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I know that finding your why is important and I know that it has been said here that you keep going deeper by asking yourself "why?" again for each subsequent answer. I feel like I need more guidance for HOW to do this though.

Like what if I don't know the answers? What if the answer just seems like, "Because I am selfish and entitled and ungrateful" and I don't know the why to that? What if the answer to that is past trauma, which I know is not an excuse? How do I find the "why?" for why I coped with that trauma so poorly? How do I find the "why?" for why I went about it in a way that caused maximum damage?

What did that introspection process look like for you and how did you actually get somewhere meaningful and productive with it?

So I don’t know if this is going to be helpful but it was what I feel like got me there. Nothing makes me more crazy that doing the 5 whys at work when we are investigating a workplace incident

So rather than look at it like
WHY did you cheat? I asked it like
Why did YOU cheat?

Like other people deal with the issues you have in your life so what is it about you? There are plenty of selfish, entitled and ungrateful people but they don’t all cheat.

I found it helpful to pinpoint what the "in" points were in the affair. Like what when in the affair did you let the AP in more. When did the affair escalate. What was happening? What were your thought processes looking like.

The reason your why is important is because if you don’t know your weak spots you will do it again so it’s important to find the chinks in your armour

Thanks. That is definitely an interesting reframe. I found something called the "cheater's inventory" and have been journaling about the questions one by one and I think it has been useful.

Hi!

Yes, I felt the same.

Entitlement was a big one. Unearthing the deeper truths in that takes time to unwind because it seems like as you work on your self awareness and mindfulness over your motivations and choices it’s just epiphany after epiphany.

So I think early on I felt entitled because I worked so hard and got so little in return. But as I became more aware of myself, I realized that I created that narrative of a martyr and so many things I did were unneccessary. Instead of blaming my husband or being married, I had to start to take accountability over my own resentments and my inaction in making the changes that were needed.

From there, I started to construct a life that I was happier in. That meant having more disciples, learning to confront my problems, ask for what I wanted.

So to me, the work of whys of the affair really about mindfulness. I would often ask myself why I was doing things. I found a lot of times the answer was to try and seem like a good person or a person worthy of love. I had to change my thought process and do things that were more authentically motivated. Like if I do something nice for my husband, it’s not transactional. I am not expecting points or praise, I genuinely want to do something that makes his day brighter. Before it would be moreso that we could both see me as a good wife and therefore I was earning the love I wanted.

So I guess what I am trying to describe is being present, aware, challenging yourself to be curious about why you think or do the things you do.

I also think it’s about embracing there are major flaws in our character. I had integrity until it was inconvenient for the highs I wanted to chase in the affair. Practicing better decisions around those flaws builds a new recent history. And the more you do that the better it will feel to you.

It’s often about boundaries too. Some of us have to push others boundaries so they will prove they love us. Or some are like me, I had poor boundaries over making sure I was taking care of what I wanted instead of always trying to people please and get people to like me based on inauthentic actions. I obviously had bad boundaries to get myself into an affair and I had to start being mindful of those as well. The driving force was I didn’t self validate and looked for external validation wherever I could find it. Not just in an affair but through different aspects of my life.

So if you have been following along, the whys are not that complicated. I was selfish & entitled and had low integrity. It was an immediate way to feel good, rather than doing the harder job of feeling good from conducting my life in a way that made me genuinely happy or that I could be proud of.

The reasons the whys are important is because it takes you down the path of being self aware and changing the more granular stuff. Therapy was help for me on that because we traced many of my coping mechanisms, character flaws, and perceptions were formed to earlier situations that I used them to survive. I needed to see that and how they no longer served me so that I could see what I was doing in the moment and make different thoughts or choices instead.

Big picture: you are trying to learn to reach for healthier things that make you feel good when you are down. Form a life you don’t have to use escapism to survive.

You are ultimately trying to reconcile yourself to become someone you love, respect, have compassion for, advocate for, and hold space for. When you can do that for yourself, you can do it for others in your life. And it really boils down to taking note of anything at all that led you down this destructive path and being mindful of those patterns so that you can bend them into something healthier.

But it’s normal that you are starting with the outer layer of that onion. Keep peeling. Make lists. Journal. Pay attention to your thought process. Most ws are emotionally immature to a certain degree, and that maturity doesn’t come overnight.

[This message edited by hikingout at 5:37 AM, Thursday, January 25th]

Thank you so much for your incredibly thoughtful and generous response, hikingout.

I realized that I created that narrative of a martyr and so many things I did were unneccessary. Instead of blaming my husband or being married, I had to start to take accountability over my own resentments and my inaction in making the changes that were needed.

This is definitely something I've done/failed to do.

