SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm the BS. The mind movies are similar to nightmares, only you're awake and there's a possibility that it's true.

At one point my mind movies were so bad that it felt like I was having out of body experiences. Mind movies hijacked my brain and my literal reality.

Reality, this physical world, would evaporate. There would be *nothing* except the mind movie- either the mind movie itself, or the mind movie and my response to the mind movie- a paralyzed horror, feeling like I should know what to do about something so wrong. I should know how to respond, I should know what emergency procedures to implement, but I had absolutely no idea what the appropriate response might be.

I had no tools in my toolbox, other than RUUUUUN!!!

I COULD BARELY BREATHE.

Deer in the headlights is an understatement.

I realized that I was slipping into The Twilight Zone, i.e. this ain't normal.

I had to be very careful while driving alone for any distance, especially on uncrowded roads without a lot of interruptions or distractions. I'd ruminate endlessly and that was a set up for mind movies. I tried books on CDs. I tried all sorts of music. I tried talk radio. I tried REALLY BAD TALK RADIO. Think Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern and Oprah and Eminen and The Beastie Boys and Q from Star Trek and Salvador Dali got together, had a love child and and then they all gifted him/her/them/it with a talk show. And a skate board. And a bowling alley. And a kitten.

Didn't help.

I'd still find myself ruminating- which, per above, could morph into mind movies like nothing else.

One afternoon after such a road trip, I slipped into a mind movie while backing down our driveway. While staring into my rear view mirror, I backed straight into one of our other vehicles, in broad daylight. Said vehicle was clearly visible and large and in charge right in my rear view mirror. Only, it wasn't. I was watching my mind movie.

I hit the other vehicle hard enough to cause damage.

My husband happened to pull into the driveway right after me. I was a zombie. I remember him looking at the vehicles and looking at me. I remember distinctly the look on his face, like he realized that I was not right.

I just turned and walked into the house.

I literally do not remember the rest of that evening.

I was at my therapist's office bright and early the next morning. I was really concerned that I was no longer safe.

I halfway expected to be institutionalized for the public's safety (catastrophic thinking, I know, but what the hell if that had happened in a parking lot? if I'd backed into a person?) or at least medicated.

We talked it out, THE THERAPIST TOOK A LOT OF NOTES, which kinda freaked me out. I started casing the place for any evidence of a straight jacket, LOL.

He asked me if this had happened before (no) and he pointed out that I had 'spaced out' on familiar territory, our driveway.

I'd spent more that four hours by myself in the car that day, on the road in various driving conditions and on all types of roads and in all kinds traffic, ruminating the entire time.

I didn't let myself 'drift' until I was literally backing down our driveway.

He didn't feel like I was a risk, but we both agreed if anything remotely like that happened again, I'd be on the phone with him stat.

I never did anything like that again.

I was, however, deliberately mindful behind the wheel, around open flame and sharp objects, etc.

The mind movies continued, and they were brutal, but I had a damned good incentive not to let the mind movies fully hijack my brain.

Eventually, without EMDR or medication, the mind movies subsided. I can 'create' a mind movie if I want, even right this moment. I can recall the most prevalent mind movies from that time and I can replay them, but miracle of miracles, however I manifest them, they no longer elicit an emotional response.

For me it just took time, and a reliable sense that my husband was 'getting it,' not rug sweeping, not minimizing, and was addressing the dysfunctions that led us to that place in the beginning.

I probably should have had EMDR or more intensive therapy, and perhaps even medication.

But, they did eventually subside and they did eventually lose their power over me.

"...and have zero fond memories of some of the sexual things they did." ?

This was really, really, really hard for me.

I'm not sure I've ever accepted it, not fully.

How could someone get so mentally and physically turned on such that they are pulled over that bright line of physical infidelity, and they are enjoying the experience and the sensation so much that they facilitate it and prolong it and stay in it for a while...

... and then when the stimulation stops,

BAM! a switch gets flipped, reality dawns, all of the sudden they feel terrible guilt and shame and it's not a turn on anymore. It's a turn off. It's disgusting. Etc. How does that work?

I just don't know how that works.

Eventually, I simply kind of stopped caring. I stopped trying to figure it out. I guess I stopped identifying it as a threat.

Yes, my husband got curious (he says that it began with curiosity) and then, when the physical contact started (early on) he got so aroused so quickly that all higher brain functions left the building. His higher brain functions didn't get traction until he was offered a sex act that stunned him and, in that it was actually offered, and in such a matter of fact, crass manner, actually kinda freaked him out. Like, it was a sudden, abrupt news flash about where he was, what he was doing, what's really going on here.

Even at that it took a bit for his higher brain functions and conscience to get back online. The physical fun stopped escalating but it didn't cease immediately. It took a bit for him to come down from that high.

Anyway.

I've never been a person who has wanted to own another person's, any other person's, arousal.

A variety of things, people, experiences, stimuli turn me on. I assume this is the same for everyone.

I have never believed that our vow literally said, "You are the only person in the world that turns me on."

So, eventually, it was easier for me to sort out NOT being upset about Husband getting aroused.

What initially threatened me was that apparently, he was so aroused by her that he stepped over that line. And then he stayed there for a while. Because, her.

That *was* threatening to me. I definitely took it personally. I was convinced that she had something I did not, and at this age, that I'm not bloody likely to obtain or achieve whatever that was/is. And, I didn't have way back then either. :(

Eventually, with a lot of help from Husband, and from my therapist, and time sitting with myself, and with the whole of my life experience, and with the whole of my own sexual experience both with and without Husband,

I was able to sort out that this incident wasn't all about his degree of arousal.

