SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

To me, there is no reasonable excuse, and it is not worth clinging onto one ounce of the other man’s failings.

I’m not saying there are reasonable excuses. What I’m thinking about are actually by definition irrational behaviors, but predictably irrational. And it can still be true that a person is acting in bad faith to start the process. I see that to be true in those other forums, that married men have a consistent set of lies that reel in and retain AP’s, and I care about that. It pisses me off that men are like that and that one dared to come into my life.

Though I think that this line of thinking is basically a justification to minimize the actions of a WS to make it more palatable to stay. I do in a sense buy into this

There are mechanisms in our minds that short circuit our normal rational thought processes and lead us down paths we would never believe we’d go down in a sane sober moment

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That is why I have said, and actually recently, that our marriage didn’t the first time she slept with him, but rather the second. People’s minds do get short circuited and they may do stupid things. Fucking him the first time was a moment of reckless weakness. Fucking him the second time was a conscious decision she enjoyed enough to do it again and was willing to sacrifice her marriage for it.

Your theory may actually hold some water for a drunken or even not drunken ONS. But if someone continues the affair at some point it is not circumstance. It’s their thought out rational decision. As much as you couch it, you are blaming the AP and not the person who took vows with you.

[This message edited by waitedwaytoolong at 2:30 AM, Thursday, February 16th]

I’m not offended by this topic at all; nor do I see it as un-PC or anything. I appreciate the debate. But I agree with those who say that the naive wife/clueless granny comparison is a false one. I also think you may be right that in a removed sense, if you’re representing the relationship accurately, the other man’s actions are worse than your wife’s. He’s a predator of sorts, and went into this knowingly and purposefully deceiving her, where she went naively down a slippery slope without conscious intention to betray you at the outset.

But I still don’t think that matters much for you or your relationship, if what you’re looking for is healing and reconciliation. She still has a LOT of culpability (and total culpability in terms of what’s relevant for your marriage). Letting yourself have sex with another person and cheating on your spouse is a very conscious choice. Unless she truly has diminished mental capacity, there’s no way it never occurred to her that what she was doing was wrong.

My husband was not actually the pursuer in his affair, at least not initially. His affair partner came to him and confessed that she was in love with him, blah blah blah. (I know this because I found their emails from the beginning of the affair). She came on very strong, bombarding him with all kinds of communication, telling him profusely how much she wanted him, and having all sorts of emotional crises that she all but demanded he hold her hand through. Had she not approached him, i think it’s unlikely the affair would have happened. It’s different than your situation, because I don’t think she was calculating and intentionally deceitful/grooming the way your wife’s AP was.

But you know what? After her initial move, my husband ate it up and returned everything and was very much an equal party to the affair. I don’t care that she came on strong and hit him when and where he was vulnerable; he wasn’t a victim. He knew he was playing with fire and risking the destruction of our 20+ year happy marriage, and he blinded himself to that, came up with a raft of justifications for the wrongs he was doing me, ignored the risk, put his head in the sand, and compartmentalized the shit out of the mess he was making of his life. That’s my issue, not that crazypants McSlutFace came onto him when he wasn’t prepared for it.

[This message edited by Grieving at 2:39 AM, Thursday, February 16th]

Fucking him the first time was a moment of reckless weakness. Fucking him the second time was a conscious decision she enjoyed enough to do it again and was willing to sacrifice her marriage for it.

I’ve read this from you before and it’s given me things to think about. This is probably why waywards always say "it was just once!" , they subconsciously understand this point.

Your theory may actually hold some water for a drunken or even not drunken ONS. But if someone continues the affair at some point it is not circumstance.

I hear this. There is still the element of an affair being like an addiction. Or maybe actually an addiction. And as I’ve said before, my father was an alcoholic. I do not give addicts a pass, I think he was a bad man in a lot of ways. But I also pity the chains he wore from that addiction. It’s not a simple matter to just quit. There is momentum, inertia from the slippery slope. But yes, there is still responsibility. I don’t know how to fully reconcile them.

But you know what? After her initial move, my husband ate it up and returned everything and was very much an equal party to the affair. I don’t care that she came on strong and hit him when and where he was vulnerable; he wasn’t a victim. He knew he was playing with fire and risking the destruction of our 20+ year happy marriage, and he blinded himself to that, came up with a raft of justifications for the wrongs he was doing me, ignored the risk, put his head in the sand, and compartmentalized the shit out of the mess he was making of his life. That’s my issue, not that crazypants McSlutFace came onto him when he wasn’t prepared for it.

