SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

@BFTG...

Excellent post and insight into how we frail humans change over time.

I know I have seen this time and again in my 80+++ years of life on this planet... even in myself.

Again, excellent post!!!

[This message edited by lrpprl at 1:26 PM, Wednesday, May 17th]

that she may have been "pushing so hard" for R because of what I expected her to be, or something like that, I don’t remember the exact wording she used. Sure as fuck wasn’t "because I love you so much"

This says a lot. I think she was being incredibly honest with this statement. She wasn't trying to R because it was what she really wanted. She did it because it was expected of her. That would explain the anger,her defensiveness, her keeping OM on a pedestal. It explains a lot of her behavior since dday.

You asked if people who have been where you are,were able to recover. I think you will find very few members here, who gave a grown man private access to their teen daughter,and even fewer who were able to be ok with that.

I need to clarify a statement I made yesterday. I said "She set her up. To be groomed." I can see how that reads. I meant she put her in a position to be groomed. I don't think she knew that would happen. I don't think she thought of your daughter's safety at all. It was all about OM,and keeping him close.

Regardless, he was grooming her,and your wife expected your child to keep this from you. A child who is apparently struggling. It's appalling.

You're wife said she wasn't trying to R because she loved you,and wanted to stay married. She said it was because it was expected of her. Not sure how you come back from that.

IH -

For the sake of compliments from a meaningless shit bag, she gave her body, her integrity, our marriage, all our secrets, put our children in clear and present danger.

You’ve just described my wife’s A. Or the vast majority of all infidelity.

I hear some of you saying that you’ve come back from a place like this. How? Why?

Well, I didn’t expect these questions this morning, after the very tough day yesterday.

The why was a few things. I still loved my wife despite the tragedy she chose, I still saw some good in there, despite her complete abandonment of reason to even start an A and some of it was curiosity — trying to understand it all. I learned a LOT over time, but some parts of me will never need that kind of validation from a stranger, so I will never completely understand the decisions.

How. That’s a much bigger get.

Every day you wake up wanting some signs of the person you fell in love with, you want some effort to rebuild some level, any level of trust. Without trust, there is no real intimacy, which means no vulnerability and a relationship you don’t want to be in.

Every day your WS wakes up and knows the damage she caused, wants to be loved and earn back respect and doesn’t want to be the person who hurt you. Which means, she doesn’t want to reveal more of what she did wrong, and anticipates her next wrong word or action will end things — so she gets trapped like a deer in the headlights and tries to protect whatever esteem she has left, which isn’t much. Those defensive walls prevent the honesty needed or any chance of vulnerability or intimacy.

This is why R is uphill both ways.

The foundation is literally burned down to ground.

The how is like any good relationship, it is two people reaching out for the other — but it is a much tougher job to do that unless both people find a way to drop their guard.

Not easy to drop your guard when you don’t trust, and not easy for your wife to drop her guard when she knows she did this to you and yours.

Your wife said yesterday she didn’t want to be treated poorly. Yes she did, that was the A.

Your wife said yesterday she wanted self-respect. No she didn’t, not during the A.

Same with my wife, and I told her my fear was, she LIKED being treated like shit, and I wasn’t going to be able to be as horrible to her as the AP!

But your wife, I think, really wants those things NOW. She has to learn how to earn those things back by being brave and vulnerable FIRST, to give you something, ANYTHING to hold on to.

[This message edited by Oldwounds at 1:57 PM, Wednesday, May 17th]

Regardless, he was grooming her,and your wife expected your child to keep this from you. A child who is apparently struggling. It's appalling.

I hope you are doing better today. Glad you are back.

I asked my daughter if my wife explicitly asked her to keep this from me and my daughter said no. But still, my wife just kind of hoped that I would fail to interact with my daughter for the rest of our lives? And last night my wife said something like “I didn’t try to stop you from talking with her”, as if she deserved some kind of credit for that

And yes, my daughter is struggling. And I am messaging my wife this morning to ask her if it has ever crossed her mind that it is related to POSOM and him triggering abuse trauma. She says she had never considered it. She’s fucking blind, probably willfully.

