SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

How do you reconcile the person you were during the A?

Traydee,
I have betrayed every woman with whom I had a committed relationship except one-- my latest AP (10 years ago now). I can only conclude from this that I am a more or less congenital cheater and the fact that I have "gone straight" this past decade does not change that. I apply a number of techniques in my daily interactions now to (hopefully) prevent resumption. These include: never being alone with a woman other than family. Avoiding private / personal social media interactions with women. Responding to cues by turning away and affirmatively distancing myself (even if that's considered rude). Keeping every exchange with every woman light and airy and semi-stupid (i.e. never any double meanings or subtexts).

I treasure the situation I have now and am so very grateful for the grace and forgiveness that I have received. But I do not kid myself that I am "cured."

Hope this helps.

How do you reconcile the person you were during the A?

Do you say "That's not who I am" and try to continuously live a life of integrity?

Or do you say "That is who I am capable of being" and try to stay vigilant in examining yourself for slipping back to that person?

The latter, for sure. Honestly, my first instinct was to tell myself and everyone else, "That's not who I am", but until I got really-damn-honest with myself (and with a lot of help from my wife and therapists) I finally was able to take off my "rose-colored glasses" and for the first time ever... see exactly who I was, and that it did not match the perception I had of myself. Taking this approach just did so much more damage to the relationship, my wife and myself. If I could re-do any part of recovery, I'd go back and explain this to myself when it could have made a huge difference.

This is just my opinion, but I believe that the ONLY way to move forward as a WS is to see something "more" in yourself, and to make "who I'm capable of being" a top priority, for life. It took me a long time to be able to frame things in terms of, "That's who I was then, but I don't have to make that my identity for life. I can choose to do better, to be better, moving forward. I can't change who I was, but I can change everything about who I want to be and who I will be.

Honestly, this steps way outside the bounds of infidelity itself, which I think many WS's struggle with as well, as the guilt and shame just becomes "who they are" after a while. But for most WS's this work would be necessary even if we had never married or never cheated. Infidelity is an outcome, not a cause. The infidelity occurred in the first place because the person lacked the integrity, self-respect and healthy boundaries required to not so. No one should have to live a life unable to love themselves enough to care more about who they are and what they do.

The goal for a WS is to live a better life, because no matter what, R or D or otherwise, nothing will ever go right until they fix what was broken in the first place.

I have betrayed every woman with whom I had a committed relationship except one-- my latest AP (10 years ago now). I can only conclude from this that I am a more or less congenital cheater and the fact that I have "gone straight" this past decade does not change that. I apply a number of techniques in my daily interactions now to (hopefully) prevent resumption. These include: never being alone with a woman other than family. Avoiding private / personal social media interactions with women. Responding to cues by turning away and affirmatively distancing myself (even if that's considered rude). Keeping every exchange with every woman light and airy and semi-stupid (i.e. never any double meanings or subtexts).

I treasure the situation I have now and am so very grateful for the grace and forgiveness that I have received. But I do not kid myself that I am "cured."

Hope this helps.

denwickdroylsden

This has helped tremendously. I am glad to have the opinion of someone who has gone down that road on more than one occasion.

I see that you have developed techniques to avoid resumption and I find that fascinating. How did you come up with those specific techniques or was it trial and error?

The latter, for sure. Honestly, my first instinct was to tell myself and everyone else, "That's not who I am", but until I got really-damn-honest with myself (and with a lot of help from my wife and therapists) I finally was able to take off my "rose-colored glasses" and for the first time ever... see exactly who I was, and that it did not match the perception I had of myself. Taking this approach just did so much more damage to the relationship, my wife and myself. If I could re-do any part of recovery, I'd go back and explain this to myself when it could have made a huge difference.

This is just my opinion, but I believe that the ONLY way to move forward as a WS is to see something "more" in yourself, and to make "who I'm capable of being" a top priority, for life. It took me a long time to be able to frame things in terms of, "That's who I was then, but I don't have to make that my identity for life. I can choose to do better, to be better, moving forward. I can't change who I was, but I can change everything about who I want to be and who I will be.