This is all really fair. And hilarious. #McSlutFace

Here is my "crystalized" understanding of what I think you are trying to say. Informed by my experiences and "Not Just Friends". The draw of the affair is fundamentally strong if it is available and palletable. We humans are weak anc fallible creatures. We must exercise willpower to not do things we want to and discipline to do things we ought to do but don't want to do. When we run short on willpower we make knowingly bad decisions. We let them pile on and we rationalize. And if I didn't know what I know now about affairs, and the opportunity fell in my lap I most likely wouldn't face my ethics and win the internal struggle to stay out of it. I would probably give excuse after excuse to let my willpower fail. Simultaneously I would probably let go of discipline at home, or worse hold my duties against my family. "I ought to be allowed to do something just for me!"

Certainly I was not aware of how people move from friendship into an A. While it is still a decision to engage, by the time you have loosened up your mind and feelings, it's much closer to deciding to eat a free sample at Costco of chocolate than it is deciding to stab your partner in the back (despite that being the decision). The "fog" or self delusion is not an excuse in my mind at all. Playing fast and loose with the good feelings the proto-affair give is how the actual A starts. It means we need to recognize and critically evaluate our decisions as we make them.

Does this interaction enrich my marriage? Would my wife like to see a video of this interaction? Maybe it's not as benign as it is at first blush. And recognizing that the WS choose those things and failed to enforce proper boundaries makes them able to see the pattern pre-emptivelt instead of after it is too late and the secret fire is already burning. If they do not provide the spark, if they engage in transference of vigilance, if they are deeply honest about their interactions with others, they are much less likely to have another A. Or if they do, it will be a much more blatant attack on the BS.

We are all flawed and we all make decisions that we know are less than the best for us. Maybe it's wrong to call an A a difference of degrees from choosing to eat shitty food, or choosing not to exercise, but it's fundamentally the same mechanism on a grander scale.

it's much closer to deciding to eat a free sample at Costco of chocolate than it is deciding to stab your partner in the back (despite that being the decision)

YES
#crystalized

And that the Costco worker poisoned the chocolate. Or something like that, not sure how to work that into your parable right now. But I appreciate the help.
The notion of intentional deception is huge to me in this.

it’s because I think she may have been victimized in a sense here.

She really wasn't tho. She just wasn't.

Look my xwh lost two close family members very tragically in the year before the A. He was a combat vet with a fuck ton of untreated PTSD. He came from an abusive childhood. He had health issues as a result of a tbi. And his little skanklet came into his life right in the middle of that. To top all of that off, our m was really not doing well at the time either.

I did this dance in the early days of focusing on all those other things and pinning the A onto those because the truth just made no damn sense to me. I also hated her because hating him was really scary at the time and I just couldn't do it.

But the truth is he had an affair because he wanted to have an affair. It's as simple as that. It was wrong, he knew it, and he fucking did it anyways. All his foo shit, and war shit, and deaths etc factored into the kind of person he is(the kind of person that would do something like this), but he still chose to cheat and nothing excuses that.

Your wife may be naive and have past traumas and everything, but she still. Chose. This. Om. Consciously chose him over your marriage and over you. She wasn't a victim of him, no matter how smooth his shit was.

I will second the poster who said that every single thought you give to this POS loser gives him power over you. It gives him importance. It takes energy that you don't have to spare right now. I know how hard it is to let go of that anger. Hell the AP in my case had no spouse for me to tell. Less than a year after that little shit blew up my life she had moved on with no consequence whatsoever. It suuuuuucks. But I have to have faith (as do you) that karma will get around to them. And it will cus it always does.

She knew you both agreed to not eat chocolate. But she wanted the chocolate. The Costco worker said, c'mon it's just one piece, I won't tell if you won't.

She knew what she was getting into. I agree with Ellie and others on this point.

Over the marriage vows, definitely. Over you, I don't think so. Like most A's I think your wife was cake eating. She chose him in addition to you against your agreement to be monogamous.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 3:57 AM, Thursday, February 16th]

Your wife may be naive and have past traumas and everything, but she still. Chose. This. Om. Consciously chose him over your marriage and over you. She wasn't a victim of him, no matter how smooth his shit was.

