SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

You are not pathetic. You are married to someone who is mentally unwell. You are loyal and have tried to be patient and understanding. You just have to get to a point where you can see it’s enabling him by being a known soft place to fall. Likely loosing that will be his rock bottom. I can’t promise, but it will help you to detach from his crazy which is needed.

You are an awesome woman, spouse, and mom. He is preying in your kindness in some ways because he is in active addiction. He knows if it all falls apart there you are. He needs to feel that is gone. It may not change anything so you must believe in what you are doing for your own sake.

There are lots of great posts and replies that talk about how it's not about the AP, the affair is a fantasy, and the WS may not even really know the AP in a true, authentic way.

I'm struggling because my WH was friends and then close friends with the AP for 15 years before the A started. So he knew her well, and knew her well long before the affair. It's hard for me to think that the A wasn't about her - it was entirely about her - or that WH got swept up in some crazy delusion about a woman he barely knew.

If you are a WS who had an affair with someone who'd previously been a long-time friend, how should I think about this? It feels so much more painful know that he wasn't delusional but was very consciously choosing her and planning to leave me for.

hikingout~ You seem to have a way to speak wisdom and honesty without making me feel stupid & in a way not even trashing my WS. Thank you so much. I have come back on this week multiple times just to read your two post.

I am glad if it helps. You deserve happiness. I will try and watch for your future posts in the forum.

Questions for WS:

Did you use protection with your AP when you had sex? How soon after you first had infidelity sex, did you then have sex with your unsuspecting BS? Did you get a STD test? Did you protect yourself, your BS, and your unborn child from STDs?

Did you have different kinds of sex with your AP, that you had with your BS? If yes, why did you not offer or ask your BS for this kind of sex - before or ever? And, if you ever did offer or ask for this kind of sex - were you still just lusting for your AP? Did your disappointment with your BS sexually drive you to look for this kind of sex elsewhere? Your answers are most appreciated.

[This message edited by icangetpastthis at 12:09 PM, Tuesday, February 4th]

Questions for WS:

Did you use protection with your AP when you had sex? How soon after you first had infidelity sex, did you then have sex with your unsuspecting BS? Did you get a STD test? Did you protect yourself, your BS, and your unborn child from STDs?

In my reading here I think contraceptives are rarely used in an affair. I did use them, my husband did not in his. I would have been in a Fertile time in my cycle in the timing of the physical side of my affair. My husband has a vasectomy. We did std testing both times. I think when people have an affair they feel in invincible to living in escapism. They simply disregard all consequences to move forward.

Did you have different kinds of sex with your AP, that you had with your BS? If yes, why did you not offer or ask your BS for this kind of sex - before or ever? And, if you ever did offer or ask for this kind of sex - were you still just lusting for your AP? Did your disappointment with your BS sexually drive you to look for this kind of sex elsewhere? Your answers are most appreciated.

No, not different types of sex in either case for either of us.

I felt so disgusted with myself after the affair that I never lusted after the ap or fantasized about the ap. I did however miss the ap at first. I was used to talking to him constantly so it was a bit of a transition. In time I could see I missed the feelings the ap gave me not the ap himself. I realized we never really knew each other at all.

For me I wasn’t searching for sex. I wasn’t really unhappy with our sex life. It was all emotionally driven I wanted to feel cherished. I wanted to feel younger, sexier, more interesting.all of these things were just holes in my self esteem I was looking to fill with a person instead of figuring out what I wasn’t giving myself in my real life.

I think men especially think the only way they would cheat would be for more or better sex, yet those very men don’t cheat for those things. Very rarely in what I have read here is that enough motivation. Affairs are most often more about external validation or trying to cover up depression with the excitement. They are often attention seeking and self adulation.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:32 PM, Tuesday, February 4th]

For female WS - if you stopped intimacy with your BS during the affair (while continuing to have sex with AP) - what was that all about in your mind and heart - and if reconciled, how did you and BS overcome that?

Hi Jim-

We did not stop having sex but the frequency/quality was diminished.

I think genders often have things one is often more good at than the other. It’s scientifically proven women are great at multi-tasking. And I think what a lot of women are bad at is compartmentalization of feelings in the affair. That part is my own speculation based on reading here for so many years but of course I do not think that over generalization is true in every case.

I think if your wife ceased intimacy or intimacy declined significantly, it’s because she was deeply involved with the emotional aspects of the affair. This was true for me. It’s not something silly like I didn’t want to cheat on the AP. It’s more emotional engagement and desire for me are deeply connected.

So for me, and maybe your wife- you should definitely ask her if you haven’t- the emotional investment in one relationship over the other dictates where the desire went.

And honestly this has nothing to do with sexual prowess of the ap. It has to do with where the emotional investment was. The emotional stuff started before the physical and so that drop off happened before I even had any of that knowledge.

I cheated in part seeking for emotional connection/intimacy. However, the reason I didn’t have it is because I didn’t know that I had been putting up obstacles from it. In essence, the thing I wanted most I didn’t know how to foster. I wanted to be romanced, but my picture of that was him romancing me. The reality is romance comes from being your authentic self with someone, being vulnerable with them, making them a safe space for you.