It was also about availability, and 'a sales pitch,' and adrenaline (I've discussed that before on SI, how adrenaline makes all experiences more vivid) and novelty, etc. etc.

She wasn't some super human source of arousal or stimulus. She wasn't so perfectly his type that she completely cancelled me. She was simply available and she had incentive. The situation itself easily created as much if not more 'pull' than she did.

One might as well pit one's personal attractiveness against the lights and opportunity and rush and novelty of Vegas, with easily available sex on top.

We've talked about this a lot on SI, how a meat and potatoes committed, stable relationship with all of its sturdy, consistent weightiness cannot compete with the ephemeral tease, the calliope siren call and the cheap thrill of the ice cream truck that is an illicit involvement.

It did help me to finally get to a place where, within what were actually some rather large parameters, that woman could have almost literally been any body.

In all fairness, Hubs has said that from the very beginning.

It wasn't 'her,' it was much more the situation.

I can easily see how that is likely true for a huge, huge swath of infidelity, likely most of it.

The people committing infidelity are working out some dysfunction through this specific venue, through this particular mechanism. Likely the AP could have been, within very broad parameters, literally any body.

Anyway, I finally stopped staring at the arousal aspect of it. Of course my husband was aroused. That in and of itself was not the problem, and quite bluntly, not my business. I do not own his arousal. His very essence and what makes him feel alive are his own.

Moreover, he was not so aroused that he lost his mind that night, that he lost total control. It was not all about his arousal. That was only part of the equation.

LOL, in fact, if he's ever been so aroused and so engaged that he lost control, that prize firmly belongs to me. I got a ring and a lifetime vow out of him. LOL. Didn't Meatloaf write a song about that???

No, at that point, the permissions of the situation took over, and his lack of boundaries and protections around the marriage and his absence of empathy for me took over- a concept that we've discussed on SI as a basis for much infidelity.

In fact, it is literally just this moment occurring to me that a HUGE part of his narrative at that time, and his father's narrative for as long as I've known the In Laws, is that 'the marriage stuff' belongs to the wife.

Keeping that shit together and in a sock and within boundaries and parameters belongs to The Wife, to the XO (the executive officer, the second in command.)

The Captain has much, much more important things to do.

And sometimes, The Captain has needs a little recreation.

I do not believe that my husband embraced and was emulating this complete narrative, that he was owed some 'shore leave.'

But I do believe that in this and in many ways, he has assigned 'the marriage' to me.

And in my codependency, I was bringing it.

I was bringing it so well that both of us stopped thinking about it.

And Husband literally forgot, or never realized, that he was responsible for marital boundaries too. He was just as responsible for protecting the marriage as I was, only, he'd assigned that function to me.

It was absence of boundaries much more than any specific person, or body, or body type.

The AP isn't special, the AP is available.

At this juncture the problem boils down to the permissions that the wayward gives himself/herself, and why,

... which is actually the crux of the problem.

[This message edited by marriageredux959 at 6:06 PM, March 25th (Thursday)]

I think for me one of the things that would help the BS with ending the mind movies would be the willingness of the WS to explain in detail what it was in the relationship that shifted their thinking, commitment and desires to someone other than their spouse. Not blaming them, but honestly explaining that moment in time when they said “I quit you to the BS and I chose you to the AP, and this is why I shifting my reality.”

I can see where in terms of reconciliation that this would be valuable insight. I did get this from my EX wife. It helped me understand her mindset and how she could do something that neither myself, her, or anyone who knows her would ever let her have an affair. Especially the kind of affair she had which was so out of character.

What it didn’t do however was alleviate my mind movies at all. Knowing why she did it didn’t take away the images of her on all fours, my imagining the grunts and moans, and the smiles of satisfaction when they were done. Even the thoughts of him cleaning up in my shower and using my towel makes my stomach turn as much today as it did a week after.

I have been persuaded that some WS look back at sex acts now with disgust (I guess even I can grow), but I remain convinced that if it were a LTA, or as in our case, a lot of sex, that at the time the acts itself were pleasurable. Knowing why they did this, doesn’t alter these images at all.

I think the best case for most is time and a healthy sex life after the affair to replace the images. Those however were not in the cards for us.

I have been persuaded that some WS look back at sex acts now with disgust (I guess even I can grow), but I remain convinced that if it were a LTA, or as in our case, a lot of sex, that at the time the acts itself were pleasurable. Knowing why they did this, doesn’t alter these images at all.

My wife had a LTA (three years). She swears the sex was mostly disappointing owing to her guilt, his selfishness, and his supposed habit of finishing quickly. I do believe she looks back with disgust at what she did.

I tend to believe she had a far better time fucking him than she admits, but also that she feels disgusted by it now. Kinda like how I feel after I crush a pint of Chunky Monkey. I knew I shouldn’t have done it. I feel terrible having done it. But I licked that fucking spoon with gusto down to the fucking bottom of that container and wanted more when it was gone.

I have been persuaded that some WS look back at sex acts now with disgust (I guess even I can grow), but I remain convinced that if it were a LTA, or as in our case, a lot of sex, that at the time the acts itself were pleasurable. Knowing why they did this, doesn’t alter these images at all

.

I am going to share some insight here that might not be true of your wife, but it's true for me and many other WS's that I have talked with both on and off this site.

Sexual abuse is the wild card here. Women who were sexuallly abused as a minor are often pretty much groomed to accept their sexuality and male attention are synonymous. I truly based a lot of my worth to a male partner on my performance, their response, etc.

I am not here to say that noone ever enjoys the sex, that would be ridicuous. But, I think that many men do not understand how much focus is put on female sexuality and that effect on our worth.

