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That’s a really excellent post Leaving orbit. Wanted to comment as I got a lot out of it as well.

Leavingorbit, thank you for that post. It showed an understanding,kindness, and compassion that was lacking from many of the other wayward's posts on this thread.

mrs walloped , the difference in reasoning does matter. You had you affair because you lacked self esteem and self worth. You choose to be selfish and had an affair despite having a good marriage. You husband wasn't aware of you sleeping with your ap. He didn't get a choice in that matter. You broke your marriage because you didnt care about you marrige or your husband.

Buzzy on the other hand made it aware to his wife what ihe was doing.his wife had a choice in that matter. Secondly his marriage doesn’t even exist since the his wife cheated and he hadnt even committed to reconciliation? If he cheated after agreeing to reconciliation then it would be cheating. So who did he cheat on? He slept with ap to regain his self worth and make himself Known that he is still desirable. You expect him to feel desired and loved from the person who betrayed him in one of the worst ways possible? he could wallow in pity and accept that he got fked in the marriage and the agree to reconciliation or he could heal himself faster and better through validation and sex from others. I would personally choose the latter because its not cheating. And i dont agree with the statement that self worth and being desired comes from within oneself because it feels a 1000x better to hear it And feel it from someone else.

It showed an understanding,kindness, and compassion that was lacking from many of the other wayward's posts on this thread.

I disagree with this, Hellfire. Where was someone unkind to Buzzy? Honestly, the most unkind (though I thought still were true) comments that he got were from BS's.

It seems like to me that mostly all the WS's are trying to say is that cheating isn't going to be a good answer. We know it's not a good answer because we too wish we hadn't made those decisions. I don't think anyone was unkind, he landed in the WS forum because the mods thought that's where he belonged, so we pushed on a few things we would push on with a fellow WS. Mostly, the stand has been that he should be NC with the AP. Do you not agree that should be the case?

Mrs Wallopped, I haven't encouraged it but it wouldn't be a dealbreaker for me if she did it. How can I beg for forgiveness, if I would shun her for doing the same. That said I hope we can reconcile without going through that. It has been going pretty well with IC and MC.

Stop lying. You’re not fooling anyone. You know why your W didn’t want you to go to the coffee shop. You know/knew when she didn’t want to hang around Claire anymore ‘for some reason’. Please. Wayward to wayward (BECAUSE THATS WHAT YOU ARE NOW) at least own that you know why you went to see attractive Claire at the coffee shop that day bc you knew that you had a chance bc of the ‘harmless’ flirting that took place prior. You know the behavior that innocent old you knew nothing about but made your w uncomfortable. Perhaps it is you that initiated this wayward side of your marriage by your (clearly)inappropriate friendship with Claire. just some food for thought.

It was the excuses being put in the same category, that I found so off putting.

Yes, all excuses are crap and justifications. But there is a world of difference between, "He didn't wash dishes enough," and, "my wife spread her legs for several months for another man, I feel emasculated and humiliated."

One excuse reeks of entitlement. The other is saturated with pain.

I saw that it was said to make the point that all excuses are ridiculous. I just found the comparison showed an appalling lack of understanding of the damage an affair causes a BS.

The lack of understanding and compassion was more towards BS,in general. Not necessarily OP. My opinion.

I found leavingorbit's post to be very understanding of the Hell OP is going through. As a madhatter, she gets it, in a way a WS can not. Again,my opinion.

[This message edited by HellFire at 1:51 PM, November 6th (Wednesday)]

Thank you hellfire, you worded it better than me

I begged for marriage help for years. We did counseling. I prayed. I was on a porn addict site like this asking for advice about my H. I was receiving odd charges from porn site payments. I asked to be involved in whatever he was doing with porn! I begged him for anything that was not a sympathy fuck. I got nothing back but ‘later’. I finally asked for a divorce. He told me we couldn’t afford it. The tears, agony and pain in the years leading up to my A... and then I fucked our mutual friend, his best man!!!!

I accepted his advances. It felt wonderful to just be touched. Some. One. Wanted. Me. So, my selfish need for that (even though it was no life I was living before) did not give me just cause For destruction Of decades of friendships.

I stabbed his wife dead in the back, taking all the purity out of her marriage and our friendship. I claim to be all girl power and shit. Some feminist I am obliterating some others woman’s life. It’s about the lowest I could do. Or was the lowest having sex with the love of my life’s best friend? Either way, they’re the same thing...betrayal is betrayal. There are no levels to it. You’ve either been betrayed or not.

If you feel justified in your adultery then ok. You said it put balance back into the universe. Fine. Now go be balanced. Start a new marriage with our Claire, other AP and no more CS.

It was a statement to make a point. It was not an indication of compassion or empathy for a BS.

