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We can consider whether Ester Perel is right. Maybe she is, but it doesn't help make you safe or progress in R.

I’ve never paid her any attention. Can you be more specific?

I do buy the line "I never stopped loving you" from the WS in most cases. Maybe I'm still naive.

Oh Damn. We can do an do a 10 page discussion on that one, but I know what you mean.

Some would argue that they did, indeed, stop loving you, purposefully stopped loving you, to facilitate the moment they enveloped themselves in the arms of another.

However, I know it’s probably a lot more complicated than that. Or is it?

No matter how enlightened we are, I think we all still ponder the notions of True Love, Enduring Love, and if they exist, or ever existed in our marriage. I know I questioned it, a lot.

I'm just saying, from over here with no history with your ww, your saying 'my wife was naive and was preyed upon by an evil om' does not line up with 'your wife deliberately insinuated herself into another woman's marriage and a relationship with said woman and her children to conduct an affair with her ap'. Those two things just don't match up to me.

Message heard on this. The story is not quite that my wife intentionally buddied up to OBS, but they were brought into each others orbits from the hobby. But I’m not going to try to defend her behavior, it’s unfathomable to me. But you guys are also taking some liberties with it.

And my thinking is anything but black and white, I’m pushing all of us to consider the gray.

When dealing with Human Beings, we see a lot of bias building commonalities, but I think there is an infinite amount of singularity, individuality, and then factor in human willpower, hope, and you must, respectfully, consider the vastness of humanity’s gray area and all its potential.

Esther Perel (forgive the previous misspelling) famously wrote Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs.

Around here you might hear she is a cheating apologist.

Perhaps the betrayal trauma model is too harsh. Perhaps societies that don't react with so much offense to cheating are fine. Perhaps divorce is overkill in response to what is basically a victimless crime if the A doesn't really detract from the M.

What if they really did never mean to hurt anyone? What if no one finds out; is that really no harm no foul? Is loss of agency and being deceived wrong in itself or would we rather not know?

In an effort to *see the grey* we might find a lot of mischaracterized black.

A few points:

1.You’re relatively new here. I can assure you, the OW/OM groups that you’ve been reading on, while totally fascinating as a character study, have self-selected a very specific subset of OW/OM. I don’t think you can necessarily generalize the findings there to either your WW or the OM in your case. Yes, reading other stories can be helpful in identifying themes or traits and I would agree that there are certain TYPES of affairs (that tend to have common features) – but the "raw data" you are ACTIVELY SEEKING OUT here, is clearly skewed. You seem to think that because the (very few) men on these OM boards (who are proud enough of their OM status to post) appear to be predatory – then the OM in your situation must ALSO be predatory. To be fair, I’ve never met the OM in your situation – he may actually be the lovechild of Andrew Tate/ Jeffery Epstein and Bill Cosby - but I would be more convinced of this if you actually shared the steps he took to "victimize" and groom your poor hapless wife, then the BOLD assumption that because SOME men are like this, all men must be.

2.Keep in mind, your wife is 100% an OW. I’m guessing you don’t see her in the stories of these proud OW. The bunny boilers, the women who knowingly lie about birth control in order to babytrap their APs, the ones who stalk their AP’s wife and kids. "Oh but these are extreme examples", you say. Why are you able to separate her from these extreme examples, but not him? I imagine it is because you are able to humanize your wife and aren't there yet with the OM.

3.There is absolutely nothing predatory about lying about a dead-bedroom or an unhappy marriage. If someone tells their wife refuses to have sex with them, no part of me things "Oh, well I guess I have no other choice but to have sex with this man who is not my husband". If I do, it is not an excuse to say "Oh, but he wasn’t getting any at home…." You are listening to the "justifications" of unremorseful cheaters and taking them at face value. Dude…. cheaters lie. They lie to their spouses, they lie to their AP’s , most of all, they lie to themselves. Believing an unremorseful cheater, is like believing that your wife cheated because you didn’t ask enough "curious questions" or because you forgot to put your coffee mug in the dishwasher again – it’s bullshit. Instead, I would encourage you to read the stories of the WW’s here, the ones who have actually dug deep and done the work. Not one of them will tell you that they were victims – even the ones who had a certified "player" AP.

