SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Well this sucks. I have recently been diagnosed with thyroid disease. Along with trigeminal neuralgia. Google it. It's not fun.

Our sex life has been in the toilet for the last 6 months or so.

Thanks to a few of the fine men here, I now can figure the reason my WH has stopped being interested in touching me, is because I've put on 15 pounds.

Here I had been thinking it was stress. It never occurred to me that, after 20 years of marriage, a few extra pounds would be an issue. But I guess it is.

That makes me feel like shit. Absolute shit.

However, at least my husband hasn't been hurtful enough to tell me I'm less attractive to him because of my weight, but hey, he likes my smile.

Damn man.

Hugs to your wife.

I actually do highly value many things besides looks and young age.

But my online affairs were with women who were the polar opposite of that, young women who were all about looks, but were lacking in many other important aspects.

So, naturally my wife sees evidence that I truly value only looks and young age. I can understand why she feels that way, with so many similar online cheating examples. I empathize with her, when thinking about my cheating choices.

I may never be able to convince her to believe it, but my cheating choices do not reflect my actual values. My wife has so many of the qualities that I truly value.

[This message edited by GuiltAndShame at 2:13 PM, July 9th (Thursday)]

my cheating choices do not reflect my actual values

I'm calling bullshit on this.... you mean the 'type' of person you chose to cheat with, or the cheating itself? Cuz that's one heckuva nest of snakes to somehow untangle. Again, hate to break it to you, but your "cheating choices" (aka your choice to cheat) really DOES reflect your actual values (or at least your values during the time you were cheating and lying and all the rest).

Or - are you trying to say that the type of person who chose to cheat with doesn't reflect your "actual values" ? An easy response is that the "type" of person you chose to cheat with DOES reflect your actual values to the extent they were Ok messing around with a married man.

And if you want to somehow limit that to the physical type you chose to cheat with not reflecting your actual values, why is this so important to you? What do you gain by holding onto this? And good luck with convincing your BW of this. And another "easy" comeback is can you honestly say that your ego did not get BIG TIME excited thinking about the physical type of those women? That your self talk at that time NEVER included anything along the lines of "man, she is smoking hot and she wants ME. I am one heckuva stud muffin"?

G&S, you want to argue the specifics of the interaction. The problem is that those specifics are not really the problem. Try to see the bigger picture.

I just thought it was a curiosity question, looking for an honest answer.

This says to a BS "I'm tone deaf to your pain". I know it may not feel like that to you. But I do believe that's how it would feel to most BS (again, we are ALWAYS thinking about the A(s) and its impacts).

I suggest you do your damndest to dig deeper than the specific interaction with your BW.

Your responses here have a good dose of defensiveness. Why do you think that is?

why did it not occur to you that this was an odd question from a woman who has been betrayed?

It is possible that you felt like a failure after the fallout? Overwhelmed? Worried that you can do nothing right in this shitshow? (you said "I feel stuck and stupid" )

why are the specifics of the question/answer/fallout the thing that is foremost?

What did you seek to get from your post? Did some of the responses trigger your "stuck & stupid" feelings? Do you experience that as shame?

ETA:

She may never believe it, but my cheating choices do not reflect my actual values.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and take a gander at what I think Zugzwang would say. BULLSHIT. Your cheating choices AT THE TIME absolutely DID reflect your "actual values" AT THAT TIME. To deny that is a complete crock. Your values at the time you were cheating were for shit. On EVERY front, including the "type" of women you pursued, cuz at the time you were cheating, you valued those women (and all aspects of their "type" ), more than you valued your BW or your M.

[This message edited by gmc94 at 2:03 PM, July 9th, 2020 (Thursday)]

G&S,

I'm not offended by your responses, but I think you are getting defensive rather than taking the advice and filtering it. I was actually kind of feeling bad for you as I could see myself tripping into such a dumb ass response as well, but you seem to be not wanting to even acknowledge the damage your BW is dealing with.

She may never believe it, but my cheating choices do not reflect my actual values. My wife has so many of the qualities that I truly value.

There - we have some insight. So you went after women different from your BW. Why was that?

