a mixture of being swallowed up in shame, and virtually suicidal, watching my husband in pain, and the process of the withdrawal. (It wasn’t because I loved AP, he was an old man who was nothing compared to my husband).

It was the brain chemistry that I am talking about. The lowest days of my life, and I don’t say that without realizing they were also my husbands lowest days, but his were because of me.

I destroyed a perfectly good marriage and spent the last six years both recovering from it and making restitution for it. I mourn the time that I wasted in our short lives to pain out of what was my own utter nonsense.

I murdered my marriage and basically went to jail bringing my victim in with me. I am not a victim but I can be traumatized in the process . It doesn’t mean that any bit of that is my husbands responsibility. Or that I am a victim of anything.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:53 AM, Saturday, March 4th]