4.Where you’ve lost me (and many others), is in your continued belief that your wife was a victim in this. In this thread alone, you have compared your wife to an elderly woman (presumably with declining mental faculties) being taken by a crafty Nigerian prince and a child being groomed by an abuser. It is no wonder people are concerned by the infantalizing/paternalism in your post. You have also compared your wife’s behaviour to the participants in the Milgram Prison studies. To be clear those studies were aimed at testing obedience in the face of an authority figure. The studies are interesting no doubt and I wont get into the various ways that they may be problematic and arguably inapplicable, but safe to say that unless you have some specific beliefs about gender hierarchies, the OM in your situation was not an authority figure to your wife and as far as I know, he did not ORDER your wife to do anything. Just like the courting stage IN ANY OTHER romantic relationship, he made advances and presented himself in a certain way that he felt would make himself more attractive to her and SHE DID THE SAME. He didn’t MAKE her flirt. He didn’t MAKE her sext him. He didn’t trick her into wearing certain underwear, or certain outfits that she felt she looked enticing in. He didn’t feed her the lies to tell you about where she’d be and with whom when instead she was. He certainly didn’t force her to have sex. She did all that because she wanted to, it was fun, it felt good, and she didn’t think she would get caught. Affairs are not accidents, they are a million big and little choices made by people who absolutely knew better.

This cuts both ways, If you really insist on seeing your wife as some guileless child, who does not have enough wits about her to avoid some low-rent, wanna-be pickup artist, what does that mean about your marriage? Was she too dim-witted to properly consent to that too? Presumably back then, she was younger and more naïve than she is now. While seeing your wife as a victim might help you in the short term, I don’t think it will help you in the long term. If you truly believe she was gullible enough to have 3 year affair because someone was nice to her, then I don’t know how you can possibly R with her. Someone that unsophisticated can hardly be trusted to become a safe partner – especially if all it takes is someone being a ….. checks notes…. friend to her. How can you respect such a person as your equal? How can she ever truly be a safe partner

Look, you're not the first betrayed man who has painted their wife as the innocent victim of a big bad AP, a lot of men try to R with their wives with this mindset and find themselves here years later totally stuck because the STORY about the A they have told themselves doesn’t sit right years later, and now they have a wife that rugswept a lot of the real work, and they are angry and resentful and they do not trust their partner. I don’t want that for you.

5.If there is a Cheater’s Handbook, there is also a BS Handbook, and what you are doing right now is absolutely part of it. The thoughts you’re having are totally normal. You may not see it, but you are currently in the denial stage of grief. This is a coping mechanism. You have learned that your wife is capable of behaviour that is diametrically opposed to the esteem you previously held her in. In order to hold on to the picture of your wife that you previously held (which you desperately wish to do), you are distorting reality and holding onto a preferable reality (where your wife is still a good person with in-tact morals who was simply led astray by a boogieman of sorts). This is your body’s natural defence mechanism of pacing the amount of overwhelm and grief you are experiencing at one time. If you need to stay in this stage for now, I totally understand. We can only cope with so much at a time. I think, in time, however, you will come around to some of the thoughts some of the more experienced members are pointing out. If you wish to truly heal from this and properly reconcile, my view is that coming to terms with this is necessary.

6. I agree with you that that affairs cause people to act in ways that are totally contrary to their normal ethics/worldview. They are inherently irrational. I also agree that there are some people who set out to cheat (for example the type who create Ashley Madison profiles), and many (I would argue MOST) others (like your wife), who simply have poor boundaries, were not protective of the marriage, and happily slid down the slippery slope given the right set of circumstances. When I was trying to decide whether to R or D, that was an important distinction to me because I needed to know that my husband believed in fidelity as a value in order to believe he was capable of being a safe partner to me in the future. I wonder if this is where you’re brain is at right now. If it is, I think you will find that this has less to do with fault (all of them are guilty), and more to do with your decision to R or D and figuring out your wife’s "whys".