Thus, even in a very long term affair, that sexual attention she is receiving from the male is the main attraction. It sounds very weird to men especially who really have never been groomed to believe that or experiencing that.

I will give you another example. It's why I did the swinging when H and I were dating. I would say we did this for a full two years (I can't remember exactly) and in that time, I never had one single orgasm. I liked the afterwards time with him by ourselves when we were back at home in our bed. At that time I think I was still trying to "win" my H, as he had expressed he didn't want to marry again, but I did. I look back and am sad for that young woman for being so completely oblivious of what motivated so many of her behaviors.

I know that I did it, allowed myself to be exploited by others sexually in a skewed way of impressing him. Being the "cool wife" who went to strip clubs, parties, etc. Sexual abuse really skews the importance of sex for women (maybe men, but I haven't talked to that many to understand that aspect) to the point it's almost synonymous with their self worth.

When I had my affair, the sex wasn't awful. I enjoyed it. But, not for the reasons he did, or the way that most people might look at why sex is enjoyable. I enjoyed it because it was my opportunity to prove myself, and a sick way of feeling my worth. I wanted to "win" him so I could feel "special", and that's the mechanism I was using. I wanted his full attention. Those things were so intertwined that it mattered none that I also didn't climax in that situation.

It could have easily led to a LTA, for sure. Maybe you are right the sex might have gotten better, but I don't think so. There wasn't anything mechanically wrong with it. I think the entire time I would have been focused on my own performance and as long as that was the case I would have been in my head thinking of ways to make myself seem cooler, sexier, more appealing. Generally speaking, I would say that's what makes it GREAT with my husband. Not really the mechanics - but that I can leave that space in my head and be me. I can focus on the sensations and what feels good, and not worry about how it looks or whether or not I can win him. That seems like an insult to him, because it sounds like I don't woo him, but I do my share of that too. I just don't feel I need to manipulate him and that's the difference to me between affair sex and regular relationship sex.

I have noticed over time that I have been here that there are some BW's who will chime in and say "yes, I tried to be the cool wife too" and could trace it to their own SA experience. But, out of the WW's who post here the MAJORITY fall into the sexually abused category. I don't think that's what made the decision at all, I am not blaming anything on that. But, I do believe that it contributed to my ability to ignore a lot of things and to allow him to use me as well. It was a dynamic I was used to, but I could not have even articulated that was what was going on at the time. Hard to believe that out of a middle aged woman but SA is trauma, and not dealt with leaves openings for trauma bonding, propensity for codependency, and a host of other things. I can trace a lot of my motivations and behaviors with the opposite sex to things I learned by being sexually abused.

The level of abusive ways your wife's AP treated her, Waitedtoolong, makes me wonder if your wife had SA in her history. It would explain why she permitted many of the humiliating things the AP did. I know that doens't help our mind movies, but giving you some food for thought.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:32 PM, March 23rd (Tuesday)]

Sexual abuse is the wild card here. Women who were sexuallly abused as a minor are often pretty much groomed to accept their sexuality and male attention are synonymous. I truly based a lot of my worth to a male partner on my performance, their response, etc.

Bolding mine. I find this to be particularly, personally true.

I am not here to say that noone ever enjoys the sex, that would be ridicuous. But, I think that many men do not understand how much focus is put on female sexuality and that effect on our worth.

Thus, even in a very long term affair, that sexual attention she is receiving from the male is the main attraction. It sounds very weird to men especially who really have never been groomed to believe that or experiencing that.

Spot on.

Sexual abuse really skews the importance of sex for women (maybe men, but I haven't talked to that many to understand that aspect) to the point it's almost synonymous with their self worth.

Yup.

In fact, this was a *huge* portion of the 'grooming' and completely inappropriate sexual attention I received from an older male relative at a particularly vulnerable time in my life.

Physical and emotional abuse was rife and a daily, common occurrence in my immediate household. I was getting the shit kicked out of me on a pretty regular basis, both physically and emotionally. I tried to reach out for help a couple of times. Blew up in my face.

In swoops this older male relative, whom I'd always idolized as 'cool,' and he started to pay the "You're so pretty!" attention to me. I was starved for any positive attention, especially from a male father figure. My father was the only biological parent in my life. He was completely under my stepmother's thrall and my stepmother hated me. Correction: she didn't so much hate me as she resented my very existence. As a result, both of them beat on me relentlessly. Receiving male attention that could in any way be construed as positive or affectionate was like a drug.

I let the attention and grooming go on for far too long before I understood that I was, in fact, being seduced. Looking back, I believe that I didn't allow myself to believe where this was heading until the guy actually asked me for sex.

I had enough agency and enough boundary and I was squicked out enough about it 'getting real' that I had my "No" on firmly, thank God. I was a younger minor adolescent and I was still a virgin, as in, I was barely kissed and untouched from the neck down at that point. I had enough presence of mind to know that I did not want to lose my virginity to an older, married relative. Squick factor high. Furthermore, I really loved his wife. I wanted no part of doing this to her.

I knew that if it happened, and if it ever came out, she'd be crushed, it would probably tear her marriage and family apart, and of course, my abusive parents would blame me. Abuser had long been an extended family Golden Child.

When I said "No" to the pinnacle of his attention, the bid for actual sex, it backed him off a bit. When I was allowed to date at age 16, and I started dating a guy, damned if that abusive bastard didn't ass up at me like I was stepping out on him. I remember being stunned, like, really???

For *years* I felt terribly guilty about not telling his wife, or about not telling *someone* who was likely to believe me, although I swear, I don't know who that might have been. Per above, I tried to reach out for help with the general abuse, it blew up in my face and made things worse. I can only imagine what an accusation against The Golden Child would have invoked. (Cue another ass kicking.)(Probably The Mother of All Ass Kickings.)(Terrifying.)