The ap wasn’t that either. He wasn’t safe by any stretch of the imagination. He was emotionally unavailable same as me. We didn’t foster a connection, we played out that immature version of romance that I had in my head. I was very stupid not to see my husband, the one who helped me when I was sick, watched me grow and give birth to our child, worked tirelessly for me and our family, loved me on my bad days, etc.

But the crux of my answer is I am unable to be so emotionally invested in two people at once. Some people are good at that. I think females are worse at compartmentalization of emotion. And I tend to think more females cheat for emotional stuff than sex, but of course that is not a rule for all.

I think what made my husband overcome that is how our intimacy is now. How I show him true desire. And also how I tell him when I feel like we are letting our emotional connection slip and need to get out and do some things together or sit and talk a bit more or maybe that I need more affection through the day. Everything in a marriage is connected to the other parts and I think he now knows that we can’t ignore each other and expect to have carefree sex. He sees the results of emotional investment and it’s clearer to him that I work differently than he does.

[This message edited by hikingout at 7:19 PM, Tuesday, February 4th]

Jim,

BH here; pardon my butting in.

But I had the same question about my WW, and I think I found the answer in something I read.

Now, it’s a big generalization, but if HikingOut can get away with it, maybe I can too.

Because women can only get pregnant a few times in their lives, and each one very risky, they tend to be selective of their partners.

When a more desirable partner comes along, they shed a less desirable one. Don’t want to get pregnant by the wrong man.

Women tend to be serial monogamists.

The question then becomes, for you and for me, when a woman is forced to give up the more desirable partner, does the recently shed partner return to desirable status.

For me, well, it hasn’t happened yet.

(And I think we shouldn’t ignore the impact of biology, DNA, Darwin, natural selection that may be at the bottom of all this, on top of which we layer a bunch of "symptoms" like unmet needs, validation, FOO, etc. If we dig to the bottom, some questions may be easy to answer.)

[This message edited by Formerpeopleperson at 7:44 PM, Tuesday, February 4th]

Former people persons post may not get to stay due to only ws being allowed to respond here but the explanation of serial mongamy due to biology needs is probably the part of evolution to why I think females tend to invest in one person at a time. Not all of us, but a big portion. I said we were crummy at it and the explanation given by FPP seems to explain the origin and that seems very plausible to me.

If you read here long enough men are often the cake eaters of the cheating world while women tend to be more often exit affairs. Many choose in the end not to exit but often they are the party more emotionally involved. I have seen some men come and be more emotionally invested and some women to be more about the sex but they are much more rare in numbers on both sides

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:12 PM, Tuesday, February 4th]

Formerpeopleperson:

When a more desirable partner comes along, they shed a less desirable one. Don’t want to get pregnant by the wrong man.
Women tend to be serial monogamists.
The question then becomes, for you and for me, when a woman is forced to give up the more desirable partner, does the recently shed partner return to desirable status.

That’s a brutal but probably realistic assessment of what was going on with my FWS. Trading up maybe - OM was wealthier, politically successful, very confident, prestigious profession, etc., etc. Maybe FWS was hoping somehow the OM’s wife and I would just give up and leave. She tells me they never intended to do that - but I don’t believe, namely because it was a 3- (4-?) year long LTA.

Hiking out:

I think if your wife ceased intimacy or intimacy declined significantly, it’s because she was deeply involved with the emotional aspects of the affair. This was true for me. It’s not something silly like I didn’t want to cheat on the AP. It’s more emotional engagement and desire for me are deeply connected.

So for me, and maybe your wife- you should definitely ask her if you haven’t- the emotional investment in one relationship over the other dictates where the desire went.

And honestly this has nothing to do with sexual prowess of the ap. It has to do with where the emotional investment was. The emotional stuff started before the physical and so that drop off happened before I even had any of that knowledge.

I appreciate the honesty and transparency in your posts. This above makes sense to me. And it became clearly she was very emotionally entangled/invested in OM. It’s something I hope to delve into more with her in the near future but the insights will be useful in guiding our discussions and help me to not just jump to certain conclusions.

That makes complete sense. I bounce things here sometimes before talking to my h, especially the early days.

One thing to know about AP’s though, it doesn’t matter how you perceive them, they are never better than the spouse. It wasn’t that he was as better, it was he was pretend. We project what we want to see. The emotions are all based on escapism and fantasy. I was emotionally invested in my affair because I liked how the affair feelings made me feel. I could pick virtually anyone to have an affair with and it would have been more about that than the man.

But it’s all dopamine and adrenaline.

Also a lot of times we are using them to make ourselves feel better. For me, I didn’t feel worthy of my husband. The AP seemed complicated like me (read that as we both liked chaos) he felt in my level. This, mind you was a philandering serial cheater who was 20 years older than me. The only thing he had was a repertoire of how to talk to women to get what he wanted.

Not all that glitters is gold.