SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am a marriage and family therapist…but actually started out research oriented in social and behavioral psych. I actually left a research position to go into psychotherapy and obtained 2 licenses in my state as well as board approved supervision status for both since 2007. But I have been licensed in the field since 2002. I say this, because there are 2 posts that have jumped out at me in my daily lurking on the site for my brain health. LOL. But I will get back to that.
My DDay was 8/26/2019. I discovered my husband, and college sweetheart of 21+ years at the time, was having an affair since he left for conference on 8/4/2019. I had no idea until 8/26 when he accidentally left his phone out in the kitchen, and I saw what I saw! A girl…definitely 10 years younger, but come to find out 15 years younger than me, sending seductive pics in his tshirts with a message …can’t wait to see you again. We had plans to take our then 10 year old daughter to a baseball game that evening. Instead of blowing up at 5:40 in the morning before my workout, I thought, I will ride this out for the day and see what happens. Well what happened was, I worked out, and while on the treadmill at Orange theory, I realized, I have access to his Facebook. I will just log in and see what happens if I follow his messenger account. Well I did, and let’s just say, the day was a constant effort of making screen shots, and compartmentalization while I was seeing clients. I saw a lot to confirm what I feared. I told him I was sick…and that he needed to take her without me. I then spent the rest of the day and night taking screenshots, even after he and my daughter returned home from the game. When they got home, my daughter sat next to me on he sofa, and he was in his recliner continuing to message her while in the same room. This was not a hack job, and I now had proof. We put her to bed, and I confronted him…and the usual stuff talked about here followed. Trickle truth. Lies, covering his bases, trying to navigate should we or shouldn’t we. Fortunately, that is the worst week that my beautiful girl has had to experience because, even when shit got bad, we both did our best to protect her from the fallout…but she still knows, Dad cheated on Mom and things have not been the same since. We have all been in and continue as needed with therapy, but I can honestly say, we (the WH and me BS) have done a really good job of keeping our work away from her. But Recovery is and has been difficult. For 5 years now.
I am not wanting to share my long story in this post, but just really want to say how interested I am in the 2 posts about patriarchy on this topic section. Wow! I realize I have not contributed a lot on the forums, as I have been more of a lurker to just settle my own lizard brain in times of chaos. And man is this site good support for that. But those two posts jumped out at me. Why?
Because the one geared towards women was posted first, and the one geared towards men after. And it seemed like the men were wayyyy more vocal immediately. My research brain immediately started saying "correlation does not mean causation" but my heart was like why??????
I can’t tell you how many times I have been referred to as "the glue of the family, the heart and soul of the family by my WH. And it dawned on me…I hate that he sees me this way. He thinks it’s a compliment, but it’s really a cop out. I also noticed how quick the men were to respond versus the women. Why?
Is it because we are expected to more patient, empathic. Etc…
This has really gotten my hamster wheel running in my head and away from the why’s of my husband’s actions, and thrown it into the "how does this happen" mode. And for that I am grateful. I look forward to hearing what I imagine will be very helpful, and useful posts to follow. So thank you to OPs of these threads. If you are not just researchers doing intel, I really appreciate the direction your posts have taken me to. And please know, I only shared my career labels because I want to be up front with the reality, you don’t know nothing about this shit until it happens to you. I love what I do for a living, but this has rocked me to my core, and has made me question daily why I do what I do. Everyone here is amazing proof that life goes on even after we try to obliterate it!❤️

I was one of the folks who posted on the men's thread. While I don't have a research background like you do, I think one explanation behind why the men were so vocal is because this is a safe space.
At the risk of oversimplification, men as a group are rewarded for stoicism and many of us don't develop the skills necessary to process complex, unpleasant emotions. You get hurt, walk it off, rub butter on it and then get back out there.
Women do way better in that space than men do.
When I gripe here, most folks will listen, offer advice and be generally supportive even if I'm not quite getting it. There are relatively few spaces where men can talk candidly about emotional topics with some relative comfort.
Just my $.02.

I can’t tell you how many times I have been referred to as "the glue of the family, the heart and soul of the family by my WH. And it dawned on me…I hate that he sees me this way. He thinks it’s a compliment, but it’s really a cop out.

SAME. A few months ago, my friends and I were coming up with three descriptors for each other and I asked my H what words he'd choose for me. He instantly said "solid". (There were two other words that were complimentary, but I don't even remember them. I just remember "solid".) After many, many conversations over the years where I've told him that I'm tired of having to be the pole to his flag, "solid" didn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy, even though it's absolutely true for me, and he considers it a huge compliment. To his credit, he's working on being solid too. He really wants to be a rock for me like I have been for him, and to let me have some fun without having to worry that there's no one anchoring us.

As for those threads, I found it interesting that they were posted so quickly together, and by two different people. It must have been coordinated. The men's thread instantly got under my skin with talk of devalued purity and blame put on feminists for the bad rap that men get about wanting to control women. (It couldn't be because it's TRUE in so many cases. /s) I decided that I was going to sit back and see what happened rather than engage. And I didn't feel inclined to engage on the thread about women while in my agitated state.

At the risk of oversimplification, men as a group are rewarded for stoicism and many of us don't develop the skills necessary to process complex, unpleasant emotions. You get hurt, walk it off, rub butter on it and then get back out there.

Women do way better in that space than men do.

I agree. I have also noted that many men who come here and articulate those feelings do so because they do not want to express them to their ws. There is definitely more bottling up type posts from men than women.

My husband studied stoicism after my affair. He even came here and posted some things about it. I bought into all of it because it felt like he was improving. However, I realized what was really happening during that time after he had an affair. He was putting in this brave macho persona, but it was really all a guise to hide his feelings.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:55 PM, Thursday, September 12th]

This is amazing information y’all. The researcher in me is intrigued because, I have not felt so passionately about a problem as this…and trust me when I say, I have seen problems…LOL. We have people immediately wanting throw cheaters out, or stay together, but they all come here…this is indeed a safe space. And I am fortunate to know how and where to access it. But there is soooo much misinformation out there that I think so many people, more than we can even realize, live through this. Imagine what could happen if we just had resources like this available without the constant worries about financial obligation and stuff. Maybe we could even create more readily accessible resources like this. Most people I work with don’t even know these sites exist. Why?!!! Ughh…and then it comes down to, nobody wants to promote these resources. Because….it means something less about them…not something "more views" related like the fake produced shit we all post on social media…and in mainstream media. It’s crazy making. Humans hurting humans is wrong!!!

My husband…sound gong!!!…is a now criminal defense attorney…started out for over 13 years as a prosecutor! State attorney! I totally get the stoic side of things. When we were young and naive, we used to say he had the good guys job. Guess what happened when he "crossed over"? He got more of the praise that he didn’t get as a prosecutor. I think this says a lot about how we go into these experiences. And lord…have I not thought about this over the last 5 years. How does someone who is soooo justice bound, able to this? Because, humanity allows us to change positions. Based on our experiences…ughh! Another gut punch! And so I keep thinking, searching, and healing in the meantime.🧐😉