I ran away from home at age 17. I ended up, briefly, with a foster family, who were decent people.

I did 'report' what happened with abusive dude after I'd left the FOO household and was sure I'd not be sent back.

I told two adult women, one who was instrumental in my transition into a foster family, and an adult female relative that I thought would be sympathetic.

I still didn't have the nerve to 'tell the police' or anything like it. I took way too much personal responsibility for allowing the flirtation and attention. I was ashamed of it. I can look back now and say that, without a shadow of a doubt, I was not instigating it. I was not being seductive. I was, as described above, literally virginal. Why I took full responsibility for it in my own head is still a bit of a mystery to me. Must have been a by product of every other damned thing wrong in the world being my fault somehow.

Anyway, of the two adult women I told at age 17:

I believe that the first woman, who was instrumental in helping me leave my FOO household, was overwhelmed by the amount of damage and dysfunction that was subsequently uncovered. She was not professionally trained in this area. She had acted on my behalf remarkably well for being largely out of her depth, but I think that by the time I dropped this nugget, she was firmly overwhelmed. She asked me if he'd ever touched me, which seemed to be the standard for sexual abuse at that time. 'Grooming' didn't seem to rise to the level of actionable abuse. Truthfully, the answer was "No." She summarily declared it as "Nothing we have to do anything about." As I said, I believe she was truly overwhelmed.

The second woman was an extended FOO relative whom I thought I could trust.

Her response?

"You always make such a big deal about everything. That was nothing. This stuff happens in every family. You got out of the house, you're living with another family now. What else do you want? Stop stirring up trouble!"

I sat down and I shut up about it. You bet I did.

I never really had a chance to unpack that aspect of abuse, to understand its impacts both then and for the future.

I tell you all of this as background, and also, to inform you that if you ask your wife if she was sexually abused as a child, she might say "No" and believe that to be true, when the fact is, she was abused, or at the very least, groomed to a level that constitutes abuse.

HikingOut is absolutely correct:

In grooming and abuse situations, the young, impressionable female is told repeatedly and with great confidence, typically by a male whom she admires, looks up to and trusts, that her worth is in her sexuality, specifically in the sexual access and experiences she offers to men. Point blank, in fact, this is what happens. It happened to me.

A huge part of the grooming (which included, among other things, hard core porn and inappropriate for me to hear/know details about his own sex life and experience, both with his wife and with other people) emphasized that sex is the most important thing to men.

It's not having a family, or marrying your best friend, or your cooking, or companionship, or help with the house and with life,

It's sex, period full stop. Sex.

Sex is the catalyst for developing a relationship with a male. Sex is the glue that holds said relationship together.

And,

You have to be willing to have the kinds of sex that your man wants to have. If you don't, he'll go get it elsewhere.

I *know* that this narrative informed my perception, especially in my early marriage, of what I must provide as a wife.

I do think that part of my 'damage' in our infidelity situation is due to baggage I brought into the marriage from this early narrative. I took Husband's brief foray into infidelity as every kind of signal that he was just over me, when that's not what was happening at all.

[This message edited by marriageredux959 at 5:06 PM, March 23rd (Tuesday)]

HO, first thank you for your well thought out response. I appreciate that you are willing to venture and touch the third rail of affair sex. I know that can't be easy.

The thing is, Im not sure your affair experience is what I was addressing here. The statement you quoted from me referenced those who either had a LTA, or a lot of sex in a much shorter amount of time. Enough sex to figure out what their partner liked and didn't. I believe yours was either an OTO, or not much actual sex.

I agree, and its been my experience that ONS or sexual experiences with a partner just a few times is most likely not hugely satisfying. Its been a few years now, but right after my separation I went on a spree. I had quite a bit of short casual encounters. Don't get me wrong, they were fun, but not to the level of the sex I had with my EX prior to her affair, or with partners since that have been more relationship oriented.

So I guess my point is I still believe that someone who was engaged in an affair over a longer period of time must have enjoyed the experience in order to do it so often. Especially against the backdrop of risking their marriage for it. Think of what a WS is risking. The payoff in their mind must be worth it. And again, im not talking someone who gets drunk at the XMAS party.

I understand the thought of wanting to please someone, but this also carries out for me the negative of my EX going all out like she was auditioning for American Idol with the AP, while I was the Waltons. Nice and comforting.

I also get the SA aspect of this. I do think that it can cause terrible trauma and maybe some will act out because of it. But others do not. And please, Im not minimizing the terror of it. Especially if it were done to a child. Man or woman. In our case though my wife had some bad experiences, none came close to abuse, and there was no SA in her childhood. More like crappy boyfriends that treated her like shit and cheated.

As for the society creating a vision of woman as pleasers, I get that too. That is still not an excuse to cheat. Just like me being brought up that men should be strong gives me the right to punch some guy in the face because I don't like him.

Back to the topic, none of the reasons helps may BS with the mind movies. The WS may feel awful about what they did, and like I said i have come to the camp where they look back at it in horror, but I still am in the camp of WOF who gave the ice cream analogy with the gusto in finishing the ice cream. They loved it at the time and were willing to risk everything for it. Thats what makes the Mind movies so tough.

Thus, even in a very long term affair, that sexual attention she is receiving from the male is the main attraction.

I want to be sure I’m understanding the message here. Do you mean that the sexual attention IS the main attraction or IS NOT.
Perhaps you could say a few more words about that, because if the sexual attention IS the main attraction, then I’m hard pressed to understand how it didn’t ring all the bells and push all the buttons in a way I, as the faithful long term partner, could never ring and push, respectively.
Am I understanding that the effort a woman in a situation like this makes herself to be the best sex toy the man has ever had restricts her own enjoyment of the same moments? To be honest, I don’t much like the idea that she got so energized to give her AP the best sex she could that somehow it kept it from being great for her. That doesn’t grok in man land.

