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More than two years out from D-Day I often think where and why did our marriage go so far off the rails? And does that make an affair easier or harder to understand?

We have been good! No lies in ages that I have found, still very communicative (maybe too much lol), affectionate daily and we work as a team so well again. The kids and us just got back from a two week over seas holiday which was amazing and this weekend we are doing a massive ‘spring’ clean where we are working together with no drama.

But it makes me so sad. Why did our marriage go so far off the rails? It’s hard for me sometimes not to think I played some part in pushing my husband away. The time of his affair I really was mean. I didn’t communicate my feelings, I wouldn’t show any affection, I wouldn’t even give him a cuddle let alone have sex. I was so unhappy.

He was also at the time lazy. He wouldn’t go out any where with me if I asked. He showed no interest in doing anything what I would consider fun. He never helped me around the house other than to mow the bloody yard.

So why was I so surprised he did what he did? Why am I surprised he took the affection when thrown in his lap (literally 😂)?

I know he should have communicated with me. I know he could have left before doing this if he was so unhappy. But I also could have. I was also unhappy.

He chose an affair. I chose to run away and do everything on my own, find hobbies, work, friends to help fill a void in my marriage. I don’t think either of these were healthy options.

We clearly both still loved/cared about each (hard concept to believe some days) other because otherwise we both would have agreed to seperate when the affair came out in the air. He begged to stay, he committed to change himself, he read, went to therapy, dumped his AP immediately. So why? Why choose this?

I sometimes wonder if he would have done this if we were happy at the time? Does it actually even matter either way? It’s honestly the question that makes me crazy!!!

Sorry but of a rant on a Saturday night 💚

[This message edited by Webbit at 10:57 AM, Saturday, October 11th]

You were unhappy and tried to make some changes in a positive way.

The difference is you did not cheat.

It sounds as though you are taking some responsibility for his decision to cheat.

When in fact you see that you were putting in 100% effort and he was not.

So no, you were not doing anything wrong or causing HIS "unhappiness". Sadly that is a typical cheater myth or response — ie blaming the betrayed spouse.

FWIW my H tried to tell me he cheated because we were disconnected (his exact words). I responded that HE disconnected from me and I brought up two examples where I would hear him telling stories to his friends or co-workers (that were hilarious) that he never shared with me.

Sorry to dispel your theory - but your being "mean" or whatever is NEVER a hall pass to cheat.

I think a lot about this, too. Your marriage sounds a lot like my marriage before my wife had her affair. That affair is the worst thing that's ever happened to our relationship, but leading up to it, it was in the gutter. We weren't having sex, and I had stopped doing things with her, even when she would ask me to. She felt like she was single and we lived as roommates. We were both miserable, and it seemed like we were in a holding pattern of "you first" for years.

I've stuck to my guns and refused to let her blame me for her bad choices, but I feel a lot of guilt over the state of our relationship and can't help but feel she would never have done it if we were as close as we should have been all those years. As close as we are now. She's completely blossomed under the condition our relationship is in now. I don't think her feelings or attraction for me have ever changed.

We're going on a vacation together starting today for the first time in 7 years. Last night she wrapped her arms around me, started crying and said, "You have no idea how much it means to me that you're coming with me for this trip. I love you SO much. This is all I ever wanted. You're all I ever wanted." We wasted a lot of time being miserable, and part of that was absolutely my fault.

You were unhappy and tried to make some changes in a positive way.

The difference is you did not cheat.

It sounds as though you are taking some responsibility for his decision to cheat.

When in fact you see that you were putting in 100% effort and he was not.

So no, you were not doing anything wrong or causing HIS "unhappiness". Sadly that is a typical cheater myth or response — ie blaming the betrayed spouse.

FWIW my H tried to tell me he cheated because we were disconnected (his exact words). I responded that HE disconnected from me and I brought up two examples where I would hear him telling stories to his friends or co-workers (that were hilarious) that he never shared with me.

Sorry to dispel your theory - but your being "mean" or whatever is NEVER a hall pass to cheat.