I am her victim. No question.

If things went down as I think they did, I have no problem thinking there is an element of her being a victim to him. It doesn’t have to be an either/or question. Jails are full of people with broken pasts. And POSOM is a broken person too, I know that.

Maybe the point is the only thing worth giving attention to is our relatively small sphere of life. She betrayed me, we need to deal with that. One step removed, he deceived her to start it. I care about that as it goes to motive and how to heal. I’m not going to go to the 2nd and 3rd step of figuring out POSOM’s issues, all the way to Kevin Bacon.

She is knew what she was getting into. I agree with Ellie and others on this point.

Yeah, I agree.

Honestly, I really think you are trying very hard to talk yourself into R by minimizing your wife's culpability here. I agree with pretty much everyone else in this thread, but believe what you want and if this makes it easier for you then just do it.

So can I assume because of this experiment someone can talk you into killing your children and you would not be entirely to blame because those people were bad people who talked you into it?

So OM was a Jedi and your wife was just weak minded. Ok.

Inkhulk, the AP in my situation did lead my XWH down the path to the A, but he had terrible boundaries in the first place. XWH didn't think of an A until AP suggested sex. Was she a predator? Not sure, but she was a serial cheater.

Doesn't matter because XWH had so many other decisions that could have been made rather than having an A.

It comes down to protecting your M. She shouldn't have out herself in a situation where he could hit on her. When he did, she should have shot him down and removed herself from the situation.

She didn't. She could have talked to you. She didn't.

There were so many different DECISIONS she could have made but didn't.

Let's forget about the granny with dementia.. A 30 something woman is travelling back and forth from Europe to the US. She runs into an old acquaintance in Europe. He asks if she will carry some sort of artifact back to the US for him. "Sure, glad to.."

He contacts her later to make sure everything went well, and tells her he needs to shuttle some things back to the US from time to time. She's traveling to Europe a lot, so sure, she'll do that. He evens pays her a bit for her trouble.

She does this for a few months when he asks if she can take several pieces at a time and he'll pay her well for her trouble. "Sure, no problem.. I can use a little extra spending money."

This goes on for some time. Then it dawns on her that, "oh shit, could there be something hidden inside these artifacts? Oh, not to worry.. I trust him. Nobody knows about me doing this. I'm not hurting anyone. And besides, the money comes in handy and I like the adventure."

Upon return to the US from one of her trips to Europe, she gets pulled aside by customs and taken to a room. Regular law enforcement is there... They read her her rights and put the cuffs on! They break open one of the artifacts and small baggies of cocaine fall out..

I don't know.. A victim? Or someone having the time of her life...until she got caught.

[This message edited by Adolfo at 4:52 AM, Thursday, February 16th]

I understand wanting to blame the third party. It does take two people. Not one. And I am a huge believer in the person that strays has a huge character issue or flaw … they are broken. Anyone that chooses to do this to someone is broken. And for the AP or third person … they must be broken also. Otherwise why would they put up with being a side piece? Pretty pathetic if you really think about it. A person with integrity would not allow it to happen and so both the one straying and the AP lack integrity.

Are there people out there that openly would try and flirt and start something with another person? Absolutely there are… both sexes. It’s not just man motivated.

After discovery it’s the responsibility of the wayward to do the work on themselves with therapy to discover and understand why they would act out in such a way. And therapy to help them find alternate ways of coping with life’s obstacles.

At the end of the day pointing fingers on who initiated what is really irrelevant. The wayward chose to stray. So they have to do the work to find out why and hopefully reform themselves into becoming a safe partner.

Scammer comparison to infidelity is grossly wrong. There is no comparison. If a person calls me and convinces me to send my savings to his account and in return he would double or triple my money in certain period of time, then I might take that bait because of the possibility that if it is not a scam then me and my whole family would benefit from it. Don't you think so? If this wasn't a scam and person who called me was a genuine person who really wanted to help me and family then I don't mind sending my money to him. So when a person approaches me with a financial scheme then there is a possibility that it might benefit my family, if it's not a scam.

