SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Any WS out there that could help i would greatly appreciate.

Do u think of the other woman/man? The woman my husband was with was very attractive and it makes me feel horrible. I just wondered if you think about the other person when around your spouse? Like when we are intimate is he thinking he wishes he was with her. Did you think of them when you was still in the affair being intimate with your spouse? She had fake boobs and that really bothers me.

I already had poor self estem and now its all gone.

For those WS who do not have a relationship with their adult children......

Why do you think that is?

Do you take ownership of this or do you blame others? The children? the BS?

Does it bother you or are you able to continue living your life not attending their weddings, graduations, helping them move into their first place, meeting your grandchildren?

Will you ever say the words they need to hear? Will you ever make an attempt at reconciliation with them?

Do u think of the other woman/man?

Ascott58,

In my case I didn't get into an A for the sex. I was in it for the ego stroking. Yes sex was part of it and it was different than with my wife. Not better, just different. I honestly can say I never thought I'd rather be with AP when I'm with my BW.

For some it is all about porn star sex, and for some they get their AP's to do stuff they'd never do with their spouse (fetish, etc). Again, they have a level of separation.

But I sense your real question is about your self esteem. And I can appreciate that as my BW took a hit to hers as well. It took a lot of IC/MC and a lot of work on my part to help her see past that. You need to understand that the A was not about what you did or how you look, but about something lacking in your WS.

[This message edited by MrCleanSlate at 8:29 AM, July 3rd (Friday)]

Did the type of sex play into the bond with the AP?

My husband recently gave more detail about the type of sex——- it was very dominant on his part with her being very submissive. He said he liked the power and being able to tell her to do whatever pleased him servant master kinda dynamic.

I don’t want to be too graphic but all the stuff you can imagine.... punishment kinda stuff

I’m kinda upset because as a person who really enjoys sex and likes that dynamic my FWH won’t do those things with me.

I am a strong personality so I’d like to let him be dominant but he doesn’t want to get that rough. He says they had degrading sex and he doesn’t want that for us and he didn’t like himself when he was doing it.

I feel like it was a unique experience for him and something I’m locked out of.

Mickie, I think I told myself that at the time. I didn’t want to branch out sexually with my husband after discovery. I was hypersexual prior to discovery. Sex was a tool that I used as a self soothing mechanism, a bartering tool. I used it in my marriage and with whoever would give me back what I wanted.

But it just wasn’t about the sex, and I know that’s tiresome to hear and hard to believe. It’s true for me, however, and my husband. Our relationship with each other was the most important (valued) and yet the most risky, the highest possibility to be hurt or rejected. I assigned lots of value and lots of risk to my marriage and my husband. I struggled with intimacy and vulnerability. I was seriously fucked up.

I had very messed up views about sex. Sex was transactional (have sex to get love or approval) -> I was disconnected from sex and my emotions (CSA and sex trafficking trauma) -> vulnerability was terrifying and compartmentalized (projecting my issues onto my husband).

I needed to examine sex and its role in my life. I had a ton of shame. It sounds like your husband could be struggling with shame, too.

[This message edited by leavingorbit at 10:57 AM, July 6th (Monday)]

[This message edited by leavingorbit at 4:57 PM, Monday, July 6th]

Hi hcsv.

For those WS who do not have a relationship with their adult children......

Based on your questions there seems to be a lot going on and I would like to be helpful so I hope you don’t mind if I ask a question or two to clarify what you’re getting at.

Are you talking about a WS who doesn’t have a relationship with their children because of an A? Or in general? Is it because the children cut them out of their lives or because the WS walked away? Or does it not matter?

I thankfully have a really good and loving relationship with all of my children, but I’m aware that it could have ended very differently.

Has this happened in your situation with your WS? I’m trying to understand what’s driving your questions because there seems to be a lot of pain underlying them. I’m sorry you’re hurting.

It’s so hard to understand that the WS can feel it’s not that much about the sex. So perplexing.

It’s so hard to understand that the WS can feel it’s not that much about the sex. So perplexing.

Mickie,

Think of it this way - an alcoholic says he needs a beer. It's not the beer though, it is the feeling he gets from the alcohol in the beer. Same goes for an A. It isn't the person or the sex, it is the feeding of the empty void. The 'whys' of that is the real question to answer.

Yeah, I will echo it wasn't about sex for me either. Yes, the affair was sexual, but it was 100% about the attention and ego stroking and the escapism.