[This message edited by Wiseoldfool at 12:33 AM, Wednesday, March 24th]

marriageredux959, we cross posted, but I do want to acknowledge your pain. No young girl should go through what you did. That guy was a predator. I can definitely see where that can skew a persons vision of sex. I think it also applies to both males and females who suffered this kind of trauma.

Where it falls apart for me is what you quoted.

I am not here to say that noone ever enjoys the sex, that would be ridicuous. But, I think that many men do not understand how much focus is put on female sexuality and that effect on our worth.

Thus, even in a very long term affair, that sexual attention she is receiving from the male is the main attraction. It sounds very weird to men especially who really have never been groomed to believe that or experiencing that.

This is not SA. This is society pressures. I’m not saying it’s right, but it should not be a reason that a woman cheats the same as men being taught a real man has as many as women as possible gives them a pass. It also, at least for me, isn’t a reason that once they do cheat, they can excuse the frequency and gusto by falling back and saying the need for attention somehow makes it less bad.

The need for attention, or as I said in a previous post any of the why reasons doesn’t change my vision of my EX having more Anal sex with her AP in three weeks than in 25 years of marriage. It doesn’t change my visions of her doing this in our bed as pictures of our family stared down at her Those visions don’t blur or disappear because society trained her to want sexual attention. And those visions didn’t disappear even when she was a sobbing mess over what she did. None of that changes what was ingrained in my head

Again, what happened to you with this older guy, and the way it was handled was just plan wrong. But if I’m correct, even after all that you didn’t cheat and are the BS.

Again, going back to the mind movies. It’s the sexual acts which are the issue here. Those thoughts are hard to get rid of

It is possible that mind movies are informed by the betrayed's baggage, damages and insecurities that have nothing to do with the infidelity, as much if not more than by the infidelity and the sex acts there in.

In situations where actual physical evidence exists and the betrayed sees it (videos, pictures, textual descriptions) that material definitely creates a very real, factual framework for mind movies and intrusive thoughts. Undeniable.

I'd be willing to bet that even in those cases, the betrayed layers their own particular bent and issues and the insecurities that it invokes, right on top of that substantial framework.

I'll touch a third rail here and say that while the cause is real and not our fault, in the case of mind movies, the dysfunction may in fact belong to the BS.

The betrayal exists. How we interpret it and produce it, literally, in our mind movies, is a function of us and how our life experiences inform us, a much larger sample than the infidelity itself.

Our mind movies are likely a cinematic production of our own insecurities more than what actually happened.

At first my husband tried to tell me that, tried to reach me. He said that he wished that somehow he could accomplish the actual Vulcan mind meld with me, such that I could actually 'see,' actually 'be there.' Yes, what he did and where he went with it was horrible enough, but not for the reasons I was imagining. It wasn't because it was some sexual pinnacle that we'd never reach, had never reached, nor that he'd ever reach again (at least not with me.) It was because he'd so grievously blown past boundaries that were respectful to both me and us, and even to himself.

It would kill him for me to see him in that position, in that role. It would kill him for me to see him in a moment of such abject weakness, especially over something so ridiculously venal and cheap.

But he really, really wished he could show me first hand just what it, wasn't. Just how unremarkable it really was. Just how unremarkable her body was.

I was blowing the experience of it- not the insult of it, that was real enough, horrifying enough- but the experience of it, way out of proportion. That was feeding my mind movies. He didn't say this, but I've come to the realization that it was a function of my own narratives, baggage and insecurities. Those things intersected with that particular type of injury and BAM! I've won at least 5 Oscars for my mind movies (plus a busted bumper, Value Added) but that doesn't make any of those movies actual, factual documentaries.

Here's another aspect that *might* be of help:

Husband describes what happened as a 'pornographic experience,' in that it was largely anonymous. Most of the thing itself, the arousal of it, happened largely between his own two ears. Note: there *was* physical interaction/contact, and more offered, so yes, there was 'friction' for sure. It wasn't all mental.

But in that it was almost completely anonymous, it was largely pornographic, and isn't most pornography also largely masturbatory?

Pornography is sex that we have with ourselves and with our imaginations.

Objectification in anonymous or nearly anonymous sex is similar to porn.

One *might* be tempted to assert that a LTA is completely different, by its very nature as a LTA.

But suppose it was a string of impersonal, objectifying sexual encounters in which the two people are working out their own internal scripts? Using each other as 'props'?

Doesn't mean that the sex was great.

WaitedWayTooLong, you've described as much in your description of your wife's affair. You've also described as much in terms of your post divorce spree.

I'm not arguing that the two situations are the same. Certainly the element of betrayal and disregard for respect, both self-respect and respect for one's spouse, are a difference between your wife's affair and your spree.

But would you want any future serious partner to create a string of mind movies about your spree, and be seriously threatened by them? Would you even consider your spree to be mind movie and threat worthy?

Would you wonder, perhaps rightfully so, if your partner's mind movies are reflective of, and much more informed by, your partner's insecurities than by the actual sex within and events of your spree?

My husband had a pornographic experience that was adrenaline soaked for various reasons (I've discussed that in other threads.) I think much of the experience of it was about him being in such a place and in such a position that he gave his internal 'horses' free rein and stepped on the gas.

My mind movies were about interpreting his experience in terms of my own insecurities.

To relate it back to Hiking Out's posit: yeah, how I wrote my mind movies was as much about my inner narrative and about my own baggage as it was about *anything* Husband told me, or what I read between the lines during the trickle truth days, or about what actually happened.

