SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I might over the next few weeks as I work my way through the past have a few questions and hearing people really helps things make sense for me.

Today I'm reading about "entitlement".

I realise ny exWB had this generally as part of his makeup. It's a concept that's caused me a lot of heartache because I don't understand it.

For me, my happiness or comfort could not come at someone else's expense. That would be impossible, because the empathy I'd feel for their suffering would mean I didn't enjoy whatever it was that I was doing.

I realise me exWB felt entitled through our relationship to make choices which were good for him but bad for me / us. This was a notable pattern.

He not only felt entitled to be selfish, but he felt entitled also for me to not get angry when he did that.

He felt entitled actually for me to love him wholeheartedly while he put himself first. At times, even putting me in actual peril.

That was difficult to see because he doted on me and was great at gestures and often very generous towards me. But there are several occasions of big "life decisions" where he didn't factor me in at all.

He wasn't narcissistic. He didn't have a big ego. He didn't think he was special. But there was obviously this sense of entitlement to do what he wanted and if it harmed me could I please stop ruining our happy life by being angry.

I remember during an ongoing relationship problem that he was doing something that was obviously wrong. Obviously harming me directly. He reacted to being told that with frustration that I would not just put up with it with a smile.

I've been reading about this entitlement and see it was present, so I imagine this factored into why he had the affair too.

He was able to not only lie to both me and AP to get his needs and wishes met, he was able to ignore any guilt he felt and feel actually happy when he was doing it.

I am not sure I have a question here. But I think maybe understanding this character flaw: this sense of entitlement is part of what makes waywards able to work through recovery.

If anything my question is how a person can feel happy or fulfilled by things if they are harming other people so much?

Because they just don't think about it. They compartmentalize it, put it in a box and forget about it.

I don’t think they really feel happy. It’s a temporary happiness that has to be constantly sought out and "refilled" as it were. So many stories here about not being able to leave AP. So many WS will talk about ending the affair and restarting it over and over. It’s part of why NC has to be part of the process.

In many ways it’s like dealing with a drug addiction. Having been exposed to both drug people and infidelity, the behavior is very similar. I’ve seen people ruin their lives to get high, and never cared about who they hurt in the process. Affairs are the same. Ruins marriages, families, relationships, and everyone knows that it’s a likely outcome, yet here we are

They are never happy or satisfied, they chase tingles and feel goods. Before my WW crossed in to infidelity she was busy chasing things. We need a new car, a new house, new furniture, clothes, she was never satisfied and I was breaking my back to give her all those things. She became very entitled and selfish, eventually it was me that needed to be replaced.

This is something broken in the WS. We are in R and this is the most content I ever seen her. Part of the work she did to heal and fix herself was to find the happiness from within.

For me, my happiness or comfort could not come at someone else's expense. That would be impossible, because the empathy I'd feel for their suffering would mean I didn't enjoy whatever it was that I was doing.

I realise me exWB felt entitled through our relationship to make choices which were good for him but bad for me / us. This was a notable pattern.

He not only felt entitled to be selfish, but he felt entitled also for me to not get angry when he did that.

He felt entitled actually for me to love him wholeheartedly while he put himself first. At times, even putting me in actual peril.

You said that so well. It's spot on.

My H absolutely felt entitled to pretty much do whatever he wanted. He said as much. He really had very little consideration for me, but was also generous and acted caring to me, like you said. I suppose he expected to drop some NICE coins in the slot and out would pop affection and sex. But it doesn't work that way when you're constantly putting your partner under stress, and so the loop of selfish entitlement expanded to getting sex outside the marriage.

Our 35th wedding anniversary is coming up and he's JUST NOW really starting to work on the self-centeredness. I thought he had it handled after DDay, but if he temporarily did, it didn't stick. He started acting out again during Covid, spending money we didn't have on a hot rod, drinking too much, and forgetting to call me when he stayed out late, as per our agreement. I was at my wit's end and requested that we restart MC and that he get IC because I was DONE tolerating the nonsense. He's really starting to get it. Had it continued, I'd probably be separated by now.

By chance, is your WB a product of an abusive childhood or the child of an alcoholic? MC said that ACAs are often irresponsible and self-centered, which explains a lot.

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 3:56 PM, Tuesday, August 22nd]

MintChocChip, I would agree that entitlement is a big part of what a WS does as you've named quite a lot of what my STBXWH did! I also think that it's a long time learned behavior that's so ingrained many refuse to change. My STBXWH constantly complained about the way his father acted yet has turned out doing the exact same things. Some of those entitled behaviors include: doing what he wanted to do without paying attention to the family's needs, refusing to do any housework while making a majority of the mess in the home, getting offended if people did not want what he wanted, refusing to say what he really wanted while expecting others to read his mind, would say he's going to something then never get to it, not wanting to listen to other's (i.e. the child's) schedules because he wanted everything to happen on his timeline, etc. Anyone who calls STBXWH out on his behavior is a "bad guy for making him feel guilt" and no one on his side of the family is holding him accountable because "that's how his father is." STBXWH is now back at his family's home acting like his father (yet pretending he is better than his father) and getting the same enabling/excuses from his mother.

