SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

You should be defensive. She waged war against you.

She's desperately trying to pretend the twonof you are on equal footing. She still hasn't fully acknowledged the damage she's caused

She's desperately trying to pretend the twonof you are on equal footing.

Exactly what I told her—she is so desperate to move passed what she did.

A couple of things you said in your last few posts really jumped out at me.

1) you've convinced yourself that your wife does not understand your feeling. REASON? because it makes it easier for you to accept that she simply doesn't care. When she tells you that you should view her infidelities as getting her emotional needs met, what she is really saying is "this is all your fault for not meeting my emotional needs and any sex I had with him is a result of your failure as my husband". She absolutely understood what you were saying and thus the counterpoint.

2) you stated that if you remarry and she also cheats you want to be crushed if not it means that the relationship wasn't special. REASON? You are bargaining with yourself to stay in this marriage. I suspect that how you feel with betrayal in possible future relationship will have very little to do with the depth of feelings or how special it was. You've lost that innocence. Once lost, very little will compare.

Very early on in the process, I spoke to you about painting yourself into a corner, I'm afraid thats exactly what you've done. You made up your mind that you will continue with this marriage, and now you've closed yourself off and pulled down the blinders. You are making excuses for your wife's don't give a damn-ness. She is invalidating your feelings and experiences and you've accepted it as her not understanding.

Dkt3, I'd like to respond as thoughtfully as I can to your post. It's also probably good timing to level set where I am with regard to my current thoughts.

It's worth noting off the top though, if you haven't already noticed: I'm a disagreeable person--I have no fear of conflict and I'm eager to play devil's advocate, in large part because I strongly dislike inefficient compromise. The result certainly affects your view of me through the context of only viewing my posts and also affects my path post-DDay with my WW.

1) you've convinced yourself that your wife does not understand your feeling. REASON? because it makes it easier for you to accept that she simply doesn't care. When she tells you that you should view her infidelities as getting her emotional needs met, what she is really saying is "this is all your fault for not meeting my emotional needs and any sex I had with him is a result of your failure as my husband". She absolutely understood what you were saying and thus the counterpoint.

I think you're wrong in your assertion. To her, quite genuinely, she views the EA with her AP as worse than the PA. To her, the sex was a result of the window she left open into her heart and mind. She does not blame me for not meeting her emotional needs, she blames herself for being so weak and frightened that she couldn't attempt to communicate with me how she felt prior to the A. It's a guilt that often paralyzes her and she struggles with daily.

How I feel is that the PA is worse than the EA; and it's for a variety of reasons. The EA never got that serious because the AP didn't care about my WW--it was very literally only sex for him, so there was never an outcome (at least before I found out about the A), where they could fall in love and complicate things further. Even from my WW's perspective, she never loved him--and I believe that--she foolishly thought he was a genuine friend, but that's as far as her naivety went.

On the other and, the PA is very problematic for me. They had unprotected sex, so my WW risked my health and risked a *very* complicated pregnancy. Those are big deals to me. There's also a tangible aspect of the PA that can't be undone: my wife, in a very literal sense, betrayed the intimacy of our M--the EA just washed away in a matter of days. Lastly, and perhaps most confounding for me, is the aspect of my cuckold kink--her doing something behind my back that had she had the emotional maturity to explore, she *potentially* could have done with my knowledge.

I don't feel she understands my perspective. To her, it's the sex that just washes away--as just some mechanical act she did and now it's forever behind her. So when I tell her how badly the PA hurts me, she doesn't empathize with me. That frustrates me and makes it difficult for me to build back trust because I don't believe she's listening and trying to understand my pain.

2) you stated that if you remarry and she also cheats you want to be crushed if not it means that the relationship wasn't special. REASON? You are bargaining with yourself to stay in this marriage. I suspect that how you feel with betrayal in possible future relationship will have very little to do with the depth of feelings or how special it was. You've lost that innocence. Once lost, very little will compare.

I don't know how I'll feel if I'm cheated on again, by either my current WW or a future partner. I don't understand the connection you're drawing between the feeling you think I understand and me bargaining to stay in my current M.

Very early on in the process, I spoke to you about painting yourself into a corner, I'm afraid thats exactly what you've done. You made up your mind that you will continue with this marriage, and now you've closed yourself off and pulled down the blinders. You are making excuses for your wife's don't give a damn-ness. She is invalidating your feelings and experiences and you've accepted it as her not understanding.

It' been nearly four months since DDay. And while it's been quite a ride--and I understand more about myself than at the start--not a whole lot has changed externally.