DaddyDom,

I had a similar conversation with WW yesterday, who has said that is "not who she is". I could not let that statement go by and told her that is EXACTLY who she is. Or at least WAS. She has the chance to be something different but IMO that begins with her acknowledging that the A was a part of who she is capable of being. That was always in her, even if neither one of us wanted to admit it.

However, facing that can send one into a shame spiral, so I can see why some would just focus on living with integrity and putting the past behind them.

It is interesting to see which path works better as you have pointed out, in life outside of infidelity as well.

Traydee,

I found this interesting. It took me a bit to narrow down what I was going to write due to the flood of thoughts I had.

However, facing that can send one into a shame spiral, so I can see why some would just focus on living with integrity and putting the past behind them.

The shame spiral was something I struggled with for a long time. What helped me break out of it was exactly what is being discussed here. Going from "How could I have done this? That's not the kind of man I am." to "This is who I am and what I'm capable of doing." Until I could accept that, all my progress in IC and at home was stalled.

While I strive to live with integrity now, I find it helpful to remind myself of this.

A few years on from DDay, I have this question which completely haunts me and maybe someone can give me a more honest answer than my BF can. I feel like if I could just understand it, I could heal from it.

My WB was in a long distance relationship with me and had an affair that went on for several months. After DDay, he brutally ended the affair and couldn't have been more clear to both of us that he wanted me and not her. We didn't have children, we had no shared life, he had no reason to lie and could easily have walked away to be with the AP.

However, whilst saying he wanted to reconcile with me, he kept running to the AP for comfort when we had a difficult day, and he couldn't stick to "no contact". In the end he relapsed with her after a big fight and they had sex. For me this is far worse than the affair because it happenned when he was supposed to be in R.

Also, he denies having "love" feelings for her, but I think it was obvious he felt the separation from her very acutely and it was painful for him. He just says he never loved her, he always loved me and he thinks back to it and has no idea what he was thinking.

I suppose it just doesn't add up for me.

@MintChocChip,

((Gently)) Why are you staying with him? As you said yourself, you aren't married, have no kids, and he was off with some other woman for months! And if that wasn't bad enough, he went back to her and slept with her while you were trying to R? All the time telling you he loves you and yet sleeping with her? If that's what love is, then who would want any part of that? All on top of this being a long-distance relationship, so you can never actually know where he is or what he's doing, or who he's doing it with.

Please please please have more respect for yourself. You deserve better. You deserve to be treated like a queen, not like a doormat. What is it you love about this man? The way he disrespects you? The gentle way he lies to you? The way he lovingly and tenderly fucks someone else while stringing you along? That sense you have of it "not adding up" is your inner voice telling you the truth. It most certainly does NOT add up. He is NOT worth the pain he is putting your heart through.

One of the most basic things that has to happen, in order for R to even begin to be possible, is that the WS must go NC, and stay NC. Period. He has not. And he could not even manage to do it while attempting to R with you, "the person he really loves" (while he's still banging the AP). There is no such thing as "kind of NC" in the same way that you can't be "kind of pregnant". He isn't NC. Which means he's an active cheater. And if he quits, he's prone to do it again.

He's not sorry for hurting you or cheating on you MintChocChip. He's sorry for himself. Being sorry for hurting you feels different. It feels like someone trying to move heaven and earth to make things right again. It feels like someone who owns their mistakes and wants to change. The only effort he's making is to call the AP when things get tough.

I've been around here for about 7 years and have met hundreds of WS's, and you begin to be able to see the patterns very clearly. This WS has no remorse.

Do yourself a favor. Thank him, big time. Thank him for showing you exactly who he is NOW, BEFORE you did something silly like marry this asshat, or have his children. You can now walk away with complete confidence that the trash has been taken out, and never burdened again with having to think about him or his lies. Go find a nice guy who thinks that you are the sun and the moon. Let the pig wallow in shit where he's most happy.

Just my 2 cents.

[This message edited by DaddyDom at 10:27 PM, Sunday, August 20th]

Hi DaddyDom

Thank you so much for your reply. I am sorry for not putting detail that was probably relevant: this happenned years ago.

It's just something I struggle with understanding years later, hence I was asking.

It's "the question that keeps me up at night" after all this time and I suppose like most BSs I'm looking for insight into the mindset of doing that.