I'm going to share one of my lowest moments related to this issue post-DDay to try and see if you can feel anything imagining your wife in this scenario. I had seen the prostitutes that my XWH had cheated with online. Saw their pictures, saw how young they were. I went into my dresser one night to get underwear on the way to the shower and saw my favorite lingerie in there. I went to my knees just wracked with sobs and ripped that lingerie up. I used to think I looked so damned sexy in that lingerie. All I could think was about how foolish I must have looked to him, my 40-something self, trying to be sexy in that lingerie when he'd just seen and touched 20-year-olds. How old I must have looked. How fat I must have looked. How gross it must have been to touch me after touching them. How it made sense that he had turned me down for sex so much that past year. How useless and worthless I was, past my expiration date.

You may say "but she's attractive and I told her so". She may not be able to hear that right now. I couldn't. I, the same woman who sobbed her heart out about how gross and old she was, managed to hook up with a 26-year-old very attractive man after she left this XWH...said man refused to believe that I was older than 35. I was not gross and old and ugly and fat, but I felt that way because the man I loved had cheated on me with more attractive younger women. This is a massive wound for a woman. It is huge.

I got back down to my teenage and early 20s weight after DDay because I couldn't eat. Joke was on me because thanks to two c-sections, I had extra skin on my belly. And wrinkles around the eyes. I looked better after gaining some back. I couldn't even starve myself into being as attractive as I was in my 20s to compete if I had wanted to compete.

You're coming back with "but I'm not really the kind of guy who values that" when you showed her that you do value that enough to betray her for it. This is not about YOU. This is about HER. Put your defensiveness away because it isn't needed right now. This is about the woman you love suffering this. This is the time for empathy for HER, not for defending yourself and pretending that you aren't the kind of guy who did what you did.

Devastated Dee

Thank you DevastatedDee for providing more explanation. I know that I shit in our sacred space and made her feel undesired and unwanted and unappreciated. I know that I destroyed what we had. I know that I deeply hurt her, and that any time we have together is a gift of generosity from her. I know that she struggles daily with the aftermath and carnage of what I did. I know that I have lots of work to do on myself. It’s all on me, all my fault.

“In a relationship where your spouse cheated with skinnier and younger women, you think ‘Maybe if I fucking starve myself and get $20k of plastic surgery I'll be something he could find attractive.’ You don't feel safe and you don't feel like you are accepted for who you are.”

Thank you for the example. I acknowledge that I did that to my wife, that I made her feel unsafe and unappreciated and unacceptable. All on me. When she asked about skinnier versus overweight, I could have said something like “I know that I have made you feel unappreciated and unsafe and in competition with others, that I shit in our sacred space and betrayed you, and I will always work on never ever doing that again, but in my mind and heart you are not being compared to anyone else, and you are awesome and beautiful just as you are”. I’ll never know if that would have changed the course of events.

That would have been a far better answer.

Any time there is a weight related question it is a loaded question.. there is no correct reply .. telling the truth = hurt feelings ..I have been all over the weight issue .. lost weight before I got married .. gained lots with first pregnancy .. lost that weight .. gained with each successive pregnancy and lost the majority of the weight in between .. my WS prefers thin small busted women .. that has never been me .. I learned that he was cheating when I was a size 6 /7 I was thin .. I am 5’8 “ tall big boned .. I ultimately learned it isn’t about me or my weight size .. he cheated when I was thin and at my heaviest.. His 19 yr Long A - OW a few years younger than me , was a size 8 / 10 , not really attractive average .. but she fed his ego .. told him what he wanted to hear .. she knew the game ..

I have not given you many two by fours but you really arent understanding what it is I am trying to tell you. You are just getting defensive instead.

“I simply would have started by apologizing for it even being a question, knowing that I put it in her mind.”

I did not know that I put that question in her mind. I was not aware of the trigger until much later in the argument.

It is best you assume any insecurity your wife is showing is affair related. Again, the backstory is not the Facebook thing. The backstory is that you have shown her you do not value her by you actions. That you have valued younger skinnier women more than your marriage to her. If you all had a good day and things go south the default response here is it’s affair related and you put her here. That’s not to beat you over the head that’s to say anytime this happens you need to look for what the hurt is and apologize specifically over how your behavior caused it.