I'm still in limbo; and I'm here because I don't have any trust for my WW. I'm looking for signs from her that she has genuine remorse and she can demonstrate empathy for me. To be fair to her, she does show me those signs often, but they're then easily followed by her entitled, selfish words and behavior. As Truth mentioned, it feels like I'm in a pendulum--I'm unable to convince myself that she's remorseful because she can't streak together enough consistent behavior. So while she's improving, she's not good enough for me to commit to R.

And that brings us back to my disagreeableness. I will not inefficiently compromise or falsely convince myself of anything. It's sometimes a difficult trait to deal with as it can make me unlikable in social situations--but in this instance, I suspect it will be a blessing because I don't care what you/this forum, my family or my WW think about the reasoning behind any decision I make. And I don't write that to be rude or insensitive to you or anyone else; I write it to ensure that there's no confusion about my intentions. I greatly appreciate your feedback--and everyone's feedback on this website--but that's all it is to me.

I'll give you an anecdote, as it might help.

On Dec. 28, my wife met with AP and they decided to book a hotel. The following day, my wife booked the hotel for Jan. 4 and told me she had an unexpected work trip pop up. She was a wreck that whole week--snapping at me, not sleeping, drinking too much (behind my back)--she appeared to be an entirely crazy person; only building on her erratic behavior of the previous couple of weeks after the PA began with a kiss on Dec. 17.

I struggle to really understand how she must have been feeling in those days. I grew up a fan of Andrew Lloyd Weber, so there's a line from The Phantom of the Opera that sticks out to me: "The bridge is crossed, so stand and watch it burn."

We were planning to host a dinner party for New Year's Eve and I had planned three courses and some nice cocktail/wine pairings. I have impossibly high standards for myself, but I wasn't nervous; I felt prepared and thought the meal would be a success (it was!).

My WW woke up around 4 a.m. on Dec. 31 and went downstairs; racked with guilt for what she was about to do, she wasn't sleeping more than a few hours a night. Around 6 a.m., I went downstairs having heard something and saw she was setting the dinner table for the evening. I noticed she was putting the knife on the left of the plate and the fork on the right, so I gently suggested she swap it around so that it was correct. She snapped back: "No one will know the difference or care!" I replied: "Perhaps, but there's no reason to knowingly do it wrong--I'm happy to fix it myself."

She used that incident to further justify what she was about to do--she was married to a heartless man who rather than thanking her for setting the table, was criticizing the way she was doing it. She used that story numerous times to badmouth me to her mom and has brought it up numerous times post-DDay in conversations with me and in MC.

I could go on and on about my perspective on that incident, but it doesn't matter. I don't think I was wrong in that scenario and I would sooner divorce my WW than compromise on that point. I recognize that my perspective is perhaps unhealthy, but I'm ok with it. I also recognize that you likely think I'm bluffing--I'm ok with that too.

My point is that there is no scenario where I go into R with my WW without feeling entirely confident that she's passed my litmus test. So *if* I R with my WW, you'll just have to trust me when I tell you she has. You can certainly assume I've instead gone through extensive mental gymnastics to get to the result you think I wanted all along--I'll happily read that feedback and be ok with it--but it's not a decision I'll make without clarity.

I do have a pull to attempt R with my WW if I can begin to regain trust for her and maintain a happy home for my children. I feel that I owe my children that. In 30 years if my adult daughter asks why we split, I'm not willing to tell her I didn't try unless I am convinced in this moment that trying is a fool's errand. If we get to the fall and I haven't seen enough from my WW, I'm going to ask her for a temporary separation (2~ months) as a last ditch effort for her to sort herself out before we move toward D. If I have seen enough to feel confident that R is possible, I'll ask to attempt R with her. That's as far as I can reasonably game this out. Once in R or S, there are too many variables to plan for now.

[This message edited by Drstrangelove at 3:42 PM, Tuesday, July 12th]

"I could go on and on about my perspective on that incident, but it doesn't matter. I don't think I was wrong in that scenario and I would sooner divorce my WW than compromise on that point. I recognize that my perspective is perhaps unhealthy, but I'm ok with it. I also recognize that you likely think I'm bluffing--I'm ok with that too."

Dude, infidelity completely to the side, being ok with a perspective this unyielding and unhealthy is likely to make any serious relationship you’re in miserable for both you and the other person. If you’d rather divorce than compromise over which side of a plate a knife goes on, I can’t wrap my head around how any form of conflict resolution is possible for you.