I read your post anyway and I get that's the most obvious answer, and if it felt true, I'd believe it and would have put it to bed. But to be honest I don't.

In my deepest heart I believe he loved me, so for the life of me I've never been able to understand that behavior.

this happenned years ago.

Where are you at now in your relationship?

I left a week ago.

We stayed together for 3 more years after it though.

All that time he claimed to love me and always only me, but the fact he - as you say - fucked the AP during R was probably what I could never get over.

It didn't make sense then - if he wanted her there was absolutely nothing stopping him. She was begging him.

So it never added up.

He did cut the AP out of his life not long after. And it was pretty obvious she was an irrelevance to him.

But I never got an answer that I heard and believed.

As the WS how do you do deal with the fact that your BS will carry this pain with them forever. Do you ever consider pushing them to move on because you think they would be happier without you? My husband has never pushed this but he has asked me in the past whether I think I would be happier if I didn’t have to see him. I don’t really think the pain would magically disappear if we were to split up. If I thought the pain would disappear I would probably already be gone. But I think it is hard sometimes for us not to wonder. I want to give our relationship a chance but I hear this timer in the background telling me it is taking too long.

Next question…
Do you know if your spouse ever has an entire day where they don’t feel sad once about what happened. I am just wondering if this is something that is even possible. Maybe not, not sure. It is very hard because I feel like after 7 years I should be so healed, it should be so over. And yet I only found out about the physical part a year ago and so the pain is still very raw.

Is it fair to a WS to expect them to hear about your pain every day? That seems like too much to expect. And yet the pain is there…so we sit in silence and I try to take an interest in other things and distract from the pain. But, there is always a strong temptation to bring it up to him…because that does offer me some comfort. So confused about the right way to proceed…

Even though this is years ago-it still bugs me because FWW can’t really explain this…

Why would a WS bring AP into the marital home, and introduce him/her to the children? Is this part of the fantasy that BS is going to bow out gracefully and AP replaces them in the family? In my case, children were 5 and 3. They both told me about OM several months after DDay. It was very innocent on the children’s part-and a hell of a shock to me.

Thanks in advance

Do you say "that's not who I am" and try to continuously live a life of integrity?

Or do you say "that is who I am capable of being" and try to stay vigilant on examining yourself for slipping back to that person?

For me it’s neither of these things, but I am six years out and reconciled.

Both of these things assume white knuckling and being tempted to go back down that path.

I can say maybe early on there was some white knuckling because I felt the addiction of the affair. But having an affair was not only the worst thing I did to my husband and marriage, it was the most destructive thing I have ever inflicted in myself.

I went to therapy, I read books, I figured out the things that I needed to change in my life. I could write a ton about all that but what it boils down to is this: I was a person who needed to become more self aware of my entitlement, emotional immaturity, my lack of character. Because I sure as hell didn’t want to be that person ever again.

It took a long journey of diligent effort to become someone I am proud of and love. My connections are deeper, my communication is on point, and I am vigilant over my own happiness. That last part probably sounds scary from where you are sitting. I mean, if someone is vigilant over their own happiness doesn’t that mean they do whatever they want?

For me that’s not what it means. People who cheat are often trying to fill a void. They want other people to fill their cup. They are looking for shallow validation. Someone who loves themself, respects themselves know how to do that for others.

There is jo quick fix for a ws. This was a years long journey. White knuckling can be part of things early on, but if that is the long term plan well I am not sure that’s going to work.

Also, he denies having "love" feelings for her, but I think it was obvious he felt the separation from her very acutely and it was painful for him. He just says he never loved her, he always loved me and he thinks back to it and has no idea what he was thinking.

So, during an affair there can be addiction issues at play. I don’t know your significant other, so I can’t tell you what it was for him but I can tell you my situation and I know for a fact it’s common.

If you have never read anything about limerance, search for dr. Frank Pittman, he wrote many great articles about romantic infidelity. Basically for me my affair was born of depression. And then playing this other role with someone giving me attention became my escape. The push pull of an affair (instability) make you want to hold on to it harder. Also the feelings that if it wasn’t love then I risk everything for nothing and my ego couldn’t accept it.