I had integrity until it was inconvenient for the highs I wanted to chase in the affair.

Oof. This one hits hard and is something he's said about me and I have repeatedly resisted. I have very strong political opinions that I was able to bend when it came to the APs. It's been hard for me to reconcile.

Some of us have to push others boundaries so they will prove they love us.

This also struck something in me. I think this needs to be the next thing to explore through journaling. Thank you for saying it.

But it’s normal that you are starting with the outer layer of that onion. Keep peeling. Make lists. Journal. Pay attention to your thought process. Most ws are emotionally immature to a certain degree, and that maturity doesn’t come overnight.

Thank you again, so much for the practical advice and the validation of the difficulty of the process.

Oof. This one hits hard and is something he's said about me and I have repeatedly resisted. I have very strong political opinions that I was able to bend when it came to the APs. It's been hard for me to reconcile.

Bending your political beliefs?

Try, bending the moral code that we agreed to live by in getting married? Betraying yourself in doing the worst things for you? Betraying a person who you took vows with and who is struggling to understand what happened? The integrity part is much bigger. You are skimming the surface. Keep working on it, keep posting. I had to hear much harder truths to break through those walls so please understand my response is being sent with the best of intentions and no judgment. I have been in your shoes.

Bending your political beliefs?

Try, bending the moral code that we agreed to live by in getting married? Betraying yourself in doing the worst things for you? Betraying a person who you took vows with and who is struggling to understand what happened? The integrity part is much bigger. You are skimming the surface.

I see what PBF is getting at, though. It's all part of the big picture. My political beliefs and my moral code are inextricable in many ways, though it's obviously not something I can discuss here without violating a guideline. I can see how overlooking certain attitudes in an AP would be part of the evidence of my disconnection from my personal ethics.

I am not saying at all that she didn’t go against her integrity by bending her political beliefs. Or that wouldn’t be proof of something.

I was simply floored that it seemed like that’s where her mind went to first when integrity was brought up. I feel like part of the problem with finding her whys is not looking at the bigger picture.

In the early day, the bigger picture is tender to look at. But that’s exactly where you find your whys and start to face yourself.

Thank you both for your insight. I agree with BraveSirRobin in that my political beliefs are very tied to my moral code and overlooking them is clear evidence, in my case, of that disconnection. I also agree that going there first overlooks my larger moral failings, ie. my betrayal of myself and the people closest to me.

We have both been where you are standing. Sometimes it feels like a gut punch reading what people write. But honestly, I said it because your h needs you to see that. Yes, the evidence supporting that is also important but if you want to have a chance at reconciliation you will have to walk a tight rope of figuring yourself out while trying to keep empathy on your husband perspective.

I failed at that many times and if I can help another see it and avoid failing as much it is worth it. Please stay around and we will continue to try and help you with your two goals of healing yourself and your relationship.

Thank you, hikingout. Yes, I am trying to walk that tightrope. I know that helping heal myself will help heal the relationship and that the process of healing the relationship will also help me be a better person but it definitely feels hard to balance which side of it to actively put the work into at any given moment.

I found something called the "cheater's inventory" and have been journaling about the questions one by one and I think it has been useful.

The questions I did from this did bring up some interesting insights about my own thoughts and fears, but I think was not ultimately helpful because it let me go back into excuses instead of looking at why I chose to do this when other people who feel that way do not.

My therapist has suggested that instead of looking at the "reasons" I ask myself what I wanted from the cheating instead. I am going to try to look at that.

Hi there PleaseBeFixable,

This place helped me so much and I hope it can help you too. You will get straight forward, tough advice from people who have been exactly where you are and have come out the other side, and from people who are currently in your same situation. I hope you stick around.

There was a difference between the reasons I felt tempted to cheat and how/why I was able to actually follow through. The first one had to do with my life situation and how I related to it. The second had to do with my own internal sense of integrity and how I related to me. This is why people here say that there's nothing your spouse or marriage did to make you cheat. Those can all be filed under the first thing and they are the reasons that WS usually give on the first pass of looking for their why. The second bit is what takes some time. The thought processes that gave you the green light to betray your husband and your own integrity did not appear overnight and they have likely been in place for a long time. It will take a while to identify them. Additionally, identifying the them isn't the same thing as changing them. Rewiring your brain takes many, many repetitions of recognizing the destructive thought processes as they are happening, slowing everything down, and making a different choice in how you respond to whatever it is that is making you feel crummy in the moment. Fortunately, the universe gives lots and lots of opportunities to practice this.

Keep working. Don't give up. This work is 1000% percent worth it. Even if your marriage isn't salvageable, you definitely are.

Proceed with conviction and valor.

Welcome to SI from this EvolvingSoul.