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I don’t believe I said that it didn’t have anything to do with sex. I said that the top motivations may not be sex. I clearly said they were about sex in my response to Goldenr. Here is just one example:

Sex is part of an affair, I don’t disagree- they are not going through the rigors just to play cards. Sex is also part of a marriage and it’s not the only reason people get married either.

he believes there is only one single motivation. I can tell you that to be 100 percent false.

[This message edited by hikingout at 1:34 AM, Thursday, March 16th]

Hiking, we've had a lot of dialogue on many topics, and I respect your views. But I disagree with you on this, at least in how I view it.

Each couple defines our marriage. Some practice ethical non-monogamy where spouses can in fact have extramarital sex without it being a betrayal of the marriage contract. In the end, it boils down to what the spouses agree to.

For example, a couple might meet and fall in love around a shared hobby involving a competitive activity. Bridge or some such. As a couple, they compete as a team. It's part of their shared compact. Then one spouse gets an opportunity to play on a team with a renowned bridge champion. He does this behind his wife's back. He makes up lies and alibis to enable this. Then one day she discovers his secret. He can say until he's blue in the face that what he wanted and craved was the sense that this great bridge champion admired and appreciated his bridge-playing skills. He wanted the validation. But his actions in getting to that place were all about playing bridge. He sneaked around repeatedly for the express purpose of playing bridge. Playing bridge was in fact the sole intended activity.

He could repeat repeatedly that what really motivated him was the kibbles, was seeing the look in the champion's eye that reminded him that he is a desirable bridge partner. And that may be a thing he craved. But the only path to get there is via playing bridge, the one thing his wife believed was hers exclusively. From her perspective, the cheating was specifically about playing bridge with another partner, and solely about that. They are both right, because she doesn't actually care whether the AP looks at her husband with eyes that say "wow, you can really play bridge." She cares that her partner invested time and energy and brio into pro-actively playing bridge with the AP -- the reason doesn't matter. She is hurt because he didn't direct that same time and energy into making bridge better with her. That he deployed strategies and such with the AP that she wishes he had deployed with her.

You get my point. He left home and went to AP's to play bridge. That was the purpose. Maybe he had an ulterior motive. We all do lots of things for ulterior motives. Practice tennis a ton because we think we might get a look by a college recruiter with scholarship authority. Lift weights to get muscles that we hope will attract the ladies. Volunteer at church because we thing it gives us a better shot at heaven.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 3:19 AM, Thursday, March 16th]

I am not saying the sex doesn’t matter. In my husbands affair it mattered to me a lot. We had to sell our dream house over his affair sex.

My original point was people in affairs are not logical. No more logical than anyone else using other unhealthy coping mechanisms. (Alcoholism, drugs, gambling, etc)

What a BS feels they are hurt the most by is always valid. But part of the sources of the hurt can come from projecting based on their own perspective.

If I said "I had an affair because I just couldn’t get enough sex". Then what? What would change?

The decision to divorce or reconcile is not often made based solely on the motivation of the affair.

Sex as a motivation is a dead end path for reconciliation because you can’t move forward with any assurance they won’t reoffend. A high drive person who is willing to put sex above all else will do that time after time.

There are people who see that in absolutes and they divorce as a result. It’s the once a cheater always a cheater belief. And divorce is the right answer for them, nothing wrong with that.

Those who try reconciliation are forced to look at a much bigger picture. The path begins with “what made you be someone who would put sex above everything else in our marriage?”

The question shifts from why did you do it to why would want to do it?

(Why did you steal gum? My mouth was dry. Why would you want to steal gum? Then the answer could be a lot of things. I didn’t have money to pay for it. I wanted to feel a thrill. I felt I deserved it, etc)

And the why would you want to answers are the only things that can be worked on and fixed. They gain a self awareness before it’s a true problem. Or when presented with an opportunity they will have different strategies and beliefs that makes abstaining from stealing more appealing.

There were hundreds of things in that answer for me in the affair. Not vague buzz words we use here like validation, or kibbles. But specific details of my belief system, coping mechanisms, my unstated desires, my limiting beliefs, my entitlement, my mental health, and the list continues.

It boils down to a logical person is not going to be able to understand actions of an emotionally immature person. Often that emotionally immature person is also in crisis mode amplifying the frenetic chaos. I can’t even put myself back into my headspace then anymore.

We barely scratch the surface in this forum of what truly motivates a ws because we try instead to apply logic. Having an affair makes a person have a lot of conflicting beliefs within their value system which creates a lot of contradictory thoughts and behavior. There is no way you can logic yourself through that in order to understand it.

I promise you I would not hesitate to admit if I only wanted better or new sex. It would have been a far more logical and realistic choice. I would not have to explain it. I could have saved lots of time here, and maybe my own reconciliation would have gone better.