To everyone: If you can allow me this, set aside the grooming piece for a second and tell me how you’ve been able to recover from D-day 2, or from Trickle Truth atomic bombs. From where I stand right now, I just don’t see it.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 1:56 PM, Wednesday, May 17th]

Yes,people have recovered from dday2,and TT. Usually the BS must do a very hard 180,severe consequences, etc,etc.

Can YOU set the grooming aside? You don't have to answer that here.

Edited to add..thank you,I am better today. I apologize for vomiting all over your thread yesterday. I typically keep my personal issues separate when commenting. I forgot myself for a bit. Oh,and the OW, who follows me here,had some "how to recover from CSA" books overnighted to me. Wonderful surprise this morning.

[This message edited by HellFire at 2:05 PM, Wednesday, May 17th]

Can YOU set the grooming aside? You don't have to answer that here.

Honest answer, I don’t know. I’ve been posting here long enough to feel like I know many of you and I care about what you think. There is some inner dialog in my head of "this is what WBFA would say, and CT would probably advise this, and Hellfire would sure get pissed about x". I’m at such a sensitive spot in my life that I have to be sure that I’m making my own decisions for my own reasons. So at the risk of losing the respect of internet strangers that I’ve come to respect and care for, you included, I might be able to. NO RUGSWEEPING! But maybe, just maybe, a fully remorseful wife and I could find our way back from this. I see like a 1% chance of that. But it’s not zero in my mind.

thank you,I am better today.

I’m glad, genuinely.

I apologize for vomiting all over your thread yesterday. I typically keep my personal issues separate when commenting. I forgot myself for a bit.

No apologies needed. I feel you met the moment.

Oh,and the OW, who follows me here,had some "how to recover from CSA" books overnighted to me. Wonderful surprise this morning.

Fuck. Is allowed on the board for me to tell this person to Fuck Off and get a life? This is the kind of stuff that I fear in my own life.

You’ve just described ... the vast majority of all infidelity.

I'm sorry, I could not disagree with this more strongly. I've not maintained a spreadsheet or such, but at least for my part I've almost never come across an infidelity thread where the AP, in addition to engaging sexually with the WS, also engaged in inappropriate direct messaging with a minor child of the WS. In fact, I've almost never seen a thread where the AP engaged directly (out of presence of a parent) with a minor child of the WS in any way. Occasionally you see threads where the WS played house with the AP, and thus the AP was incidentally in the presence of the kids, but I honestly can't recall a thread where the AP, out of the presence of the WS, engaged in some sort of intercourse with a minor child of the WS.

I honestly can't recall a thread where the AP, out of the presence of the WS, engaged in some sort of intercourse with a minor child of the WS.

To be incredibly clear, there is no evidence or even suspicion of "intercourse" here

INK, I feel like you are going through different stages of grief after yesterday's bomb. You were angry yesterday, now depression and bargaining..

You need to take some time and have some personal space to clear your mind and then come to any decision you want. Right now, your mind, understandably, is all over the place

[This message edited by Lurkingsoul12 at 2:27 PM, Wednesday, May 17th]

I'm sorry, I could not disagree with this more strongly.

Every time someone with kids and starts an A — the health and welfare of the entire family is in danger. Every time. No one really knows their AP and intentions, they only get lucky with how much their kids and family are damaged or not.

The very specific example of IH’s daughter getting texts is horrific, of that there is no doubt.

However, it’s the same shitty lack of judgement every WS has, all of the potential danger is ignored to keep the fantasy rolling — be it unprotected sex or leaving kids in vulnerable places, etc.

Ink. I’m sorry for all of this. From the get go I had predicted that based upon the R course you and your WW were on, and how each of you as individuals were approaching R, that R would not be successful. You were not pleased with what I had said.

However, my prior comments not only still stand, but also ten times more so now in the wake of the recent revelation.