I've seen this a million times now, but I know I was absolutely at least 50% at fault, if not more for a lot of our problems. We had a lot of disagreements and I'M the one who withdrew. I'M the one who stopped doing things and going places with her, and she would ask me to. Every time she had to answer the question "Where's your husband?" it was like a knife to the heart for her.

Was she innocent and did nothing wrong? No, but I am the one who pulled back the most. She's not the only one who made some big changes over the last several months, and the way she's responded to me warming up to her has been incredible.

This thread so far has highlighted for me a stark difference in my own betrayal experience: I was still completely invested in this marriage, cooking our dinners - which for me was a new thing - reaching out, affectionately trying to initiate sex I thought we both enjoyed, whereas he would prefer to sleep with his back to me and then get up and disappear into the shower every morning, claiming he couldn't lay in bed too long or his back hurt, etc., and looking back, I see how I was trying to overcome a problem I didn't know lived inside my H.

Then after D-Day (getting a credit card statement showing he had paid $300.00 for some kind of sexual experience the same day he left our bed) I slowly found out how much he had lied to me about his sexual history of going to prostitutes before we married, yet I was still trying to figure out what was so wrong about our sex life that he had that with me one morning before leaving on a business trip and hired a prostitute that night.

You can be doing everything right from your side but your partner has to meet you. No wonder I never could reconnect - there was no connection to begin with, I guess.

This is why I say there are "reasons" and there are "justifications," and those are two different things.

There are aspects of a person’s marital situation that may contribute to their motives for committing infidelity. (Reasons)

There is nothing that makes committing infidelity the morally correct or just course of action to take. (Justifications)

The decision to cheat is a unilateral one on the part of a WS; therefore infidelity is never the BS’s fault, regardless of the circumstances. It may be easier to understand that decision if you care about your spouse’s needs and feel like you failed to meet them, but that does not shift any of the blame for his actions onto you. There are always alternatives to committing infidelity: be patient and try to communicate better, issue an ultimatum, temporarily or permanently separate, etc… but cheating is the wrong choice.

Also, people who are perfectly happy in their marriages cheat just the same as people who are unhappy in their marriages.

I’m glad to hear that your marriage is doing well now. 🧡

I was in the ‘one day he’ll realise’ team. I tried to communicate my needs for years to my H, there would always be an excuse as to why he couldn’t meet them so over the years I learned not to ask, just put up.
He would lap up my attention, my acts of service, my attention and affection and I always freely gave until I didn’t have time to.

In 2019 we bought a fixer upper house, it took 3 years to complete, physically, mentally and financially exhausting. It was my idea, I wanted it and H made me promise to not nag before he said yes to the project, I agreed. The only things original on this house are the bricks, everything else was replaced and we added a 5 meter extension, it was not for the faint of heart and most of the work was done by us and family who are in the trade. I hate this house now.

We were both run down, over worked and exhausted and even though we worked beautifully as a team together I did notice a disconnect at times, I just put it down to tiredness and when I’d ask at times if he was ok he’d say he was tired. I didn’t give him what he was used to getting either, I just didn’t have time, he’s always needed just as much attention and effort as one of the kids but I slacked because I was exhausted too and TBH, I couldn’t be bothered.

Thing is I was in the same exact position as him, I didn’t cheat!. I was tired, stressed, overwhelmed, overworked, and was craving some time for myself badly but I had to keep going, for us, the kids, we had to finish the house and get back to comfort. I was in the same exact marriage and I didn’t cheat. He did.

I often get angry because I remember back then at times feeling so lonely but I never once complained because I promised not to, sometimes now I also have bouts of blaming myself because I took my eye off the ball, my H has always insisted that it had nothing to do with me, I didn’t do or not do anything and any justification he gave himself was lies he told himself but it’s very hard to not blame myself at times and I think that’s normal.

I’ve tried to understand but I can’t and the reason I can’t understand it is because I’d never do it, I think that is what it comes down to. There’s people that would cheat given the chance and then there’s people that wouldn’t, doesn’t matter about the situation blah blah blah they either would or wouldn’t.

"Does have a shitty marriage make it more understandable"?