I call BS on this. I fully and deeply appreciate my wife in many many ways, and I have told her so, describing all the things I admire about her.

I call bullshit. Your words mean nothing, you may tell her but that isn’t what you have shown her. You have been distracted in your affairs. Had you been present and cherished her then she would feel cherished. I am sure you are now noticing what you almost lost, and I do believe that you see it. But there is a disconnect here in the fact she has grown more attracted to you because she cherished and appreciated you always. That is what causes attraction to deepen. You instead are saying it lessened slightly. Take that in. I am not trying to make it look to land park like you are in remorseful or don’t appreciate her now, I am trying to address why she feels the way she does about why you don’t feel more attracted to her, more in love with her than ever.

“And you need to be able to articulate how your past affair behavior has stunted you and your relationship.”

I have been open and honest about how wrong my past behavior was, and all of the terrible consequences of that behavior, consequences impacting her and our relationship and myself.

But you are failing here on this topic. And it’s okay we all struggle and flounder. If you knew how bad your behavior had effected her you would have assumed that she was triggering and tried to comfort her through that. Subjectively I do think we all know that healthier people do look younger and more attractive, that is not the problem. The problem is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and when you feel deeply about someone and put full effort and attention on them then you appreciate them differently. You see their beauty in its fullest capacity. And the problem

Is by having affairs with younger skinner women you have communicated that you valued that above her security and your marriage.

Just take that in a bit. I understand that there were lots of times I was super defensive but it just meant I was scared. You are scared. But learning to acknowledge these things is part of the process. It’s painful and difficult. We don’t grow in comfort.

Right now its not about lying or the truth, its where you are at in this process, and telling her she put on weight and was not attractive was not the right approach.

In the aftermath of DDay my husband said I told him my AP was much younger than him, and he is by

7 years, but I have no memory of ever saying it, but it hurt him.

Its not what you are saying its the situation you are in, who you are saying it to, and what it feels like to them. I don't say to lie, but have empathy in your thoughts, words and actions. There was a much gentler and kinder reply you could have given.

BH here. I know others have answered this probably better than I but here goes. It is not what you said (your answer), but how you said it. She was looking for validation. Even before knowing about the AP comparison, you can tell this was a validation question. You were truthful, but how could you have answered that better? "On average, I find skinny women more attractive, but you are the exception to the rule. You are far more beautiful than any other woman I know. And as for the POS APs, how can you compare diamonds to Cubic zirconia."? It still is truth but also validates her. I think anyway. I could be wrong.

DevastatedDee - your post brought me to tears. So much that. The feeling of safely growing old with someone is gone once you see how shallow they are at heart.

DevastatedDee - your post brought me to tears. So much that. The feeling of safely growing old with someone is gone once you see how shallow they are at heart.

((Trapped))

I'm not in that scenario now, but I remember it very well.

I think you received some responses that you could have delved into and looked at yourself with, but instead you’ve chosen to get defensive and justify your behaviors. Why ask the questions then? If you’re so “right” and aren’t even bothering to take the time to look into yourself when others provide you some very good feedback that you can use for insight then why bother asking?

Getting stuck on being right and getting defensive will get you no where.

Ya know - I read through all of this. And there is one think that I keep circling back to. And while 2x4s are against guidelines by the mods [good rule] I'm checking myself and only going for the 1x3 [swung softly to remain in guidelines]

I told her that her physical attractiveness is only slightly less than before, because she still has that pretty face and smile and great hair and awesome body that moves so well.

SLIGHTLY LESS THAN BEFORE. Are you fu*king kidding me. That right there steams my "not the same as it was 25+ years ago but still freaking fabulous" ass.

IDGAF what compliments you gave her after that. And even those have the caveat of "still".

You destroyed her with that and each time "slightly less" and "still" replay in her mind you destroy her again and again and again and again.

