SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Not really asking for anything here. Just feel the need to vent I guess.

A few months ago I suggested to my wife that she consider creating an account on SI to get some of the excellent advice given out here. In my opinion advice from a group of people who have experienced the same thing you are going through is invaluable.

I asked her to get on here and look around, but I specifically asked her to stay out of the reconciliation forum because it would be obvious to her which posts are mine. She would be able to identify them and I would not be able to freely post without being concerned about her reading it and reacting in a negative way.

Well she got on and started reading all the forums. She wen't into the reconciliation forum, identified my user name, and started reading my posts. She told me she identified my username and I was naturally upset. I asked her why and she said that she just got sucked into it and read all the forums. I think this explanation is... unlikely to be fully true. She also employed a technique to protect herself from my anger that she had used early on after D-day. She said "don't get angry with me I didn't have to tell you. I could have kept it a secret. When you get angry it makes me not want to tell you things. I had no reason to tell you. I was just being honest". So she was just being honest after doing the whole "ask for forgiveness instead of permission thing".

After all that she said that SI was not a safe space for her, that the people here are mostly betrayed people who have a lot of negativity, and she was not going to be posting. Awesome.

She did a similar pattern after D-day. "My affair partner called, and I talked to him". I get angry with continued contact, but I know the implied threat, the one she vocalized in this case, is that if I get upset she will stop telling me things.

We are well past D-day, and this kind of stuff isn't happening any longer so I don't see this pattern much any more, but honestly I don't know how to counter something like this. She gets to do a thing she knows will make me upset and tells me about it in order to appear honest, and hold the threat of me getting upset and causing her to not tell me things over my head. So I'm stuck mostly being upset inside. It's very frustrating.

Her knowing my username has put a damper on my willingness to create posts. I mentioned this to my IC the other day and he said "whats the worst that could happen if she reads your posts?". That jogged me out of it. He has said in the past that I should continue communicating with her. That advice has been seconded on these forums many times. If she reads my posts thats just more communication, and if we are really going to reconcile she should be able to handle it. Either way it will reveal the path we are going to take.

I had a similar experience so I can relate. I had found many useful threads on the Wayward forum that I would cut and paste tidbits from and share with my WW. These seemed to resonate with her. I had been wary of fully sharing the site with her (based on advice from others) but she had shown some proactive traits and asked where I was getting the quotes from. I shared SI, showed her how to navigate and pointed her to the Wayward forum. I tried to avoid "tainting" her experience but shared that some of the quotes I had shared with her came from DaddyDom and HikingOut and starting with some of their posts may be useful along with any threads that might be related to her struggles (most notably shame and accountability). I told her I wouldn’t share my username for obvious reasons.

A few days later, she’s visibly upset and wants to talk. Shit…..

She had spent the entirety of her time digging around trying to find my username. My first post is buried 9 pages deep in a sub forum on "I Can Relate". Impossible to "stumble across" but she found it and knew it was me from the details then went on a crusade. Now, there is NOTHING I have ever posted here that we haven’t discussed IRL. Why is she upset? She didn’t like the person I was describing………. Now my response wasn’t very nice. I said "no shit. You should try being married to that for 40+ years". Not my finest moment but not a lie either.

We discussed why she reacted that way to things that were true. Shame, embarrassment, she’s no longer that person (not true in all manners). I tried to be empathetic and understand and again reiterate WHY she should look here and WHERE she should be focused. We went in circles for a while then I asked her if she spent anything time reading the responses to my posts. No, just hopping through threads seeing what I wrote about her. So once again, it was her typical selfish response. What am I saying about HER. Not what am I getting out of the site, how people are supporting me, etc.

So she goes back and reads the responses. How hurt other BS’s are, how this is the worst thing to ever happen to them, how WS’s chime in and say "I did those shitty things but here is how I changed". The COMMON threads about how much similarities there are in the pain the BS experience as well as the common things WS who are NOT doing the work impact the BS (and how SHE was behaving that way too) opened her eyes.

Now it was fleeting and she never posted on here and said reading the Wayward Forum was "too painful" but at least got her to look at something (if only for a moment) outside of her factory setting of "how does this impact ME".

My xWW knew about SI from even before d-day (weird story but true). All my posting has been done knowing she could be reading. Fuck it, let them. After d-day 2 she demanded I take it all down, as if she had the right to make such a demand. I decided that I was getting immense benefits by posting, so post I did. I recommend the same.

The event. So sorry for you. She sounds like a challenge to deal with in some ways.