I found out my wife was a serial cheater decades after the fact. I immediately wanted to know the timeline of her affairs so I could "lay them over the history of our lives". The first 5 years of our marriage were especially rough so I suspected the cheating to fall within that timeframe (I also had suspicions in real-time including catching her in an EA at the time). I was correct, there were multiple affairs during that timeframe. But there were also affairs when our marriage was "OK" or even great. I was baffled and although I thought I could "understand" the affairs when the marriage was shitty, Why did she cheat when everything was great?

As I dug into the timeframe more and we had deep discussions around the affairs, I had an epiphany. She sabotaged the marriage to "justify" her affairs. She can’t just be a cheater. The marriage has to cause her to cheat. Our my shortcomings. She treated me coldly, cut off sex, told me she didn’t love me. Always AFTER cheating or starting an inappropriate relationship. How did I respond? I didn’t do the things she wanted to do or go the places she wanted to go. I spent more time with friends instead of her. It became a "vicious cycle". Meanwhile, women were throwing themselves at me constantly at work (I was GM of a full service restaurant that served alcohol near a large university). But I didn’t cheat.

Someone on another thread here made a quote that resonates for me:

"Reading here on SI, I've come to realize that adultery has very little to do with the quality of a marriage, good or bad. It has mostly to do with the quality of the betrayer."

My wife didn’t cheat because our marriage was shitty. She cheated because she was a shitty person who then made our marriage shitty with her cheating.

[This message edited by ImaChump at 2:17 PM, Saturday, October 11th]

After more than a decade of reading people's stories on SI, I can say with confidence that the state of one's marriage has absolutely nothing at all to do with infidelity. If every single betrayed and wayward spouse reported having a troubled marriage, then I'd be compelled to say that troubled marriages are the reason. That's simply not the case, however. Plenty of betrayed spouses express that they were completely blindsided, believing they had a good marriage, that they were happy, Plenty of wayward spouses have admitted that they had a good marriage, were happy, and had no major issues with their betrayed spouses.

The state of one's marriage is irrelevant. "Needs" being met or unmet is irrelevant. Character is what makes the difference. Character is why people break their vows, why they betray themselves, why they self-destruct in such a spectacular manner, causing so much devastation along the way.

Infidelity is a choice.

ETA: I do not believe that a troubled marriage makes infidelity more understandable. It does, unfortunately, often cause betrayed spouses to blame themselves.

[This message edited by Unhinged at 3:06 PM, Saturday, October 11th]

Unhinged:

ETA: I do not believe that a troubled marriage makes infidelity more understandable. It does, unfortunately, often cause betrayed spouses to blame themselves.

As evidenced above, I still struggle with this. But then I remind myself of this.

Bruce123 wrote:

Thing is I was in the same exact position as him, I didn’t cheat! <...> I was in the same exact marriage and I didn’t cheat. He did.

I was in the same shitty, sexless marriage, had multiple opportunities, and still didn't cheat. I'm a man who had a couple of attractive women throw themselves at me and I didn't cheat. I never so much as even kissed another woman.

ETA: And on top of that I came from a family of cheaters. My father was a serial cheater and when my mother finally got fed up with it, she cheated on my father... with the bass player from his band! If anyone was primed to be unfaithful you'd think it would have been me!

EATA: And my sister is working on her SIXTH marriage! I've only been married to my wife! Over 27 years now...

[This message edited by Pogre at 4:28 PM, Saturday, October 11th]

And does that make an affair easier or harder to understand?

i’ll answer a different question, does it make an affair more or less likely? The answer to that question is definitely. There are a lot of marriage situations that can increase the odds of an affair. For example, cheating among women who are married to military men who go out on deployment, often is way higher than a similar per group. Either military men are really bad at picking spouses, or the situation has an impact. Does it guarantee it, or does it cause it? No, but it does increase the odds.

Back to your question of whether it makes it easier or harder to understand, I think the answer is no. That is because I don’t think affairs are actually that hard to understand.

If every single betrayed and wayward spouse reported having a troubled marriage, then I'd be compelled to say that troubled marriages are the reason.