Dude, infidelity completely to the side, being ok with a perspective this unyielding and unhealthy is likely to make any serious relationship you’re in miserable for both you and the other person. If you’d rather divorce than compromise over which side of a plate a knife goes on, I can’t wrap my head around how any form of conflict resolution is possible for you.

I should clarify. I don't care about the "fight"--like at all. One thing about not fearing conflict is that I also don't fear not resolving conflict. I'm fine having a disagreement and agreeing to disagree.

In that situation, we were hosting a dinner party--I was cooking all day and her contribution was setting the dinner table. I don't even care if she did that. There's no compromise as to where we put the knife lol. There's a correct place and then a virtually infinite amount of wrong places.

So when I wrote I'd divorce before I compromise it means if it was something my WW felt so strongly about that she wouldn't let it go, I'd D before I wrongfully apologized over the incident (and I did thank her for the effort in setting the table). More often than not though, we would just leave a conflict like that unresolved--it was just a minor disagreement. To her, with the A over her head, she made it a bigger deal in her head at the time.

"...she appeared to be an entirely crazy person; only building on her erratic behavior of the previous couple of weeks after the PA began with a kiss."

Ah yes. I have memories of this where my own WW was acting crazy and out of touch with reality. She blamed it on the stress of caring for our kids and my lack of help. Side note - I did help.

It was really all about her AP and her infidelity with him. She too crossed the bridge and watched it burn. She verbally burned me down to others. It all caused her considerable stress. I really had no clue what was happening.

You have like 80 pages of stuff here, most of which you described a woman who doesn't really gave a damn about you or your feelings. Yet, you continue to try to convince US or yourself that she cares a great deal but lacks the emotional intelligence of a 16 year old to grasp how you feel.

I have read countless posts in your 80 something pages from people who have walked this path and recognize very clearly what you are doing say your doing it, and yet you keep trying to convince that you are not.

I think the overwhelming message to you, here, is plan to move forward ALONE. Leave it up to your wife if she is wanting or willing to meet you there. You are trying to drag she along. You have masked her behavior to fit what you want instead of seeing it for what it is. Any time someone mentions this you simply say oh there are examples that I won't get into.

Ultimately its your life, and you choose. And as much as you don't care about what anyone here thinks, the honest truth is im not sure many here have a dog in your fight. People are simply taking what you write, compare against thier experience and give you feed back from thier perspective. Occasionally on these broads, you pretty much get a consensus....that seems to be the case here.

My own personal opinion, as I said long ago. This is a deal-breaker for you, you just haven't gotten comfortable with that idea yet.

Yet, you continue to try to convince US or yourself that she cares a great deal but lacks the emotional intelligence of a 16 year old to grasp how you feel.

Correct; and I feel confident that is precisely what is happening. The question for me becomes if I think it’s critical that she does grasp how I feel before I agree to try R—and I think I do.

I think the overwhelming message to you, here, is plan to move forward ALONE. Leave it up to your wife if she is wanting or willing to meet you there. You are trying to drag she along. You have masked her behavior to fit what you want instead of seeing it for what it is. Any time someone mentions this you simply say oh there are examples that I won't get into.

I have not masked her behavior—the worst of my wife is sprawled across the 90+ pages. It’s true I haven’t shared much of her good behavior, but as long as there is this much bad behavior, the good behavior doesn’t move the needle for me. It’s been a very positive few days and her IC sessions appear to be getting increasingly productive. Rising Strong is seemingly having a profound impact on her as well—but I need a longer time line to see if it’s real.

Ultimately its your life, and you choose. And as much as you don't care about what anyone here thinks…

I value all the feedback I receive here.

My own personal opinion, as I said long ago. This is a deal-breaker for you, you just haven't gotten comfortable with that idea yet.

I don’t know what you mean—her A is a dealbreaker?

Quick post before I step into another meeting.

In one of your previous posts, it suddenly clicked to me that your WW does not lack empathy, she lacks understanding.

The thought process of 'If you are not with me, you are against me' is unfortunately quite common nowadays. There does not seem to be a third option of compromise by opening up and understanding the issues/situation. Your WW seems to have this type of thinking.

For me, understanding an issue is paramount, before a decision is made. Thereinafter, you make the decision to agree, disagree, or ask for more clarity/information.

Your WW sees that if you do not agree with her, it will mean that you are against her.

That night in post coital bliss, your conversation seems to have flicked a switch in her mind, that you do not have to agree, as long as you understand.

Quick post before I step into another meeting.

In one of your previous posts, it suddenly clicked to me that your WW does not lack empathy, she lacks understanding.

