SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So this last year I can see some major changes in my WH. He is back to being the man I married. He is the helpful, fun and kind man I remember but with more. He is now more communicative, he is more thoughtful, less selfish and shows a softer side. He is not the man I was sick of and thinking of divorcing.

But he is still the man that had an affair with his young co-worker.

I can see how much work he puts into our son and my son from previous marriage. He is a very hands on dad, soccer coach, taxi, room renovater and both boys love and idolise him so much.

But he is still the man that had an affair with his young co-worker.

He is no longer lazy, he helps with so much more around the house and I think he does more than me if I’m honest. He comes with me to running events. He wants to know how my day was, everyday.

But he is still the man that had an affair with his young co-worker.

I see other people’s marriages where the spouse would drive me crazy and I could not imagine being married to them BUT they don’t cheat.

When do I stop defining him by his affair? When has he paid his penance for what he did? When do I like the thought of being married to him again? At the moment I can’t imagine ever feeling fully ok.

Just some Sunday thoughts! I hope everyone has had wonderful weekend 💚

Sadly you don't know that other spouses don't cheat :(

Only you can decide when you stop thinking about the affair.

You heal you, he heals himself, and together you work on the marriage.

I don't think you can ever forget the infidelity.

For me, I look at all the years my husband was a good husband before, and after, and for me (everyone is different) I have to live my life based on the changes in our marriage.

Could he cheat again? Yes...but anyone can. It's more about consistency, honesty, and care to me.

Oh my... I could have easily writen this post... I am having a rough time. Everything is great, but I am not feeling great today, and yesterday and the day before. I concluded that my problem tends to focus on my insecurities. He cut me deep and I lost my sense of self respect... The disrespect is so out of proportion that I spiral into thinking that she must have been this amazing creature that he couldn't resist. This is not true. But he didn't resist. And I stay with the disrespect.... And I feel awful, insignificant... And that's when I realize again that all this point to only one direction. ME. I have to heal me. I have to do things for me. I must never again forget me.

Webbit, I have read many times things that you wrote and I totally can identify... Still. Two years after dd. Now I m having a rough time. I got lost in the marriage. I forgot myself. I have to remind myself not to do that again. For now, I have to continue to go to ic, and make sure that I follow my path (starting another degree). I have to say that wh is totally supportive and that is good. And I also have to admit something. When he met me, in 2007, I was independent, I was fun to be with, I was sweet... Somehow I lost my self. I don't justify his infidelity. But this is true. I think that my biggest problem was my job. And it still is a problem.

All this to conclude that Our sense of self cannot derive from what somebody else does. It must come from our choices and our actions. Our choice to stay here doesn't help our self esteem either, so this is another thing to surpass. But I remind my self why I stayed and on what terms. As I said on another thread, Next time I m out, because This is brutal. I might be able to get through it once. I don't think I can do it one more time. And I hope that if something like that happens again, all feelings of love will disappear.

In the meantime, I have to concentrate on this one chance. I have to be able to set boundaries, to ask for things that make me happy (not taking advantage of things, but stop being so...OK with everything), I have to be myself, and not the one that is making everything convenient to be with. I have to learn again what I knew before meeting wh, that you have to claim what is right and fair at home and outside of home, and you have to satisfy your needs too apart from the needs of the kids and family. This is who he met. This is who I must never forget again. So I guess we have our own path towards healing and the ws have theirs because their choices have been truly awful and devastating. I really question some times what I would do if I was in their shoes...

[This message edited by Phosphorescent at 11:38 AM, Sunday, September 8th]

For me, it doesn’t erase all the good, but it changes who we are as a couple. I’m no longer married to a person who I know values commitment and holds true to promises (To be fair, I assumed that from when we married, but who knows what her true value system was even back then). She struggles with difficult situations which is probably why she keeps saying "can’t we just look to the future and be happy". I really don’t dwell much on the past now, but my focus on the future isn’t about living happily ever after with her, it’s wondering what her actual value systems are, can she be committed, loyal, honest moving forward. She’s yet to show me that. With all that being said, even on DDay, I wanted to reconcile in that very instant because I felt like I didn’t want to throw our marriage away when I considered 80% good shouldn’t be thrown away for what I thought to be 20% bad.

