SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Fooled13Years

was the possibility of the photos going public ever considered? Did the photos you sent ever come back to haunt you?

I don't remember thinking about the possibility of photos going public or even that the OBS might see them. If I thought about it at all I suppose I figured the AP would have enormous difficulty in his marriage and career and would be careful enough that I didn't have to worry. But I was not rational and not thinking about consequences.

The photos have not come back to haunt me (yet). I realized much later that with the photos, he was drawing lines for himself that were sort of defensible if caught and encouraging me to cross the same lines, which I did. It adds to my overall understanding of who the AP was/is and who I was during the interaction and what the dynamic really was.

I am sometimes ill at the thought that he still has them. My husband and I have talked through what to do if they get out, and made a plan that we are settled with.

This is an area my husband gets "more and better." I wasn't a selfie/social media person before the affair. I'm still not a social media person but my husband can have whatever photos he wants. He gets them daily now -covered but provocative - and he has quite a store which he is very fond of. If they get out, I figure my explanation to the kids is that married women can do whatever they want for their husbands, and if they get printed, that's a small consequence in the scheme of things.

Serial cheaters?

How did you convince yourself that you could continue to cheat, yet somehow deserve to keep your marriage too?

I’ve read that while in an affair, you experiment sexually and the sex is very exciting. Is this case, my H’s affair lasted many years and I’m wondering if this was the case with their affair. My husband denies this but I don’t believe him. Why would it last for so long.

WS, how often do you apologize for what you have done to your BS? And is it heartfelt, in detail, or just “I’m sorry for what I did to you?” I’m 21 months out from Dday #1 and 9 months out from Dday #2. We talk about A’s maybe twice a month now and I’m lucky to get an apology at that time. During beginning, WH was very emotional and apologetic. Just wondering how other WS express their remorse?

Lorisa

For much of my A, I can say the sex was exciting. In that, the only sexual thing my AP and I did (aside from kissing) was her performing oral on me. It’s an act my wife has almost never done so that was why it was exciting.

That being said, the sex wasn’t the overall motivating factor. She blew so much smoke up my ass, it looked as if I was on fire. I felt like the youngest, sexiest thing around. Here I was, pushing 50 and feeling like I was in my 20’s again.

Now what I’m experiencing with my wife is 100 times better than anything I had with my AP. And the sex has nothing to do with it.

TBH, the A might have fizzled quicker if sex stopped being part of it. But I don’t buy that there wasn’t some excitement for your H during his A. It certainly could have dulled over time but there had to be some kind of emotional pull to keep going back. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Mamacesto

IMO, the best an only real way to apologize is through actions. Words are meaningless unless backed up by deeds. You can apologize all the live long day for stealing your friends wallet, but if you keep doing it anyway, what do those sorries really mean?

Pippin, thank you for your response. Your planned explanation about pictures to your husband is spot on. Please keep in mind that there appears to be very few things that are private any more even if they are intended to be private.

Mamacesto,

The apologies should be heartfelt, look your BS in the eye, and give specific examples of how you are sorry. I am sorry I betrayed your trust in me, I will work to restore and earn your trust. I 'm sorry I lied to you, and sided with the AP. Saying your sorry, are just words unless those words/promises are backed up with consistent actions, as ff said.

As you stated,

just “I’m sorry for what I did to you?”

is very generic, and does not cover all that was done to you. If your WH took his AP to a favorite spot of yours, have them apologize for the specific things or places that are now tainted.

Good luck in getting the apologies you need.

[This message edited by 2timesunfaithful at 1:35 PM, July 6th (Saturday)]

Mamacesto,

WS, how often do you apologize for what you have done to your BS? And is it heartfelt, in detail, or just “I’m sorry for what I did to you?” I’m 21 months out from Dday #1 and 9 months out from Dday #2. We talk about A’s maybe twice a month now and I’m lucky to get an apology at that time. During beginning, WH was very emotional and apologetic. Just wondering how other WS express their remorse?

My husband isn't interested in apologies now and wasn't interested during the affair and immediate aftermath. Earlier, he wanted to understand what happened, understand what I wanted and intended to do, and for me to understand him and what he needed. Now, he wants me to allow him to help me where possible and he wants me to use what I have learned about what he needs.

We are about 15 months from dday 1, 6 months from full honesty/end of trickle truth. We talk about the affair and related topics multiple times a day. Both of us want that.

20yrsagoBS,

Serial cheaters?

How did you convince yourself that you could continue to cheat, yet somehow deserve to keep your marriage too?

I don't think there are serial cheaters who regularly respond on this thread (and actually I can't think of any who are recovered who regularly post). I'm not sure I "count" as a serial cheater* but I'll try to answer your question with what I can find that might be relevant from my experience.