I read a book a long time ago called "Leadership and Self-deception: Getting out of the box" by The Arbinger Institute.

It hit home to me in many ways. It explained a HUGE amount of why people behave this way, why they cheat, lie, etc.

Yet the book is written like a story about a businessman who is having difficulty at work getting along and being a team player.

It has nothing to do with infidelity, but has to do with how we think, how we betray and deceive ourselves, and how to stop.

My WH read it after the most recent DDay. It was an eye-opener for sure.

My wife knows about this forum and has seen or heard pretty much almost every post I've made here. She knows my username, and has considered posting here herself, but she's not really the forum type. I sometimes browse and post sitting right beside her. She'll ask "what are you typing over there?" (She just did right now, lol.) So I'll just straight up read it to her. I don't care if she knows what I say here because I post how I feel, and I want her to know how I feel. I haven't said a thing here that I haven't said to her. Plus she understands we're all strangers here, I don't really have anyone to talk to about this, and I needed an outlet. BTW, thank you all for being my outlet. It's been invaluable for me. Thank you.

I don't know if it's a good idea to do that or not, but I expect radical honesty from her so that's what she gets from me. So far it hasn't appeared to cause any problems between us, and in some cases I think it's helped. Especially seeing others' pain and how it affects everyone, not just me, tho she sometimes thinks I get a little triggered reading some posts.

She's prolly not wrong there. So I take breaks here and there, but yeah. I don't have any issues with her seeing what I say here at all. She's read a lot of posts from others here, too. She has epilepsy and doesn't always process things the way most of the rest of us do, and I think it's helped her understand just how devastating infidelity really is.

I invited my wife to read here.

And yeah, it took five minutes for her to figure out my ‘handle’ here.

She got defensive about one thing I posted, but then I reminded her I also covered the same painful topic in couples counseling.

Anyway, SI proved to be far more helpful in the long run, a couple WS in particular were better able to articulate their choices and my wife could point to threads and show me what also applied to her.

Your wife’s responses to all of this aren’t helpful for you in the now.

The negativity here is just people trying to vent out the pain of it all — it would be better if she felt some empathy for you and others instead of hiding behind more emotional walls.

I know it was a betrayal for you to have her read exactly what you instructed her not to. Though I like the idea about more communication even if it is likely still a bit tainted. I do not remember any of your posts specifically, but once upon a time I would focus a lot on bh posts here. I used them as a basis for asking him questions about his feelings.

My husband doesn’t really have a big emotional vocabulary. There have been times throughout the course of our marriage that I had to help him figure out what he was unhappy about before any of this happened. He is just is not one to think about his feelings or be in his emotions and so infidelity has challenged him a lot I that area. Especially trying to work out things in IC in the aftermath of his affair.

So I would scour over the posts and would quote to him some that scared me a lot to share with him. They were quite condemning and as a newer ws my skin was very thin. I would read it and think what if he feels this way about me? That idea was so foreign to me at first.

And then a confirmation would come and each time it was like an emotional avalanche, and take me down the mountain from some of my progress.

I don’t know in the end if this was the best way to go about things, but it did see to come together okay. In one way, it helped me get on his page and brought me to a place of empathy. In another I was so self punishing and swimming in shame already and could not believe I would ever be redeemable, it blocked my view of the path I needed to be on.

And sometimes I would throw a pity party for myself because a man who could think the things we were talking about clearly couldn’t love me, and was I ever worthy of that? Having hope is an act of courage no matter which side of the fence you find yourself on.

In the end, facing the truth of the damage is a requirement- can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge you broke. He would have kept me sanitized from it if I hadn’t pressed. He would have been one of the bs who years later come here feeling like things were unresolved.

So my advice is, be who you are here and at home. She will rise to the occasion, or she won’t. For what it’s worth, I think it is a normal human response when you know your spouse has been writing about you to want to know what it says. My husband wouldn’t write much on here, he only posted a handful of times and half of that was to shoo away someone who had been bullying me in my DM’s and on the boards to a certain degree. I literally had to find what others wrote to see what he could identify as part of his thinking/feeling process. Wanting to know is important in some ways.

I get it’s also disrespectful at the same time and why it has created mixed feelings on posting. Would you say you don’t feel comfortable being that vulnerable with her, or you worry it gives her insight to fake certain things? Those are maybe not the right guesses, but I think there is a fear here or it may not evoke quite the same level of upset. It’s helpful sometimes to be able to name the fear so that you can work through that.

