SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

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P.S.
OldWounds, waitedwaytoolong,

Solid posts. <3
Thank you.

Some great posts here.

In my case I focused on the loss a lot for the first 3 years. I still do sometime. Of course there is a loss, for me it is mainly a skewed belief system, an illusionary concept loss: the belief that I married the only man that walked the earth who wouldn’t hurt me, his spouse, who would have me at the forefront of his mind in any actions he took (what would my spouse think?). These beliefs that I manufactured and projected were deeply rooted in my childhood, in effect my standards with regards to the man I married were pretty low: he had to be a non drinker and a non cheater. That’s all.

The man I married had his own ghosts as well. He did not drink and he did not cheat for a long time. Ideal man for me. But he also had a wall around him preventing him to be truly authentic and vulnerable and a skewed view of relationships due to what he saw at home growing up. Attraction and love had to "just happen" in his view, no work had to be put in. The woman had to constantly be admiring and treat the man like a God. (His mum was the ow to her current husband and my WH witnessed all his mum’s manipulative behaviour during the years of the affair). Bottom line, we were perfect for each other.

So until dday we both had what we both believed a very happy marriage. My WH only admitted to being routined on dday but otherwise happy. He basically cheated out of boredom, or at least that’s what it looked like on the surface of it. Oh and because "it just happened". Because of our low expectations standards, it truly was a happy marriage in our view. I was getting the non drinker and non cheater with the added bonus of a husband who helped with chores around the house (lucky me!) and spent time with us, and he got the wife who tolerated his lack of vulnerability and his desire of control treating me as a guest in his life when it came to big decisions. This of course built resentment on both sides more so as the marriage aged and things such as attraction and love didn’t just happen anymore, you had to work for it. Some interesting facts are that our sex life was pretty good and I was the one accepting less as I thought he was tired (contrary to the belief that women don’t want sex and men go and cheat), also on dday my WH tried to convince me he loves us both, after all he didn’t want to lose the docile wife, although the woman he chose to cheat on me with had even lower expectations.

With all this in mind I still felt I lost everything on dday, we were happily married, everyone said this, people around us, extended family and friends were shocked hearing about his betrayal. Until we started unpacking the load, on both sides, we kept believing our marriage was happy pre dday.

I then realised the only way R could work for me (and this has been mentioned by someone earlier in the thread), the only way to remain married to a cheater was for more, not for less.

So WE started working on this. In the early days I remember my WH’s entitled reactions to my demands. His docile wife found her standards and high expectations. He fought letting go of it for a while. In IC and later MC he realised he treated me as a nice addition to his life but never as a true partner. He realised marriage is hard work you put in, the grass is always greener where you water it. He realised that giving is more fulfilling than receiving or keeping count of who gives more.

I won’t detail everything we changed or all the hard work. But I can truly say we do have a much better marriage now, we communicate so much more, we live more authentically.

What was lost for me ultimately was something, an idea, that kept me stuck in an unequal marriage due to my own FO issues. I wouldn’t go back there even if you would offer to give me a time machine and take away the cheating. I like the new me. I can’t guarantee WH will never cheat again but I can guarantee I’ve built a new me that will be able to move on with relatively low impact. I like being loved and treated the way I deserve, I like having high expectations from the person next to me.

Don’t get me wrong, it would have been great to get here without the cheating. I don’t know how that would have been possible though. We, both of us, had to experience trauma in order to look deep down and enable growth. I’m not grateful for the cheating, I am proud though of what we are both achieving one day at a time.

It is still very early after d-day for me and we are by no means successfully reconcilled, I am not even sure if I am capable of R with him. So I can't talk about how our marriage will be, but I already know, what I lost and I don't think I will ever get it back. The old me, the one who believed in true love conquers all, in soulmates, even in fairytales a little bit, for whom trust was a default setting, is gone. The one who used to wake up sometimes and just feel such joy and happiness and gratitude for all I had. Who loved with all my heart and believed was loved back the same way. Now, everything is meh at best.

I loved the old me and I will always miss her. I don't know who the new me will be and maybe I will grow to love her too, but a part of me is gone forever and it is so sad.

[This message edited by ZetaCephei at 10:28 AM, Thursday, October 28th]

I would have called my marriage "awesome" pre-DDay, but truthfully....I had set the bar REALLY low.

Sure, I lost the naive belief that this would never happen to us. But, it was a naive belief system. Sure, I have lost blind trust. But, I have a much greater trust in myself. Sure, I've lost a former friend/OW.....but truthfully, I sensed something was off with her from the moment I met her.....I just tried to give her the benefit of the doubt - which she will never have from me. Now....if people feel "off"....I run in the other direction.