Your wife, like most of the latter group, would probably have confidently stood in front of a room and lectured others about how bad and wrong cheating was prior to their A (she is not unique in this regard). As you’ve pointed out, many people here are righteous about the fact that they never would have cheated, no matter what the circumstances. While I think that is probably true for some people (it is just not in the makeup), I think that many others (myself included) could probably have surprised themselves if the exact right set of circumstances been present. (I will note that having been through this experience and having examined my own boundaries and adjusted my own walls and windows, I think I am less likely to ever be a wayward.)

7.Having empathy for your wife’s FOO issues and the reasons she betrayed her own ethics and morals is not necessarily a bad thing. It is absolutely a part of healing and will help you in R when you are looking to her WHYs. My own empathy was absolutely an asset in repairing my marriage. Please do not allow your empathy to skew your sense of judgement though and allow her to rugsweep though. There is no skipping steps in all of this.

8.Hate the OM all you want. Seriously, go completely ham. I’m not one of those people who think that all your anger needs to be saved for your spouse. When I hit the anger stage, there was MORE than enough to go around. Woooo boy, was I MAD. That said, I did not allow my anger for the OM excuse my husband’s culpability in the whole thing.

Eventually I got to a place where I was able to see the OW in the same light as my husband. She is no better or worse – both of them were pathetic liars that used one another like mirrors to see what they wanted to see in themselves (they were sexy, fun, powerful, and attractive). Like him, I hope she’s taken accountability, learned, and grown.

Just my 0.02, but this this forum absolutely does NOT prescribe to the ws being 'duped'. Quite to the contrary, a lot of new ws's hit the wayward forum with that message and are quickly disabused of that notion by SI WS's who have done the work to figure out their why's.

What I wrote was confusing, sorry about that. What I meant is that the party line here that we are all identifying is that a WS is never ever ever tricked or duped. Ever. Even if they are blackmailed. Or borderline raped. Or targeted by an experienced serial cheater. All these examples are present on this very thread. And we say we refuse to acknowledge this because we don’t want to minimize personal responsibility and that rugsweeping has to be avoided at all costs. So be it, let’s just say the quiet part out loud.

Perhaps the betrayal trauma model is too harsh. Perhaps societies that don't react with so much offense to cheating are fine. Perhaps divorce is overkill in response to what is basically a victimless crime if the A doesn't really detract from the M.

What if they really did never mean to hurt anyone? What if no one finds out; is that really no harm no foul? Is loss of agency and being deceived wrong in itself or would we rather not know?

In an effort to *see the grey* we might find a lot of mischaracterized black.

Well, speaking for myself, that kind of gray is not where I’m headed. Thanks for clarifying.

Emergent
Lots to take in there, I see a lot of worthwhile things. I am relatively new, and I may well be predictably in the middle of this thing, I leave room for that.
Funny story: I hate the term denial. My mom went deep into Alanon in response to my father’s alcoholism. She’d come back from it armed with new knowledge and tell us exactly what we were experiencing. And if we didn’t agree, well that just meant we were in denial.

Even if they are blackmailed. Or borderline raped. Or targeted by an experienced serial cheater. All these examples are present on this very thread. And we say we refuse to acknowledge this because we don’t want to minimize personal responsibility and that rugsweeping has to be avoided at all costs.

I don't understand where you are getting these ideas. I haven't seen anyone on this site saying even in Blackmail cases WS are to be blamed. Blackmail, rape doesn't involve consent. They are sexual assaults. So, I don't think anyone here blames the victim here. If you are referring to any member's story here where their WS was blackmailed into an affair then i belive you should their whole story to see why that BS consider their partner as WS and not a victim of sexual assault. There should be context there that you are missing.

And, coming to serial cheater targeting woman case. Do you really think every woman whom this experienced serial cheater targets fall for his trap? Do you really think there are no woman in this world who can see through him and say 'No'? Or may be he only targets those who are too stupid to not see it coming. Do you think there is no control over one's stupidity and nativity?

[This message edited by Lurkingsoul12 at 10:19 PM, Thursday, February 16th]

InkHulk, I think you're "bargaining" here, brother. It's a stage of grief, something with which we are all quite familiar.

My ex cheated while out-of-town at a trade show. The OM had a reputation, she once explained, having been "warned" by a mutual associate. According to the OBS, the OM was a serial cheater who "had" to attend annual trade shows, conferences, and whatever other excuses he could manufacture to get out of town and on the prowl. He was good at it, I suppose. Upon occasion, you'll read about such much on this site.