How you heal from mind movies probably has as much to do with how you understand your own baggage and narratives as it has to do with coming to terms with the infidelity.

I'll touch a third rail here and say that while the cause is real and not our fault, in the case of mind movies, the dysfunction may in fact belong to the BS.

The betrayal exists. How we interpret it and produce it, literally, in our mind movies, is a function of us and how our life experiences inform us, a much larger sample than the infidelity itself.

Our mind movies are likely a cinematic production of our own insecurities more than what actually happened.

I’m actually speechless. I guess boatloads of anal sex, facials, and ejaculating in my pillow is my cinematic masterpiece.

Edit to add, I’m out.

[This message edited by waitedwaytoolong at 6:21 PM, March 23rd (Tuesday)]

Wow. This just occurred to me. OMG.

WaitedWayTooLong, please forgive me in advance, I mean absolutely no disrespect nor do I mean to be too forward. Or too graphic.

Please forgive me, WaitedWayTooLong, for being so, vulgar, but is it possible:

Your wife simply could not accommodate you anally? It was too big of an ask, if you get my meaning?

Whereas, Mr. Asshole Electrician, who was quite likely insisting on being denigrating, was quite literally 'no big deal'...???

Your wife *would* have given you more anal if she could have physically accommodated it... but she couldn't, and you respected that.

Asshole insisted on it because his intent was to defile (god that guy needs a meteor strike IMHO.)

Your wife could accommodate 'no big deal' physically. Emotionally and psychologically she was not processing *anything* well, if at all. She was working out something that was unfolding in between her ears, unfortunately, well into a marriage and at your expense and at the expense of the marriage. But if she could detach (which is how I got through much of my early, non-sexual abuse, so I do know detachment) and hrmm, it was easy enough to ignore what was going on back there...

The stupid anal may have happened to the degree that it did because Mr. Asshole has a smaller dick.

There, I said it.

That being said,

Size really doesn't matter,

Unless it's being used to abuse, one way or the other.

Just a thought, though.

My apologies again, everyone.

WaitedWayTooLong, thank you for your sentiments. I'm OK. :) I have a good husband, a good man. He is flawed, as am I. I am honestly at a point where I am processing the infidelity as a healthy 'us' as opposed to a dangerous 'him.' He is my rock. I am blessed. I do understand and appreciate that men, as imperfect as they all are, are not all toxic. <3

I am in a good place. <3

WaitedWayTooLong:

My apologies, I was not aware that you were in possession of that much graphic detail. I'm intermittent on SI.

Yeah, that's a whole lot to take, and personally, I don't blame you for, not.

That's an incredibly personal level of insult and disrespect.

I guess I was referencing your descriptions of your 'Before Wife' too strongly, and I had not caught the details of the 'During Affair/During Wife.'

Per my previous post, I was attempting to describe a situation in which I was personalizing my husband's boundary busting due to my own damage.

What you are describing is, in fact, quite personal, about as personal as it gets.

I am sorry, totally my lack of understanding.

Don't blame you for leaving.

I'm sorry.

Thus, even in a very long term affair, that sexual attention she is receiving from the male is the main attraction.

I want to be sure I’m understanding the message here. Do you mean that the sexual attention IS the main attraction or IS NOT.

Perhaps you could say a few more words about that, because if the sexual attention IS the main attraction, then I’m hard pressed to understand how it didn’t ring all the bells and push all the buttons in a way I, as the faithful long term partner, could never ring and push, respectively.

Perhaps you could say a few more words about that, because if the sexual attention IS the main attraction, then I’m hard pressed to understand how it didn’t ring all the bells and push all the buttons in a way I, as the faithful long term partner, could never ring and push, respectively.

It's possible that a damaged woman is revisiting past abuse from a position that she perceives as more powerful, as an adult.

She's going back to that mental, emotional, psychological space as an adult, trying to rewrite history.

You don't fit the bill precisely because you are not an abusive asshole.

It's a sorry assed consolation prize and you do not deserve it.

Also, obvs, an affair with an asshole in attempt to rewrite childhood abuse is not an effective nor a healthy method.

Pardon me for once again channeling Esther Perel, she's not a favorite here, but she was onto something with this. Most of the time, the infidelity has nothing to do with the betrayed.

It probably had little to nothing to do with you. Even though, as a faithful spouse, it should have been *all about you.* Got it.

I do wonder how often infidelity happens when waywards find themselves far enough away from, and protected enough, to 'act out' past damage in the laps of their betrayeds.

Which leaves their betrayeds confused as hell.

[This message edited by marriageredux959 at 6:46 PM, March 23rd (Tuesday)]

So there’s at least two problems that manifest in the mind movies.
Problem #1: My wife risked everything to have a long term affair that involved several dozen episodes of sex with her AP. In the mind movies, she is having the time of her life, the best sex ever, with a man who thrills her with every touch.
Problem #2: My wife risked everything to have a long term affair that involved several dozen episodes of sex with her AP. In the mind movies, she wasn’t enjoying the sex as much as the sex she has with me, but notwithstanding, she went to great lengths to please the AP because this is how she reaped the benefits of the affair. I don’t understand this, and maybe I’m misunderstanding what the ladies here are saying. If I misunderstand, please advise. If I’m not misunderstanding, then the problem remains that it was worth it to her to go all in on the sex even though SHE wasn’t having the best sex ever, and that mind movie sucks, too, because HE was having a great time with her, and she made sure of it. That kind of energy and enthusiasm was not provided for me during her affair, that’s for sure.
Maybe I’m missing something.