Yes, all excuses are crap and justifications. But there is a world of difference between, "He didn't wash dishes enough," and, "my wife spread her legs for several months for another man, I feel emasculated and humiliated."

Yes, there is absolutely a world of difference when you’re talking about pain and hurt and emotional destruction. Of course. And if we were talking about the horrible impact cheating has on a person then I would agree with you wholeheartedly. But IMO there is no difference when it comes to justifying cheating. Do I understand why a BS would do that as a reaction to their WS betraying them? Yes. For sure. Would I sympathize and empathize with their pain and the hurt. Yes. Absolutely. Would I understand why they reacted and had an RA? Yes. I would. I’d get it. But would I agree that their WS cheating in some way makes their cheating back okay or is justified? No. No way. That’s the difference.

Buzzy is not talking about his pain. I feel for him. He should be working through his pain. I understand why he had an RA and his motivations. But I haven’t seen anywhere where he said having an RA is wrong because all cheating is wrong. Instead he’s talking about how what his WW did justifies what he did back. Not that he did it because he was in pain but it was the wrong thing to do. He thinks it’s okay. And to me, that means not owning what you did and thinking it’s fine as long as you feel the circumstances justify it. And that’s why I’m calling it out.

I understand that for a WW like me to say all that comes across as hypocritical and sanctimonious which might be very grating to a BS in light of my own actions. I understand that. And I’m sorry if it comes across poorly. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

I can see where you are coming from hellfire, but when Buzzy showed up yesterday it was in General and he basically came across as spreading the idea of an RA cured him. He was a bit of a sensational kind of poster 14 months out from his affair saying "hey this worked for me! and I know it flies in the truth of this forum" That alone raised some issues to me that made me less sensitive than I would have been to another BS. I actually at first thought he was a troll, and he received that sort of reception from many BS over in General.

If buzzy came here and said "I had an RA at 5 weeks past DDAY, and I do feel it helped me. I am now ready to R, and I know that my wife may still have some feelings about this that we should probably at least talk about so we can move forward. I am NC with the AP." I doubt he would have gotten any of what we have said here. We probably would have said "That sucks. I can understand how you were hurting so much and why you latched on to someone else." And, he probably would have gotten some other snippets of good advice. Instead it was more to the effect of "she is going to have to deal with it and I am not quitting my running team so I can go NC with Claire. Too bad for her."

We hear this every day on this site - people are not supposed to cheat under any circumstances. We all do it out of our own perceived pain, and there is no measuring stick for measuring what that is at the point we turned that into entitlement to cheat. So, where do you draw the line? We all see people on here from time to time that we can look at and see how desperate they were in their situation. We still tell them to look at their Whys and go NC with the AP.

I personally understand how the trauma can take the BS into dark places. I have said everywhere, I would understand if my BS did this and would try and R, but I would do so under the conditions that he is NC with the AP. That is where most of the incredulousness is seaping in for the WS over here. How can it be okay for him to stay in contact with the woman who was his wife's friend that he fucked in Seville?

In all reality many BS's go through this and worse and do not cheat. You did not and would not cheat. My H did not and would not cheat. There has to be a root of WS thinking there that should be addressed. You see us as picking on a BS. We see it more as there is some WS thinking at play here 14 months post him having this affair that needs to be debunked to some degree in order for him to be able to successfully move forward in R.

There are certain things he is going to have to do because he did cheat that he would not ever be asked to do had he not. That's just the reality. We are trying to help him to see that, but people see it as we are picking on him for something we ourselves did with less mitigating factors. I am not picking on him, I want him to succeed if he wants this marriage, but in order for him to do this can't be completely rugswept. We can't just pat him on the head and tell him it's okay because that would be doing him a disservice. As long as he is using a double standard in his marriage in which he doesn't have to make some of this right with his wife then we are going to have to give him some 2X4's to see it. Yet, we are being villainized for doing so? I do not understand that at all.

[This message edited by hikingout at 2:55 PM, November 6th (Wednesday)]

Buzzy you say you and your wife are interested in continuing the marriage and going through reconciliation. We've been harping about whether the RA was justified or not, but I want to look at what the future holds.

What steps have you both taken so far? Have you guys been going to counselors? Are you two handling it yourselves? Have the two of you done any reading on the subject?

Mondas, what do you think about the kinds of marriages I described? Those situations? After all, in some of those marriages, while there hasn’t yet been cheating, there have been other forms of abuse... Does that excuse the WS at all in your opinion?

I'm not disagreeing with 99% of what was said to him in this thread. I feel leavingorbit posted in a way that may help him understand. That's all.

And, again, that comment just seemed to minimize and trivialize the pain a BS feels. Not specific to this particular OP, but to betrayed spouses in general.

The statement was said to make a point. I think it missed it's mark.