The thought process of 'If you are not with me, you are against me' is unfortunately quite common nowadays. There does not seem to be a third option of compromise by opening up and understanding the issues/situation. Your WW seems to have this type of thinking.

For me, understanding an issue is paramount, before a decision is made. Thereinafter, you make the decision to agree, disagree, or ask for more clarity/information.

Your WW sees that if you do not agree with her, it will mean that you are against her.

That night in post coital bliss, your conversation seems to have flicked a switch in her mind, that you do not have to agree, as long as you understand.

I think that's true. I also think she's experiencing a crash course in communication right now. Between her IC work, MC, our frequent talks and all the books, it's like that scene in the Matrix where they download new skills for Neo in seconds.

The problem is that while she is now understanding more subtext and following conversations more logically, she still lacks self-awareness for her situation. She's not sparring with a friend in a debate class, she's facing a partner who she utterly destroyed emotionally.

My intellectual side is enjoying our conversations more and more as she "understands" more, but my emotional side is still getting beat up by how insensitive she can be. She is dealing with all her old vices while having these newly learned communication skills and struggling to balance them.

I'm heading for Italy tonight, so I thought I'd give an update before I leave as I suspect my posts will be infrequent for the next week.

My WW is leaving with the kids to see her parents tomorrow morning, so we'll have more than a week apart. We decided to chat a bit yesterday as it was our last night together--we had expected results.

The conversation started off just fine: her discussing the book she's reading (and greatly enjoying), Rising Strong, and me giving some feedback from my IC session earlier in the day.

I shared an anecdote my IC told me about a married couple she and her husband were friends with--they all have children going off to college this year and the couple is divorcing now. My IC and her husband are closer with the husband of the couple and my IC spoke with him briefly about the divorce.

He said he had an affair about 15 years ago and he felt like his wife had never forgiven him for it--it was his take on why they were divorcing now. My IC didn't talk with the wife. I joked that I could save her the trouble as I know what happened: they swept the affair under the rug, the husband never showed remorse for what he did, and the wife needled him for 15 years because she could never find a path to forgiveness (obviously a million other things could have happened; it was a joke).

I told my WW the story and noted to her that's why it's so important that I believe she is remorseful before we attempt R. I need to really believe there's a path to forgiving her for this so I don't hold it over her head the rest of our lives and her contrition and ability to show me empathy seems critical in me getting there. Without that, I can't attempt R with her.

My WW calmly responded: "Well, if you continued to hold the affair over my head, I'd just divorce you."

Her comment caught me off-guard, so I instinctively responded that nothing about her character or history suggests she would D me--she'd likely just build up resentment for me and have another A. She disagreed, but understood why I'd think that.

I realized her comment was largely just defensiveness though--she heard me tell her that I'd divorce her if she didn't show remorse, so she instinctively fired back that she'd divorce me if I don't forgive her. It's the same childish thinking she's had for four months, so it didn't bother me. And I think that's probably noteworthy--I feel like in the past that comment would have angered me, but I'm not angry about it.

Anyway, I decided to move on from that quickly as to not get bogged down in a topic that didn't matter--if I don't think I can forgive her, I won't attempt R anyway.

I instead wanted to explore an incident I had been thinking about since earlier that morning. In the bathroom getting ready for work, my WW asked me if I could see her underwear through her dress and I told her no. She laughed and said, "Good! I don't want to look like a floozy."

I joked, "Too late..."

In the moment, I realized the "joke" probably hurt her feelings, but I didn't care that it did. I left it and didn't apologize in the moment.

So I brought it up in the evening wanting to open up my feelings on it. I asked if the comment bothered my WW and she confirmed that it did briefly, but she got over it quickly. I told her that in the moment I didn't feel bad for saying it, even knowing that it likely made her feel bad, and I suspect the reason was that I felt like I wanted her to know how hurt I still was. I think for me, not seeing her remorse and her not showing empathy, made me act out with that joke as a passive aggressive quip to call her attention to my pain. It was childish and I told my WW that.

Her response wasn't what I expected. She told me I was trying to make her feel ashamed (which is perhaps true) and she brought up another instance where I made her feel ashamed about a week or so ago. She told me that my comments were hurtful because I was piling more shame onto her when she already feels so much of it. I disagreed with her other example--it wasn't said maliciously like the floozy reference--but I won't get into it because it doesn't matter as long as she received it that way.