Sadly you don't know that other spouses don't cheat :(

Exactly! I didn’t know my own was for many years and I lived with her! From the outside no one would believe it (certainly not our own adult children). If you told them there was infidelity in our marriage, they would look at ME not her (not because of anything I’ve done just stereotypes and "she would never do that" thinking).

To the original question. "Does infidelity erase all the good". I don’t feel it "erases it" but it sure does "taint" it. I envision more of a large set of scales. Our whole lives she has been putting in rocks and pebbles into the sides ("good" and "bad"). The "good side" may be the heaviest with gravel and pebbles accumulated over the years with some stuff thrown on the "bad" side (selfishness, coldness, prioritizing me last, etc.) Infidelity is like throwing a huge fucking boulder on the "bad" side. As I look back on some of the rocks already on that side of the scale, they are really much bigger than I thought (because a LOT of those rocks were due to Infidelity and "wayward" behaviors).

Now, she could add rocks to the "good" side with her response to being caught and "doing the work". Sadly for me, she pitches a pebble or two in that side every couple of months and that’s it. So for me, it doesn’t "erase" all the good. But for right now, it "heavily outweighs" the good. And "magnifies the bad" (all that and you cheated too)….

[This message edited by ImaChump at 12:08 PM, Sunday, September 8th]

Sadly for me, she pitches a pebble or two in that side every couple of months and that’s it.

This right here! As more time passes I find this to be unacceptable and unsustainable. It’s like sand running through an hour glass. Little pebbles can’t slow the sand where larger rocks on the "good" side would surely make a difference. The hour glass is getting mightly light in my household.

Everything Phosphorescent said! Every word.

I have had to learn and relearn this lesson many times--with my narcissist mom, with ex-boyfriends, with my H and my kids. But I have it now. I finally have it.

The world is hard. Life can be hard. We take a lot of emotional hits, struggle, fall, get back up again. Things don't go as planned. That's part of being human.

My children have been a major difficulty for me since birth. The very first one came out crying and never stopped. We took him to specialists, and he was diagnosed with multiple issues--sensory issues, mild Tourette's syndrome, on the autism spectrum, adhd. He was repeatedly chastised in daycare for destruction and unsafe behavior, but I had to work. He wouldn't potty train. He didn't do well in school. He failed in every sport or activity he tried, and the other kids mistreated him. He was bullied and isolated.

And guess what? No sympathy from anyone. No one saw any overt disability in him, so no one had any sympathy for me, only judgement. Strangers would reprimand me in stores and tell me that I needed to get my tantruming child under control. Teachers were cold and offered nothing but punishments. Parents whispered behind my back. My H and I were stressed beyond belief and fought about how to survive. As if all of that wasn't bad enough, my other two kids suffered similar disabilities and struggles. Our house felt like chaos and misery.

I felt bad, really bad about myself. My H, who never had very strong coping skills, slid into alcohol abuse and sexual gratification. Terrified to be on my own after finding out what he was doing, I sought my own external validation. Then our marriage blew up and we were left with a whole lot of sh$tty feelings, not just about each other and our M but about our entire lives. I did not know where to turn to feel good about myself.

So I was forced to learn the self-esteem lesson once and for all, and that lesson is that I feel good about me when I decide to feel good about me! Nothing and nobody else gets to take that away from me. The success of my kids does not define me as worthy. A perfect marriage does not define me as worthy. My husband's pristine and devoted marital attention does not define me as worthy. I do! And I am f-ing awesome! I'm fun! I'm smart (enough).😆 I'm great at my job! My house is cute (not clean--lol, not fancy, but super cute because I've made it that way). I have a lot of hobbies that I love. I enjoy nature. I enjoy exercising. I take pretty good care of myself. I'm a good person (now). I like me!!! I'm good enough!