But, I've gained so much more. The trial of this whole, albeit unnecessary, drama and pain...is that I've gained a H who makes us a priority in ways he never did before. He's become so much more appreciative of what he has in our marriage and our family. I've gained a connection with him that I had lost. I've gained someone who is willing to do all sorts of heavy lifting for me and for us.

Do I hate that this had to happen for him to come to this realization? - 100 times yes. Do I hate that this had to happen for me to know that I deserved so much more? - 100 times yes.

At this point, and I don't think that this is the case, but if we didn't work out....I could leave him as a friend and co-parent well with him. I know that I'd rather see him happy with someone else, than miserable with me. But, I do think he must be all in...or we wouldn't still be here together fighting for us.

We mess things up on the regular, but I'm grateful of who we've both become....NOT how we got there.

Everyone has trials. Every relationship has trials. I'm glad about how we've grown together.

Do I hate that this had to happen for him to come to this realization? - 100 times yes. Do I hate that this had to happen for me to know that I deserved so much more? - 100 times yes.

I don't agree with this thinking. "This had to happen," is BS, in my view. Yeah, it may be really, really difficult for a WS to recognize and fix their personal issues, but so is overcoming the fact that someone who swore their fidelity to you lied and cheated.

This notion that there's no way they could fix what's wrong with them without hitting rock bottom releases them of responsibility for their choices. What if instead of cheating they had decided that their only way out was to murder you in your sleep? It's a rough way to finally figure out what's wrong with yourself but they had to get to that point to figure it out, right?

No. I think that's just giving your WS an excuse. Yes, that may help you accept or forgive what happened. I accepted what happened all those years ago. But I never fully dealt with it and that was in part because I bought into the blame shifting and excuses. I hope that soon I'll finally find forgiveness for that. Real forgiveness should be based on the fact that she made those choices because it was an easier way out than doing the hard work of fixing herself.

You may think that notions like "absolute trust" or "true love" are naive and foolish and therefore no great loss. But I would have been happy to have made it through life without having those notions destroyed. So it's untrue to think that's not a real loss.

And then there's the time they have stolen from you. However good you may feel now, it was not necessary for your WS to force you to spend months or years sifting through the rubble of your marriage and dealing with emotional trauma to fix their personal issues and maybe address some relationship issues.

This notion that there's no way they could fix what's wrong with them without hitting rock bottom releases them of responsibility for their choices.

I understand what you're saying -- but no one around this house was released from the responsibility of their choices.

I think there are WS who avoid that responsibility, but I wouldn't R with someone who didn't completely own their actions.

And then again is there is the 'what if' problem. Some people may have fixed things wrong with them before they hit rock bottom, but my wife is clearly not one of those people.

I used to call my wife's A an avoidable tragedy.

One of my good SI friends here called on me on that. He was certain SOME people DO need to fail this horribly in order to change.

This morning, I don't care anymore whether it was avoidable or not. Infidelity happened. Now what?

I'm not going to be able to enjoy the huge changes my wife has made if I live only in our worst moments.

Again, I could I focus on the horror show, and punish my wife until the end of time, but that's not really the life I'm looking to live.

I chose this R.

I gave this gift of a last chance.

I know it ain't easy, or fair, but there are people worthy of redemption (although again -- we don't owe them this chance) and my life is freakishly improved with the changes we've made individually and as a rebuilding team.

I'm not going to be able to enjoy the huge changes my wife has made if I live only in our worst moments.

Again, I could I focus on the horror show, and punish my wife until the end of time, but that's not really the life I'm looking to live.

Recognizing that your spouse didn't have to cheat in order to figure out what was wrong with them doesn't mean that you have to do any of that. Neither does accepting that there was real loss, and real harm done.

I appreciate all the work my FWW did to get emotionally healthy after Dday. Those changes made it possible for us to enjoy nearly 20 years of love and happiness since then. But I can accept that she made terrible, selfish choices that did real, lasting damage without rationalizing it as something that had to happen to get where we're at now.

I agree with some of the previous posts that it didn’t HAVE to happen. Problem is that it did. I can’t change that. It was wrong, no doubt. It was wholly unnecessary - but it DID happen. Maybe it did have to happen for my FWH to reach the conclusions he did. Nearly 3 years out from DDay, and I’m struck. I honestly can’t say that I don’t know of a relationship that isn’t touched by some kind of infidelity. That doesn’t excuse the choices made. It certainly doesn’t belittle the pain caused. It stinks all around. I’m not at all holding him harmless for what he choose.