None of that matters. I don't give a shit if the OM knew every trick in the book. I know he lied to my ex, and I was sure to share that information with her.

My ex made her own choices. Every WS makes his or her own choices. Your WW's AP might have known and used every trick in the book, and it doesn't matter one bit. We are all responsible for our own choices in life. There's really no way around that.

And that's what it comes down to, man, choices. Your WW choose to take each step down that road. She knew what she was doing, every step of the way. Every time a boundary "should" have stopped her, she crossed it, deliberately, consciously, intentionally.

Did the OM lie, deceive, manipulate? Sure. Maybe they all do. Irrelevant. There is no justification for infidelity.

And, coming to serial cheater targeting woman case. Do you really think every woman whom this experienced serial cheater targets fall for his trap? Do you really think there are no woman in this world who can see through him and say 'No'? Or may be he only targets those who are too stupid to not see it coming. Do you think there is no control over one's stupidity and nativity?

No, not everyone will fall for a trap. But being a naive trusting person is not typically thought of as a massive moral failing. Not until some asshole comes along and exploits it for his personal gain. So a naive trusting person might go thru life getting lucky and never running into a predator and they come to the end of their days and are regarded as the highest of selfless saints. Or they cross paths with an asshole and are then reduced to the lowest of intelligent life. It seems odd, doesn’t it?
You all do have me wrestling with just how selfish of a person is my wife. You have gotten to me, you have influenced me. I think she is a strange kind of selfish. She was selfless to the point of self destruction. Feeding the kids first even though she was famished and that made her miserable and that made everyone else miserable. And then I think she might have just hit her limit and gone off the deep end.

Unhinged, what do you see me bargaining for? I typically think of that as "God/universe, fix this problem and I’ll never masterbate again" or something. Can you help me understand what you mean, please?

Lots to take in there, I see a lot of worthwhile things. I am relatively new, and I may well be predictably in the middle of this thing, I leave room for that.

I admire this trait in a person, InkHulk. I also don't see anything wrong with this mental exercise - no matter how incorrect I think you are . In my view, this is exactly why this place is so valuable. It helps us noodle around in our thoughts and challenges our preconceived notions and biases.

If I'm not wrong, in one of your recent posts, you commented about your daughter having recently experienced a sexual assault and how it resulted in your eyes being opened. First off, I'm so sorry. Secondly, I wonder how this experience is colouring your current perception of your wife's affair. I don't know... and I'm not an expert, but maybe something to raise with your IC one day?

Let's reverse roles a bit. On the naive/fine until a con man came by.

Your wife was as honest as her options. She could have gone her whole life and never had the right opportunity to cheat, and you might have never learned she had the capacity. The spark was there all along though, and she happened to run into the right mixture of fuel, oxygen, and heat.

Some people never do cheat purely because the opportunity isnt right. Are they better for not cheating than those presented with opportunity and give in? I don't know. I think this is something where I would say I was about as vulnerable as my wife before her A.

People say "I had the opportunity to cheat but didn't" a lot. But most of the time it's some skeezy, easy to reject opportunity. It's wet cardboard. "I didn't set fire to wet cardboard" is hardly an achievement.

But being a naive trusting person is not typically thought of as a massive moral failing.

Hey, that justification may apply for ONS and not for 3 years long PA. Like you said- first time can be considered as mistake and not a moral failing but second time, third time, fourth... 700th time.. it's not mistake anymore. Its definitely a failed morality. Remember, nobody here is telling you not to forgive your wife and to divorce her. If she is remorseful and doing everything you need her to do with your best interest in her actions then yes, you can forgive her and reconcile.

Also, can you explain what is this 'gray area' you want us to embrace?

What I meant is that the party line here that we are all identifying is that a WS is never ever ever tricked or duped. Ever. Even if they are blackmailed. Or borderline raped. Or targeted by an experienced serial cheater. All these examples are present on this very thread. And we say we refuse to acknowledge this because we don’t want to minimize personal responsibility and that rugsweeping has to be avoided at all costs. So be it, let’s just say the quiet part out loud.

