SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

[This message edited by FromADistance at 12:06 AM, Tuesday, November 22nd]

Not that I could, but a drunken ONS would be easier to swallow than an actual affair. The amount of disrespect (regardless of the worn out excuses) needed to carry on is mind boggling. The amount of effort to plan it, hide it, do it and still act like a loving spouse to their BS is astounding. Might as well have a bag packed for the BS when he/she gets home at that point. They are, after all putting more effort into the AP than they are their marriage. At that point showing the BS the door is the kindest thing they can do.
And I can go back to that "I didn't mean to hurt you" thing as pure BS, because they didn't care if it hurt them, until they were faced with it. And honestly it seems too many would rather do the "Lets quietly move past this" than deal with the devastation they caused. Their pain over what they did often seems to be the bigger issue than the pain they caused, as in "I know how much I hurt you, can we please not talk about it!"
I saw that in my brothers marriage crashing due to his wife's affair. As in he had little right to question her, feel hurt, she wanted to just forget it and get on with their marriage. And with that attitude I told him she'd do it again down the road. Eventually he realized that he was treading water and that was that.
She never showed him any remorse, and even though she never said it I swear she had the "It was just sex, get over it" attitude from the talks I had with him.
As for being the lynch pin, there is nothing wrong with doing what you feel is best for you in the long run. If this isnt something you cant get beyond it isn't on you, in any way, the fallout from that is NOT your fault. And if you want to save your marriage she has a LOT of work to do, and if she doesn't, again it is not on you. Not knowing your story doesn't really change that.

Well I believe that affairs are objectively bad.

Forgiveness from the BS doesn't make the sentence lighter. Many WS likely suffer more consequence staying with BS than leaving. Apart they are free to continue justifying their affair as unhappy and society is willing to give enough reinforcement in terms of preaching the unmet needs fallacy far and wide. It's much easier to justify and blameshift if you aren't also trying to R.

Not that plenty of WS's don't behave badly in R. But if they make a real effort and the BS has solid resources, the consequences in R are worse than D.

You seem to struggling to make sense of your reality. You are sort of deflecting by constructing parallel realities and narratives then deciding which is closest to what has happened in your life. I highly recommend you talk out the details that bother you with your WS and IC.

This would be a lot easier if you could just start from the beginning and tell us your story rather than asking abstract questions.

Without your story, without proper context, we could accidentally steer you wrong. But I will try and answer as best I can:

"WS’s love a consequence of guilt and mass shame?"

Love is a selfless emotion composed of selfless actions. Shame and guilt are relatively selfish emotions mostly composed of selfish actions taken to relieve the pain of guilt and shame.

"Shame and love are similar in that both involve a global evaluation with a profound impact, but whereas in shame, the evaluation is directed at oneself and is negative, in love, the evaluation is directed at the other and is basically positive."

The difference between guilt vs remorse.

"Guilt tends to be all about the person feeling the emotion. For example, someone who cheats in a relationship may feel guilty because they're being judged for what they did. They feel bad for doing something bad. Although this is a valid emotion, it's probably not enough to rebuild a relationship.

However, remorse is a deeper emotion. Remorse comes from true empathy for the pain the OTHER person is feeling because of YOUR actions,"

- Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Margalis Fjelstad, Ph.D

"To put it simply, remorse says, "Forgive me for hurting you," while guilt or regret says, "Stop making me feel guilty for hurting you." "Regret often seems flat, emotionless, and is more focused on moving on and getting the "punishment" over with,"- Fjelstad says.

Shame, without remorse, is paralyzing. A truly remorseful WS needs to transcend their shame and not get mired in it (Toxic Shame). Toxic shame is not loving and It’s not remorseful. It’s selfish and it can be very distracting and incredibly debilitating resulting in a form of self victimization and a decent into a pity pot of their own making. Where the WS redirects sympathy, empathy away from the BS onto themselves. The injured BS then feels obliged to render care to the WS, which is completely backasswards.

Guilt and shame, to a healthy degree, are important for R, but an abundance of Remorse is what you’re really looking for.

Others will be along to spell out what remorse looks like. That’s a whole other discussion.

Reconciliation, true wholistic reconciliation, is F-ing HARD. It takes true remorse and loving patience and devotion to see it through. It’s a relatively unconditional lifelong crusade you throw your whole being into. A trial, I imagine, many marriages would never pass.

[This message edited by RealityBlows at 6:05 AM, Thursday, September 29th]

Your question about what happens if the cheating spouse doesn’t see pain from the betrayed spouse is something I can identify with.

My H’s first affair was a 4 year emotional affair. I knew from the moment I met this girl she was interested in my H as more than a friend. My first words to my H were "watch yourself with her".

By year 3 I knew something was going on. He denied it. Stonewalled. Lied. Refused to discuss. Called me crazy. Told me I was imagining things.

Until the day the OW called me to ask me if my H could go to an event with her as friends. I just handed my H the phone after I told her "ask him". My H knew what was about to come. Rage. Fury. Refusing to speak to him. For days.

He got the message and ended it. And then it was rugswept. This was the 90s.

15 years later he has a second affair. Except this time he plans to D me. It was easy to start this affair b/c he had NO CONSEQUENCES from the first affair.

And the second OW told me he admitted to her that he cheated on me with the first OW.

Soooo my H saw my pain and frustration and anger for 4 years during the first affair but just didn’t care. The ego boost and two women fighting over him were more important than being honest.

