SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I suppose because the WS already indulged. BS ,OTOH, was deprived of similar opportunities by virtue of having abided by the vows.

If we assume that the affair was enjoyable, wouldn't a caring WS want the BS's life experience to contain a similar amount of pleasure?

Isn't this, essentially, a WS saying " I had my fun, you,OTOH, should be overjoyed that you have the incredible gift of having relations with me( a person so desirable that others cannot resist me((nor I Them)).

I think you might want to start a new thread in General to explore this issue. You'll get a lot more perspectives, and by definition, this is a Q&A format rather than a platform for ongoing debate. (I'm not saying that BS have to agree with the answers WS give, or that I'm unwilling to respond to counter-arguments, just that the thread can get bogged down if we devote long back-and-forths to a single topic).

[This message edited by BraveSirRobin at 3:09 AM, April 25th (Saturday)]

Hi!

I was directed to this forum from JFO. My WW is struggling still some 8 months after DDay. And I'm having a hard time figuring out why.

She had an affair that lasted 18 months. She's smart. She's had friends and family that have gone through infidelity. If somebody could explain to me how she's still distraught over decisions and choices she willingly made, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Even though it looks like divorce is likely. We are currently in lockdown together and have two kids. So it is important that she is functioning as best as possible.

Thanks!

I read through your threads to get some context, and while I can't get too specific about the information there without violating guidelines, it sounds like her intelligence worked against her. She assumed she was too smart to get caught. Her knowledge of potential consequences was irrelevant, because her plan was to stay in the affair until she got what she needed out of it and then end it with you none the wiser. In other words, "no one was supposed to get hurt." That's fairly standard WS logic (lack of logic).

There were, of course, major problems with this strategy, aside from the obvious moral failure. One is that you figured it out. She's still trying to hold onto whatever shreds of control she has left through gaslighting and TT. But just as big, and equally unexamined, is that she probably has no idea what she "needed" from the affair. She lacks the ability to look at what she did as the deliberate act of a broken person and to ask herself why she thought that was an acceptable path. Instead, she's cast herself in the role of victim, and the only way she can make that convoluted logic work is to vilify you as unable to understand and forgive.

[This message edited by BraveSirRobin at 7:13 AM, April 28th (Tuesday)]

BrokenDad,

Because she is embarrassed she probably affaired down. Because she still misses AP. Because she is no longer a "good girl". Because she sees what damage her behavior can inflict on a nuclear family and can't look your kids in the eye. Because she knows she put in a knife in your back. Because she actually might have liked the sex and would rather not admit it. Because she can see her feeling of security is likely getting blown up in possible D. Because she loves you and feels horrible for deeply betraying you. Because she is still in shock for her appalling behavior. Because she can still feel the excitement for the A racing through her veins. Because all her friends and colleagues knows she's an adulterer. Because every year she gets a year older and the A made her feel hot and young again and hates that fact. Because she can see in your eyes she horribly betrayed you. Because she took on risk of STDs. Because she is still in shock that she is capable of such egregious non-monogamous behavior. Because the news of the news of the day is so frightening. Because she is self identifying as a home-wrecker. So much damage and carnage that indeed months and years are needed to get through it.

How are you holding up?

Thanks for the insights, bravesirrobin and lucky77. It helps.

I'm doing okay. Much better now than I was.

I do struggle with the idea that she loved and still loves me.

To me it feels like I've been thrown away multiple times - first during the affair, then during the false reconciliation, and now that she doesn't want to work through it. I realize it's not a reflection on me but on her brokenness. But that doesn't make the hurt any less.

Thanks.

For the WS who had no idea how to practice empathy before doing your work, how did the affair become so intense with the “we understand each other” and the soulmate stuff?

I’m trying to wrap my head around how someone who has no idea what a feeling or empathy is,( and how to articulate either) can claim to have these strong feelings and emotional connection to someone.

Thanks!!

NTS

For the WS who had no idea how to practice empathy before doing your work, how did the affair become so intense with the “we understand each other” and the soulmate stuff?

If you're familiar with the term NRE, or "new relationship energy," that's what's at work in the beginning of many relationships, both legitimate and illegitimate. There's this outsized belief that the new person is utterly amazing and you need to be around them all the time. In an affair, this chemical haze is unfairly compared to a marriage that has passed through the NRE phase and developed into a longer term love.

This isn't to say that you can't have powerful intimacy and great sex with a spouse, but you can't keep it up at that level 24/7. You'd be unable to function in life if you did. But you can keep that level for occasional stolen interludes with an AP. Both parties are carefully cultivating a persona that matches what they think the other one wants ("You love pina coladas? So do I!" claims the person who can't stand sweet cocktails). And it doesn't occur to you that the AP maybe doesn't really love football or folk music or whatever you're interested in, but is just having fun doing it because you're constantly telling them how fabulous they are between plays.