Do you see same possibility in affairs? Do you think if the guy who approached your wife wasnt a predator but a genuine guy then that would have beneifted your marriage? There are many cheaters who think affair improves their marriage. But you of all people should know it's not true. No kind of affair is beneficial to any kind of marriage. This is the fundamental difference between scam and affair. Granny saw possibility of the benefits to her family and so she took the bait. Your wife knew there is no benefit to her family from her affair and yet she took the bait. Do you still think granny and your wife are on same page?

If you ask your granny,"if one day in future some guy offers you a financial scheme that would greatly benefits you and your family and it's not scam, would you take it?". She will definitely say,"Yes!".

If you had asked your wife before her affair, "If in future a guy approaches you with a romantic interest and wants to have an affair with you and he is genuine, honest and definitely not a predator, and truely loves you. Would say yes to him? And also he is married." What do you think your wife's response would have been?

Also, don't forget what her Ap is to you is what your wife is to OBS.

[This message edited by Lurkingsoul12 at 7:58 AM, Thursday, February 16th]

In my drug carrying mule example above, the woman would have been a victim had she been caught and arrested on the first trip. But by the time she was caught, she SHOULD have, and really did, know that she was carrying something illegal. At that point she is no longer a victim.

I think the point that InkHulk is trying to make is that maybe the WW gets sucked in by a predator with a nice comment, then maybe a compliment. At that point the WW has no intention of cheating. She's a victim of his scheme.

Then, with additional comments, compliments, and then gifts and invitations to lunch, the predator wears the victim down. During the initial encounter, WW was a victim. By the time she was going to lunch with him, she SHOULD have known what he was up to, so she is no longer a victim, but a cheater.

Yes, she lied. But she didn’t start the interactions with intent and lies (I believe), and he did (I believe).

I think you’re trying to say that not all cheaters set off to cheat. Big deal. They still cheat, indeed seeking an affair is a whole different level of brokenness, but the results are pretty much the same.

I’m going to ignore the big gender bias where women are some sort of naive, weak, easily led creatures that only discover a guy wants to get into their pants by flirting with them at a more advanced age whilst married, when the reality is that we learn that in adolescence and young adulthood when our hearts are broken by lack of commitment and men chase us like pray.

Do we still "fall" for the romantic concept? Of course, that’s why we get married too, but we also grow up, mature, learn from the world around us, have values and principles and if one of them is loyalty and another integrity, as it should be, even if Brad Pitt comes to our door, we don’t cheat on our husbands.

By the way, I do agree that if the right circumstances do align, mostly everyone can become a cheater, although for me integrity is a huge important part of my life, however I can guarantee you that if I would ever find myself there, I will be more than capable to say "yes, it’s my own doing" rather than shift the blame.

On the other side of the argument there is the cognitive dissonance phenomenon which is the ability we all humans have to find ways to justify certain behaviours. This isn’t showing its effects only in affairs but in every day life too when we tell ourselves we deserve something that is on the forbidden list despite our own beliefs.

Removing gender bias again, I can tell you that my WH did not set off to cheat either. He’s not a serial cheater (I do believe that), prior to his affair he was considered the perfect husband and father and it all started with “innocent” flirting. He thought it was harmless flirting (what a stupid concept seeing how many people it hurt) but things escalated and cognitive dissonance kicked in, he started justifying his entitlement to an affair.

On the other side OW was single and guess what? One of the first thing she said during a conversation we had was "I didn’t mean for this to happen it just did". She knew from the first moment that he’s married. Further more, she was a BS in her previous marriage and was abandoned for the OW. So to claim such ignorance towards affairs and how these happen is beggars belief.

In conclusion none of them meant for this to happen, none of them set off to cheat. Or I could sit here and tell you exactly why OW was manipulative as the statements she made and the behaviours she adopted post dday certainly pointed in the direction of this woman intending to get herself an off the shelf husband and deciding mine would do.

I don’t know about you but I want to be married to someone whom things don’t just happen to them but he understands that life is a series of choices and each choice has its consequences. I don’t want to hear next "I murder someone but I didn’t mean for this to happen, Jonny led me to it!" I don’t want to hear "I’ve lost our house on black in Vegas, I didn’t mean for that to happen". So I don’t give a damn if ow sat there with her legs spread on his desk promising him her vagina was made of gold, he made a choice fully knowing that there are consequences which could cost him losing his family.