I agree with this logic, however, it only means that not every instance was due to a troubled marriage. Couldn't it also follow that there may be some cases where it is?

due to a troubled marriage

There are (at least) two ingredients; character and situation. Both on a continuum. Some people’s character guarantees they will never cheat. Some people’s character guarantees they’re going to cheat no matter what.

There’s a big middle ground, where the situation has an impact, where some are tested and fail.

I agree with this logic, however, it only means that not every instance was due to a troubled marriage. Couldn't it also follow that there may be some cases where it is?

I think every relationship has troubles. Troubles clearly erode connection between two people, but if the issues are 10 percent on one spouse, 50 percent or 95 percent — there are a myriad of responses to address those issues.

Most of the other choices to address troubles in a relationship don’t include adding someone else to the M.

Choosing to cheat is a series of calculated decisions.

Marriage can’t cause someone to MAKE that specific choice.

Interesting ... 'understandable'? I can understand a person thinking that cheating is justifiable if they think their M is shitty. It's beyond common for people to blame their environment for their unhappiness.

But the BS was in the same M an didn't cheat. Many WSes realize on or before d-day that they fucked up because of weakness in themselves, not in their Ms.

I am concerned with healing from being betrayed. IME, and therefore IMO, understanding the whys in themselves does nothing for healing. Actually, IME and IMO, understanding slows healing down.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 5:11 PM, Saturday, October 11th]

I agree with this logic, however, it only means that not every instance was due to a troubled marriage. Couldn't it also follow that there may be some cases where it is?

No, I don't think so. A troubled marriage is an excuse and nothing more. Blaming a betrayed spouse, the state of the marriage, unmet "needs," and every other bullshit excuse, may be used to justify, in their minds, infidelity, but it doesn't change the fact that infidelity is a personal choice and 100% the wayward spouse's fault.

Well said, HouseOfPlane.

I think it’s important for WSs to be able to express "This is what I was experiencing and feeling in my M at the time" as part of the process for recognizing their whys. Sometimes those feelings and experiences can trigger something in a WS that allows them to betray their own values and commitment, and it can be helpful to recognize when one finds themselves feeling or experiencing similar things in the future. It’s only the tip of the iceberg of course, but if, for example, I’m cognizant that in the past, any time I felt abandoned by my H and had needs which went unmet -> then I was susceptible to the advances of others and prone to poor decision making; so then the next time I feel abandoned or that I have unmet needs, I can be on guard against those things which lead to infidelity, be proactive, and make better choices.

It’s always tricky to examine or talk about without it sounding like or turning into blame shifting to the BS, though. We have to remember: both parties are responsible for understanding and fixing any marital issues together; WSs (and tempted spouses) are solely responsible for understanding and fixing themselves and preventing future infidelities.

[This message edited by DayByDay96 at 5:34 PM, Saturday, October 11th]

I like DayByDay96's approach - it can make cheating more understandable, and it can provide a way for the WS (consciously or subconsciously) to justify the cheating to themself. It doesn't in any shift blame to the BS, and while the BS can choose to do things differently after dday, it's really the WS who needs to change something inside, because quite often the marriage is crap after the affair starts, and the BS suffers without cheating.

In my case, our marriage had always been pretty great. Around the time of the affair, I was in perimenopause and our sex life was a bit lackluster, I'd moved out of the bedroom because WS snored really badly (you could hear him through the walls!), and he was having a rough time in a bad job. He used that to justify the affair to himself. After dday1, when all this came out, it was good motivation for me to R because I could "understand" why he felt that way. After dday4, when he confessed his EA from 10 years earlier, I was like WFT? None of the "reasons" from the LTA were present back then. He had no justification for that one.

DDay4 convinced me that neither my behavior nor the state of the marriage had anything to do with his cheating, and after that, it was a lot harder for me to want to reconcile with him because the way my brain's logic went, we could rebuild and have an amazing relationship 10 years in the future, and he might cheat again anyway! There was no predicting it and no preventing it.

So yeah, I think if you can point to factors that both of you agree contributed to your WS's justifications, and then you both work to get rid of those, it can provide a sense of safety for the BS.

[This message edited by NoThanksForTheMemories at 10:50 PM, Saturday, October 11th]