We can disagree but I don’t think we believe we are debating the same topic.

[This message edited by hikingout at 1:16 PM, Thursday, March 16th]

I never said the cheating was for more sex than their partners would give them.

I said it was for the sex. They wanted it with THAT particular person (or people).

A lot of Bs and ws report the ap as being far less attractive than their bs. We have seen so many polls on that since we have been here Golden.My ap was one of those cases. 20 years older, but looked closer to 30.

I said more sex because it is in addition to your spouse. And I even think that way with H’s AP. If you put the ap next to me you wouldn’t think a man would have that much range in who they can bang. I would say I am 6 or a 7, she was a 1 or a 2 on her best day.

I guess we could base it on charisma or money but I definitely don’t think of either h’s or my AP in the terms of having anything special that would have made me or him blow up our marriage.

I can agree I wanted to have sex with AP but it wasn’t that way from the jump. He 100 percent was a step down in almost every single way.so much so that it didn’t even occur to me that you were saying that it was specifically about about the person’s attributes that inspired it.

For me the sex part was more an extension for my false sense of feeling seen, appreciated and and heard.

But a lot of people can make you feel those things, it’s not magical to that specific persons attributes. Most affairs are more gradual and don’t contain these Adonis style irresistible people.

For me, it was a place in my life that it could have been anyone that helped me feel better. Affairs are usually more often about opportunity and timing rather than coming across someone better.

So I didn’t interpret your opinion correctly. To me, it would be far more likely the ws was looking for more or better sex than the AP being such a hot thing they just can’t pass up.

[This message edited by hikingout at 1:10 PM, Thursday, March 16th]

Flang, sex aside for the moment, does your WW show you she cares about you in any way? If so, what are those ways? Is it enough to keep you in the marriage?

The question shifts from why did you do it to why would want to do it?

(Why did you steal gum? My mouth was dry. Why would you want to steal gum? Then the answer could be a lot of things. I didn’t have money to pay for it. I wanted to feel a thrill. I felt I deserved it, etc)

I see your point. I guess that R comes down to that ephemeral matter of the heart, that delicate crystalline structure of all of the elements of pain and hurt and betrayal and love and the heart's ability to grock the fallible humanity of a lover. In some cases, the injury is just too large. "You hardly ever accept gum from me, though I offer it all the time, I offer it in every flavor I can think of, but you never want my gum. With that guy, you gobbled up every stick of gum you could get. Clearly, you simply don't like my gum."

I think that last statement is the crux of the threads where the injury is too much. Regardless of the reason (no money/wanted a thrill/felt I deserved it), the gusto and eagerness of the gum-gobbling in that setting, contrasted with a paucity of appetite for gum in the marriage, leads the BS to the inevitable conclusion that the cheating spouse simply doesn't like the gum at home. That conclusion, once cemented into the heart of a betrayed, I think makes R impossible.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 2:34 PM, Thursday, March 16th]

I think that is only sometimes true. In other cases it’s a limiting belief based on projections of what they think happened. They imagine what they would think or feel in an affair. Again, a logical person isn’t going to be able to put themselves in the mindset.

Truth is a lot of people prefer their spouses sexually. And personally I need a lot more than just proper mechanics, it’s much more deeply intimate with someone you are comfortable with.

It’s not true in every cheating case, but I bet it’s true as often as it isn’t. And the person fixated on that aspect is torturing themselves with it.

It’s a different camp than the divorced that post threads like this. These stay in the marriage with these secret thoughts about their spouses sexual experiences and project the worst possible scenarios. I often think by enabling them to believe such a scenario only keeps them in their hidden prison.

It would be much better as a continuing open discussion with their spouse. They have shame surrounding their own sexuality or insecurities about their own performance. The shame is what keeps it secret and because of that takes away opportunities for the ws to provide reassurance in a variety of forms.

In flange case it’s a lot more than that. His wife not only has rubbed his face in it but hasn’t done any of the basics that should have happened long ago. So my words are generally speaking here. Sometimes divorce is in order, but I think sexual details can be survived and even healed if worked through together properly.

[This message edited by hikingout at 2:40 PM, Thursday, March 16th]

Many times when I see things like "she liked sex with him better" like in this thread, I believe its often a projection rather than what actually transpired.

Truth is a lot of people prefer their spouses sexually. And personally I need a lot more than just proper mechanics, it’s much more deeply intimate with someone you are comfortable with.

It’s not true in every cheating case, but I bet it’s true as often as it isn’t. And the person fixated on that aspect is torturing themselves with it.

On this point, in the end, what matters is what the BS's heart believes. To that point, the bit that isn't captured well in these threads is what the heart knows and sees in terms of the human fallibility of one's spouse. The only poster here who expressed those concepts well in words to my memory is Mr. Walloped.