We all need to understand that outside validation might look like ego kibbles from strangers, OR it may look like a spouse's validation. But NEITHER OF THOSE are good. We cannot look to those things to tell us we're amazing! Those things are external and random. A spouse is never, ever under our control. They are just being their imperfect selves doing the best they can do in life--and often falling short. But we can count on ourselves. Always.

Your M, your life, and YOU are enough when you decide. When you like yourself and like your M, then you have "arrived." If your H does not seem worthy, then you go. We don't need to stay with people who continue to make us feel bad, people who are not worthy of our awesomeness.

You need to decide right now to start giving yourself the love, validation, kudos, and joy that you deserve. Love yourself for who you are, not for what you have or what you can show the world. Then decide if this M is adding to your joy. If so, keep it. If not, let it go.

You heal you. Then consider the M. The M is not, not, not you. Find your own individual validation.

What surprised and annoyed me greatly after d-day is that thoughts of good times interrupted my anger too often. I wanted to be angry, but I was grief-stricken at the thought of dumping my W because of the good times that seemed to attack me. I think I was telling myself I had it good, and I may have it good again, just because I wanted to.

Four years later, I read Gottman, who said, IIRC, that couples who tend to think of good times when under stress are more likely to stay together than couples who don't.

So, IMO, it's not that an A wipes out good times or not.

I usually stress that the BS needs to figure out what they want. Perhaps I should give more emphasis to my belief that the BS needs to understand their 'flow' and then go with it. Let automatic thoughts of the good times (that is, thoughts that come without consciously calling them up) be indicators that you want R. The absence of such thoughts indicate you lean more towards D. 'Indicate' doesn't mean 'will'.

Remember that Gottman that his indicators don't necessarily drive decisions. One can choose D if the good thoughts that come don't outweigh a desire for D, and one can go for R is partners change behavior that tends to lead to D.

I found it interesting that Gottman is on his third marriage

For me an affair did not wipe out all of the good times BUT it did taint everything. It's possible my wife was already communicating with her sexting partner when our 20th wedding anniversary rolled around.

We hit 21 later this month and I have zero interest in celebrating it whereas she does. She said it's important to her that we do so. Where was this commitment when she was saying I love you to me and then sending a sext message to him a minute later?

She said I already have a gift picked out to which I replied we have never exchanged gifts. So now I feel obligated to get her something

T/J - I apologize -

WB1340, Your WS wants to celebrate your 21st less than a year from ending her A, and you don't. I was in the same sitch on our 44th. I told my W she could celebrate, and I'd participate if she arranged something that appealed to me. I strongly recommend you make the same offer.

What obligates you to give her a gift? My W gave me flowers, chocolates, and a roast duck dinner at a restaurant whose chef apprenticed at a Beijing restaurant that specialized in roast duck. I really enjoyed her presents, but all I gave her was my presence. It wasn't until our 4th post-d-day anniversary that I gave her a gift - and that was ballroom dancing lessons, because I wanted to learn how to do ballroom dancing.

R won't work if you force yourself to do too many things you don't want to do.

For me, the A does not negate the good, but it seals it off.

My pre-A wife was my everything. I willingly gave myself to her , lock, stock and barrel. I still love that person with all my heart, and probably will till the day I die.

Post-A wife-I see her faults-all of them that I could not see before. I do love this person, and I am in love with her as well. I would not have chosen her though. I know this person deeply hurt me, and could do it again. My guard is always up.

I don’t know how people stop thinking of the affair.

I also don’t know how "you have a better marriage" after the affair. Sounds like total bullshit to me.

I also don’t know how "you have a better marriage" after the affair.

I'm sorry you don't see the path. You make a better M after an A the same way you make a better M in the absence of an A - you work with your partner to define what you want and go for it. It's not easy, but it's rewarding and worth the effort, IMO.

Often a WS isn't up for that, but that just puts the ball back in the BS's court. If the WS isn't remorseful, the BS decides on what they want and goes for it. A 'better M' doesn't necessarily mean 'with the WS.' As SerJr wrote a (long) while ago, we BSes need to R with ourselves.