Any WS out there that could help i would greatly appreciate.

Do u think of the other woman/man? The woman my husband was with was very attractive and it makes me feel horrible. I just wondered if you think about the other person when around your spouse? Like when we are intimate is he thinking he wishes he was with her. Did you think of them when you was still in the affair being intimate with your spouse? She had fake boobs and that really bothers me.

I already had poor self estem and now its all gone.

I don't want to sugarcoat it, I did pine for the AP for several months after the A ended. But, I can honestly say I never wished I was with the AP when I was with my husband sexually. Once I realized what the affair was, and who I had the affair with...I didn't pine any more.

I do think of the AP in terms of what happened. But, I do not miss the AP, have feelings for the AP, or think the AP was a good person with altruistic intentions towards me. My husband is the valuable one. I can understand the feelings you have, but you need to understand the AP was trash and you are the prize he should really be trying to win.

Hikingout

I don't want to sugarcoat it, I did pine for the AP for several months after the A ended. But, I can honestly say I never wished I was with the AP when I was with my husband sexually. Once I realized what the affair was, and who I had the affair with...I didn't pine any more.

I read most of what you write because you are straight to the point. And one thing you wrote that I think many BH just can't accept is when on one thread you simply stated

" I did it because I wanted to"

My question is do you think the reason you did not pine for the OM when you were with your husband sexually was because if I remember right, your affair constituted a total of three encounters.

My wife just did seven what the responders on my thread called "sport fucking" with two guys 20 years younger that she ran races with. I got no pining or would have divorced her.

I think the majority of these WW who have long term affairs do pine for their OM to the point it ends in D because of it. I still believe that most women who have sex with a man other than their husband over many moths or years are a rare breed if the are not thinking of Om and many basically cut their husband off completely.

Your opinion/

My question is do you think the reason you did not pine for the OM when you were with your husband sexually was because if I remember right, your affair constituted a total of three encounters.

There were three encounters over the course of one business trip.

I was more interested in the romantic aspects of the affair. I hate that it's cliche, but it's really my truth.

I think I didn't pine for him sexually because H and I have always had a very good sex life and we know each other so well. When I would obsess about the OM, the points of concentration were on the things he said. Lame I know. But, a sexual relationship for a woman has to have time to develop usually, not always...but always for me.

My wife just did seven what the responders on my thread called "sport fucking" with two guys 20 years younger that she ran races with. I got no pining or would have divorced her.

Pining usually only happens with limerance. Purely sexual affairs typically have none of that emotional grief aspect. It sounds like your wife had sexual affairs only, and that is in line with the few ww's that I have met that had the same.

I think the majority of these WW who have long term affairs do pine for their OM to the point it ends in D because of it. I still believe that most women who have sex with a man other than their husband over many moths or years are a rare breed if the are not thinking of Om and many basically cut their husband off completely.

I can't make complete generalizations, but I think what you are witnessing is the lack of compartmentalization. More women have exit affairs because they can not compartmentalize. This was for sure me. For those who can compartmentalize, they can keep things separate. I see more men in that category, but have encountered women like your wife who seem to be able to keep things separate. I think anyone who is more enthralled with the love/romance aspect tend to get fully encompassed by it.

But, sexually, the AP didn't compare at all with my husband and I would hands down say my husband has been my preference. I am not saying that had the affair gone forward it would have always been that way with the AP - but a level of comfort and knowledge would have had to be achieved. From what I read here a lot of the male APs are not all that attentive, so I am not sure how often that reciprocal relationship is acheived. Hard to speculate about the experience of others, you know?

I’m sure this will have been asked before but with so many pages to read I hope it would be okay to ask this again.

To WWs or WGFs

After the end of the A and you decided that you wanted to recommit to the relationship (around 6 months ago for us) what was it that finally made you wake up to the consequences and the work required to successfully R? To move from rugsweeping to really repairing the damage.

I understand that the BH or BBF shouldn’t lead you but I’m getting frustrated at the lack of initiation from WGF

Hasn’t started IC for “fear of being broken” doesn’t initiate conversations, has dipped into “how to help your spouse heal” but just cries when she does and said it’s a bit one sided. Breaks down about once a week and shows what I perceive as remorse then rebuilds those defensive barriers almost immediately. Those same barriers that got us to where we are now.

Is it just time to reflect she needs or was there something else that happened to spur you in to action?