[This message edited by Wiseoldfool at 1:26 AM, Wednesday, March 24th]

She wasn't servicing him.

She wasn't servicing you.

She was servicing some past damage.

Maybe.

I don't know.

I wasn't there.

Most likely, neither were you.

Sundance, Hiking, Redux, Mrs. Panda, anyone else qualified to answer:
I slept on the questions I posed yesterday.
Maybe I made some progress.
My effort to restate the message from the ladies:
In a world where many women are sexually assaulted in their formative years, or highly sexualized from adolescence on, many women learn to feel "loved" by the sexual attention that a man pays to them. To feel more loved by a man who is tuned in to their sexuality, they turn up the sexuality because they’ve been conditioned that the more sexual they become the more “love” they will be rewarded with and thus the more loved they will feel? So, a woman in an affair who ramps up the sex is not necessarily doing so because she is enjoying the sex per se, but because she is pursuing the feeling of love the affair is giving her, and this is the currency?
Am I starting to grok this?
If not, where am I missing it?

[This message edited by Wiseoldfool at 12:49 PM, Wednesday, March 24th]

Waitedtoolong, I hope you are still around because I did not mean to make this worse in anyway. I do think you are misinterpreting/misunderstanding what I am saying.

I am not here to say that noone ever enjoys the sex, that would be ridiculous. But, I think that many men do not understand how much focus is put on female sexuality and that effect on our worth.

This is not SA. This is society pressures. I’m not saying it’s right, but it should not be a reason that a woman cheats the same as men being taught a real man has as many as women as possible gives them a pass. It also, at least for me, isn’t a reason that once they do cheat, they can excuse the frequency and gusto by falling back and saying the need for attention somehow makes it less bad.

I want to be clear that the need for attention or whatever the person is seeking does NOT make it less bad. It does NOT do anything for the mind movies.

What I was attempting to explain here is mindset. And, I think that you are reading my statement as societal conditioning, but I was speaking directly to the SA and it's effects.

What happens often with SA is that it's rugswept, terribly. It's huge trauma that is rarely addressed in the way it should be. Either the girl doesn't tell or the people she tells doesn't want to deal with it.

Mine was the latter, which did nothing but enforce my shame.

The difference between an LTA and a short term affair is often one got caught and the other one didn't. I can openly say, I have no idea how long this would have went on, but easily for more months than it did. AP was caught and it was over.

The reason I was asking about SA in her past is her AP did everything he could to humiliate her. I feel like the only way that makes sense is if she was conditioned in some way that made this acceptable to her.

In my situation, the SA made me comfortable with not looking at the fact I was being used. I was taught through my SA experiences "that's how men are". Like MR said, I believed, and STILL believed when I got here that to men, sex is the most important thing about a relationship. I sex bombed the shit out of my husband to win him back.

I went to therapy for months before the IC stumbled across my SA. I was used to burying it, rugsweeping it. I hadn't thought about it. And, keep in mind, I was abused by multiple people and some of them spanned on and off for years.

It was through that I realized the HOW. Not the WHY. This is not about reasons, this is my internal fabric of HOW I was able to allow myself to feel comfortable in the situation.

I am sharing that because sex to an SA survivor is something completely different. I was not violently attacked, so I didn't have the other common reaction of being tense about sex. I learned to ramp it up, I was sexually precocious from a young age. That's what boys liked you for. But, it was because I was conditioned around other activities and attention, rather than held down and raped.

I also think it's important to understand that I did not get the attention at home I should have, so I also sought out the sexual attention from these people because they were paying attention to me.

It's very fucked up. It doesn't explain at all why I did it, or how wrong it was. It only explains how it's possible to not really be interested in the sex for the physical reasons that may seem reasonable to you.

Thus, even in a very long term affair, that sexual attention she is receiving from the male is the main attraction.

I want to be sure I’m understanding the message here. Do you mean that the sexual attention IS the main attraction or IS NOT.

Perhaps you could say a few more words about that, because if the sexual attention IS the main attraction, then I’m hard pressed to understand how it didn’t ring all the bells and push all the buttons in a way I, as the faithful long term partner, could never ring and push, respectively.

Because the sexual attention to me meant interest in me. Laughable coming from a middle aged lady who should (and did) know better than that. It's a form of acting out your victimization of unprocessed trauma. Unconscious stuff - not logical. Logically, I could have pointed out a lot of behavior by the AP that was really unacceptable to me as an adult woman. =

If a guy wasn't interested in me, I could always turn up the sexual stuff and usually get their attention for some period of time. Heck, MY HUSBAND was my friends with benefits. I got him to marry me when he never wanted to do that again.

Lastly this:

I understand the thought of wanting to please someone, but this also carries out for me the negative of my EX going all out like she was auditioning for American Idol with the AP, while I was the Waltons. Nice and comforting.

Only because that's how you are interpreting what I am saying. What I was trying to illustrate is that my relationship with my husband was HEALTHY. With the AP some of it was connecting to my unresolved trauma and becoming who I was in that trauma. We covered this some in my therapy the first time, but since I have restarted I have a new therapist and due to some of the sexual issues I have had with my husband of late since his affair, it's causing me to look at it as a different angle.

I have talked to so many WS on here, LTA, short term, ONS, and I can see the parallels.

Again, this doesn't excuse the behavior. Just because I was traumatized doesn't give me a right to traumatize someone else. I do not blame my SA for my affair by any means. That was a decision I made as a grown adult. It explains to me the way I behaved in the affair. The way it feels like I am a very logical person that suddenly was able to immerse myself in something extremely illogical. I am not a victim of my affair, but aspects of this allowed me to revisit my victimized state as if it was a positive time in my life.

