SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So my WW and I are about 3 weeks out from DDay. I gave her an opportunity to explain her feelings at the moment. And it went into past conflicts and perceived injustices by me to her. For background information, I have had a hard time sticking up for myself - especially my business partners who are also my Father and Brother. We recently moved our business to a new enterprise. Our dream gig and a very lucrative location and established clientele. Well the first year (first year at the new business). I fell into the same routine where I would work 60 to 70 hour weeks and was getting compensated the same as my brother. My brother shows up about 20 to 30 hours a week. I am "the" guy with the staff and the customers. It is stressful, I did take on that responsibility by myself. I waited until we had a full year under us so I could evaluate the business's financial situation. Then I asserted my position for a much larger compensation package.

My wife told me tonight she detached from me emotionally in January, the same time I received my new package. Saying I didn't keep my promise to stick up for myself, and I took too long to do so.

Another underlying conflict is house chores. I have always felt I did the brunt of the labor. A typical day for me would be to drop of one of our 3 sons and head to work. I would frantically get 8 hours of work done in 5 hours so I could pick up our 2 younger sons, and sometimes all 3. It would then be followed with going to the grocery store or an errand, and then some laundry or cleaning before I prepped and cooked dinner. Some nights I would hit the "cycle", purchase, prep, cook, and clean-up dinner. There are times I would rush in sweaty after cutting the grass or doing yard work to prep dinner and get it cooking while finishing up the task and hitting the shower before our meal. Sometimes I didn't even get help setting the damn table or pouring the dinner beverages! There'd also be nights were I would hastily eat, and then return to work for a few more hours. I felt like everyday I was giving everything I had to my family and my business. Now my wife does do tasks as well, and she would take the morning ritual of getting them ready for school. Maybe the resentment on this topic is we didn't thank each other enough, or express the hard work in many ways. And to be honest, I would be sexually or physically frustrated that I would go above and beyond to hopefully "get lucky." There were many nights I would have to beg for intimacy.

Her bringing up these conflicts felt like she was using it to validate her detachment from me and beginning a courting phase with her future AP. I listened and stuck up for myself. Some of it was small stuff, and things I never knew bothered her. And I asked her if it was that bad why didn't she ask for counselling or give me an ultimatum. We are trying to work on a new relationship heading toward R. But, am I right to think she is still lying to herself what the more underlying issues were. My thoughts were being on the foothills of menopause and bored by our crazy but comfortable schedule. But she brings this shit up every time we try to talk about past issues. Am I crazy, is she crazy, or both? I know I have a fair amount of the blame for our relationship before the A. But I ended the night saying - "This is still not an excuse for what you did." Her retort was "I know, I am the bad guy like always." Is she still in the fog? Just mad and confused right now. I told her from the beginning that I will not take a single percentage of fault for her A.

Thanks for reading - had to vent for my sanity.

WW - 45 YO
Me BH - 46 YO
M - 20 Years
Dated 10 Years prior to M - High school sweethearts.

So this is my opinion based solely on my experience. I had the same thoughts and feelings when I first found out about my WH’s affair. He told me he was bored, felt unloved and lacking intimacy etc etc. I never disagreed with this as I didn’t want to have sex with him, I didn’t even want to kiss or touch himTBH. I was just as bored and sick of his lazy arse. We were just going day by day doing the same old boring routine and BOTH of us incredibly unhappy.

Now here is the thing though. I chose to run more, catch up with friends, work more, take the kids out etc to get through this rough patch our marriage was in BUT he chose to fuck someone else. We were both in an unhappy marriage BUT only he chose to cheat.

There is no excuse. Once he did counselling and we had many in depth conversations he realised he chose the worst possible course of action to be happy again. He could have told me how unhappy his was, he could have told me he missed me and the intimacy we once shared, hell he could have organised a bloody date night for us. But no he chose to try his luck with some young piece of arse.

So my advice - there is no reason to cheat. None! If you are truly unhappy then communicate or leave. None of the affair BS as it only blows up everyone’s lives!!!

Every time I try to get the timeline from her these issues come up. I start with "How did it start?" And she reverts right to these issues that made her "detach." She said she had told me that too. My recollection is she said she was detaching from the issue (Brother, Father, work issue) - not detaching from ME. She also told me her therapist said her choices to repeatably lie and cheat were caused by a "symptom of our marriage." Every conversation we have had, were I want to know how she feels about it all reverts to me feeling the guilty party. It was me that pushed her away, it was my character flaws that pushed her away, it was underlying marriage issues (that she never fully addressed with me) that pushed her away. I'm aggravated as all hell that she hasn't identified her own personal issues! She's on the foothills of menopause, she had a rough childhood filled with trauma, neglect, and abuse. This can't and won't all be on me! I am not a perfect person or spouse, I OWN that. But it's frustrating that she is not owning HER issues. And her therapist and our MC seems to validate that it's a symptom of our marriage (granted we've only had one since Dday 3 weeks ago). Looking how I can help her and others see that there has to be more to it. I'm sick of feeling like a troll under a bridge everyday.