In some cases, this wears off, and the partners keep the A going out of habit and a stubborn refusal to admit that they aren't God's gift to each other. But I think most are caught while still in that stage (NRE doesn't help with level heads and caution), and so they're deeply foggy when forced into NC.

NTS-

Two separate things. A selfish person is capable of feelings, empathy is harder because it requires forgetting about oneself.

So consequently the intense feelings described are the reflection of what the WP wants to be GIVEN.

Has your WS stated he has “no feelings?”

Not that he has no feelings, but he has an incredibly hard time articulating and identifying them. On top of that, he’s a master compartmentalizer, so I don’t know how often he truly lets feelings in.

That’s a big hang up for me with his affair, because it was SO emotional, but he isn’t emotional. And, his lack of empathy and remorse post Dday has been shocking and painful, and totally appalling.

Thank you for the insight!!

I’ll tell you that I was in much the same boat.

The unable to articulate comes from a lot of places- But in looking backwards my guess is it’s defensive to not have to dissect how he rationalized catastrophic choices. “It felt right” seems defensible and so it’s a large leap to get to “It felt right because I was taking what I wanted.”

When we began trial separation my BW told me she was tired of me not knowing why I did anything. That was a pretty remarkable moment to realize that there is so much work to do.

So many questions for WS

1. Why RA? What was that about

2. Why the secrecy when you intentionally wanted to hurt me

3. Why not just move out and on

4. Why not just be open and move in with AF

5. Now that I know, why end the A

6. Why call it an A when we were separated after it started

7. Why aren’t you with AP now

8. Why did you want me back

9. Why was AP contacting her former AP

10. Why were you contacting her former AP

11. Since, I was the last to know and refuse R WHY try MC

12. Why not just D

I ask all these questions over and over and get a very different answer from STBXH

13. Why should I have to be one do all the hard work

14. Why do you need me so much

15. Do you actually love anyone, other than yourself

I think so many of those questions are individual to your WS. If you're dealing with a clinical narcissist, the answers may be different than the ones for a garden variety selfish wayward. However, the blanket answer is that he probably has no idea what he wants or why he's doing it.

He may think he does. We all have an easy answer that we think is a reason. "I had a dead bedroom, I just did it for sex." "My spouse took me for granted, and I have this amazing connection with AP." "I love my BS and didn't plan for this to happen, it was just fate." We see ourselves as victims of circumstances outside our control, not proactively making bad choices. And so when the circumstances change -- we're caught, the BS is furious and devastated, we're about to lose the marriage -- we react to those new circumstances. It's unusual for a WS in that situation to be self-analytical. We go for the easy cause/effect explanation.

When your WS exhibits wildly inconsistent behavior, it's because they can't see past the moment they're in. Your questions are excellent questions -- why cheat on someone you love, why stay with someone if you don't love them, why fight to save a marriage you purposely destroyed. They have no idea why. The wayward mindset is full of unexamined inconsistencies. They have to dig deep to figure out the real "whys."

Question for wayward spouse...i hooe you dont mind me asking but other forums arnt helping much...

My husbands AP didnt know he was married, he is adamant that he never had any feelings for her,didnt love her etc...it was just sex for him,i think she really fell for him as she offered to ick him up from the airport and wanted to invite him to her folks for christmas bla bla..he said he turned her down with whatever excuse i didnt ask.. he met up with her when he went to christchurch for work which was 3 times. Anyway long story short..is it possible for the wayward spouse to have no feelings involved and really just be about sex and the excitement of the illicitness.

He called her a few times which i questioned him about..if it was just sex why call her and chat...he said he realy doesnt know...maybe bored at work..dumb reason but i put it down to the fog.

Im not being nasty but she was a downgrade compared to me so not sure what he saw..maybe she was a nice person i dont know. And iv gone over the texts hed send to me and they say things like iv never loved you and our little family more than i do now or i love you like nothing else on earth...so my question 2 is..can you absolutely love your BS dearly and cheat on them? Or was it all a lie. So hard to grasp the idea

Hi Stupiddiva,

I was in a similar place as your WS. My AP came at me with alot of intense attention. I resisted for a while but eventually gave into the praise and attention and then slept with her. I was was weak for all the ego kibbles. I would argue that I did not love my BS while I was in the affair. I had affection for her and treated her kindly to her face like I loved her but since coming here I've learned that I was really stabbing her in the back. I had just thought I was compartmentalizing and flattered by the attention. I did not love my AP. That said, I haven't communicated with her for three years and still think about her all the time.

