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Why would a WS cross a boundary again if they ‘truly’ love their BS with the outcome being divorce if said boundary is crossed?

And also, why delete texts/calls

Because they think they can get away with it, that's the only thing I can think of. Countrygirl10, your WS isn't remorseful they probably thought they were in the clear, that they could just rugsweep this and move on with no real desire to change. I'm sorry (Countrygirl10)

Countrygirl10 - It is what I call the Scooby Doo defense. "I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids"

Rut Roh.

Chaos, I've been putting your story together in bits and pieces. Do I understand correctly that your DD found these explicit photos of your WH and AP, you confronted him, and the affair continued anyway? He got back in bed with her while your entire family was processing that trauma?

If so, I have nothing to offer that can help understand your WH. Even as a WW, I just can't even imagine what he was thinking.

((Chaos))

Yes, BSR, this is it in a nutshell.

I'm so sorry to hear that. I'm a living example of the selfishness of compartmentalization and denial, so I'm in no position to judge anyone, but to continue that behavior after being laid bare (literally) to his child ... that just blows my mind.

What do you do when you get “tired” of doing the work?

Do you ever get angry or frustrated from dealing with the aftermath of the A? How do you deal with it? Do you blame you BS?

My WH has been working on being a better man and H. It isn’t easy and he is struggling with a lot of FOO. He reaches these points when he gets overwhelmed from the weight of everything and gets tired of dealing with it. (I think we all do)

But what I don’t understand is the anger that comes with it. He says he isn’t angry with me but it certainly feels like it’s being projected onto me. I don’t know what to make of it.

Is this him trying to rugsweep or avoid/ not want to really do the work to change? Or is he genuinely overwhelmed by the weight of it all and the process? I can’t tell but it makes me nervous that he is just faking it on the surface while resisting change on the inside.

How to Help a Friend Deep in Wayward Denial

Long story short, (I'm trying to be vague, because this isn't my story, I don't want to betray my friend's trust, but I'm struggling with how to proceed) I recently found out that one of my best's friend's relationships began as a revenge/exit affair.

Now she's been dating the AP for years and is at an age where her biological clock is ticking loudly and she wants marriage and (more) children. All of a sudden, the OM is coming up with all these practical, rational reasons why now's not the right time to propose.

Our friends, who aren't aware (I wasn't either, until recently) that their relationship began when she was still married to her serial cheating XH, are agreeing with her and basically advising her that she needs to push him for a proposal.

My friend, who I would normally describe as a very intelligent, reasonable, hard working person, is falling back on the narrative that they're star-crossed lovers, who have fought insurmountable odds (aka she needed to divorce her husband), so practical reasons shouldn't matter, love conquers all!

While the practical reasons are very reasonable, I also suspect that the OM never had any intention of marrying her and becoming a stepdad to her other kids. To further complicate matters, the majority of time spent together was when her XH had the kids, and her LTBF has actually spent very little time around her kids and/or in any sort of a training-to-be-a-stepdad-role. They've met and spent time together, but only a handful of times.

She's asked me for advice, now that I have the full story. I tried to be empathetic, but I also told her that (statistically speaking) the majority of relationships that begin as affairs fail, and that second marriages are more likely to end in divorce than first marriages. Obviously this isn't the advice she wants to hear, and it doesn't help that everyone else is chiming in that after all their years of dating, the next logical step is for marriage + babies.

I think since they have been together for a few years, she doesn't consider it an affair anymore, but I don't think she realizes that doesn't matter, or that she never really took time to heal from her first marriage as a BS/MH.

Anyways, I'm not sure how to handle this situation. I love her and her children dearly. She was a huge support during my WH's A. And I really want what's best for her. But I'm not sure how to help her when 1. she doesn't see her wayward behavior, 2. everyone else is feeding into it since they don't have the full story (and I don't want to betray her trust and chime in with additional details that only I have), and 3. I'm trying not to judge her because I love her, but I think she's going about this all wrong and she and her kids are going to get burned by her unrealistic "love conquers all" attitude.

Butterfly

I can certainly relate to feelings of anger. At least in my case, I am trying to modify behaviors that have been with me for over 40 years. Change is very hard for people in normal situations, infidelity certainly adds another layer of crap. In a way, it would be easier to give up and let the chips fall where they may. This whole experience has been one of the most agonizing things I’ve ever had to endure. When the weight of all of it becomes especially heavy, I become depressed and angry and can sometimes lash out.