And, again, that comment just seemed to minimize and trivialize the pain a BS feels. Not specific to this particular OP, but to betrayed spouses in general.

The statement was said to make a point. I think it missed it's mark.

Your statement didn't miss it's mark. I understand what you mean about BS's pain, trauma, shock. They may act in ways that they wouldn't normally and wouldn't again. I agree with that. It's just we are not talking about all BS's, or all BS's that have RA's. We are talking about a man who doesn't feel his wife has a right for him to go NC and seems to still be justifying cheating as okay. That's why he's getting the reaction he is getting because what it is he is posting.

Oh but I do agree, that post was the best one and it did explain a lot of dynamics we were failing to illustrate so effectively.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:32 PM, November 6th (Wednesday)]

Ok, you are right, and I am wrong. For you, the comment didn't miss it's mark. For me as a BS, it did. But my perspective is wrong,and yours is right.

FR, I just wanted to say understand exactly what you went through with your husband's porn addiction. I could have written that post. I'm sorry you had to go through that.

With that, I will leave this thread. I kinda knew before I posted my first comment,how it would be received. There are certain members here who seem to be held in high standards, and disagreeing with even ONE of their comments isn't going to go over well.

Hellfire - I am not sure what you are talking about, I was agreeing with you. I actually don't even know which comment you mean. I have a lot of respect for you as a poster. I am actually a little surprised you aren't on this guy to be NC as well.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:42 PM, November 6th (Wednesday)]

He’s talking about my comment where I used not doing the dishes as a reason to cheat. I did it to illustrate a point that no excuse is good. It wasn’t taken well. That happens I guess. I didn’t mean to offend anyone.

And I do not minimize or trivialize the pain a BS feels. I keep saying, and it keeps being ignored, that understanding, empathizing and sympathizing with a BS’s pain does not mean that you condone using that pain as a justification to cheat. I totally understand why it would happen and would feel for both the BS and the newly betrayed WS and focus on their healing and where they go from there with so much pain and hurt and all the damage that comes from that. But understanding why it would happen and saying it’s justified because of those reasons are different things and I don’t agree with that.

I don’t blame Buzzy for the RA. The AP knew exactly what he was doing, so I don’t feel like she was used. As for people who say he’s not justified — okay, cheating is never justified. But to say he is worse than his WW? I disagree. He was devastated and broken by what she did. His self-esteem was completely shattered. It has been more than two years for me, and I still find myself having conversations in my head with UH’s AP, and I went through a VERY BAD phase where I was making collages comparing our faces and our body parts etc. I WAS DECIMATED and blindsided. His wife knew what he was doing, he didn’t try to conceal it, and she always knew the sheer agony he was in when he went out and had the RA. Everything I have read compares an affair to emotional murder. He wasn’t entirely in his right mind at the time he embarked on his RA, because of the soul-searing pain he was in. His wife did not have that desperate need to restore her self-esteem fuelling her actions. There is nothing more painful than to have the person you love choose to give their heart and body to someone else, when you’ve done nothing but love them fully and wholly, and to the best of your ability. There is nothing that prepares you for the lies and betrayal. He neither lied or hid what he did, and his wife must understand, on some level, why he behaved as he did. To the original betrayed, the question we torment ourselves with continually, is “WHY?” Why and how could our US betray us and hurt us so deeply. His wife, meanwhile, doesn’t have the “why” hanging over her, she cannot say she tried her best and hardest to love him, and she also betrayed him originally. Frankly, my friends have urged me so many times to have an RA to “even the playing field”. They think it’s the only way (at 28 months out) I’m ever going to be able to let go of what he did. It is so deeply unfair, that I was at home watching our babies while he was romancing another woman, experiencing those first flutters of infatuation, had a new first kiss, slept with her while still sleeping with me, all while emotionally distancing himself from me and gaslighting me. His WW didn’t have to suffer through that. For the original unfaithful to compare an RA with what they did feels completely disingenous to me. Was his cheating right? Maybe not. I’m not sure, frankly. But if it gave him the ability to LIVE with what she did, to survive the agony, to feel less emasculated and less like dying, then I don’t blame him. I will tell you there has been nothing in my life to compare this pain to. To have your spouse retaliate with a RA — I still don’t think you reach the same level of pain. I truly don’t.

Mrs. Walloped - Oh, I was defending my own comments, not yours. I thought it was in reference to what I wrote on page 1 as many BS already told me they didn't like that. I got a deeper appreciation why through Hellfire (she's a BW, not a he) and what she said. I just think it's the way this guy is presenting it makes it hard to connect with the idea that he's doing anything but kind of creating propaganda towards why RA's are great and why his WS can't call any shots. I can see how it would be that a BS who isn't acting that way could take it to heart.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:21 PM, November 6th (Wednesday)]