Think in terms of a gambling addiction. The person is surrounded by the losses they’be created in their life but they keep going because they like how it makes them feel. That’s what it was like.

But live isn’t feelings, you can make yourself feel anything in accordance to your beliefs. If you believe the fantasy then your feelings will heighten.

I didn’t love the ap, he actually didn’t treat me all that well at times, and we didn’t know each other like that. I just wanted to escape my own pain and not face who I was and the changes I needed to make.

But I knew deep down I did want my husband and I fought for him. It was torture at first to not get my "fix".

The truth is the quality of our relationships is based on how vulnerable and authentically that you show up. I needed to learn what was preventing me from it.

My affair, while it hurt him terribly, was not about my husband. It was a war with myself. And I had a lot of changes to make so I could show up to be connected and in love with anyone. Affairs are about hiding and shame.

Sometimes the reason you can’t get past something is there hasn’t been a significant change, or one you know to recognize. I think if you want your reconciliation to move forward you need to ask yourself what is the evidence that he has been changed by this experience? Talk to him about your concerns. I know it’s not fair that you would need to be the one to drag it all back into the light but as long as you sit in it by yourself the bigger it will get.

Love is a verb, a choice, a commitment. Has he found a better path towards that? No matter what my feelings said suiting my affair it only was a reaction to what I was believing at the time. What I was choosing.

Thanks Hikingout for your response.

This part has really got me thinking:

But having an affair was not only the worst thing I did to my husband and marriage, it was the most destructive thing I have ever inflicted in myself.

I went to therapy, I read books, I figured out the things that I needed to change in my life. I could write a ton about all that but what it boils down to is this: I was a person who needed to become more self aware of my entitlement, emotional immaturity, my lack of character. Because I sure as hell didn’t want to be that person ever again.

It took a long journey of diligent effort to become someone I am proud of and love. My connections are deeper, my communication is on point, and I am vigilant over my own happiness. That last part probably sounds scary from where you are sitting. I mean, if someone is vigilant over their own happiness doesn’t that mean they do whatever they want?

For me that’s not what it means. People who cheat are often trying to fill a void. They want other people to fill their cup. They are looking for shallow validation. Someone who loves themself, respects themselves know how to do that for others.

Apparently It took you doing "the most destructive thing" that you ever inflicted upon yourself to bring you to search the depths of your soul.

How did you
A) realize your "entitlement, emotional immaturity, my lack of character."
B) stay the course when you saw those things in yourself that you didn't like
C) determine if these things were always a part of you.

My FWW has done a lot of the work in IC to understand that much of her "perfectionism" came from her overly critical mother. She always felt like she wasn't good enough and feared failing often to the point of accepting bad situations to "stick it out" so she doesn't feel like a failure. Those "perceived" failures seem to have caused the void that you spoke about.
But it also has led to the point that any kind of criticism is seen as an attack on her personally. It is quite frustrating.

Stillconfused2022

As the WS how do you do deal with the fact that your BS will carry this pain with them forever. Do you ever consider pushing them to move on because you think they would be happier without you?

I'm very sad about my BS's pain and I know there are so many reminders just in living our lives: movies, TV, interacting with other people, music, just anything can be a trigger. I selfishly want to live my whole life with him. I have asked him to consider leaving when I've felt really low, but it's not what I want and I think the pain would still be there.

Next question…

Do you know if your spouse ever has an entire day where they don’t feel sad once about what happened. I am just wondering if this is something that is even possible. Maybe not, not sure. It is very hard because I feel like after 7 years I should be so healed, it should be so over. And yet I only found out about the physical part a year ago and so the pain is still very raw.

No, I don't think there has been an entire day without his feeling sad about my cheating. He says, though, that his level of sadness depends upon what else he's involved in. He, like you makes a big effort to work on things of interest to him. He has many passions. I think you're being hard on yourself thinking you should be over it. It's a huge trauma and requires lots of help and effort to even lower the pain. I'm so sorry, I know it is still raw after only a year. Does your WS help you? My BS has helped me so much in my thinking. It's so hard for both of us, but we need to keep talking about it frequently.