But I’m not willing to give up. My wife and child are worth fighting for and by extension, so am I.

What does your guy say? Are you seeing improvement in his overall behavior towards you, your children, your marriage and himself? If you can honestly say yes, I would say to relax a little. Give him a little leeway.

Bonnie

I think you owe your friend an honest and frank discussion on your feelings about her situation. Other than that, IMO there is not much else you can do. Unfortunately, she is an adult free to do as she sees fit. If she is hell bent on hitching her ride to this guy, you’re really powerless to stop it.

What you can do is be there to support her when her dumpster fire of a relationship collapses. I get a sense that you’ll do that anyway because that’s what good friends do.

ibonnie, I think someone who doesn't want to see reality will persist in not seeing reality despite all sorts of evidence that seems hard/impossible to ignore.

You could open the door with probing question - "so why do you think he doesn't want to marry you since your biological clock is ticking?" and after she answers "does that make sense to you?" - but you can't make her walk through it. I suppose one way to listen to the rationalizations she'll offer is to be curious and interested in how the mind can work its way around reality, when it wants to.

And I agree with FF, just be a good friend and shoulder to cry on when things don't go her way. I'm glad she was a good friend to you.

ButterflyBeauty, I haven't exactly felt overwhelmed and I don't get angry. But it can be hard and sometimes I feel quite defeated and worthless. The hard times are when I find myself in the middle of hiding something, or lying, and I have to own up to it with my husband again. Usually it's about trivial stuff, sometimes it's about something disturbing that happened before we were together, but I'm making it a habit to own up, and I end up feeling a bit more lighthearted but also like a naughty child and I really hate that feeling. The defeated and worthless times, sometimes it's situational and I have to something to work out that's being cued by the location or an event. And sometimes I don't know what it is so I try to just put one foot in front of the other with an eye on the day ending, and those days usually go away by the morning.

If he is processing a lot of FOO issues the angry might be a sense of helplessness when he is facing stuff that he'd rather not look at.

What is the thrill of having your AP in your home/marital bed? WH and AP never met, but reading messages between them about having her to the house while I was going to be out of town and reading how "Fucking hot" it would be to have sex in "our bed" blow my mind. I don't get the attraction. When I ask WH, well he doesn't know know what he was thinking during his A.

Thank you FF4152 and Pippin for your honesty and response.

I can see from that perspective how him being angry or lashing out may not have anything to do with me and doesn’t necessarily mean he is reverting back to his “old mindset or behaviors”.

My WH has struggled with depression and expressed that he has a hard time managing the guilt and shame. Pippin, he has also mentioned that dealing with his FOO issues are something he doesn’t want to look at or deal with because it is so hard. But he is working on it. He is learning to understand the effects his FOO had on him to help him change.

I am trying to understand this is a process and takes time.

FF4152 I do see improvements in him and I believe he has the desire to change. I get scared when I see him fall back into the selfish mentality/ behaviors that allowed him to destroy our M and betray me so badly. I know there are no guarantees in R but they are red flags to me and really hinder our progress.

Thank you both again for sharing your insight

Provided that WWs found AP more attractive to start an affair and risked your future with your spouse, There is nothing makes a spouse better than AP all over again. What is the rationale to stay back with a spouse. Would a WW be making the same decision to R If social morality and money is not a decision making factor and AP is available to have a life with WW.

Would a WW be making the same decision to R If social morality and money is not a decision making factor and AP is available to have a life with WW.

Well, that was exactly my situation. I wasn't married to my BBF, we had no shared finances or legal obligations, and OM wanted me to stay with him. I stayed with BBF (now my H) because he was a better man and I loved him much more. Thank God, he gave me a second chance to prove it.

So why did I cheat with a lesser man? Because OM gave me cheap validation, eventually bordering on worship, that filled holes in my broken self. I wish more than I can say that I had addressed those holes in therapy, and done a better job of conveying my healthier needs to BBF, instead of cheating. The A wasn't a real connection with a person who knew me authentically, but it was highly seductive to have someone tell me constantly how amazing I was. I craved that even as I realized that OM had some flaws that would have made a long term relationship between us a toxic failure. As his limerence faded, he would have realized that I was flawed too, and losing that worship would have made me a domineering shrew as I tried to get it back.