The interaction hurt me though. I was opening up about my pain and apologizing for an unhealthy outlet for it and she leveraged it to try to make me feel bad for her feelings of shame. I think for me, I don't really care about her issues with shame--I understand I may have given her shame with my comment, but the intent was for her to see my pain, as I explained. Ultimately, she's going to have to resolve her feelings of shame on her own. On my end, her showing me remorse and empathy is what I need from her. She can't resolve those issues clearly, so she instinctively reverts back to a victim.

None of the interactions were the end of the world, but it just feels like no matter what the conversation, we arrive at a place where she is the victim.

Anyway, I wrote that out to clear my head. I'm looking forward to the Italy trip, but I wish we could have left things on better terms before we go our separate ways. I'm trying so hard to see remorse in her and she left me with threatening divorce and turning my pain into hers again. I'm not mad about any of it--just sad I suppose.

Interesting discussion with your WW. I do believe your time apart will be good for both of you.

I had an interesting couple of days with my WW that sort of touches on your comment about remorse.

A couple days ago, my WW tested me from work that she had a rough night. I asked why, and she told me she had a very emotional dream about me. I asked about what, she told me it was about me hiring an escort! I told her I’d never do that! She said, it wasn’t about that, and that she’d tell me about it when she got home.

When she got home, she told me about her dream and how it affected her.

Basically, I’m her dream, she asked me if I was seeing someone and I casually said, yes, I’m paying an escort for sex, and that since I didn’t want to sleep with her anymore, I was getting it elsewhere. She told me that in her dream, she felt that she didn’t have any leg to stand as she had done the same to me. It wasn’t so much that I was cheating on her, but more my reaction and apparent gleefulness about this. She said she could see the satisfaction on my face knowing how much this was hurting her. She told me she work up in hysterics and was balling her eyes out.

While telling me this, she was crying. I asked her how this affected her, since really, it was just a dream and she knows I would never do anything like this and would certainly never rub her face in it like I did in her dream. She told me she felt she experienced a tiny fraction of what I just have felt when I discovered her A’s. I saw something I haven’t really seen in her. I believe she experienced some of the pain I had experienced and I really felt like she could understand the depth of pain that this causes to the BS. She told me she wasn’t able to truly understand the pain I had gone through and although just a dream, in the moment, it was real and she was again horrified about what damage this has caused to our relationship.

Anyway, it was a positive for me, I feel she has some insight into how I was and do feel some days and appreciated her telling me about it.

Enjoy Italy! We were in Pisa, Rome, Florence and the Amalfi Coast in 2018, absolutely loved Italy! Have a great trip and enjoy the break!

I shared an anecdote my IC told me about a married couple she and her husband were friends with--they all have children going off to college this year and the couple is divorcing now. My IC and her husband are closer with the husband of the couple and my IC spoke with him briefly about the divorce.

I worry that you are not as self aware of your own foibles as you believe. I can't imagine believing this was a good discussion topic going into a multiweek separation with where the two of you currently are. Tone death and couterproductive. She reacted poorly but this was very much a topic that was doomed for failure where both of you are at this point. I especially worry that your foundness for debate is likely going to doom any possible R regardless of whether or not your WW gets her head out of her ass.

Every day, she continues to show you who she is. Eventually you will believe her.

I've read every page of both threads you have. I honestly had some hope for you and your wife. But the longer this has gone, the more evident it is that Hellfire's above comment is 100% correct.
My son, who just got his degree in psychology has read some of this as well, and while he's not 100% in agreement with me, he holds that he isn't far from that number either. He and I have long discussions on things we find around the internet. Yours was one I thought I would share with him.

Every day, she continues to show you who she is. Eventually you will believe her.

Well, I think that's exactly what's happening. She's going to convince me of something at some point. I know you know what that is--I'm less clear. I am clear that I won't be in limbo forever though.

She's going to convince you that she is incapable of giving you what you need. You will realize she isn't reconciliation material.

And,I'm really sorry about that.

At one point,I thought she really wanted to do the work,she just didn't know what that work looked like. It's why I pushed for you to suggest she start posting.

It's clear she knows what she should be doing. You've told her,very clearly. She has the tools she needs. She has this incredible resource with this site. She just can't..no,won't, get out of her own way.

I was opening up about my pain and apologizing for an unhealthy outlet for it and she leveraged it to try to make me feel bad for her feelings of shame.

I mean, of course she did. She has never done anything else. Why would she now?

She is showing you who she is and you keep hoping for something different. I am sorry you are in pain.

At one point,I thought she really wanted to do the work, she just didn't know what that work looked like.

FWIW, that's still what I see when I observe her. I recognize that facts are often to the contrary though.