When I was cheating, I was doing something I thought I needed that was separate from my relationship with my boyfriend/husband and I thought it would not impact him. "Thought" is an odd word choice but I can't come up with another - it wasn't rational thinking or even conscious and involved a lot of familiarity/discomfort with dishonesty (either outright lying, hiding, or omission). In my mind, it had nothing to do with him and I either minimized his potential response, put it away, or denied to myself that he would have a response.

Thank you for the chance to answer your questions. I appreciate the opportunity to try to do something restorative. I hope you are able to heal.

*I think it means a cheater who doesn't have a break or not much of one between affairs? I had some ONS in my late teens/very early 20s when I was first dating my husband, when we were apart for long periods of time, and a PA that lasted a couple of months in our early 20s (though I told him about it and broke off our relationship the morning after it started). Then a 20+ year gap until the latest affair. But I can understand the mind set of someone who wants/thinks they need something and will do whatever they have to do to get it.

WS-Now that you are “caught” or your BS knows the truth about the affair, do you ever think to yourself that if you decide to have another affair or continue with AP, do you think that now you know how to hide the affair better?

I’m just wondering if that is ever a thought in your mind. Say for instance, your BS said that they saw “warning signs” while your affair was going on and suspected something was going on with a certain person or whatever, would you take that into account and learn from that to hide it? Like learn to get another phone or only respond to AP during working hours while BS is not near. Would any of you WS think like that or would you never want to think like a WS again?

Peanut

I suppose that depends entirely upon the WS. I can never see a situation where I would cheat again. I ended my A almost three years ago and it has been the most painful time in my life. I threw away so much for nothing. I sacrificed everything because of my own selfishness and it will haunt me for the rest of my life.

IMO, some WS are awful human beings. They don’t care about their BS or family and continue to cheat. Your WS sounds like one of these people. With today’s technology, it’s very easy to hide your tracks. Burner phones, hidden email accounts and messaging apps make it a simpler matter of taking the A underground. If you feel that he is doing it again, he probably is. The question is, what are you going to do about it?

ff- Thank you for your honest response. That is how I image my WH to feel. I was too afraid to ask him but ended up doing so. His response was he hasn’t even thought of it nor does he want to. I asked him “why?” and he said because he would never want to do that again. He would never want to hurt me. I genuinely feel that he’s being honest and isn’t doing anything behind my back. He’s been working on himself and our relationship. I just get these thoughts in my head sometimes and figure I could ask people on here that might answer.

But I do have another question. My WH maybe used condoms sometimes in the beginning in fear of getting his AP pregnant. When he got a vasectomy, he completely stopped using condoms. STD’s weren’t on his mind at all. I asked him why he never thought he would pass any type of STD’s to me and he said that he hasn’t had a lot of sexual partners so he didn’t think of things like that, only pregnancy. So stupid, I know. Now I may have the gift of herpes. He tried to convince me that his AP was “clean” just because he could never think of her in a negative way before. Now he knows what a complete idiot he was. So I guess my question is to the WS that didn’t use condoms- why didn’t you think you would get STD’s? Why risk infecting yourself and possibly your spouse? Was there complete trust your AP was clean?

I’m the BS trying to understand my WW so we can move forward. I have most of the essential details of her year long sexual affair followed by 2 1/2 years of emotional contact. We were married 13 years, with 2 children and 5 miscarriages behind us at the time. We were happy, so I thought, church going, committed Christians with all the normal day in day out struggles of married life. She felt I was to busy with building a business, church and friends and didn’t appreciate her. I was home every night, co parenting kids, making sure to celebrate every occasion with fine jewelry or whatever she expressed a desire for, and our sex life was regular and for me at least, exciting and fun.

Entered her AP, a married career military officer, 15 years her Senior, 2 grown kids, and on the first day they meet, they are drunk and making out while out with her married sister and her AP. Fast forward 6 weeks and they are in bed together for a year and sex between us is rare or off the table. She now tells me she didn’t fall in love, had no long term plans with him, and describes him totally differently from everything she wrote to him at the time. When it finally ended, she wrote his wife annonomusly and spilled out the affair, and now has nothing nice to say about him. She then clammed up for 25 years refusing to talk about any of it until forced to in therapy with me with a MC. My question is, why did this happen and who was that woman, who has since become the dedicated loving devout wife she was before. When I ask why she will not tell me other than to say she was vulnerable. How does one go from loving wife and mother, to adulteress, sexually active with a stranger, covert and deceitful mistress overnight? Have I missed something in my understanding of women?