Please realize this. You didn't just tell the truth to a no win situation type question [I'll agree with others that was a no win type question] BUT you handled it horrifically. What you said to that woman is insulting. You cut her to the quick.

How would you feel is she said that as you aged your [ahem] endowments were only SLIGHTLY less than before but hey - you can still get it done. But don't worry, you still have a handsome face.

Hi G&S,

Thanks for posting here- your thread is helping me process some of the damage I did to my BH with my affair. I affaired down though and my AP is objectively less physically attractive than BH, so I assumed that he wouldn't have body image problems from that. He does nonetheless.

It's hard to balance being honest with being compassionate, and I think it's a skill most everyone has to work to master as well, even without being a wayward. I know my BH has worked really hard in that area himself to be more compassionate and positive in the language he uses toward me. Doesn't help that I'm more linguistically skilled than he is and overly sensitive to nuance to begin with. (Not a downer on BH- I legit have GRE scores in upper 98% in the language portion!) My poor BH was screwed by me in our marriage as I would read too far into EVERYTHING he said. It was on me that I was intentionally looking for something to catch him in and take offense to.

Now I'm learning to ask, "I heard X when you said Y, did you mean X or is there something else you mean?" The exercise is really helpful. It allows me the space to not emotionally react and gives him a chance to clarify without judgement and with information as to where my emotional state is so he doesn't walk into a booby trap (along the lines of your BW's belated trigger reveal). Maybe use that with your BW? As in, "when you asked me X, I heard that you wanted a response along the lines of Y. Did you mean to ask X? What prompted the question, how are you doing with this?" Takes the emotional temperature down and allows her the chance to reflect and be heard without being judged or given an answer she really doesn't want to hear. That allows you both to communicate more openly and not to be hurting each other- you by being bluntly honest and her by trapping you into a complete no win with her own hand grenade of the trigger reveal.

Speaking of BW lobbing their own hand grenades in their pain with regards to this kind of conversation, it's REALLY hard as a WS to really judge where their BS is at a particular moment without prior knowledge of the emotional state of a conversation initiation. I'm getting better at cluing in to when my BH is having a very bad time, but we WS are not mind readers, and for those of us who are legit trying our best, we need to know where your head is at before we can be effective in helping you heal. It's difficult for everyone in these situations to be emotionally vulnerable, but please don't weaponize your triggers and use them to beat up a WS who is legit trying. It is so hard for everyone to have an open and honest conversation when the BS is so hurt and the WS is really seeking to do the right thing.

Please realize this. You didn't just tell the truth to a no win situation type question [I'll agree with others that was a no win type question] BUT you handled it horrifically. What you said to that woman is insulting. You cut her to the quick.

Wow, this thread has been insightful. Look, I get the sense that the answer he gave was how he really felt. As another poster said, we spend all this time on here talking about "honesty" and "transparency" with the BS, that's exactly what he did. I question if that's what we really want though, I know it is what I want, but it seems like other people say "honesty" but really mean "politically correct answer".

However, at least my husband hasn't been hurtful enough to tell me I'm less attractive to him because of my weight, but hey, he likes my smile.

If you don't want the answer, don't ask the question. I don't ask my W if I looked better before I started losing my hair, I know the answer, yes, I did, and I deal with it, but I don't need/want to hear it from her, and I also don't want to put her in a position where the "right" answer is a lie. Of course I was more attractive with more hair, and of course I was more attractive at 6% body fat than the 10 I have now. But if I did ask the question, I would want my wife to answer honestly. She wouldn't/won't, so it's not even worth asking, I know she'll lie, but man, would I respect her and appreciate it if she said something like "6% body fat didn't do much for me, but I do miss your hair" so I know what to focus on and work on. I can get more hair. I can also workout harder. Once you start lying about this stuff, you put the other person in a corner, the only thing to do is assume they are lying about everything and do it all, and that's a fool's errand. Lying is, or SHOULD never be the right answer, ever. And "obscuring" the truth is lying with a fancy name, she asked a question, he answered it; from the sound of it, truthfully. That would go miles upon miles with me.

How would you feel is she said that as you aged your [ahem] endowments were only SLIGHTLY less than before but hey - you can still get it done. But don't worry, you still have a handsome face.

