SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am amazed to read how deceived people express their partners' cheating with different words through therapy or suggestion.

Describing people caught after years of relationships as soul mates, best friends, etc., trying to make references to their partner's childhood/youth traumas, saying that Om abused them; Portraying adults as unable to take responsibility

I believe these people are unaware of their own trauma.

What is marriage/relationship?

Living as a roommate, controlling your partner, with the help of medication/therapy, struggling with triggers?

Are children happier!!

Those who use their partner's childhood traumas as an excuse need to realize that they are inflicting the same traumas on their own children.

I can't say you should divorce/break up, this is your life, but advocating staying in a relationship like what I wrote above is meaningless.

r success rates, love, happiness, health,trust,traumas etc. does not contain.

It is not right to call staying with a cheating partner a success.

I think you are missing the point of what a lot of us in R are trying to say will make a successful R. Taking accountability from the WS is absolutely critical. Them admitting He/She didn’t seduce me, I wanted it, I was just as culpable in the A is a significant part of R. Sure we can pile on the nuance of FOO or whatever other issue that happened to help understand the why, but no one here ever has said that excuses accountability.

Boundaries are not controlling your partner. It’s healthy for someone to say "this is what i expect from now on in this relationship, you are free to make any choice you want, but if you do these things I can’t continue to stay with you l". That isn’t control at all. In fact I’d argue that’s the opposite, and everyone has the right to stand by their boundaries regardless of infidelity or not. Again, post infidelity, boundaries change, and it is
about the WS taking accountability, because clearly their actions lead to an Affair. If they don’t change those actions (which requires the WS to accept that their actions were wrong), then R isn’t going to work anyway.

Never, have I seen on this forum anyone ever insist that someone should stay. I’ve seen many advocate leaving, divorce etc. especially when WS isn’t doing anything or is continuing to cheat. I’ve only seen people offer advice, support, and outside perspective about what makes R even possible.

Those who have gone through the fire and consider themselves healed and successful in recovery after infidelity have never told anyone else that they must R. I’d actually say I’ve seen more of them say to end the relationship.

I wonder if you are trying to be provocative.

Those who use their partner's childhood traumas as an excuse need to realize that they are inflicting the same traumas on their own children.

The hell I am. My husband was beaten by his alcoholic father, which changed his brain. I'm from a family that sweeps every negative thing under the rug and thinks it's tacky to talk about it. Me reconciling with H after he told me the truth, owned his shit, and worked hard to change, then telling our children the age-appropriate truth about what happened is in no way the same as what either of us experienced as children. He's better than the abuse that was heaped upon him. He never struck his children. I'm better than the dysfunction of my FOO. We're doing our part to stop the cycle, and we're quite proud.

I'm happy in my marriage with my best friend. He wasn't my best friend when he was cheating on me. He became my best friend when he told me the truth, worked hard to make amends to me, and still tries his best to be worthy of the grace that I extended to him by offering R.

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 8:42 PM, Tuesday, April 16th]

Those who use their partner's childhood traumas as an excuse need to realize that they are inflicting the same traumas on their own children.

There can be differences between 'excuse' and 'reason'.

I can't say you should divorce/break up, this is your life, but advocating staying in a relationship like what I wrote above is meaningless.

That looks like you're implying people just split without D. Or, you're implying that people should D instead of staying. What do you mean?

Also, who advocates staying?

It is not right to call staying with a cheating partner a success.

In some cases staying is not success. In some cases it is. The thing is, we know nothing about the inner workings of any relationship but our own, and even that's questionable. That implies not thinking we know better than another person about their lives.

How do other people's choices affect you? What's the judgment coming from? Are you facing a particular crisis at this point?

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:36 PM, Tuesday, April 16th]

Seandsun I read this and felt like there have been times where I could’ve been the one to have written it. While I’m inclined to agree with HINHF’s response in general, I see and hear the cathartic feeling that comes with just leaning into the matter of fact right and wrong of infidelity. Allowing yourself to be blunt, and quite frankly negative, from time to time is a good reminder of the undeserved consequences that comes with the fallout of an affair. My hope would be that you can use that anger righteously and constructively to better your own situation, whether or not R is in the cards. Don’t get stuck in it, it’s easy to do and you deserve better. Hang in there!

