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Does anyone else feel that if the roles were reversed, and you were the WS, that you would have been dumped on your a$$ and told to never come back? My WH has said he was sorry for hurting me, lying to me, (but only because I think he felt he was expected to say it) and bla, bla bla....but I have a very funny feeling that if I would have done even one of the horrible things he did to me during the seven year period he cheated on me with multiple women, that he would have packed up my crap and thrown me out without so much as a second thought. Yet, I am expected to forgive and move on. I have asked him how he would have felt and/or reacted if I would have done all of those things to him and our marriage, and I get nothing but a "I don't know" or a "I'm not sure" or an even better "why is this even a question you would ask anymore"!

I just feel that if the roles would have been reversed that I would have been treated horribly, that he wouldn't have even wanted to listen to what I had to say. These set backs in our R are difficult and hard to deal with. I just feel like he would be such a hypocrite in my place.

I don't have to feel it. My WH flat out said if the roles were reversed he'd have divorced me.

m334455 - Amazing how it is tolerable for some people but not others, right? If you don't mind me asking: how did you react when you heard that from your WH?

My WH said "I'd kill you."

Idk if he was joking or not. I suspect not.

He's also explicitly forbidden me from talking to any of his male friends or friending them on Facebook, so there's that. His excuse: "I don't go friending any of their wives, so why should they be chatting with mine?"

God, his logic is twisted. Anyway, there's the answer.

Oh I know my ws would have never moved past or even want R if we were to switch spots. He's talked about women who've cheated and shakes his head in disgust..go figure. Plus his arrogance and pride wouldn't allow forgiveness.

I'm 99.9% sure that the X would have killed me and the OP if I had had the A. He probably would have killed himself too, so it wouldn't have been a total loss...

(Sorry for the black humor; I'm in that kind of mood... )

He told me if I had done it he knows he would have R and could have never left me. Ironic seeing as when I found out about his A he told me he couldn't live with me anymore, took it underground and then ultimately told me he didn't want to work on R "right now" so he could be "free and liberated" ... but he added that he was "sorry that seems like a rejection" and he was anxious/ sorry about the decision. What a guy.

I think in my case he always had a bit of a victim/savior complex and he would have sickly enjoyed knowing he had one up on me. He tolerated a close friendship I had with an ex and threw that in my face after DDay ("I never knew what was really happening there"). It allowed him to maintain a certain emotional seperation, I guess, which fits his PA.

He tried to control it, but you could tell during our extended break up that it killed him that I got to be a victim in the eyes of our friends, family, colleagues. He didn't complain outwardly about that and seemed to own it passively, but I think he spites me for it.

Also, for the record, oddly, when he told me about the A he said he expected me to walk away and never talk to him again. When I offered R he was accepting at first, but not very grateful or enthusiastic. I think his subsequent cruelty and lashing out was his way of *making* me do the thing he truly wanted. He drove me away. So maybe he really would have left me if the shoe was on the other foot.

After we were divorced, my wxh found out that I was talking to another man. He drove to the town where that man lives with a loaded pistol to confront him.

Thank god he didn't find the mans house. This is while he was still seeing MOW.

I still shake my head at that crazy time in my life.

My H also told me he would have left me if I did that to him. However, being a BS myself, I understand that what that REALLY means is "I'm not really sure what I would do unless/until it happens to me". Much like it meant in my case as well.

I took it with a grain of salt. I was certain I would divorce my H if he ever cheated, and yet I didn't. When push came to shove, it was a different story. So I believe that our WS's can say whatever they want, but they don't truly know how they will react unless/until it happens to them, just like many of the BS's don't really know until it happens to them.

Nah. I'm pretty sure he would have derived some sort of perverse satisfaction if I'd cheated. First, it would turn him on. Secondly, it would have, as he would likely say, "knocked me off my high horse." For some reason, he had me on a pedestal, and at some point, he convinced himself that I had climbed onto that pedestal by myself, and so he deeply resented me for it.

So if I'd cheated, there would have been satisfaction to be found.

He never really had any emotional connection to me---not in the way a husband should---so he likely would just box it up with all the other garbage in his head, then be uber-magnanimous and ostentatious in his "forgiveness."

But he'd seethe and resent and hate.

Which is what he did, anyway.

Really, what I did or did not do never mattered, and never will.

MY FWH said in MC that he would divorce me if I had cheated on him. This was a couple of weeks after d-day. I do believe that at the time he said that, that is what he would do.

Now, that he has done a lot more introspection about himself and getting in touch with his real feelings, I feel he may have a different perspective. Not that I am going to test him on this. But, then again, he had mind movies that drove him crazy about me and my previous boyfriends that I had been with before I even knew FWH, so maybe he just wouldn't be able to do it.

My WH is a madhatter. His first wife cheated on him, divorced him for the OM and left him devastated. I met him 10 yrs later, I think the specter of her was mostly gone by then but he always told me how he would have tried to work it out with her, that he never wanted to be a divorcee, that if I ever cheated I could come talk to him and we would work together on our marriage.

My response to this was always the same, " I'd kick you out on your ass." I still feel it's a deal breaker, if I were that same young woman I would have left him in a heartbeat and called up his ex to let her feel "off the hook". Kids change the way I look at it all now. WH definitely deserved being left on his ass, but my kids don't deserve it.

My WH immediately says that he would immediately forgive me (so why can't I forgive him is the underlying).

I ask why and he says because that's how much he luuuuuvs me.

Oh he would have left me and made sure everyone knew what a horrible person I was. :/. Of course he says now it would be different but he knows I would never put him through the hell I've been through. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy (well maybe OW but even she got a taste of her own medicine in a way).

Yes, FWW and I have discussed this. In our case at least I think it is tied to personality, just as the A were. We both had opportunities, but I would think through the consequences and understand the risks, whereas FWW would impulsively go with the feeling. Same if our roles were reversed in infidelity, she would react impulsively and leave through nm out, while I was restrained by reality.

BTW, It really does not make me feel better when FWW thanks me and says she does not think she would be so understanding. I know she means that well, but it causes me to question my behaviors.

Well, I understsnd that some people have double standards, but ultimately it doesnt matter much. It is your choice whether you leave or not. Who cares what he wants? Who care, really, how he would have reacted if you cheated?

My xWw cheated on me. I divorced her. Your WH cheated on you. You can divorce him.

You're still with him because you want to be, not because he wants you to be there. What he would have done if the roles were reversed had no bearing on your situation.

I honestly think my WH would have stayed if I'd been the lying cheater instead of him. He's just so lazy about our relationship, he wouldn't have cared that much about it. I don't think he's loved me for years. He blames the PTSD, I blame him for letting the PTSD take over his life without even TRYING to do anything about it. That's why he's lousy at anything related to R. He refuses to try. Which is why we live in limbo. I don't even care anymore if he cheats again. How sick is that?

I just find it interesting on how WS can tell themselves over and over again that what they are doing/did is/was "different". That it would be unacceptable for someone to treat them that way, but completely disregard their own actions. I realize that I'm choosing to stay and fight for my marriage, but it doesn't mean I still can't feel confusion and hurt when his actions and words keep me off balance. I feel like I am constantly trying to regain my footing, and it can be very draining emotionally.

Mine said he would've divorced me!! Looking back I wish I could've been so cold to have divorced his ass without a care!! I think I would've been in a better place by now

My WH has told me he would never accept it if I had an A. We would be done. Didn't stop him from wanting to pimp me out on craigslist, so he could get some male action and legitimize it in his sick mind.