It's definitely possible, even probable, that your WW is staying because she finds you more attractive and loves you more than her AP. Hopefully, she will be grateful for the second chance and draw on that love and gratitude to really do the work.

AbRamK-

What BSR said. I think your initial assumption on genesis of A might be off track. Was that what your WS told you was the case? Even if so, with the time and effort to decipher the Whys your WS will arrive at the same self-gratifying tendencies that BSR provided.

It sounds like you are going to have a lot of trouble believing your WS if he/she tells you they’re in it because they still love you and find you remarkable and attractive- Likely remarkably attractive. I can only imagine how hard that is to believe given the evidence you have to the contrary. As such, I think the answer is going to be time and self-healing. Loving yourself in spite of the grenade thrown in your lap and arriving at either

1) Believing a remorseful WS who demonstrates empathy and repair (and their own self-healing)

2) The strength to move on when WS proves otherwise.

Bottom line is WSs deceive themselves as a habit and so might have a hard time deciphering their own actions/thoughts in betraying who they believe themselves to be. Might be some time before the truth surfaces.

My WH husband said he hadn't been happy in a while (note he worked overseas for 1.5 years, during which time he had a 3 month PA), that he loves me but isnt IN love with me. He is continuing to stand by that statement, and only today text "love you too" back to me... the first time since DDay. His actions do not say he isnt in love with me. He has given up his free time for family time. He has done activities that I enjoy. He holds me, kisses me, hugs me. Touches me when I walk by. All the things like the first few years.

My question is... is he really not IN love with me, or is he justifying cheating in his own head? We really had a great marriage until he went away and got a taste of freedom.. no kids, no wife, no house to deal with...

AbRamK -

Provided that WWs found AP more attractive to start an affair and risked your future with your spouse, There is nothing makes a spouse better than AP all over again. What is the rationale to stay back with a spouse. Would a WW be making the same decision to R If social morality and money is not a decision making factor and AP is available to have a life with WW.

The WW’s thinking may change dramatically, and that makes all the difference. She may see the AP not in a reality-obscuring fog, but for the lying, using adulterer that he was during their interactions. She may let go of whatever resentment built up around her spouse and see him for the man that she chose to marry and live with through life’s ups and downs. She may come to understand the pain that her affair caused her spouse and want badly to give relief and reassurance. She may see in herself both the things that need to change and the person she wants to become. And she may imagine or catch glimpses of the marriage that she wants to work hard to have, even if they only come very briefly at first. Her change in thinking, and subsequent changes in feeling, may make all the difference, and easily outweigh any other factor (money, morality, social mores) even if the AP and the spouse are exactly the same people as they were before and after the affair.

None of that is guaranteed. I would think it is very important to assess how much the WW’s thinking is changing, how much she wants it to change, and how consistently she is working on changing.

Be well AbRamK, I'm sorry you're here, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to help.

SadieMae -

What is the thrill of having your AP in your home/marital bed?

The AP was in my and my husband's home, in our bedroom and bed. For me it was a spur of the moment decision, not planned, and happened there because it's where I was at the time. I didn't think of my husband at all when it was happening and didn't realize until much later what the significance of that place would be. Perhaps I would have more guarded in unfamiliar surroundings.

If I am reading between the lines, it sounds like you think that your husband got an additional thrill *because* your home/marital bed was the location that hurt you the most. I think typical wayward thinking would have compartmentalized you completely out of the affair. In typical wayward thinking the consequences are minimized or ignored. So the idea of having her in his bed might be something about her being easily accessible or something easy to fantasize about, in a familiar place. The other way of thinking - to use the affair to maximize your suffering - doesn't make sense to me unless he's a sociopath and gets a thrill specifically out of hurting you. Not to minimize your suffering, but I doubt that's what he was thinking about when he said that.

Be well, and thank you for offering me the chance to help. Restoration to the OBS is not going to happen apart from leaving her and her family alone, so restoration by proxy on SI is what I've got until I come up with something else.

[This message edited by Pippin at 6:36 PM, July 2nd (Tuesday)]

Edit: duplicate

[This message edited by Pippin at 6:57 PM, July 2nd (Tuesday)]