SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Interesting, I like to offer the mirror to this as I think it stems from the same roots even if it take a different emotional pathway.

Mind I very likely don’t see sex in the most common acception I read here, I would rather call it intercourse, which is also a bad descriptor, but let’s say, self contained, compartmentalized, self soothing endeavor.

You do that only to please yourself and the other person is a mere mirror that fills the spot so you can take (whether they use you for the same is irrelevant here).

Is not much more than a masturbation with a fantasy and a living prop.

If you are very lonely it can alleviate it to some extent in the moment, leaves you with nothing tough, you may crave the moment but is pouring water in a bottle where the bottom broke.

Sex is instead the physical manifestation of a connection. Does not necessarily need love but it is nourishing, fulfilling and leaves you something, a lot actually. It doesn’t even need intercourse, though it most likely happens, to be sex.

What needs is the "fucking mask" off, even just for the moment is two people unafraid to be themselves, vulnerable and connected.

Then there’s making love which has the above a order of magnitude greater, hard to pinpoint what in few words, picture having sex but with your most intimate self, your soul if you wish.

And no you don’t wish to downgrade when you tasted the real deal, and you can only really taste it when you can let go.

Of course, there’s a drawback. Heights are desired and desirable but the higher you reach the harder the fall if you fall.

Up to sex you are relatively safe, it’s a shared joy (with tendency to lead up, that’s why "relatively safe" if you encore) in the moment, is not taking is sharing, you both feel good and can be self contained or left at that (it might be a good choice if you like the partner but see incompatibilities or red flags).

With love you are screwed. Once it’s given you can’t get it back. (Isn’t a negative. Unless you "fall")

The rarity of it makes it a greater treasure than you probably think, you know often only when you lose it.

My experience was of the first, degrading intercourse kind most of the time, sex was a much rarer experience maybe had with just 2 dozens girls, all potential good life partners weren’t I avoidant and broke by my first betrayal, but that’s what it does to you. And love is only 4.

3 of those betrayed me so that makes me a rather cautious against love

There’s a bias, nonetheless while I can happily live my life with "just " sex , I do want it. It’s worth the risk, that is how "different " the thing is.

The "intercourse " (again misnomer but I can’t call it sex, consider it a nicer replacement for the f verb)? Does not even rank.
That’s easy to get access to someone else pants, is just game, and isn’t that much better than what you can do with your hands.

It’s a necessary step in growing up when you are teenager but I am kind of bored of that bullshit, I see adults thirsty for that with a mix of pity and disgust.

Unfair surely, some people just didn’t follow through and grew up, and sometimes they are willing to trash gold for pebbles.

It’s sad not enraging, but you must take it into account when you meet someone. That’s what I call red flags.

Long winded premise and I have the crystal sea in front calling , so let me cut to the point

I understand the performance and "bad sex" (again according to my premise I wouldn’t call it sex, but let’s don’t make this post the lord of the rings), even horrible sex and you can still go back for more and even search for it because there’s an emotional void and chaos pushing you to find a fix.

I experienced it with my wayward wife, the only cheater I ever allowed back, and for the longest time I wanted to vomit.

Yes I did manage to get it working (harder task than you would in this condition, it’s not natural as it is with a new partner), yes you can get off and seal the deal, yes you can pleasure your partner…. But really I would have had more pleasure in unclogging my toilet from strangers turds with my bare hands than to share my body with this woman.

I did and did and did it again for years because it was expected, part of the performance so I dysfunctionally followed the script. And still wanted to vomit, to die and to get over it asap.

That was betrayal turning love into intercourse, the filthiest one I ever had.
And I went back for it for almost 20 years, except a break when she left me for a couple of weeks for one AP before crawling back, so I had the chance to be with a dozen of girls and discovered it wasn’t sex that broke, it was broken love that made it nasty.

Oh and when she came back the vomitoneter skyrocketed obviously.

So yes, from a different perspective, but I do know what you can do when you are messed up. I believe it since I lived it.

You can do things that you would think are wonderful with little to no joy at all. Or a twisted one.

Ego is truly a thing to thread carefully. Even if I preferr it to be dead.

Killing it was the best thing in my life

@Unhinged

And here I am thinking you laughed earlier because it was a funny joke that I made. You break my heart, Unhinged.