I think part of the issue is that men are pretty hard wired to do stooopid shit that messes up our lives. I can sit and wonder why would someone chose to inject their body with heroin when we all know its a bad choice. Ask Jeff Bezos why he threw away a perfect family for a floozy and cost himself $80 Billion. Bottom line is that we can sometimes just do things that we know are wrong. Like how I wound up drinking half the booze in town and spent the night in jail. Others tell me I have a perfect life. Meanwhile I know I'm on a thin sheet of ice waiting for the next stupid think to happen. I've been reading Nietzsche lately and he talks about men being the master of their chaos and managing our chaos and living dangerously is a reason for living. Along the way we wind up going so far off the rails we really f things up.

SD,

It’s terrible that you have to try and sort through these questions, but maybe this will help as well.

Depending on the length of your relationship, it is likely that your WH may have loved you in a reasonable, healthy sense at some point. The problem with cheaters though, is we’re selfish- More so than a normal human. So the MINUTE your WH could no longer take enough from you to meet his unreasonable “needs” he wasn’t in any position to give either. Unequivocal or unconditional giving is at the foundation of an intimate, loving partnership, and as such he DIDN’T love you during his A.

NOW. I don’t believe that he “fell out of love.” But the way to view it, IMO, is that his love for self/ego eclipsed/surpassed his love for you and your family. The rebound effect of being faced with the loss of what has been there unquestioningly, is where the intense “I’ve never loved you more” sentiment comes from.

IMO that vehement expression of love remains motivated by the fear of loss. It’s still selfish. BUT it won’t remain static, and if he puts in the work it’s likely he can develop a new appreciation of devotion to you and your family.

Regarding an affair that’s “only about the physical,” he hopefully fixes that through some deeper and more deliberate assessment of how he could lie to you and continue to betray you. Bottom line is the other BSs here will help you realize that “I don’t know” is an easy and unacceptable answer when it comes to the how/why. It requires a lot of terrifying self-assessment and acknowledging that we are far from the perfect humans we believed ourselves to be.

These are both very common issues from cheaters that indicate an unhealthy selfish streak and a fear of true reflection.

ETA those unhealthy tendencies can be understood and overcome with a lot of hard work by your WH, but if he isn’t willing those qualities are likely to TEMPORARILY vanish beneath the surface.

[This message edited by JBWD at 5:45 PM, May 6th (Wednesday)]

Thanks for your response!

Is it common for the WS to have their first affair,get caught and honestly realise that it was the first and the last and to truely believe it was a bad choice and have learnt from it. To me i would imagine if i had an affair it would be that as an escape from the marriage husband says he never did it to escape marriage or leave me. So weird. I suppose us bs will never really understand. 6 months from dd and i think about it every minute...not as sad as the first few weeks but still on my mind...is that normal? Think the lockdown is adding to the thinking. Hubby isnt a huge deep thinker.. so to talk about it on a deeper level is like drawing blood from a stone. He has broken down and we have had long talks about it,but he doesnt enjoy going over details. He says its something he wants to forget.

I think he was weak and she showed interest in him and he gave in and thought well why not my wife wont find out. Doesnt make it easier but helps..

I’m, once again, sorry this is what you have to deal with.

My counter to what you’re describing is my own experience as someone who ramped up over a long period of selfishness to a PA. Each of the boundaries I wandered across previously, I felt terrible about and promised myself it wouldn’t happen again. But it did.

It was only after repeated lies and failures at NC that my BW presented this truth to me: My lack of self-awareness (see your comments about “not a deep thinker”) meant that I NEVER looked honestly at what was going on in my own mind in order to understand how I could do such things.

Wishing one can forget it is a fairly certain guarantee for getting to it again in the future- Likely via another betrayal. Until he acknowledges with consistency that, however hard he has it, you have it worse by factors of millions, he’s not addressing who it was that betrayed you.

I find it interesting that anywhere you look or read or on most forums it talks about cheaters having low self esteem or something weak inside but i wouldve thought that its more people with high self esteems and egos that would cheat...you know..

Hi SD,

You are right about some cheaters having strong egos. For me, I try to convince myself I have "enough" in my life. But then there's the bottomless pit of my ego that needs to have more-more-more and reach ever higher. A deep inner discomfort and lack of peace that I'm not enough and don't have enough.

Look up Bathsheba Syndrome. That's me. The legend says King David had everything in the world but he didn't have her. That was his singular focus, to get her........because she was off limits.