[This message edited by hikingout at 2:04 AM, Tuesday, January 6th]

Man... there's freshly baked cookies in the cookie jar. Please don't eat any.

Of course she went straight to the R forum and identified you. Did you really expect she wouldn't do it?

I told my exww about SI a few days after joining. Also told her my username. I wanted her to read here. I wanted her to start to understand how badly she'd fucked-up.

Occasionally, I'd write about stuff that I had not already spoken to her about, mostly about powerful triggers that I was trying to understand myself.

If she really expects you to not be angry or express that anger she's deluding herself.

Keep on posting. Keep on being open, honest and authentic, in real life and here. If she has the courage to read your posts and the replies you receive the worst that could possibly happen is that she LEARNS.

I personally think a WS’s response to SI is a pretty good indicator of where they are at. Can they see the support their BS is getting, hear the pain they are expressing and care about it? Or do they only focus on their imagined indiginity amongst anonymous strangers? One is a great sign, one is terrible. My ex called SI my mistress. Which one do you think she was?

Man... there's freshly baked cookies in the cookie jar. Please don't eat any. laugh

Of course she went straight to the R forum and identified you. Did you really expect she wouldn't do it?

Thank you !

Couldn't have said it better.

My question is--How does she feel about you posting here? To me, that is the real teller.

I tried to get my wife to post here in the early days post D-day(say within the first year).

Two posts. Very little reading on the site.

But what she did do, and I still like, is said that she knew I needed an outlet for support, and was supportive of me using this site. She rarely ever went on and read my posts, even though I didn't discourage such. I never felt that I had to pull any punches when I posted here, or else I probably would have felt that that I was losing something if I couldn't post freely.

Does your wife encourage you being here?

I’m sorry your wife is behaving that way, Theevent. What a squandered opportunity for her. You’re basically here giving her all the answers to the metaphorical test, giving her a view into your most private thoughts and feelings and showing her exactly what you want from her, and… it’s all wasted. I’m sad and angry about it for you, too!

I wish so much that my BH would come on here and write honestly. He has been keeping his feelings to himself because he thinks I’m thinks I’m too fragile to handle them. I’m not. I just feel pushed away and like I’m constantly floundering around to figure out what he needs from me.

It can be difficult to hear how badly we’ve hurt our loved ones and sit with their most intense feelings. The shame is so intense, and it means we have to do a lot of hard and scary work to fix ourselves. Much easier to just push it all away, deny, minimize, shift blame…But these are the consequences of our actions. It’s necessary to hear about all the pain we’ve caused so we have the impetus to change, fix what’s broken, and not betray them ever again. It’s necessary for the BS to be permitted to feel and express their feelings freely, otherwise how in the world are they supposed to process what happened and move forward from it? And it’s necessary for the WS to be there with them in those feelings, as they shouldn’t have to go through them alone. That is what a spouse is for: support for better and for worse, even when the worst is our own fault.

Hopefully she reads this thread and realizes how she has not been taking responsibility in the least for causing that anger she doesn’t want to face up to. How you can’t feel reassured she won’t cheat again if the connection isn’t made between her bad behavior and the resulting consequences. She can’t continue hurting you this way, disrespecting your wishes and telling you to bottle up your feelings if reconciliation is what she wants. That is toxic! Maybe she could try to imagine what it would feel like if you did that to her.

If you no longer feel comfortable posting, you should change your username.

I mentioned this to my IC the other day and he said "whats the worst that could happen if she reads your posts?".

Well, other than you reluctance to post, I can think of a few worse things:

-Anytime you stand up for yourself, you'll get some variation of "You're just going what those bitter people on SI tell you to do!"

-Anytime you're sad or angry, you'll get some variation of: "Things are so much better between us when you're not reading SI!"

-Your wife might start using what she reads on SI and the advice you're getting to manipulate you, perhaps by telling you what she thinks she should be saying to appear remorseful, or to stay one step ahead of whatever strategic advice that you're getting

I think the idea that reading posts from other BSs on SI will serve as a "wake-up call" for unremorseful WSs is very misguided. If the pain and suffering experienced by the person they know and claim to love isn't enough to make them realize the damage they've caused, then they certainly won't be moved by the pain and suffering of strangers.

She gets to do a thing she knows will make me upset and tells me about it in order to appear honest, and hold the threat of me getting upset and causing her to not tell me things over my head. So I'm stuck mostly being upset inside.