To be direct, I didn't respond to your previous comment because I found your observations boring, and I didn't see how engaging with them was going to help anyone with anything. Obviously, it goes without saying that I think you're completely wrong.

The reason I am on this forum is that when I was going through my own circumstances, I saw almost no representation of the ideas or the mindset that I held, which made me feel rather alone. Now that I am in a good place in my life, I want to pay it forward by arguing from that specific, often underrepresented perspective.

We have a ton of people on this forum who are exceptionally good at providing the emotional support elements of recovery, and a ton of people who are great at offering relationship advice. We also have members who excel at reconciliation guidance, and others who are fantastic with the sheer practicalities of the situation, such as navigating the best steps to take during a separation or a divorce. All of these things are incredibly useful, necessary, and great.

But for me personally, having a space to logically discuss the mechanics of these situations and sort through my thoughts is just as—if not more—useful than standard emotional validation. I'm not saying I'm Spock; I am a human being, and I am obviously an emotional creature navigating this wreckage just like everyone else. However, I firmly believe that logically working things out, stress-testing narratives, and deconstructing the arguments we are given is an incredibly vital part of healing. It helps ground you when everything else feels chaotic.

Since that is my goal, I didn't see any value in responding to your personal critique of my writing. You have your opinions, and you're welcome to enjoy them. But what I write is clearly not for you. It is for people who think like me and are actively struggling to make sense of things.

You claim that I have a thinly veiled contempt for waywards. To that, I’d say I am sure I have my biases. I try to inform my words primarily with logic and reason—relying on statistics and hard data where possible—but let's be honest: everyone on this site carries biases based on their past experiences. You constantly see pro-reconciliation members desperately twisting the narrative to find the best in clearly abusive waywards, while the pro-divorce lobby claims an incredibly remorseful wayward is entirely irredeemable. To be clear though, I'm for sure biased towards divorce due to my interpretation of the stats combined with my lived experiences. I separated and it was hard at first but longer term my life got better. Better in every imaginable way. My mother hung on too long and it crushed her. So yes, I often imagine that biases my view towards separation over reconciliation.

That all being said, some of the most useful dialogue I've had on this site has actually been with hikingout, and I've certainly learned a lot from her thoughts and experiences. I would hope she'd agree that we have been overwhelmingly respectful of one another across many threads. Even though she is relatively new here, I also really enjoy reading GotTheMorbs' posts quite a lot; while we might hold different opinions, I think she approaches problems in a very similar way to me—highly logically (i hope she doesn't find that an insult ahah). Furthermore, while I haven't had too many direct interactions with BraveSirRobin, I found her post here to be incredibly enlightening, and based on this thread alone, foreverlabeled seems exceptionally intelligent.

All of these members are wayward spouses. I find their posts valuable and accurate because they engage logically, use sound reasoning, and speak honestly from their lived experiences.

In fact, the person I have brushed up against most on this site isn’t a wayward at all. They trigger me because I perceive that—unlike the members I just listed—they hide behind a false veil of logic and reason. Yet, the moment you scratch the surface of their argument, they default to claiming that logic is useless anyway and that everything is strictly about emotions. That would be fine but then I'd suggest maybe they should drop the pseudo-intellectual veil to begin with.

If I had posted Gemmy's thread and someone came along to debate the idea that waywards are truly just "validation prostitutes," I would find that incredibly helpful. If you start with the premise that a wayward partner is claiming validation was the primary reason for having sex with someone else—and that the sex itself was entirely irrelevant—then analyzing whether a betrayed spouse should accept that claim at face value is deeply important. It helps clarify your thoughts on the situation. I am hopeful that our discussion is doing exactly that for him, or if not for him, then at least for other readers following along.

My perspective obviously won't resonate with everyone, but if my understanding of human nature is correct, I am certainly not the only person who thinks this way.

But there you go—you successfully baited a response out of me. Just know that in the future, you aren't entitled to one. If I choose to ignore what you're saying, it is fully within my prerogative. It doesn't mean I've "run," it just means I find it entirely fruitless to argue about topics that aren't going to be helpful to other users.

That being said, have a great week. I don't have an ounce of ill will in my body for you.

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 9:53 AM, Friday, July 3rd]