Yeah no. There is no reason to have an affair. The relationship had problems? So does every single other relationship. There is no excuse. She felt detached, but did she ever tell you? Nope, she just chose to have an affair. That is the key word there. Choice. She decided to cheat and not tell you, her husband that she was.

You didn’t cause her to do anything. That is a load of bunk, right up there with "unmet needs" caused an affair. You don’t control her, you don’t push her to do anything. She is fully responsible for her own actions. The state of the relationship is nothing but an excuse to justify shit behavior, but it’s still completely wrong. She needs to take full responsibility. She and only her made the decision to cheat and nothing you did or didn’t do caused it. It’s always convenient when cheaters claim that their spouse somehow contributed, but when it comes to actually being accountable they can’t.

You’re not in R. She needs to give you full disclosure, and she needs to admit that yeah she is the bad guy.
She cheated on her husband. That makes her the bad guy. That whole "I’m the wrong one as always" is nothing but manipulation. Look up DARVO. Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. That statement is a perfect example of DARVO

It's very, very common for a WS to rewrite history in order to justify their bad behavior. The thing is, there's no justifiable reason for lying and cheating instead of addressing the issues head on, if the issues even existed at the time. She's like a rat in a corner defending herself instead of owning her stuff and examining what made her betray you and presumably betray her own moral code.

Also, it's very difficult to remember exactly what was said in therapy unless the session was recorded, and it's highly likely that she's spinning what her IC said to be more favorable to her "defense", whether consciously or subconsciously.

The MC might be saying that she felt detached from you due to issues in the marriage, but if your MC is agreeing that issues in the marriage led her to cheat, dump that MC immediately and look for one that specializes in infidelity, trauma, or sex addiction. Not that sex addiction is necessarily an issue, but they deal with a lot of infidelity.

If she is blaming you for her choice to let another man have her, she is...simply put...either not ready for reconciliation right now, or she is not reconciliation material at all.

Here is the rub, brother: you cannot even entertain this type of discourse. All it does is seek to validate the way she feels about her justification. In other words, your mere willingness to engage in the conversation will be subconsciously seen as a negotiation to her.

Next time you ask for a timeline and she begins to blame you, simply tell her this:

"If you truly believe your choice to screw another man is my fault, the single best thing I can do is set you free to find someone who will tolerate such fuckery."

Then walk away and go do something that pleases you. You cannot allow her to turn this into a negotiation.

Love yourself enough to refuse to tolerate the intolerable. Good luck.

1000000% what Farside said.

Another upvote for Farside’s analysis. My STBXW was less brazen in asserting all her inane pent up resentments as the reason for her affair, but that it was present at all and displacing pure remorse made R impossible, even with years of trying.

If she is going to stick with the "fuckery", you will never have a good R. And if her therapist is whispering the unmet needs Siren song bullshit in her ear, you are likely up against more than what mortal man can overcome, at least from my experience.

Sorry friend, best of luck in whatever you choose.

Edit to add: one of our fWW members, hikingout, tells of having the experience of having a therapist advise her to never confess her affair. She speaks of rejecting that advice, even from a professional, because it conflicted with her values of honesty that she wanted to re-establish. She dropped the therapist, rejected that terrible advice, went thru hell, and has ended up happily R’d. I say this to point out that just because you wife is getting shit counsel from a professional does not excuse her choice to listen to it. If your wife were to stop and think about that and reject it because it is so obviously wrong, that would be a great start.
(I hope hikingout tells her own story better than I have here for you, she is amazing, and I in no way meant to steal her voice by telling this. I have the utmost respect and admiration for her, and this part of her story is a big reason why).

[This message edited by InkHulk at 5:17 PM, Tuesday, May 7th]

Another upvote for Farside. Nailed it.

I would think closely about if you choose to try and R don’t skip the recovery phase. What that means is don’t work on the relationship until she works on herself. It’s a waste of time. Until she has accountability over her own actions you are going to be pushing her up a hill and that’s not your responsibility to do.

Basic requirements might look like:

Transparency- you should know her passwords and be able to check in on things.

You want a full disclosure, some like it in a timeline form, and no lying. We call lying trickle truth and it’s so damaging. Make it clear that if she wants the opportunity to try to save the marriage honesty is paramount. Finding out pertinent details she gives is a lie should have consequences. My husband told me divorce, and we still have that rule. But the reality is when someone lives better it feels better so this is not a life sentence punishment to me, this is how marriage should just be.