Bumped at OP request

Bump per request by OP

Reconciliation truly only happens between two healed people.

Healing means looking at the past and realizing where your coping skills, values, motivations, perceptions were born. Anyone who goes to therapy even outside of infidelity reasons works on these things so they can be more self aware, work to change those patterns and ways of thinking so that you can be more successful and peaceful.

People who have worked for years to heal themselves, like myself, take full accountability for those actions. They have learned to tend to their own self worth, and become more compassionate and empathetic to those around them.

In essence, what we discuss here is how that change takes place, how you can recognize that it’s truly taken place and how to live forward into a new relationship.

I think of reconciliation more like getting back together after a period of healing. Those who do it want to preserve their family, have a stronger more loving relationship, and see their partner as someone who has acted on their worst instincts and learned why they did, have worked to change it, and who are likely more reliable partners than starting over again with unknowns.

I have to ask, you come here and act like you know this process is just a lie to stay. But what have been your experiences?

Certainly some people should not stay. But those who are here and trying are on point with their discussions towards what reconciliation can look like. It’s a bit insulting to act as if you have some divine knowledge that their work towards those goals are misguided. These folks have been traumatized and see a path through that you do not agree with but I doubt sending out judgment towards them is helpful or productive.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:57 PM, Tuesday, March 25th]

If you've reached the point where you become so frustrated with reading about BSs in crappy marriages who are attempting to reconcile with unremorseful spouses that you feel compelled to make a post that stops just short of calling them idiots, then it's probably time to take a break from lurking or posting on SI.

I've had to take my own advice from time to time, and then come back when I feel like I can offer constructive, actionable advice.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 4:27 PM, Tuesday, March 25th]

Oof hard not to feel like this was directed at me after my most recent post.

I read your pain and I empathize with you. I do hope you find relief. However, your values, choices, beliefs on parenting, childhood trauma, and marriages after infidelity are unique to you. Your judgement of another’s choices or decisions to stay after infidelity which are unique to them is not serving anyone on this site, including you.

[This message edited by OnTheOtherSideOfHell at 5:02 PM, Tuesday, March 25th]

I usually have to skip those posts because until they can see it they are stuck in limbo. It’s hard for me because I used to be one of those BS’s. I was showing my kids a really really bad marriage something I’m learning to forgive myself for and have apologized to them for. I did finally leave was the best decision I’ve ever made in my life.

Adlarue

Perhaps I’m one of those being hard on you, so let me say this:

My Dday was a long time ago, before the internet. Maybe there were books, but there was no way I was going to walk up to a cashier with "How to get your wife to stop fucking another man" in my hands. I’d rather have been shot. I didn’t think about the library.

So, if conventional wisdom (as expressed on this site and others) is the measure, my WW and I did everything wrong. Completely, absolutely, 180 degrees wrong. Would I, or she, have taken good advice? Hard to say. Maybe.

I have an engineering degree and a law degree, and have been reasonably successful with most of life.

But where my wife, and infidelity, is concerned, I was, and remain, an absolute idiot. No doubt about it.

But here’s the thing.

Conventional wisdom at the time would have had me leaving her, because she had already left me.

Would we have been better off if we had gone our separate ways, had better lives?

I don’t think so. We have had two wonderful children, and, by most measures, have had charmed lives. Are things perfect between wife and I? Hardly. Are things great? No. But things are pretty good. And if all we really are now is FWB, well, we are really good friends. And the benefits? Not bad, not bad at all.

But I have the benefit of hindsight. Things worked out for us. But we did everything wrong, so I guess we just got lucky.

If my son married and one day came to me with exactly my Dday, I would tell him to leave. Good advice? Who knows. Maybe he would get lucky, too.

But, what I have tried to say to you (good advice? Who knows.) is that your WH needs to fix whatever it is that is allowing him to hurt you. I don’t think you’re going to get lucky if he keeps hurting you.