What changed after his second affair and his plan to D me? Me!

I kicked him to the curb in dday2 of affair 2 and have never backed down. I finally stood up for myself. I stopped being a doormat. I stopped letting him call the shots.

He knows I will walk out the door in a heartbeat. I now put up with nothing. If I say it I mean it and if I don’t want to compromise I don’t. He’s not my priority - I am my priority. My happiness comes first.

Did my H see my pain during his affairs? Yes. Did he care? No.

Until dday2 of his second affair when I told him I was D him. I did the hard 180 and turned my back on him. He no longer had control of me or kids or anything.

And that’s when true remorse set in. It’s the only reason we are still together. He never had remorse for anything prior - but now he dies. He regrets all of it and tells me so. He has changed. On his own.

He’s not the same cheating jerk he was.

The pain you are experiencing jumps off the pages at me. You are truly suffering.

The only thing I have to add to this conversation is about having children still living at home.

In your original post you say "With children gone, and only a husband she felt didn't support her (pre-discovery), and the empty nest vibes". I can not access Mr. Walloped's 2015 Just Found Out post. I never read Mrs. Walloped's original posts. Her affair happened in 2015. In her 12/14/20 post "At A Loss", which she posts 5 years after her affair, she states about children still living at home in 2020, "of course we have our youngest at home". I believe they might have had other children still living at home during her affair.

I personally believe that having children at home, and not wanting to break up the family, played a major deciding factor in Mr. Walloped staying married to his betrayer... if not the deciding factor.

My recommendation to you is to read the book "Cheating in a Nutshell" by Wayne and Tamara Mitchell. You will begin to understand the sources of your pain. Also, eat healthy, exercise (lift weights until exhaustion), stay hydrated, and please stay away from alcohol and drugs.

Good luck.

[This message edited by FromADistance at 12:07 AM, Tuesday, November 22nd]

Note the guideline:

ON TOPIC: ... Feel free to start new topics to discuss general subject matter in other threads, but do not refer to specific topics or threads outside of their original location.

This thread is at least very close to violating that guideline.

*****

Another guideline:

GENERAL STATEMENTS: Please refrain from making statements that generalize gender, WS/OP/BS, race, religion or political alignment. Also do not presume to speak on behalf of other people.

This thread arguably violates this guideline.

*****

This is a flagged post. I'll offer my thoughts below.

** Posting as a member **

Look, I've been here a long time. From almost the beginning, I've been convinced that this place works in part because of the guidelines. They are very important, IMO, and they need to be honored and adhered to.

Very gently, FromADistance, you could have saved yourself a lot of typing by saying something like, 'Reading MrsWalloped's threads has evoked the following thoughts.'

Among other things, FAD, the way you started this thread invites people to comment on MrsW. I understand that you may want to distance yourself from your pain, but that doesn't work - there is no distance between you and your pain. You have to choose between feeling it and stuffing it - and if you try to stuff it, it will just fester and grow.

This is a theoretical example to explain my feelings, so maybe too dark.

Darkness I understand, but your thread is opaque, IMO. I have no confidence that I understand what you are getting at, unless it's the general run-of-the-mill devastation that most BSes feel - and I mean devastation, even though it's 'run-of-the-mill'.

RealityBlows nails it:

This would be a lot easier if you could just start from the beginning and tell us your story rather than asking abstract questions.

Without your story, without proper context, we could accidentally steer you wrong.

*****

What if they didn't see that pain? What if the BS suffered silently, and therefore, all other parties impacted did not see that suffering?

Yes, I didn't cause this situation, but do you see where I'm stuck as the keeper of the crossroads? I know I present this as skewed, and there are other long term consequences, but the meat of it is me and my reaction, isn't it?

Hmmm ... I'm gonna say, 'Nope.'

IMO, the BS's reaction is about the BS's healing. The WS's reaction is about the WS's.

A hint about what I mean: my W realized she fucked up and was fucked up all her life. She decided to change, and that decision was not connected with my reaction at all.

But I'm not even sure you're a BS. Your thread is so distanced from the actual situation that I think it's possible you're the WS attempting to get into your BS's head.

*****

Actually, I'll bet that you're a BS who has been hiding yourself from your WS and from whatever support system you have, probably for many years.

I do not mean to add to your pain, but I guess I do hope you get so uncomfortable distancing yourself from your pain that you do what RealityBlows (and others, including myself) asks you to do - to tell your story. That step is absolutely necessary to your healing.

You're pretty safe here. Obviously some of us are willing to confront you, but you're strong enough to handle that.

You're stronger than you think.

Among other things, FAD, the way you started this thread invites people to comment on MrsW.

And his other thread invites people to comment on ASoCalledLife.

I’ve never understood people who come here and their initial posts are about other members (usually WSs or threads of high drama) and how those members’ BHs reacted to them, and how others on SI treated them, and how their stories panned out.

[This message edited by FromADistance at 12:07 AM, Tuesday, November 22nd]

Your d-day did not register with me. I triggered. I apologize.

Ok FromADistance, let’s get to it, and not "from a distance" but from four weeks ago, your D-Day.

We’re already at a disadvantage as we’re trying to reach out to you from across a vast internet chasm, some of us continents away. Our shared experiences with infidelity trauma, and empathy, are the only things that bring us together.

Will you share with us, will you trust us with YOUR story so we can help you?