Is it fair to a WS to expect them to hear about your pain every day? That seems like too much to expect. And yet the pain is there…so we sit in silence and I try to take an interest in other things and distract from the pain.

Yes, it's very important to bring it up. If he isn't (and he should be) bring it up when you're hurting. Ask your questions. Don't rug sweep. It's best to rip off the scab and let it bleed. It's painful, but if you don't do it now, you'll regret it later.

[This message edited by thatwilldo at 4:27 PM, Thursday, August 24th]

I read a lot about affairs where APs confide in one another about how unhappy they are in their marriages or complain about their partners.

The idea of this distresses me, but WS denies doing this (even though one EA partner frequently complained about their own marriage).

My question is how likely is this? Are there WS out there who were content with their partners and family life and had boundaries against discussing this with APs?

In my head, the needy APs would have wanted to hear how terrible WS' home life was to help justify what they were doing.

That will do:

Thank you so much for your response. Helped significantly. Your empathy shines through. I showed it to my husband and he was really moved too. He asked if he she should be on SI too and said how good he thought it was that you were able to give something back. I would be surprised if he actually joined but it was still a very nice thought.

Pained123

I read a lot about affairs where APs confide in one another about how unhappy they are in their marriages or complain about their partners.

The idea of this distresses me, but WS denies doing this (even though one EA partner frequently complained about their own marriage).

My question is how likely is this? Are there WS out there who were content with their partners and family life and had boundaries against discussing this with APs?

In my head, the needy APs would have wanted to hear how terrible WS' home life was to help justify what they were doing.

I don't recall stating that my marriage was hell but I'm certain that I expressed I was unhappy. I do know I never trashed my wife verbally to my AP. Even during the height of my A, I would not vilify her by saying "oh she is a lazy so and so" etc. In my case, my AP didn't seem to really care (at least she never said so) why I was there. She just wanted someone other than her STBXH.

But for me, the point is a bit moot. While not spoken, I certainly portrayed my wife as "terrible" through my actions. The irony is, I was the shit partner, not my wife.

A) realize your "entitlement, emotional immaturity, my lack of character."
B) stay the course when you saw those things in yourself that you didn't like
C) determine if these things were always a part of you.

It wasn’t an overnight epiphany. It started very much like what you describe with your wife, getting to the source of it and being aware of it, and a commitment to myself to get to higher ground, they kind of unraveled over time. For a long time my perfectionism actually drove it. I needed to get an A in recovery. Over time my commitment was there more because I was as progressing and it felt good to me. It’s very much a day by day of being mindful over the choices and thoughts I was having as well as if my actions were matching my values. I am not sure it was clear or neat back then, it actually was messy and I failed a lot.

I think what you have to understand about perfectionism (that was one of my biggest epiphanies during counseling) is that it’s a shame based emotion. So when the criticism comes across it activates that shame. Like a confirmation of being worthless if what you are doing isn’t perfect or pleasing to the other person.

One book I read that gave me some insight on working on this was "Rising Strong" by Brene Brown. She gave a lot of detail about how our shame can be transformed to vulnerability and why that’s useful in our relationships. I highly recommend that.

Ultimately, shame and self worth are closely tied together. Learning to accept and love myself made me able to take the external things more in stride. It rebalanced things so that when my husband expressed disappointment or discontent about something it didn’t serve as proof of my worthlessness anymore.

And just to be clear, you should continue to be honest and have your own expectations. This is something she is going to deal with while she is working on herself. It’s not helpful or healthy to suppress anything after all that’s happened. You are responsible for you and she is responsible for her. Helping her is a crutch that is not helpful towards reconciliation if that’s what you are attempting right now.

Stillconfused2022, you said:

Thank you so much for your response. Helped significantly. Your empathy shines through. I showed it to my husband and he was really moved too. He asked if he she should be on SI too and said how good he thought it was that you were able to give something back. I would be surprised if he actually joined but it was still a very nice thought.

Some people with more experience than I have don't recommend that both join, some think it's good. My BS has been reading here for years, but hasn't posted. He has learned so much. I've been here since 2017 and haven't posted much, but I've learned a lot too.
I hope your BS has read Not Just Friends , by Shirley Glass and How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair, by Linda McDonald. They're both great books that will help him to understand his choices.