Actually, no, you're not stuck. You absolutely can and should call her out on her bullshit. If you spent the family's life savings on a Ferrari, would the fact that you didn't try to hide it from her afterward meant that you did nothing wrong? Would she accept your response of, "Well, if you're going to get so upset, maybe I won't tell you next time I squander half a mil, and just hope you don't find out."? No, your belongings would be dumped on the front lawn before you even took another breath.

You should not be worried that expressing your anger, distress, or disappointment will result in her lying or keeping secrets from you. She should respect you enough to not plow over your boundaries. The fact that she does so flagrantly-- and then makes veiled threats when you, predictably, are upset-- means that she doesn't really care much for your feelings and is quite confident that she'll never lose you.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 4:46 PM, Tuesday, January 6th]

I want to say thank to everyone for posting. It's been very informative!

ImaChump

How is your relationship doing now? Do you feel like getting out of her default settings has helped?

The1stWife

The event. So sorry for you. She sounds like a challenge to deal with in some ways.

In some ways yes she can be a total PITA. In others she is awesome, and I am grateful I am not seeing things other people have described their wayward spouses doing. (whew)

5Decades
Thanks for the book recommendation. I'll check it out!

Pogre

expect radical honesty from her so that's what she gets from me

I feel this way as well. I guess I should start living it. It's just hard having had this huge betrayal, then 18 months of fights and stubbornness from her. I should still be communicating though. Still working on it.

Oldwounds

Anyway, SI proved to be far more helpful in the long run, a couple WS in particular were better able to articulate their choices and my wife could point to threads and show me what also applied to her.

This is exactly why I suggested she get on here in the first place. Advice from other waywards. In fact I told her to stay out of the just found out forum as well because it would probably be triggering for her. She didn't do that either.

hikingout

In the end, facing the truth of the damage is a requirement- can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge you broke. He would have kept me sanitized from it if I hadn’t pressed. He would have been one of the bs who years later come here feeling like things were unresolved.

I agree that facing the damage is a requirement, and I do have a tendency to protect her at my own expense. I am worried that I'm going to do exactly this, and come back here ten years later feeling like things haven't been resolved. I'm trying to avoid this exact scenario.

So my advice is, be who you are here and at home. She will rise to the occasion, or she won’t.

Good advice.

For what it’s worth, I think it is a normal human response when you know your spouse has been writing about you to want to know what it says

I don't fault her for wanting to know. I would love to see what she writes here. The part I had a hard time with is that she deliberately ignored my explicit instructions. This is also triggering for me because she did the exact same thing with her AP. I was starting to grow concerned about the very few things I did know about. I asked her to distance herself from him, and she deliberately did the exact opposite. So it's very triggering for me.

Would you say you don’t feel comfortable being that vulnerable with her, or you worry it gives her insight to fake certain things?

Yes. I don't feel comfortable communicating in person because she often gets extremely defensive and lashes out in various ways. Her go to is to accuse me of not being a safe space and not caring how she feels. This happens almost every argument we have. She also often redirects our conversations back to grievances she had about our relationship before the affair. If I push, she complains that she is doing all she can, and is overwhelmed. She is improving in this area. But it's been a hard 18 months because of this.

Unhinged

Man... there's freshly baked cookies in the cookie jar. Please don't eat any. laugh

Of course she went straight to the R forum and identified you. Did you really expect she wouldn't do it?

I get what you are saying. I shouldn't have expected her to not look. I understood there was a chance she would go for it anyway. My problem comes in where at some point she should learn to respect my boundaries. How can I ever be confident that she won't cheat on me again when she can't even respect my much less significant boundaries?

Keep on posting. Keep on being open, honest and authentic, in real life and here.

I will try. :)

jb3199

My question is--How does she feel about you posting here? To me, that is the real teller.

Does your wife encourage you being here?

She does not like that I am on these forums at all. She thinks I'm using them as confirmation bias of my negative beliefs, and brainwashing myself to expect her to do things she shouldn't need to do. At least thats how I interpret her views on it. I could be wrong.

GotTheMorbs

I’m sorry your wife is behaving that way, Theevent. What a squandered opportunity for her. You’re basically here giving her all the answers to the metaphorical test, giving her a view into your most private thoughts and feelings and showing her exactly what you want from her, and… it’s all wasted. I’m sad and angry about it for you, too!

Yes. In person and on these forums I have been communicating exactly what I need to see from her, and she doesn't seem receptive to most of it. Some things I communicate things, and she comes around to after a little while. Thats something at least.

BluerThanBlue

If you no longer feel comfortable posting, you should change your username.