Her: WS, 35 at the time of the A

Me: BS, 40 at the time if the A, 2 kids 7&9.

Him: OM, 50, colonel in the AF, married, two grown kids, and a compulsive cheat

Now, WS 60, Me 65 Him 75

WS attempted to contact him and I found the card after 25 yea

id: 8406041Posts: 58 | Registered: May 2019 | From: Midwest

I’m the BS trying to understand my WW so we can move forward. I have most of the essential details of her year long sexual affair followed by 2 1/2 years of emotional contact. We were married 13 years, with 2 children and 5 miscarriages behind us at the time. We were happy, so I thought, church going, committed Christians with all the normal day in day out struggles of married life. She felt I was to busy with building a business, church and friends and didn’t appreciate her. I was home every night, co parenting kids, making sure to celebrate every occasion with fine jewelry or whatever she expressed a desire for, and our sex life was regular and for me at least, exciting and fun.

From this line of thinking, I feel you are looking for what was wrong with you or the relationship that made her cheat. That's why it doesn't make sense to you.

When someone cheats, it often has nothing to do with what the spouse does or doesn't do. What the marriage is or isn't. It's about the person who does the cheating. And, what precipitates that can vary from person to person.

I will use my own situation as an example. Happy marriage. Good husband. Active and enjoyable sex life. Any where that I was unhappy, I can look back and see how I was the one to cause the unhappiness I felt. I had a lot of issues surrounding my self worth for one. I would over-do for everyone, and at some point it wasn't coming from a place of love, but a place of meeting what I felt were other people's expectations. I was resentful of it. But, the reality of it was no one expected these things, I didn't have to do those things to earn love. I got to a high stage of burnout, and then add to the fact I was heading for first time empty nest, and having some existential crisis's of my own, I was very disconnected from myself. I was in a lot of pain. I wasn't taking time to deal with it or even recognize it.

Some people when they experience pain they will do things to alleviate it. They can be healthy, or not healthy. If your wife did drugs or became an alcoholic it would be much easier to see that acting out was because she was unhappy with herself. She wasn't being constructive in the way she was coping with her life. But, instead, it was another person. Probably someone who said or did a lot of things that gave her little highs. And, people who get high end up escalating what they need to get high.

I was a horrible person during my affair because I didn't give a damn about anything around me as long as I could get that next hit of attention. I disconnected from myself, I did no self-evaluation, and when you look for logic, you can see that was squarely thrown out the window.

So, first thing...change your lens. It really had nothing to do with anything you were offering or not offering. It was the state of who she was inside of herself. Whether it was deep depression surrounding the miscarriages, or some other existential crisis, it was her not managing her life in a way she could be happy. And, probably for an extended period of time.

I don't think this is the same thing for serial cheaters or one size fits all to all situations. But, the way you describe it, that she was good, then bad, then good again. It makes me think she was likely a lot like me, it was an affair likely born of crisis, and it's possible given her behavior afterwards that she learned that was no way to cope, she likely has deep remorse over her behavior (I am getting that from the next part).

Entered her AP, a married career military officer, 15 years her Senior, 2 grown kids, and on the first day they meet, they are drunk and making out while out with her married sister and her AP.

The AP's in these situations are almost always people who are not appropriate people for us to have a relationship with. The fact he is older and this progressed quickly is another thing I share in common in my own circumstances. In my particular situation, he was also a serial cheater and knew the ropes. I am fully responsible for my actions, I don't blame him, but it explains some of acceleration in my situation. He knew exactly what buttons to keep pushing, and I didn't realize how much we were using each other and manipulating each other. I feel that he did and so he just got it all there faster.

Fast forward 6 weeks and they are in bed together for a year and sex between us is rare or off the table.

I had a hard time straddling the fence between two men as well. My A lasted for only two months but much longer this would have been the picture my H would have been painting. I would characterize it as an exit affair, and had he not been caught out and dropped me like a hot potato I would have just gotten more emotionally involved. It was much easier to focus on all that then have to deal with my reality. And, I don't mean my husband as my reality, but my responsibilities, getting better ways to cope, taking charge of my situation. I preferred to slip away mentally in that high.

She now tells me she didn’t fall in love, had no long term plans with him, and describes him totally differently from everything she wrote to him at the time.

Yes, I see the situation way differently now than I did then too. I think once you realize how horrible what you did was, you can't romanticize it any more. You can only see it for the ugliness and sickness it was. When push came to shove, I would never have really exited, it just would have gotten uglier. I didn't have a plan in my head past the day I was on. And, I said things now that I think were designed to keep him escalating the situation. I literally was living out a story in my head, a fantasy. It's terrible to have to describe to any normal level headed person, because it sounds ridiculous. That's because it was. My H was 100 times the man that my AP was. I would have been miserable with him. I can see a lot in hindsight that I couldn't see then, and it sounds like your wife did as well.