You will find this written on this forum, as well as others, that Love is simply not enough to successfully R. Whether it’s love for your WW or love in the religious context as it pertains to R.

So I will make the same recommendation as before. If you still plan to pursue R, I would remove all of these aspects, including religious conviction, and focus on whether the person before you (the secular person) is capable of proper reconciliation? Plain and simple.

Every time someone with kids and starts an A — the health and welfare of the entire family is in danger. Every time. No one really knows their AP and intentions, they only get lucky with how much their kids and family are damaged or not.

The very specific example of IH’s daughter getting texts is horrific, of that there is no doubt.

However, it’s the same shitty lack of judgement every WS has, all of the potential danger is ignored to keep the fantasy rolling — be it unprotected sex or leaving kids in vulnerable places, etc.

Your point is essentially that this instance is a matter of degree, not character. I understand your point, but I don't agree with it. The private intercourse directly from the AP to the daughter, with the knowledge (and therefore tacit consent) of the WW, that's a horse of a different color in my view. It's a different and special kind of sick, by both the AP and the WW.

Before Dude67 gets anymore warnings about religious content, I just want to weigh in and say that I think what he said here is perfectly in bounds for me.

intercourse

I understand the love part. I loved my XWH very much. It was agonizing to think of losing him. What I understood at the time was that love was as much of a choice as anything else. I couldn't make it disappear on the spot, but I could make choices that would result in the love fading and dying. Time and distance are great tools for defeating a love that hurts you. My rational mind understood that this was not a healthy person to be with, that I loved a figment of my imagination. He wasn't the man I'd fallen in love with. That man wouldn't have behaved like he did, therefore the man I loved clearly wasn't real. Love is a beautiful thing, but it can be a prison. I broke those chains for my own well-being. Love itself isn't a good enough reason to stay.

I think he means interaction?

Your point is essentially that this instance is a matter of degree, not character. I understand your point, but I don't agree with it.

Fair enough. However, in my near 7-years here, and reading way, way too many of these stories, every WS is the worst ever when the details are revealed. Every time I think I have read the worst ever story, I still find myself surprised when people describe the horror show of infidelity.

I don’t see Mrs. IH as worse than my wife’s behavior. I could roll out some details, but I got over a dozen DM’s telling me my wife’s A was the worst they had ever read about, and even more pushback in the regular forums.

Mrs. IH allowing AP to text her kid is really, really, really horrible. No argument there.

That said, for ME, it really is part of the same suspended reason, same bullshit rationalizations that allow the A in the first place. She isn’t extra, extra horrible — just an extension of the amorality that all WS live in during an A — sans logic, or kindness, or empathy or understanding.

Mrs. IH is going to have to own it though.

Whether IH stays or goes, or then she will move into the remorseless WS category and not someone anyone can have a healthy relationship with.

I'm assuming, based on your recent statements, that you're somewhat less resolute about divorce. If not, I'll sit down and shut up. If not, consider this. It may be worth it to follow through with the divorce, or at least the separation, and then see how you feel in a few months. People do re-marry after divorce. You've done the right thing in making her go back to work, so she could take care of herself if need be. Your wife clearly needs a serious wake-up call.

Oldwounds: One of the healing things that comes to me personally from this site is understanding exactly how utterly cliche my Ex's cheating was. I realize that this means I was the victim of a cliche, which could under some points of view make me feel small and irrelevant, but in reality it has neutralized much of the "special victim" sense that I used to feel about this, and replaced with an understanding of how I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, invested in a human who possessed a fairly common set of personality flaws. Ironically, this same growing awareness has led me to view my Ex in a more charitable light than I used to.

Inkulk:

"Intercourse". Communication or dealings between individuals or groups: "everyday social intercourse"

I use that word intentionally. The interaction by the AP toward your daughter was not innocent. He was not, for example, trying to win your kids over in a "I could be your friend" way with the expectation that he might become their step-father when your WW left you for him. He was creepily trying to get into her head.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 3:44 PM, Wednesday, May 17th]