I started IC immediately - in fact I started it two months before I confessed the affair. I felt very deep pain from my actions and I didn't even know where to start in getting my life back together. It didn't feel at times like it was going to come back together.

But, change is selfish. You have to want it for yourself. I still was a messy work in progress, and I think I really didn't get productive until around the 6-8 month marker.

I think you should look into the 180. If she feels you will coddle her she will let you.

2Doz,

I think it’s time and quite honestly, a feel for the consequences. I was self-absorbed for the first 6 months, felt overly guilty, looked for ways out of accountability. I had an additional self-imposed obstacle of orientation to unpack (AP is transgender) and that was a distraction I capitalized upon.

Ultimately I realized what I owed my BS, and it was coincidentally when she had finally had enough of my shit and initiated separation. I feel like those conclusions were simultaneous, though. But that separation cemented what I had arrived at independently, which was a true understanding of what I killed.

ETA: How I think it could’ve gone better is if when I’d stated that “Helping your spouse heal” was one-sided my BW has called bullshit. That’s not fair to her but it highlights that we both had perspectives that didn’t quite center on the core problems of the betrayal. The times I claimed myself a victim STILL hurt her over a year later and were very effective R killers. So if you can recognize her laziness/hesitation when it occurs and point it out, it might help- That shouldn’t last for long because ultimately she’s her own responsibility. But she lacks perspective and if it’s something you can readily provide it might help.

[This message edited by JBWD at 3:12 PM, July 8th (Wednesday)]

MrCleanslate-

That was one of the best explanations I’ve received in a long while!! THANK YOU!!!

To all of you waywards out there...

In your wayward experiences where you stepped outside your marriage for 6 months or more...

Is it feasible that you would only know the first name of your AP?

That's the story I'm getting. She doesn't know his last name. AFTER 6 MONTHS OF FUCKING AROUND?!?!?

I find it hard to believe. And it then conveniently still leaves me in the dark on who he is. It tells me nothing. There is no resolution for me at all.

How can that possibly be?

Hi BSH,

Been reading your story for a bit.

There's no way she doesn't know who he is, where he lives and what he does for a living by now. 6 months with only sexting and no other talking? That takes a whole other level of compartmentalization. Plus, with the other evidence (her protectiveness of AP, wanting to keep in touch w/ him) show that she is emotionally dependent upon him.

Us WW don't show that level of attachment without some level of emotional intimacy on AP's part. My AP fed me just enough of his back story to hook me and then reeled and groomed me over the course of a few months. He knew what he was doing, and really, I accepted it and played into it too.

Your wife likely has some form of intimate emotional/personal connection with this guy beyond the sex for her to want to protect him like this. I tried to protect my AP the first month after DD because, when I was found out, I didn't want his marriage to be blown up like mine was, didn't want him going through the pain I was. Turns out, he has no remorse and is a serial cheater and I was just the next in a long string of women. That came to light after my BH contacted his BW and told her the full story. AP asked me to cover for him and lie. At that point, I was done with lying- the pain was too much and I didn't want to continue living in it. He was a real POS.

Unless she's SA broken and this man was (as some of the JFO posters suggested), one of a lonnnng string of OM for NSA ONS (alphabet soup there!), there's no way she wouldn't at least know the basics at this point.

My AP and I worked together and got to know each other through hallway conversations months before the thing turned EA and then PA. I'm saying this so you know that unless your wife has SA or other MAJOR problems, she's likely known this guy for a while and is blowing smoke up your behind.

Get his name. Get his BW informed. Blow up his world. It's the only way your WW is going to get her head out of her ass and for you to begin to heal on this.

Otherwise, don't waste your time or energy on her and file for D.

Wishing you luck and best hopes for your own recovery.

BSHusbandWI - Like so many others have said, she is lying to you. You are going to have to use a different tact. She is still protecting the other man.

At this point, you have to ask yourself. Why would you want to reconcile with a women who is suppose to be your wife, and cares for you above all else. Instead she cheats on you, and when you find out, actively tries to protect this other MFer. She should be trying to jump hoops to protect you and your feelings now, but instead, she's still protecting that douchenugget.

You need to toughen up. Your tact is not working with your wife. If you don't show her you mean business, she will see you as weak. She's gonna do it again. You didn't find out the first time. how are you going to locate the man the second time.

Its time to change gears buddy. She's playing you still. And you buddy, should be putting her ass on the street. Not only did she cheat, she's still actively doing shady shit.

A question for fww. Now that your affair is over, do your children come before your husband in your proiorities?