But, it did happen. I’m glad for where we are now.

Neither does accepting that there was real loss, and real harm done.

I don’t know anyone here who doesn’t see real loss or harm done.

For me, and I only ever speak from where I’m at and my experience — it’s about where I want to be and that’s focused on that joy and happiness versus living in the loss.

I’ll always KNOW the damage is done, and the scars will NEVER go away.

My only concern is for members who may live more in what was lost than what was gained. That can be an anchor on any R.

I lived in misery a long time in life, focused on some other personal tragedies. Infidelity may be worse than all or most of them. I have just found putting my energy into where I am today serves me far better than where I was yesterday. Or six years ago.

Face the loss, wrap your head around the loss and then if you’re rebuilding something, focus on the what is going well — has worked for me.

I appreciate all the work my FWW did to get emotionally healthy after Dday. Those changes made it possible for us to enjoy nearly 20 years of love and happiness since then. But I can accept that she made terrible, selfish choices that did real, lasting damage without rationalizing it as something that had to happen to get where we're at now.

I’ve always loved the concept by author Robert Heinlein essentially noting, ‘man is not a rational being, but a rationalization being.’

That aside, I noted my friend here suggested SOME people need to fail that far, and my wife seems to be in that category.

Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t.

The only reality I have is that she did what she did.

Ultimately, the reasons or lack or reasons really don’t matter to me. Despite the four years I looked for reasons and tried to understand what I’ll never be able to fully understand, because I haven’t made those same shitty choices.

As long as my wife understands as much as she can about the damage caused and isn’t interested in causing MORE damage, I got someone who I can work with.

I had my chances to cross the line. I found a key reason was I didn’t want to hurt my wife with that choice. Not the only one, but the thought crossed my mind over the years. I also always wanted to make the best choice possible for me and mine.

The thing that hurts the most is being her one and only sexual partner. She took something so precious, ripped it away from me and gave it to a stranger, he didn’t give a shit, it was another conquest for him.

No matter how great R is going, that will always be stolen from me.

The thing that hurts the most is being her one and only sexual partner. She took something so precious, ripped it away from me and gave it to a stranger, he didn’t give a shit, it was another conquest for him.

I can relate. I do not understand the disrespect and dishonor. My WW then compounded this by telling me I was "sexually immature" bc I couldn’t understand sex with her AP was "meaningless" and because I had only ever slept with one woman, her. This was so toxic and egregious on top of all the betrayal and gaslighting I had already endured up to this point. A door shut in my mind and heart after this and it has never opened back up since. She grieves my inability to open up to her now, and I tell her that was the moment the door slammed shut.

Thumos - what is her response when you tell her this?

She grieves my inability to open up to her now, and I tell her that was the moment the door slammed shut.

My W just said to me today “I know I’m not special to you anymore”. I told her “there are some things that will never come back mainly the pedestal you were on”.

She tells me often I’m her soulmate, I don’t believe in soulmates because if I did, I never found her. I’m not trying to be cruel just brutally honest which is something I gained from infidelity.

I'm new here, but this thread resonated with me. I found out a little over a year ago that my husband of 20+ years had been having an intense emotional and physical affair for six months. Up until that time we would both have said we had a healthy and happy marriage. Not a fairy tale, but a solid partnership where we enjoyed each other's company, had shared interests and values, worked well together, enjoyed raising our children together, and had a good sex life.

I'm no longer in the terrible place I was for most of the first year after finding out. Neither of us has seriously considered divorce; he's worked hard to make amends, and we've dealt with the messy aftermath as best we can together.

But I feel an overwhelming sense of grief and loss that he doesn't understand or share. I still value our relationship and think it has many strengths, but I've lost all sense of it as special. This experience made me realize how much I had always held close in my heart a sense of our relationship as special and unique and romantic and safe. That's gone now, and I grieve it like a death.

That's gone now, and I grieve it like a death.

You are exactly right, we grieve the loss of what was. The WS does not fully grasp the idea of something lost. My W recently told me “but look at us now, we’re good”. Yea I agree, we’re good but could’ve been great.

My WW then compounded this by telling me I was "sexually immature" bc I couldn’t understand sex with her AP was "meaningless" and because I had only ever slept with one woman, her.