Cases of legitimate blackmail for infidelity are exceedingly rare IME. I have definitely seen new BS's hitting the boards saying that the 'reason' for their ws cheating was because they were blackmailed, but in almost every instance I can think of where that has been said it turns out that it was just more justification by the ws to excuse their choice to do what they did. Not saying blackmail doesn't happen, just saying that I think it is very very rare.

Rape/borderline rape? Yeah, in those (pretty rare in terms of infidelity I think) cases the 'ws' IS a victim, and IMO isn't really qualifiable as a ws at all. Rape is never the fault of the victim, ever.

Targeting by an experienced serial cheater? Nope. Sorry, but no. In those cases the ws is not a victim at all. They still had a CHOICE and they made the choice to cheat instead of any other one that didn't end with infidelity. No player has ever been so smooth that they can remove the conscious free will of another person. Unless he literally brainwashed her, then I don't care what tools he used or how he 'targeted' her, she still chose to go there.

I too think that you're bargaining here my friend. I did it too so I am not throwing shade on you for it. I did that because if I could find a cause or a reason for his choice, then it was controllable. If it was because he had ptsd or needed medication or or or fill-in-the-blank, then it was 'fixable'. But the truth in my case is simply he wanted to so he did. He wanted to dry hump his diseased skanklet at their workplace so he did. He wanted to make out with her so he did. He wanted to invite her to my house and fuck her in our bed so. he. DID. I can look at all the mitigating things that were happening at the time about his mental health and foo and grief and yes I DO believe those were factors, a perfect storm kind of thing if you like. I too blamed his ap and was so so angry at her, though with time and healing I have even found a teeeeeeeeny bit of compassion for her too - she was a fucked up 18 yo kid that truly didn't have the maturity and emotional capacity to comprehend the magnitude of the damage she'd done (don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be upset if I heard that something bad happened to her and wouldn't piss on her if she was on fire, but my feelings of nuclear rage at her have largely passed). Ultimately my xwh had a choice, and he chose to have an affair instead of any other path he could have taken. He wanted to do that, so he did. That's not on his ap, that's on HIM.

That was SOOOOOO hard for me to accept and I fought it and fought it until I couldn't keep doing so, until I truly saw his behavior for what it was - selfish, and emotionally lazy, and entitled af. It was so hard for me to deal with that but it was necessary for my healing.

Gently..I also am a survived of CSA..and I was raped in college. I have spent several years of my adult life working with women who are survivors of both. None of them were "trusting" women.

Your wife may have been naive, but there is no way she doesnt/didn't know that there are men in this world who would take advantage of that. She knows full well that evil exists.

She trusts YOU. But trusting other men is probably not easy for her at all.

[This message edited by HellFire at 11:10 PM, Thursday, February 16th]

I could probably google this myself but here goes: did the Milgram experiment have people "zapping" their loved ones or randos? We have a duty to protect our loved ones more so than strangers, right? So I would think (again, may be wrong because I didn't research it) people would be far less likely to "zap" their own kids or spouses, even if an authority figure assured them it would be OK.

(Well, before the multiple As, I wouldn't have zapped my H... now I'd set up camp on that MFing button.)

And that makes all the difference. Your WW wasn't zapping some random person. She was zapping someone she was morally obligated to protect.

Regarding addiction: unless a person is literally tricked into taking a highly addictive substance (meth in a chocolate, say), the metaphor falls apart. Did the AP sneak his dick in a pile of papers, disguised as work documents?? Anyone who becomes addicted to any substance knew what they were doing, they talked themselves into it (oh, this is super bad for me and is known to be addictive, but it totally won't affect me, I'm speshuuuuul) and chose to place themselves on a slippery slope. Think this covers the whole blackmail thing too. If you didn't do anything wrong to begin with, there's nothing to use for blackmail.

Also, as evidence this is all based in sexism: the whole "Protect our daughters!!" sabre rattling - why no "protect our sons from manipulative, gold-digging, baby traps!"

People say "I had the opportunity to cheat but didn't" a lot. But most of the time it's some skeezy, easy to reject opportunity. It's wet cardboard. "I didn't set fire to wet cardboard" is hardly an achievement.

I might print that one out and put it on my desk. Love it.