I'd be happy she found my face attractive and thrilled I was with someone who would tell me the truth.

Have you asked her what she finds physically attractive in a man?

Sometimes its good to hear both sides. Maybe it might be a shock to you how she actually feels? If she is brave enough to tell you.

This is a good idea, IMHO. And she might be brave enough to actually tell you because you were honest with her. And it might be a shock, I know it was for me. As my W and I enjoy more sexual activities together, we've started watching porn, and I often ask her if she likes that guy, or that one over there; I want to know so I can share in her fantasy. No, I'm never going to be hung like him, and I'm probably not in as good shape as him, but I'd much rather share the fantasy and have her share her deepest thoughts with me. That, to me, is intimacy, it's sharing the truth, sharing the desires, sharing the hard things to share, the dark thoughts, the scary thoughts and the things you'd never tell another soul. Speaking for myself only, but that's what I want; a real conversation without the PC bullshit and so many masks that you're not even sure who you are anymore.

The hard thing is, this question is just a setup. If I asked my wife "Do you wish I made 10X as much money as I do today" and she answered anything other than "Yes", I'd know she's lying. And answering "yes" means "I'm not a good provider" and "Can't take care of her" and a whole lot of other negative things about me as a person. There's no reason to ask because the choices are "lie" or "hurt me". Neither is a good outcome. It's obvious why she did ask, and, I continue to think you handled it the way that I would want it handled but it's an awful thing you did to her to make her ask this question in the first place. Work on trying to show her she matters the most to you so that she doesn't feel the desire/need to ask these kinds of questions anymore.

That would have been a far better answer.

My goodness, we are all so different. GuiltAndShame, I strongly suggest you listen to the women here because of what I said above; we're just all so different and on this issue, I think they are right and I am wrong. The response you gave would infuriate me, I asked a direct question, I want a direct answer. But I suspect Dee is right, that's what your W wanted to hear. So listen to them, try to be as honest as you can be and when you're not sure, defer and come ask them for help.

The hard thing is, this question is just a setup.

I suspect it was more a cry of pain. You can't separate emotion from this type of question after infidelity.

Which is why it is so much more important to address the emotions at the root of the question.

RIO is right- if she's asking for validation in the first place, there's likely some stepping up that needs to be done in the appreciation/being heard department. That's background to the whole exchange that needs to be addressed over time.

However, in the moment of the actual discussion, it's better for everyone to pause and clarify where the BS's head is at when such a no-win situation is broached. For the WS to understand the BS's mind and emotions and for the BS to understand whether they really just want to pain shop or provide an opportunity to be healed.

Asking in such a manner by the BS what the WS thinks is not productive to R- it just is the BS asking for more pain or a lie. Neither of which are any good for anybody.

Some notes to clarify, in order to help people avoid misunderstanding or assuming:

1 - At the start of the argument (listed below, up to the point where the argument got bad), my wife did NOT ask “Do you think I was more attractive skinnier?”.

2 - Instead, she made it clear that this was affair-related (which many of you have talked about, how the betrayed spouse thinks about and is pained by the affairs daily). She was trying to understand why she felt the way she did.

Her: The fact that you picked younger skinnier women leaves me feeling very poor about myself. You would never have connected with somebody who looked like I do now.

Me: I certainly do not want to make you feel poor about yourself. I love you just the way you are.

Her: That’s not the point though. You chased people you were sexually attracted to. None of them looked like me. Which by default means you only find younger and skinnier sexually attractive.

Me: Attractiveness has to do with more than just body.

Her: You WANTED skinnier and younger. It obviously mattered. How can you say you find me attractive when you admitted that you wouldn’t have given J (one of my remote emotional affair partners) the time of day if you knew she was overweight?

Me: I do find you very attractive for the combination of your body and your spirit / personality.

Her: That’s not my point. You WANTED younger and skinnier. What do you think that says to me? Admit it, you would have never given somebody who was overweight the time of day.

Me: Attraction-wise, yes I find people who are not overweight to be more attractive than people who are. But that makes no difference with how I feel about you.