That's the thing people do not understand about some SA survivors. Some of us believed what we were doing at the time was consensual and we carry around shame like we are bad. I did not have the ability to provide consent at 5, when the first time started. When I hit middle school I got up the courage to tell the counselor because it was still intermittently happening. She said she thought I enjoyed the attention. It shut me down because she was right, I did enjoy the attention because I was starved for it.

I can fully see how this construct played out in the dynamics of my own affair. And, honestly, it's really the only scenario to me that makes sense when you talk about your wife. She seemingly went into being the opposite of the woman you knew for all those years. Sexual style was completely different. She allowed herself to be humiliated. I feel that sounds a lot like someone who is revisiting their trauma and reliving some of the confusing emotions that go along with that. I could be 100 percent wrong, but I am unimpressed to see that her affair was longer or more sexual than mine. Those are only constructs of availability and being able to keep it clandestine.

I suspect you may never know whether I am right about that at all. My husband knew nothing of my abuse until the counselor pulled it out of me 3 months past our dday. She had me write letters to the main abuser, and when I brought it back she said that I talk to him like he was my friend and that I forgave him without inspecting what he'd done to me. She was right. I couldn't summon any anger for the same reason it never occured to me to talk about it - it was buried so deep that it was almost like it never happened. But it did, for almost a decade.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:43 AM, March 24th (Wednesday)]

n a world where many women are sexually assaulted in their formative years, or highly sexualized from adolescence on, many women learn to feel "loved" by the sexual attention that a man pays to them. To feel more loved by a man who is tuned in to their sexuality, they turn up the sexuality because they’ve been conditioned that the more sexual they become the more “love” they will be rewarded with and thus the more loved they will feel? So, a woman in an affair who ramps up the sex is not necessarily doing so because she is enjoying the sex per se, but because she is pursuing the feeling of love the affair is giving her, and this is the currency?

This is true for me. And, since I became aware of it, I have done a lot of work surrounding it. Still not enough. I mean, c'mon it's playing out still with the whole husband watching porn on a tablet post I made. IC has pointed out to me that I am still using sex as the primary connector. It's very hard to move away from that.

As WaitedWayTooLong discussed, while many women who have been molested, groomed, sexually assaulted, etc may equate their value with their ability to service men sexually, our entire culture TEACHES (or socializes) women that our sexuality is the basis for our worth. There's a great soliloquy by the woman antagonist in the book/film "gone girl" in which she describes the criteria for being a "cool girl" (including being a size 2 while eating hot dogs & drinking cheap beer). So, to my mind, most (all?) women are already being taught that their worth to men lay in their ability to be of sexual interest to them. So, IMO, a history of SA, grooming, etc that cause someone to equate ability to please someone sexually with their own value is an accelerator, not a sole factor.... And where impact of past sexual events fall on that spectrum is unique to each individual.

HO's points are very well taken by me... we can get our "worth" mixed up with our sexuality (and FWIW, I was 14 when "groomed" & had a sexual relationship w/ a 25yo man, that lasted ~3yrs). And it's triggery AF to read about that power dynamic in an AP (IOW, knowing that my WH's AP was on her own "power" game to be "better" or earn her value by sleeping with my WH). Logically, if I, as a "survivor" of my teenaged grooming/relationship equate MY self worth with my sexuality, then my WH's LTA means that I am somehow "less than" because my WH fucked someone else for a decade. Now, my brain can see this and "know" that my worth has not one fuckwit to do with my WH's choice to cheat, or his AP's need to be SOOOOO desirable that another man would risk his wife and M and family (whom he claims to have repeatedly professed his love for during the entirety of the LTA) just to have sex with her. Yet, my emotional self can still sometimes struggle with this particular aspect of things - with the power dynamic about "worth" when it comes to sexuality. And then there's the whole side issue of women and competitive sexuality (which is for another thread)

In any event, EVERY piece of research I've seen about the mind movies has not one fucking thing to do with the "baggage" of the BS. Frankly, all humans have some sort of baggage or another. Mind movies are discussed in just about EVERY piece of research on infidelity - and not in a 'but that's the BS's fault or dysfunction" kind of way. Put simply, MM are a REAL result of the TRAUMA of infidelity - wholly regardless of the level of graphic detail any particular BS does - or does not- have (and in my own case, the graphic details are NOT what I continue to have MM about - it's the black hole of what I do not know that keeps me up at night). To say that continued MM when the BS didn't personally witness the sex is malarkey that is not borne out by actual fucking RESEARCH. Implying - or outright saying (esp on the wayward board) that mind movies are bc of a BS's dysfunction is RE-traumatizing folks who have already been traumatized by their WS' infidelity. That's like saying the MM of a rape victim who was unconscious during the rape are bc of the victim's dysfunction or pre-rape "baggage" -

Problem #1: My wife risked everything to have a long term affair that involved several dozen episodes of sex with her AP. In the mind movies, she is having the time of her life, the best sex ever, with a man who thrills her with every touch.

Problem #2: My wife risked everything to have a long term affair that involved several dozen episodes of sex with her AP. In the mind movies, she wasn’t enjoying the sex as much as the sex she has with me, but notwithstanding, she went to great lengths to please the AP because this is how she reaped the benefits of the affair.

WiseOld - I'm a BW and I have the same thoughts. This conundrum comes up plenty on SI, namely: you risked me and our M for great sex.... or you risked me and our M for shitty sex. And for me, I believe it's a distraction from the real issue - that they RISKED their BS and the M for sex - of any variety. Or even more simplified: WS risks the BS and the M for whatever selfish thing they knew was a dealbreaker and did it anyhow.

[This message edited by gmc94 at 9:36 AM, March 24th, 2021 (Wednesday)]