Complete no contact with AP (this is a MUST, affairs are addictive and any contact keeps them connected, even her stalking his social media.

Therapy. She needs to get into their pay to get to the real root of the issues. The whys of an affair all belong to the cheating party.

She had other choices, and she needs to know why she chose this one and how she could do this. The whys will not excuse the affair but are about the lack of evaluating and clues to things she needs to fix. How’s are character deficit such as lack of integrity.

This is about her, do not make it about you. If she is willing to fix herself and works at it then you can agree to work on the marriage. For now, it’s recovery. What she is saying is kind of typical in the early days after discovery, but her recovery is to dig deeper.

Yours is to focus on you, what you need. You might want to check out the 180 on the healing library. I know you love your wife but this stage can bring lots of additional trauma that if you don’t protect yourself you will only be agreeing to add to your pain.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:06 PM, Tuesday, May 7th]

"If you truly believe your choice to screw another man is my fault, the single best thing I can do is set you free to find someone who will tolerate such fuckery."

Standing ovation.

Farside has the exact attitude you need to express and the words to go with it.
Your wife has watched you get run over by family so she has learned how to do the exact thing with you. You need to find strength and conviction to not put up with this bullshit she’s trying to feed you. Start talking about separation and divorce and see if her tune changes.

Brother, I got to commend you for listening to that BS but you shouldn't. She's trying to force you into sweeping this under the rug, if you allow this, this is your next 5 to 10 years, pure misery. You have nothing to work with here, she is not a candidate for R!

Hopefully you've seen an attorney.

Another upvote for Farside nailing it.

Every conversation we have had, where I want to know how she feels about it all reverts to me feeling the guilty party. It was me that pushed her away, it was my character flaws that pushed her away

Yaaaa,....NO.
Her character flaw is not accepting responsibility for her choices.

She is both avoiding responsibility and also trying to play the victim here. Interesting defense, and SO common among cheaters. She was SO victimized by your "shortcomings" apparently that she had no other choice but to be disloyal to her vows, her family, herself....

This is her gaping character flaw. Not only does she lie and betray, but she continues to avoid responsibility. This person is not safe for you--now or in the future if her thinking and actions don't change dramatically.

What you are hearing from her is her own internal justifications for what she did. She's still trying to justify.

Run

I am proof that the advice of farsidejunky is the best.

Dday2 I was D my lying cheating H. I had no reason to give a crap what he said or did. After all I was gone!!!!

He tried to play the blame game and I immediately shut it down.

I brought crap that he did that bothered me and pointed out — well I certainly didn’t go out and cheat. Because there’s no reason to cheat.

Just b/c your marriage stinks doesn’t mean you kill your spouse. You get a D and move on. Same for cheating. Unhappy? Say something. Get a D.

But don’t think it’s an excuse to cheat.

Rewriting history, blame transference, gaslighting.

As prior posters have said, same old story, different characters.

WS focusing on finding the explanation for their behavior in the marriage, or their spouse, when all they need is a mirror to find the cause.

My life was similar, very busy, when my FWS had her affair. Except, I was not working those hours, I was home every weekend, and every Thursday. In MC my wife blamed me, my work, my hours, my not helping enough, etc.

When she got real, she admitted I'd been home watching the kids when she was "running errands" which is also known as "having sex with" the AP (I was probably doing laundry and dishes also...so glad I could help her get a break so she would have time for an affair).

Don't buy into her act. The blame for cheating lays squarely on the cheater.

Also agree with Farside’s post. None of the relationship problems caused her to cheat. There are a million other ways she could have dealt with her unhappiness etc. Don’t take any responsibility for her messed up choices.

I had to listen a lot in MC about the ‘reasons’ for my XWH’s infidelity (there’s a reason most people here advise against MC at first, unfortunately I had not found this site at that time). And in my head I just kept hearing ‘excuses’. I didn’t care about the ‘reasons’ because fundamentally the reason was his choice. Yes, life was hard at that point in time. But that didn’t mean cheating was the answer.

I really really struggled to feel that my XWH got that idea. But his moral compass was always just ever-so-slightly different to mine. So yes, we’re D-d now.

Oh, and you’re only 3 weeks out from DDay? Damn right she’s the bad guy right now! It’s so early, you’re likely still in shock. It’s also likely that she’s trying to run away from the shame of it all. Understandable of course, but oh so unhelpful.

No one really wants to be the villain in the story of their marriage but she has to realize that during her A, she was.

Reading something like How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair by Linda McDonald may help shift her mindset. Lots of counselors and articles tell people the marriage caused the affair so get her to learn the truth of the matter and see if that will help.