None of these scenarios change the fact that there was a point which exist in every affair, the point of no return, one in our case where the ow said to my husband "why don’t you come around tomorrow afternoon?" And my husband had hours to decide, hours to come home and see me knowing he’s planning to have sex with another woman the next day, see his kids, go to work, work for half a day and then go and have sex with another woman. At no point did he change his mind. At no point did he say, hold on, this isn’t harmless anymore. Maybe I should divorce first because I have integrity. Nope, he gave himself a series of justifications about why he’s entitled to it and how I wasn’t going to find out anyway. Because by his own sketchy thinking, only me finding out would turn him into a bad person.

So yes, not everyone sets off to cheat but there comes a point where they give themselves permission to do so. Why does it really matter if the AP promised them the moon and beyond in order to get there?

Comparing this with scammers, old people are taken by surprise about all the technology and scamming emails, the constant NEW innovative ways of emptying their bank accounts.

The tricks men use to get into women’s pants are as old as the Egyptian pyramids hence why all women on dating sites are sick of dick pics.

As an aside: just as my WH was "harmless flirting" there was a guy hitting on me at work. No, no sexual innuendo as such (although he complimented the hell out of me), more like Prince Charming coming to save me from the same mundane and boring marriage my WH was using as an excuse to fall into a vagina. I remember the fleeting thought of "mmm… what if?"… and then feeling terrible for even considering this. The guy became more and more… friendly. Using all the tricks available in the book. I told my husband and at one point I even framed a family picture and stuck it on my desk at work. Meanwhile… my WH was deep into a vagina, not even seeing a lesson into how to remain faithful wasn’t a cheating deterrent.

What you need to focus on is what is your wife doing to make herself a safer partner. Not how she "didn’t mean for this to happen" although she had several opportunities to say no. I get it, I truly do, I’ve spent about 6 months obsessing over who pursued whom as I wanted to find a way to keep my WH on the pedestal I had him on before. Surely my family oriented loving husband and father of my kids (my best friend unknowingly participated in the deceit by telling me I’m paranoid and crazy when I told her I suspect he’s cheating. She laughed at me and told me I must be bored with my super loyal husband) is not capable of inflicting such harm on us so it must be that slut throwing herself at him. Regardless though… there comes a point where you realise that unless they were held at gun point (in which case it would be rape, not cheating) they made a choice, and that choice was to cheat.

[This message edited by Luna10 at 1:01 PM, Thursday, February 16th]

I had my affair as a student at a university that is sometimes named as the #1 in America and routinely included in the top ten in the world, so let's assume OM and I were not as intellectually disadvantaged as an elderly grandmother who hands her bank information to a scammer.

I don't know what sites you're reading, but of course a bunch of WWs on the Internet are going to commiserate with each other about how they were played by the Big Bad AP. I was played by the OM. I suppose it's useful for a WS to focus on the player characteristics of an AP if it helps break the limerence of an affair. But the moment you start using that as a form of mitigation or exoneration, you're creating impediments to the work.

Speaking as a WW, it is very, very difficult to keep looking at yourself in the cold light of reality and fully grasp what you allowed to happen. It's also very, very necessary. If someone dims the lights and hands you a teddy bear and a fuzzy blanket, that slows the process or even reverses it. That doesn't mean it's helpful to throw buckets of ice water on the WS either, and if empathy helps prevent you from doing that, then I'm all for it. But it shouldn't diminish the harsh reality that on both sides of an affair, the AP was just a tool for the WS. She was using him every bit as much as he was using her, to prop up flaws in herself that she needs to identify and repair. Cast her as a victim, and you encourage her to let herself off the hook.

Finally, if you look in the right places, you will find an army of OWs offering each other tips on how to pry married men away from their wives, as well as villifying those wives for standing in the way of the OW's right to happiness. They feel entitled to the BW's husband, home, family, friends, jewelry, and bank accounts. They even attack the "selfish" children who side with their mothers and don't welcome the OW with open arms. Ditching his kids as well as his wife becomes a test of how much he really loves the OW. He's supposed to take everything away from the BW and give it to her. I tell you truly: male APs are not the only manipulative predators out there.

[This message edited by BraveSirRobin at 11:12 AM, Friday, February 17th]