Like HellIsNotHalfFull said- they're not actually happy. I know STBXWH is not happy with himself and has an inferiority complex because he has never measured up to what he thinks his dad wants from him. We've both known this since we were children. No amount of reassurance from me that I thought he was enough - and liked him for the nerdy dork he was- got through because he was never enough for himself. No amount of positive reinforcement he gets from work makes him feel like he's good at his job either. Ironically, his father feels the same way about his own father- and his own job! He feels constant inferiority and overworks himself because no amount of work or effort makes him feel like he's done enough. In essence, my STBXWH (and his father) lies to the world about who he is and what he is - not just to me or his AP- and feels entitled for everyone to believe the lie. They also have family enabling the lie because facing the reality that "everything is not OK" is too scary for them.

STBXWH will never be happy until he grows up, learns live authentically, and takes some accountability for himself/what he does instead of feeling entitled to everyone appeasing his inferiority/ego.

@HellIsNotHalfFull

Can you please explain what the addiction is? What the high is?

If you have one person that you love, and you don't love the OP, then what is the "high" you are addicted to and can't break from?

I can't think of anything WORSE than shagging someone else...what high?

@SacredSoul33 yes, he had an extremely abusive childhood.

@Kanashii my exWB has a different sort of entitlement I have noticed. Day to day, he's pretty happy to put me first and nothing is too much trouble. But I noticed I end up railroaded on almost every major thing because his priority is always his own security and wellbeing. So say for example if there was a financial situation which would make me worse off but him better off, he would do that. It took years together for me to even see it because I am quite chilled out generally.

I am going to say something now that I have never said aloud to anybody, but I think the happiest he ever was, was when he was having an affair. I think he loved his life when he was doing that. She wanted him to be with her and was an insecure personality so she basically just threw herself at him full throttle.

Sex on tap
Unearned adoration
Did whatever he wanted when he wanted
Gave him gifts
Mothered him
Listened to all his troubles

And he got to give absolutely nothing back.

I think she was also completed fucked up just like him and they had some kind of kinship on that front where he didn't have to feel like the fuck-up. I have no idea why he "picked me" to be honest. They just got completely drunk and had sex while he got to act like a teenager. I think that's probably what he wanted. To have all his needs met in a complete fantasy scenario with no real life and no real expectations.

Mint,

I don’t know the high, I’ve never strayed, I was only saying the behavior is similar. Hell my WW went through withdrawal when she went NC, and if you go onto the Wayward forum you will see a post from a FWW talking about withdrawal survival with NC. Don’t look at it from your perspective, it will never make sense. Like all addictions, the high is something that can only be understood by those who are feeling it. I am absolutely not justifying it, I am simply saying that people are willing to destroy themselves, marriages, children’s welfare for the sake of the feelings an affair brings, and I’ve known many people do the same thing for drugs.

So what's the difference between an affair "high" / that addiction feeling and just basic infatuation and love like you'd feel in any relationship?

One thing I never understood was that my exWB definitely acted like he was coming off heroin after the A, but the AP was not someone he would have been in a relationship with if he was single. And had he been single he wouldn't have wanted a relationship with her.

He likes stable women - she was a wreck. She was not his physical type at all. He was the worst version of himself around her. He would never have wanted a future with her regardless of me - but yet he acted like he was withdrawing from heroin.

I never understood that -it cast her in my mind as all sorts of things: was she amazing in bed? did she have some magic power? It made me insane for so long.

He never treated her like he does me. I remember her writing me a letter to say how furious she was that he had been "using" her when he really "loved" me, and she described her rage over the fact that he always treated her like convenient sex and never cared how she felt, didn't even get her a card on her birthday, wouldn't sleep the night and so on.

So I guess it never made a whole lot of sense.

Unless you go through it,you will never understand. It’s a major combination of infatuation, taboo, secrecy, knowledge that the relationship has no real meaning (it’s all a fantasy built on lies, deception, and delusions)

Affairs in real life are always a step down. My WW AP was completely opposite of me, And was more than happy to destroy our family to make him happy. So was she, but she always talked about how much she despises men who were willing to cheat and destroy families, but at the same time during the A, she would defend him vehemently as a great friend. He was cheating on his wife with mine, was the exact thing she repeatedly told me she despises most, and yet she was willing to ruin our marriage for how he made her feel.

Someone who is cheating isn’t thinking like how you are. You don’t matter to them, it’s all about how they feel. Feelings aren’t facts, but for the cheater they are and damn all who stand in the way. You could be perfect but it would never be enough because the problem is with them not you. Forgive yourself, none of this is your fault. Everything you did was for a person who could never understand what you gave him. Hold your head high because you know you were honest and not deceitful. No hidden agenda. He is the problem not you. Keep no contact. And soon you will see, it was all him, never you