I do believe that the state of marriage may contribute to the conditions that enhance temptation for a WS. But the marriage does not force them to have an A, WS choose that on their own and if the A is more than a ONS then they keep making that destructive choice to betray their spouse, often until they are caught.

Imagine you get a dream job with a large corporation. It's a position you've been trying for and you can't believe your luck in landing it. After several years though, you begin to feel a little unsatisfied and feelings of discontentment begin to grow. You attach words to these feelings like unsatisfied and unfulfilled.

Then, you decide that you have the right to feel satisfied and appreciated, and so you begin to embezzle money as a way of "compensating" their treatment of you.

Sure, you don't voice your concerns to HR or your boss. You don't ask for a raise or better working conditions, because, if they really cared about you, they'd already know. And you certainly don't quit, because you like the paycheck, and the extra scratch.

Now imagine you get caught and charged. But it's okay. You have a plan and it's a good one. You stand before the judge and when asked if you stole all that money, you answer yes, but he has to understand that you were

feeling unsatisfied and unappreciated in my position.

Oh, he responds, the unsatisfied defense.... you're free to go.

[This message edited by Justsomeguy at 2:38 PM, Wednesday, May 8th]

wjbrennan78

Look past my title as "attaché" when reading this but look instead at the number of posts I have and the years I have been here.
There isn’t really a "correct" way of using this site, but there are ways that many of us will confirm are more likely to help YOU. To-date you have started three threads, and on only two of them do you have more than one post. Your original post is on JFO and got over ten replies – you never responded to any or gave any feedback as to how the advice and suggestions chimed in with you. You then moved on to General – when I guess most of us would have thought you were still fresh out from d-day and should maybe focus more on the JFO thread.

Friend – you can start as many threads as you want, and you can use this site like you want to. But I do think you will get more responses and therefor possibly more support and suggestions if you stick to one or two, and respond to suggestions made.
Heck... even a "I think you guys are crazy for suggesting I talk to OM wife" is a response – it gives us a very clear picture of where you are and what we might need to do to help you. You don’t have to understand or even agree with what we suggest – but let us know why because I don’t think anyone posts here with bad intentions. We have a plan...

--
I’m a former cop. During my first week on the job I was assigned to an old veteran with years of experience. He pulled me aside one day and said something like "Bigger – notice how nearly EVERYONE we need to interact with has an excuse to justify their actions". Like if I pulled someone over for speeding, they were only following the flow of traffic, that they had a very important doctors appointment, that they were such experienced drivers... The ones I stopped suspected of DUI; only a flu, reaction to allergy medicine, only one drink, they were driving in accordance to the law... This went even further – the burglars explaining how everyone was insured and would get a new TV instead of the one they stole (basically doing everyone a favor...), the drug-dealer insisting he only sold to those that wanted to use, the rapist insisting she wanted it rough, or she shouldn’t have had the steak if she hadn’t intended on putting out... Heck... the absolute worst one was the molester that insisted he didn’t harm any of the 6-8 year old boys he partook in mutual masturbation with.

In very rare – once-in-a-blue-moon, here-come-the-unicorns ratio – we got someone that would raise their hand and say "Sorry. I realize that I was driving over the legal speed. I acknowledge that I had four beers and some shots only an hour ago. I realize I am totally 100% responsible for my actions. I admit I have a problem and I am determined to do something about it".
Maybe the reason this was so rare was that these people tended to DO something about their issues. Therefore I did’t need to handle them again.

You have probably experienced something akin to this in your life: Your son explaining why he got an F on a school project: "Dad – I had to mow the lawn yesterday, and then there was the game, and then the new video-game came out, and then I had to go to Bobs birthday, and then..." and there you are firmly explaining how he COULD have used the two weeks he had to do everything he lists, plus the project.

That’s how I see her excuses. She’s using all sorts of things to justify why she "had" to cheat.
If you accept even an iota of blame... Well... What happens two years from now when you forget to take out the trash for two consecutive weeks? Would that explain or justify why she has to give the pizza delivery guy a bj?
Whatever the condition of your marriage it gives her the right and the ability to demand change. She could even file for a divorce. What she could not do was to use all that bullcrap as some excuse for having an affair.

--
Finally friend – I have tried to get this across previously in one of the threads you start but don’t respond to...
Your wife’s actions to-date AS ARE YOUR REACTIONS are boilerplate.
We sometimes joke about a Cheaters Handbook. Our experience tells us that certain actions are expected or will take place. To-date your story has ticked most of the boxes. If you want to break out of the expected pattern... start listening and responding to our advice. Like... answer if the OM is married and if you have told his wife.

Perhaps informing her that you have detached from her due to her affair and continued nonsense. Sometimes using someone's own words on them allows even the most intellectually challenged to see exactly how foolish they sound.

I've discovered it works quite well...