Thumos, you can always tell her you can easily change your inmaturity about her being your only one, it's an easy fix for you....and you can make it just as meaningful or meaningless as you want.... :)

I lost all my naiveite about my WW's character. I fell in love with who I thought she was, who I needed her to be (Imago). She was in IC for 5 years and I do not believe she will betray me again. That said, character dies hard. Every now and then I get flashes of selfish behavior from her and I respond harshly. The pedestal is gone. I learned waywards consider relationships from a different perspective. What is abhorrent for a betrayed falls into the gray area for a wayward. It seems waywards don't understand why betrayal is a big issue (or they never would have started). In effect, our values are not compatible. Trust cannot survive under such conditions. I will say my psychological lens is much sharper now... I can spot poor character from a distance now.

But I feel an overwhelming sense of grief and loss that he doesn't understand or share. I still value our relationship and think it has many strengths, but I've lost all sense of it as special. This experience made me realize how much I had always held close in my heart a sense of our relationship as special and unique and romantic and safe. That's gone now, and I grieve it like a death.

Exactly this

I could type for 6 pages on this topic.

Gonna try my best not to do so, for everyone's sake.

I, personally, have gained so much more than I lost.

I think it's safe and fair to say that we have gained more as a couple than we lost.

I just asked my husband and he says that he feels like he personally gained more than he lost.

We were mired in his FOO and their issues for years.

I'm in no way blaming the FOO for the infidelity.

I can say with great certainty, and my husband agrees, that FOO dysfunction and his unhealthy coping mechanisms for managing the FOO dysfunction landed him in the situation in which the infidelity was possible. The FOO dysfunction and Husband's unhealthy coping mechanisms, honestly the entire FOO's unhealthy coping mechanisms, contributed heavily to the rationalizations that allowed and enabled Husband to cross that line, and to be less than honest about it in the aftermath.

I'd been unhappy with and white knuckling through the areas of our marriage that were in direct contact with, or heavily influenced by the FOO, for decades. Some of it was actual dealings with the FOO, but much of it was comprised of glitches in Husband's OS, where he wasn't handling boundaries or conflict or even just, simple, mismatched agendas.

Husband's parents are both narcissists; boundaries in others, particularly in their (adult) children, are NOT tolerated.

To make matters worse, Husband was scapegoated by his father, the loud and proud grandiose narcissist, since childhood, and it continued throughout his and our adult lives, we were scapegoated as a couple, and other family members piled on.

Husband's mother is an insidious passive aggressive narcissist. She is fucking Lady MacBeth.

I'm pretty sure her husband hates her. He's certainly complained about her bitterly to all of his children. I don't know whether he actually hates her, or whether he hates it that she can and does control and manipulate him (and everyone else.)

Husband and I had been tolerating, trying to manage, and if all else failed, trying to avoid these dynamics and conflicts for decades when the years old infidelity came randomly tumbling out.

In the process of unpacking what really happened, we also began unpacking why and how it happened, and by golly damn, there were all of those unhealthy FOO dynamics and unhealthy coping mechanisms on parade.

It was starkly obvious to me.

It took Husband a bit to see it.

Of course. He'd been steeped in it for his entire life.

Even though it was blatantly unhealthy and frustrating as fuck, it was also Husband's, and the FOO's, 'normal.'

It was what he knew.

In many ways, it was *all* he knew.

It was like the stars in the firmament.

It just, was.

Husband had to develop some distance and perspective.

First he had to unpack what happened with the infidelity, and look at it honestly for what it was. Between his two ears, he spent years in denial that he'd actually 'cheated.' It wasn't 'cheating' because it didn't involve penetrative sex. It was 'wrong' but it wasn't 'cheating.'

Asking him if it would be 'cheating' if I did the exact same thing he did- if it was me in that woman's position and a strange dude with me, in the equivalent of his position, would that be 'cheating?' Would that feel like 'cheating' to him? That went a long way toward clarifying his thoughts on the matter.

Then he had to unpack the 'why' and the 'how.'

And oh boy howdy, did that lead straight back to FOO dynamics and characteristics.

Husband sees this, to some degree he's always seen it, and he always tried his best to live differently, more honestly and accountably, which was a large part of why he was scapegoated.

Given a certain set of circumstances, temptations, opportunities and blurring of lines, it was too easy for him to slip into the kinds of fundamentally dishonest and selfish rationalizations his family uses on a routine basis.

