SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

BS here. First new topic post. Thank you to SI for everything. I have read here for last five months. Reconc & WS forums have been extremely helpful.

Late last night, in another of our seemingly endless "I ask for emotional content and he crawls out the window" conversations, about FWS's 20+ year affair with our mutual business associate...I pointed the spotlight to the point that it began, in 1991, in my house, 8 yrs into our marriage. I was trying to verify that he consciously considered, then, our prior personal relational trauma history. (Me, abandoned adopted infant. 1st very young husband cheated, divorced by me, next major relationship BF cheated, ended by me. Him, cheated on by 1st love/1st wife, divorced & lost contact w/young son.) So, yes, he says, he knew all that, but decided that going ahead with affair grooming and development, deceit, and pursuit of sex was "worth the risk." A complete and utter calmness came over me as he uttered these words. It was as if for the first time in 2.5 years the blinders truly came off for me. My question for SI/WS: Does that suspension of judgment occur for most WS? Does "worth the risk" become a common mindset, no matter how astronomical the risks truly are? Does the BS, in our dysfunctional post-DDay desire to FIX, make mind barriers against seeing the truth as it truly was? As ugly as it truly was. I remain calm this morning. Relieved of a burden I didn't quite know I was carrying.

I can't speak for every WS, just me and mine. When I caught my WW in her A, I was terrified of losing her at first, but as she failed to show much remorse or do the heavy lifting in R, I thought about pulling the trigger on a D. Got really close at one point.

Later when I had a RA ONS she said her immediate reaction was fear that she would lose me. I asked her if she had ever considered that she might lose me over her A, she said the thought never crossed her mind.

As far as your last question goes, she TT'd me so bad I was convinced she hid the ugly truth from herself.

Thanks for that. I do think that fWH walked himself into a zone where he did not know the truth at a certain mental level. I even question that he is truly sane at times, although much is being done well and with great heart. The length of it all made sliding from one year, season, decade to another an appealing posture during his many disclosures over 20 long months since DDay #1. I probably have about 20+ Ddays altogether and a lovely case of PTSD to go with them. He did, and still occasionally does, confuse me to the point of comic proportion with the time travel when "defensive." Too bad I'm so smart and have such a good memory

I am trying to focus now on looking at my FOO issues in the area of why I accepted such a distanced and poor substitute for a marriage throughout two decades. I wanted and surely deserved more. I hope for more now, but it is a hard road with no rainbows.

Next week is 1st antiversary of disclosure that OW had chronic herpes, their sex was unprotected, and I was uninformed of this detail for 1st 15 months of so-called R that included much delightful HB. End of this September it will be a year from more revisions of prior "whole truth timelines." MC is helping translate.

As someone else said: I'm "too old for this." It factors in.

I think they just aren't in their right minds most of the time during the A. My WH is going to be able to retire early. We had been planning it for a long time. He was really close to being able to finally leave the job he has grown to hate. Good times ahead!

Then the OW offered herself up and I guess she was too good to pass up. Lots of unprotected sex later, I asked WH if he ever considered that she, being way younger than he or I, could get pregnant. Had that happened, I would definitely have left with half the money, and he would have been working for another 19 or so years, probably at a job he hated, having to deal regularly with someone he now says would drive him crazy. He said it never really crossed his mind, and besides she showed him her pack of pills.

Thinking with one's genitals doesn't usually work out all that well, but in the heat of the moment, they truly don't seem to care.

[This message edited by brokendancer7 at 4:39 PM, July 27th (Saturday)]

This eats away at my soul. I keep thinking my value and value of our family and our 18 year marriage was worth risking for a couple nights out with the OW. And then to say she means nothing to him!!! WTF? I asked him didn't you think about how badly you would hurt me and he said he wasn't really thinking about me at all then.

he said he wasn't really thinking about me at all then.

This rings true to me. My XWW said the same thing, and I believe it.

So, "why" wasn't he thinking about you then becomes the question. Is it because he has a highly developed ability to "ignore". (that was the case with my xWW, whose mother is NPD. My xWW's father always advised her to "just ignore your mother." , and she became good at it.). Or, is it because he doesn't care? Or, is it because he is highly selfish? Or, other?

"Worth the risk" could mean different things. It,was "worth the risk" because:

* I didn't care

* I didn't think about it (ignored/denied)

* my need for the "drug" was so strong

Frankly, when I hear the words "I didn't think about what I was doing and never considered the consequences" I never analyzed the "why". I knew I,didn't want to be married to someone who would betray me, regardless of how she dealt with the guilt while engaged in the betrayal.

Mine told me he never thought of me as he was engaged in the A act itself, except that he would tell her repeatedly (afterwards) that I didn't deserve what he was doing to me.

When I asked him what he was thinking about the A when he wasn't actually with her conducting it, he told me that he "knew it was risky."

That really disgusted me. "Risky" was such an understatement. Risky.

That's when I realized I was talking to someone who was disordered and only remorseful in the abstract, if you will. He recognized what he was doing was wrong and hurtful, he knew he needed to stop it, NC the OW and work on R. But all of that only lasted a little more than a week.

When it came down to it, he was practiced in the art of compartmentalizing it. So much so, that he took the A underground, even after he knew how crushed I was.

More and more I'm coming to accept that WS are just different creatures. The *are* pod people.

. (that was the case with my xWW, whose mother is NPD.

My husband's mom is NPD too! My husband says he made a mistake. I'll give him the benefit of doubt for the first time he took her out and accept the mistake excuse but 2nd, 3rd, 4th were intentional. You don't make the same mistake 4 times with the same person. I wish I could be like you and not wonder why. My husband tries to blame his gambling addiction (he took her to a casino 4 times). That's bs. He took her because he wanted to take her. It's who he wanted to spend his time with.