I don’t disagree, but you are missing the point. I even wonder if you read my whole post.

These people who post this are ones who stay married. This guy has been married twenty years past his wife’s affair and has secretly carried all these feelings for all these years.

Then people hop on and validate it.

When the discussion should be about movement and progress. Anything is better than staying where these people are. And they are always the least likely to get divorced.

So saying the things you are saying only compounds their issue rather than letting them explore the possibility that there is another side that could exist. They need help from being avoidant and hiding in shame to being able to confront the issue and do something different with it.

All bs go in with beliefs in their heart and many of those beliefs are moveable and change over time. Even Walloped, he after all reconciled.

Flange believes it’s too late for divorce. Perhaps if he was less insecure this was about his performance he could actually rise up and face it.

Either by confronting it enough to see it had nothing to do with him, this affair wasn’t his fault no matter what his sexual prowess. Or by seeing he has something wonderful to offer another person. Even at his age He could still have 20 or 25 years of happiness and great sex. Instead, he probably thinks if he couldn’t satisfy his wife what would make him sufficient for another woman?

It’s a disservice to this camp of people to encourage them to remain in the beliefs that have them stuck. They are as you pointed out earlier in the thread - avoidant.

I have avoidant attachment style too. It’s the most shame based of them all. I find it fascinating that men come on her and say they weren’t meeting their wife’s sexual needs and that’s why she had to have an affair. And other men say yep that’s right. Or in your posts case, “he can’t believe otherwise”.

It’s never true. The spouse had an affair because they too were avoidant, and rather than teaching what they need in the relationship they believe if their spouse loved them they would know without having to be told. Sex is figureoutable in most cases when both people want to figure it out.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:20 PM, Thursday, March 16th]

** Posting as a member **

Sooooo, it's ok to give an opinion on why they cheated unless the opinion is it was for the sex?

That's not exactly my point. Here's another try:

I'm sure you've read posts from fWSes - like hikingout, like BSR, like many others (including my W, plainsong) - that state that sex was not what they wanted from the A. But you tell them and everybody else that they were in it for the sex. By stating that as you do - categorically - you're basically telling us and them that they are lying about themselves. And your emphasis on sex is an argument that implies sex was the most important aspect of the A.

They know themselves better than you can possibly know them. So why do you state categorically that they were in it for the sex?

That's a real question. I really don't understand how you've come to the conclusions that are implied by your statements, and I'd like to. As it is, I have to class your argument as over-generalization.

I was a 19 year old college student when the A started. If all I wanted was some strange, I could have had it seven nights a week from a house full of frat boys. I can't say I ever found that appealing.

Sissoon - sex IS what a physical affair is about.

People don't get divorced bc "she was accepting compliments from another guy" or bc he watched tv with another girl.

It's the sex. Aside from the very few affair couples that stay together, once the sex is had by the affair couple, there's generally no more progression of the A aside from maybe pushing sexual limits.

My XWW, as well as many waywards here be it active forum participants or our BSes' WSes, they had more sex with their APs in just a few months than they did with their spouses in a year.

If it's not about the sex, why then do they have so much of it?

Actions over words, right?

If an affair was 95% sex and 5% playing scrabble, you’re not going to convince me that it was the scrabble and not the sex that was important.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 1:58 PM, Friday, March 17th]

Golden,

Again, on what basis do you disbelieve the testimony of the WSes here?

*****

I think you're projecting your experience onto others. Many BSes report no diminution of sex during their WSes' As. Some report increase in sex during As. If I counted events and time, I'm virtually certain my W didn't come close to having more sex with ow than she had with me.

*****

As for sex vs Scrabble, many WSes report they gave the sex with the aim of getting the ego strokes. For example, the KISA fucks the damsel in distress to feel like and be acknowledged as a powerful person. The WW fucks her ap to get the sense of being desirable, to get the flow of compliments. The guy who tries to fuck every woman alive takes the 'yeses' he receives as confirmation that he's an attractive stud.

And my W spent a lot more time with ow in non-sexual activities than in sexual ones.

How are you reading my statements here (and elsewhere)? If you read me to say that sex is not one of the motivations for an A, you're misreading what I've posted.

I'm saying that As, in general, are best seen as results of complex motivations. They are rarely driven by one motivation alone.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:59 PM, Friday, March 17th]

I'll try (probably without success) to explain another way.

I didn't open my wallet of sexual favors to pay for individual kibbles ("tell me I'm pretty, and you get a hand job"). I gather it's exactly that transactional for some WS, either as the recipient of said favors ("I'll tell them whatever they want to hear so I can get in their pants") or the provider ("I hate anal, but I'll do it because I love the way they look/talk/act when I agree"). In my case, OM and I started as friends. We had a lot in common. He made me laugh. He wasn't conventionally attractive, but he was cute in a nerdy way, and the more I got to know him, the cuter I thought he looked.