The infidelity wasn't a deal breaker in our marriage, although for at least the first 2 to 2.5 years I thought it would be; not so much the infidelity itself, but the way he and we were flailing about in the aftermath. Many others have said the same on SI: it's not the infidelity that kills the marriage, it's the aftermath. Trickle truth, dissemblance, DARVO, denial, rug sweeping, avoidance, etc. etc.

The deal breaker for me was the unhealthy FOO dynamics and coping mechanisms: seeing those dynamics and coping mechanisms on parade in the context of an infidelity in my own damned marriage. In my, in our, intimate space. This, this 'expression' of the fucked up FOO model was a bridge too far. NO MORE.

We'd known forever that there were fundamental character issues within the FOO, something the FOO would deny vehemently, after all, they have their own family pew at church and they are pillars of their community, etc. etc. You know the drill.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, serendipitously, unrelated to our marital difficulties, the FOO went through one of its characteristic 'acting out' cycles, and in the process, several stunning turds surfaced in the punchbowl.

I mean, stunning turds- even for the FOO.

I guess, in retrospect, I'm not surprised, but at the moment each of these turds surfaced, it was pretty breathtaking.

In the past, we would have 'coped' by slamming our eyes tight shut, sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting "LA LA LA LA LA!!!" at the top of our lungs while running away as fast as we could. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. You know the drill.

This time?

NOPE.

I kicked the fuckers out of my life.

Unceremoniously and without preamble.

No, we are not 'talking it out,' which is FOO-ese for "GET YOUR ASS BACK IN LINE."

I left it totally up to Husband, what he wanted to do with it.

His family, up to him- but I'm not playing anymore.

And then another tangential portion of the family decided to try themselves.

Buhbye, Bitches!

At first, this *really* terrified Husband.

He was absolutely sure he was next.

Not necessarily, but not impossible either.

Overall I was far more invested in my husband than I was in any of these fuckers, and I do believe that my husband has tried his best during our marriage. He's made mistakes, and so have I. We're both human.

But the more he stepped back and looked, really looked, at the turds floating around in the punchbowl, the more disaffected and disillusioned he became, with his FOO and with himself.

We will never 'fix' them.

Hell, it's not even our job or our place to 'fix' them.

But we control how and if we deal with them.

And, finally, thankfully, I've been set free of them.

And we control how and if we 'fix' our own problems and issues.

And those issues finally got the appropriate attention.

And, yes, and possibly the most important of all:

I found my own voice.

I found my own boundaries, and I defended them.

And my husband supports me in that. Finally.

Husband found his own boundaries, and he defended them.

And that, my friends, is HUGE.

Husband decided completely on his own to disengage and cut off contact.

It took a few months, and it was totally his decision. And it needed to be.

[This message edited by marriageredux959 at 4:06 AM, Saturday, December 11th]

^^^ TL;DR:

None, *none,* of this infidelity shit happens in a vacuum.

It's always part of a much bigger picture.

We are fond of saying, on SI, that infidelity is NOT about the BS.

Personally, just for me, I'm a little more Ester Perel-y than that.

I believe that it's a by product of a system that two personalities create...

... and that at 'the moment of sin,'

at least one of those personalities chooses a spectacularly dysfunctional and supremely unhelpful way of dealing with that.

I believe that my husband found himself at a juxtaposition of a shat ton of conflicting and oppositional stressors in the set up to his moment of indiscretion. And, in fact, he'd been coping with a Faustian Bargain set up going into the situation.

When the shit actually came down, he took the easiest and frankly, the most pleasurable path, which was also a frank betrayal of me and us, and furthermore, the entire set up was a frank betrayal of our goals, our best interests, and the very financial and commitment path he'd insisted we needed to follow.

He couldn't have kicked me in the teeth any harder if he'd tried, unless he'd actually stuck his dick in someone.

Which, at the time, is how I rationalized not pulling the pin on the grenade he'd thrown into the family room.

"At least he didn't fuck her."

"Apparently, I do not have to go to my ob-gyn dr., with whom I work, and ask for an STD panel. In front of, and run by and through, my entire damned work place. Thank you, Husband. Fucker."

No shit, that was my decision tree at that time.

Also, 'apparently I'm not backed so far up into this corner that I am integrity bound to divorce his ass despite two preschool babies.'

FUCK.

REALLY???

IMHO, infidelity is *always* part of a much, much larger context- part of a *much* larger problem.

But for Hubs, *this, all of this,* was within the realm of 'normal.'

His 'Holier Than Thou' parents had been exercising these 'control struggles/power plays' for his entire life.

[This message edited by marriageredux959 at 2:49 PM, Saturday, December 11th]