I think this would be just me hiding more. I need to communicate to her, and if this is what it takes then I'll do it.

-Anytime you stand up for yourself, you'll get some variation of "You're just going what those bitter people on SI tell you to do!"

-Anytime you're sad or angry, you'll get some variation of: "Things are so much better between us when you're not reading SI!"

She has already done some of this. Not directly, but it's clear she doesn't like these forums and isn't receptive to the advice given here.

I think the idea that reading posts from other BSs on SI will serve as a "wake-up call" for unremorseful WSs is very misguided. If the pain and suffering experienced by the person they know and claim to love isn't enough to make them realize the damage they've caused, then they certainly won't be moved by the pain and suffering of strangers.

There are people on this very thread saying it has helped their WS's understand better. I think they don't really understand how damaging their actions are until they see someone else communicate it. Spouses seem to put each other in a box, and take their opinions for granted.

You should not be worried that expressing your anger, distress, or disappointment will result in her lying or keeping secrets from you. She should respect you enough to not plow over your boundaries.

Oh I agree. It's still a concern though.

I think you have a bigger problem than you realize. Not because of her being able to read your posts, but because of her reaction to it.

Hearing this, 18 months later would throughly convince me that I have an unremorseful spouse on my hands. And that her anger over this allowed that mask to slip just enough.

She does not like that I am on these forums at all. She thinks I'm using them as confirmation bias of my negative beliefs, and brainwashing myself to expect her to do things she shouldn't need to do. At least thats how I interpret her views on it. I could be wrong.

Ask her. My exww didn't like me being on SI at first. She didn't think she was like all of these other WS. She absolutely hated some of the members. However, after a year or so she joined and posted a few times. It was PMs with one FWW in particular, who really helped her, that changed her mind about this community.

I'd imagine your WW's objections to SI have more do to with her trying to control your situation than anything else. That seems rather common to me.

One thing I know without a doubt is that the collective wisdom, support and guidance here is absolutely unparalleled. This community is truly amazing.

You have to stand your ground, brother. Your absolutely have to stand up for yourself.

ImaChump

How is your relationship doing now? Do you feel like getting out of her default settings has helped?

It helped her briefly. She has snapped out of it a few times during our journey and seemed to be "getting it" only to revert back. She was diagnosed as bipolar and that seemed to play some part in how she approached R. She would be "all-in (manic?) for short bursts and be all consumed by "doing the work". Then she would invariably burn herself out and go for long stretches where she did nothing and wallowed in self pity. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Now, we are somewhere between "limbo" and "permanent pretend normal". R was interrupted by a diagnosis of brain cancer for my wife so focus shifted from R to her care (surgery, radiation, chemo) that went on for 18 months. After her treatment, I had hoped to resume R but she doesn’t want to spend the time she has left revisiting the worst of herself. So, I’m basically "dribbling out the clock".

Sorry, this isn’t more "inspirational" for you…..

There are people on this very thread saying it has helped their WS's understand better. I think they don't really understand how damaging their actions are until they see someone else communicate it. Spouses seem to put each other in a box, and take their opinions for granted

I was going to respond to this point also but this sums it up very nicely.

My wife DID very much see herself in the way other BS described THEIR WS. It wasn’t me "beating her up". It also DID drive home the pain I was experiencing. My wife had trouble seeing it was the worst thing to ever happen to me (because of our different values?) or because she had convinced herself (like many WS do) I wouldn’t be as hurt by it as I was. Seeing their reactions made it "real". Maybe it’s sort of like why some cheat to begin with? Our love and attention is minimized or devalued so they go seek it outside the marriage. Our pain and response is minimized and devalued as well.

Well said.

There are people on this very thread saying it has helped their WS's understand better. I think they don't really understand how damaging their actions are until they see someone else communicate it. Spouses seem to put each other in a box, and take their opinions for granted.

Without ever reading SI, I think anyone with half a brain knows that cheating will break their spouse’s heart and devastate them.

What many cheaters don’t realize, or perhaps are so caught up in the selfish and arrogance not to consider, is that cheating isn’t something that’s just going to blow over after a few months and then everything will return to normal.

In this respect, SI can be useful in helping a WS come to terms with the the fact that the negative consequences of infidelity are devastating and long-term, the relationship that they knew it is over, and the only way for it to survive is to build something new.

But your wife simply isn’t interested in understanding your point of view or digging deep to understand herself. She just wants you to get over it… and if you can’t get over it, then to shut up about it.

And she’s learned that making implied threats and shifting the blame from her actions to your reactions does the trick.