By the time I crossed the line into affair territory, sexual attraction was an element of the feelings I had for him. As hikingout noted, it was also an element of my relationship with BH. I wasn't with BH just for the sex, but I sure did want it and enjoy it, and a sexless relationship would not have worked for me. However, a relationship without romantic attraction wouldn't have worked for me, either. IDK if there's really any point in separating those two kinds of attraction, because in my case, they go hand in hand. I mean no shade on any of you who can have great sex without romantic attraction, but that's not in my nature. In fact, that's what really preyed on my BH; he knew my story didn't add up because he knew that about me. To end up in bed with someone, I had to be a lot more emotionally involved than I was letting on.

As the affair developed, I held the line physically in what I saw as an attempt to cling to some last shreds of integrity, not because I didn't feel the hormones juicing. But I would never have gotten in bed with him if he said, "I don't feel that way about you, but I'm down to fuck if you're interested." Not at any point. So that's why I say it wasn't about the sex, which is not the same thing as saying I didn't want it or enjoy it given the way those feelings evolved.

[This message edited by BraveSirRobin at 9:01 PM, Friday, March 17th]

Sex is clearly a huge part of a physical affair, I agree, my wife agrees. But as others have noted, there were OTHER elements.

It was a SEVEN MONTH EA before the PA started. My wife had invested emotionally for a long time and in her mind, was finding those ‘feelings’ were somehow real and validating. AP was upselling the physical aspect from day one, and it took a while to show he really, really ‘cared’ about her. AP and OBS were family friends, we babysat each other’s kids, backyard BBQ — lots of literal card playing leading up the sex.

The lies my wife told herself, that this ‘happily married’ friend saw her as SO special, he would risk losing it all just for her. She was convinced the feelings were real first. As it turned out, AP was a serial cheater and was really good as saying what women wanted to hear. He got the sex and validation he wanted, my wife got the sex (and validation) she wanted.

When AP dumped her, it was about as harsh as any ‘breakup’ I’ve ever heard about. He left her no doubt that none of his feelings were ever real, he got what he wanted and it crushed her.

The result was, my wife considered sex a bad trade with ANYONE, giving herself physically wasn’t worth it. Of course, I didn’t know about the A or why she shut down. I knew something happened, just no idea what it was.

So, when she finally confessed years later, building better boundaries was already a tool she learned, because she didn’t trust anyone’s feelings toward her.

IC and MC helped her figure that stuff out.

The sex matters. Absolutely. It wasn’t the only thing — she convinced herself that whole fantasy package — really being ‘seen’ and ‘heard’ was as big a part of the ‘relationship’ as the sex.

I can relate based on the validation I’ve received from women. I didn’t have an affair, but I like attention and compliments. Without boundaries, I can absolutely see the slippery slope, based on that validation.

If it's not about the sex, why then do they have so much of it?

Why bother with other people at all? If it's just about getting your nut, you can do that more efficiently on your own, and without risking your marriage and family dynamic?

Golden,

I think you are shallowly generalizing.

I had sex three times with the ap, if I had more sex with him than I did with my spouse in a year maybe I would be divorced today.

Women often have affairs to get emotional needs met. As bsr explained they are having a full on relationship with someone else. This was true for me too. I wanted love and attention, to be seen and heard. It’s my own fault I didn’t have those things in my life, but I was too stupid to see it then.

It doesn’t take away the fact that I completely dehumanized and disregarded my husband and family. It doesn’t make it any better. I think it’s your wound that you are focused on, which is understandable but affairs have all sorts of motivations.

My husband had a highly sexual affair. I am going to guess the number of times that he had sex with her rivaled how much we had sex, and that was a lot. I have no idea how his penis didn’t whither and fall from his body.

But his primary motivations were about power. Did he like the sex? I am sure he did. Did the ap have something I did not? No, other than she hadn’t hurt him.

I don’t know why you are so adamant it is as uncomplicated about seeing someone you want to have sex with and just doing it. Both my husband and I (and many people here) knew our AP’s for more than five years. I also know what my husband likes in physical attributes of a woman, and this woman met none of it.

At any rate, the motivations have nothing to do with how bad it was. How damaging. But studies show the majority of couple who are impacted by affairs do reconcile. You are very much seeing this through your own lens from your situation and handing it to the rest of us as this is the only template for an affair. Many members are here for non-physical affairs, and suffered most of the same wounds as other members.

Why bother with other people at all? If it's just about getting your nut, you can do that more efficiently on your own, and without risking your marriage and family dynamic?

Bc its more exciting/fun with someone else?

Guys, I'll bow out.

You win.