When it finally ended, she wrote his wife annonomusly and spilled out the affair, and now has nothing nice to say about him

.

This makes me think she was remorseful, unless she did the confession to spite him or to purposely cause him trouble. Did he dump her?

She then clammed up for 25 years refusing to talk about any of it until forced to in therapy with me with a MC. My question is, why did this happen and who was that woman, who has since become the dedicated loving devout wife she was before. When I ask why she will not tell me other than to say she was vulnerable. How does one go from loving wife and mother, to adulteress, sexually active with a stranger, covert and deceitful mistress overnight? Have I missed something in my understanding of women?

It's not your understanding of women, it's your understanding of a cheating woman. And, honestly, I doubt you will ever understand it. There aren't logical explanations in it. I would say I was vulnerable at that time as well, and that I caused every single thing. I also have gone back to being a devoted and loving wife, and it comes from a genuine and authentic place.

BUT, it didn't just switch back overnight. There were lots of stages getting there - wallowing in shame and pain, healing a lot of that from that present time and from times of the past. I had to learn how to make myself happy and be responsible for it. To be mindful of my thoughts. And, I have complete and utter remorse over my actions. Not only will I never again stray, but I will never again blame my husband for my unhappiness. If I don't like something, I now say it. I don't over do for everyone to be worthy of love. I am learning to honor myself and my boundaries.

So for me, it's not that I just switched back....I changed so much of who I am, what I do, and how I think. I still work on myself as well, and I put my husband as my top priority. It doesn't come from obligations, it comes from love.

I think in all of that, you have to figure out, did your wife change her thinking? Is she being authentic? Can you trust her moving forward? Has she dealt with the roots of her causes? Has she begun answering your questions and do you sense that it's the truth that she is speaking? And, if so, do you accept that it happened but still want to be married to her? There is no expiration for when someone decides that they can't be married to someone.

Peanut

So I guess my question is to the WS that didn’t use condoms- why didn’t you think you would get STD’s? Why risk infecting yourself and possibly your spouse? Was there complete trust your AP was clean?

My AP claimed to be a bit of a germaphobe and swore she was clean. I knew I was so I deluded myself into thinking I was safe. I didn't care enough to get her tested first because hey, she wouldn't lie to me. She is a good person after all.

I personally think most WS really didn't care. We were so caught up in our selfishness that we never considered that there could be consequences of our actions outside of getting caught.

Forgot the stop sign.

[This message edited by DomesticTourist at 7:09 PM, July 15th (Monday)]

Hiking out, that explanation and witness to your own experience explains more to me the than anything in the last 3 months of therapy. Thank you. When I try to understand, none of it makes sense and I keep trying to fit the square peg into the round hole. Our marriage will survive and we will get past this in spite of all my remaining questions that most likely she can’t answer because she doesn’t know herself. Thank you. Oh, and yes, he was/is a serial cheater who dumped her in year two when he thought he might be considered for General. He had several affairs which he confessed to her to end it. She wrote his wife because of her shame in being “the other woman” and to tell her to protect herself physically, emotionally and financially. Surprisingly, they remain together.

Peanut,

Bear in mind that the WSs here are generally trying to better themselves and repair the Ms they destroyed. So I’d say you need to consider the population you’re sampling. BUT, your WH sounds heartfelt and it’s very good that you’re asking questions and he’s answering. I’d say don’t hesitate to ask whatever you want to though, please don’t hold back from asking whatever you feel you need answered by your WH, he owes you absolute honesty.

Was there complete trust your AP was clean?

Complete trust is something foreign to WSs. We literally completely abandon a LOT of common human characteristics- Consideration, honesty, etc. The fact that WSs so easily disregard even their OWN safety is always my most compelling argument that there’s more than just a “character flaw” involved in such betrayal. It’s not really trust as much as it is total self-absorption in pursuit of gratifying the ego. Gross, I know.

question for the WW -

now my wife has ran off with a guy who she has little or NOTHING in common. she is a beautiful, educated, feminist, left - leaning scientist.

he is a fat, chain smoking, heavy drinking, womanising, mechanic who casually post porn on his facebook page - he's "that kind of guy".

he screams "domestic abuse" type.

my question is - by the very NATURE of a man who is willing to help break up a family, what are the chances of him being a kind, healthy soul to my wife? Are these POSOM a self selected group in that by their very actions they turn out to be nasty beneath all the charm and the sex (sigh). did you find htat with your POSOM once the mask began to slip?