SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi all,

This all feeds into a thread in the general section about why some cheat again....

My BS and I were talking about this thread and she asked how I know it wouldnt happen again.

For me the pain I caused my family was just awful, I left, I pulled a rug from beneath my BS feet and had my children broken. Stuff happened which was just awful and that's not inc the A stuff.... anyway my biggie has been that I just couldnt do this to any of them again, I cant go forward in life being an absolute asshole and I really dont want a eulogy where everyone is reminded that I am just an absolute turd. So for me whilst I want to be a great person and not a tit I also have this burning desire to not do this to the ones I love around me as I coukdmt couldn't facethat.

However

My BS has the stance that she shouldn't come into this nor should the kids and it should solely be about me not wanting to be a bad person.....to me that makes little sense as the whole reason i want to be a good person has been because I see what an ass I became and how I treated her so badly over the years AND how I never want to betray her again....does that make sense..

So what's everyone stance....who are you doing this for and what factors in

For me, I have those same reasons.

But I agree, we make our choices mostly based on what we want to do.

I would definitely add that it caused me immense amounts of pain for something so not worth it. It would never be worth it. This is not who I want to be. I lost years of my life that could have been spent living and enjoying and cherishing.

No sir, it just wouldn’t be something I would ever want. I would rather stick a fork in my eye. There is no happiness to be found in an affair. It’s a bait and switch where you feel like you are getting something and then throws you in an endless pit of despair.

Um ... you stopped thinking about your W and family when you cheated. What's going to keep you from discounting them in the future?

Strong boundaries are what keep me from cheating - that and knowing that I'd hurt myself by cheating.

So I think you'd be a better bet for the long term if your reasons for staying faithful were wanting to avoid the harm you'd do yourself and wanting to enjoy the benefits of being honest with yourself and others.

I'm blunt right now to save time and energy (I hate to type). I don't mean this as a blast at you. I think you're asking an important question.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 10:14 PM, Monday, April 8th]

A very important lesson that I learned from The Four Agreements was that every single thing that someone does, they do because of how it makes them feel. Even Mother Teresa took care of people because she liked how it made her feel.

You not wanting to hurt your wife and children is really about the person that you want to be. You want to be the standup guy whom they can trust. That is about you.

My husband said that he will never cheat again because he didn’t like how it made him feel and he never wants to feel that way again, which I found very reassuring. He wasn’t making promises to me that he would never hurt me again, he was telling me that he never again wants to feel the way that he felt when he hurt me. I don’t either. It’s super cringe to think about how I behaved.

I think you’re saying the same thing.

This is such an important topic, thanks for asking. My wife asked me this, fairly early on. My immediate response was to go where most WS's go..."I feel so awful, this is so unlike me, I could never allow myself to ever do this again...". But the truth is, I felt exactly the same way BEFORE I cheated. And that's what my wife pointed out to me.

That's why our "why's" are so important. Because if I felt that way and yet, did it anyway, then I could no longer rely on my own sense of self-disgust to dissuade me in the future, at least, not until I knew and understood how exactly I failed to embrace my own sense of morality and dignity. Until that happened, I realized that I was just as dangerous to my marriage and myself as I was before. In order to KNOW that I would not do it ever again, I had to first figure out WHY I did it and then take steps to change whatever was needed in my life to ensure that it never happens again.

Once I cleared out the skeletons and other muck from my closet, I changed. The way I think changed, and the way I react changed, and things I place value on changed. And when that happened, it was much clearer to my wife that I had changed as well, and that allowed her to let her walls down... at least a little. The rest of the equation is simply "time and consistency." Not only did I change, but that change lasted, and she saw it tested now and then as well, and saw the difference. That helped both of us to move forward.

I dunno. I often compare infidelity to alcoholism. Even a person who hasn't had a drink in 20 years still says, "I'm an alcoholic," because they realize that they are always just one drink away from sober. In that same way, even though I know I'll never allow myself to cheat again, I still bear in mind that I had the potential once, and I hated the experience, so if I catch even a whiff of opportunity, I'm three steps towards the door *(Song reference intentional).

I think I'd rather cut my own nads off before cheating again, and I mean that.

My EXWW cheated on her previous boyfriend multiple times. She assured me that after witnessing the pain and devistation she caused, she could never inflict that type of harm on another person again.

Do I need to go on?

For a couple of reasons

The first four or so years after the A was ended were some of the darkest years of my life. My ex step dad always told me I was worthless and I certainly felt that his prediction came true. The fact that I was capable of such betrayal still astounds me. But the pain of those years was some of the worst I ever experienced. It was compounded because it was completely self inflicted.

Just as important, it’s like a switch went off in my head. The thought of cheating is downright repulsive to me. To hijack what Hikingout said, I would stick that fork in my eye once she got done with it.

so when I read this I will try and mirror it against the cheating behaviour.

i cheated before because I wanted to.

I will tell you now that i will not and thats because right now I dont want to cheat because:

- the grief and pain i am getting right now is excruciating
------ I want to be a good bloke - not a bad one.
---------- I am ashamed about being a cheater - a turd at my eulogy
BUT before discovery
---------- I was proud about being a cheater and getting what i truly needed
------- I wanted to be the bad boy and i knew it was wrong and i was bad because i hid it from you
- the pleasure and validation I was getting was intoxicating.

there is a self-centredness in this. shame and pride are two sides of the same coin. i can flick from one to the other and back again in the blink of an eye.

For me I know who I am now. I am a cheater and at any moment I could cheat again. My betrayed wife knows this to. Im working on my lack of self-love and a bunch of other stuff to change who and what i am and what i value. In doing this im shifting my thinking, my emotions and how I respond to them. I also learning to truly love rather than love how others make me feel. I like how DaddyDom explains it in his posts. I know where i want to be but Im not there yet. i hope i can be there sooner than later. loving my wife so she can experience and depend on an empathetic US at ALL times is disappointingly not there yet.