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When you're a male and your wife cheats on you, how do you cope? Sure, there's a double standard and that although stupid and antiquated, it is a fact and it hurts both sides.

I want to tell her that I feel lonely hurt and depressed.
Sometimes I hear a song and I feel like it's her feelings for him.
I hear a song he dedicated to her and I'm broken inside.
Sometimes I feel like I'm no competition next to OM.
Sometimes I want to go home and just cry on her shoulder.
Sometimes I'm just depressed and don't want anything.
Sometimes I feel anxiety like it's all happening right here, right now.
Sometimes it feels like I'm the one dragging these feelings after 2yrs and she's back to normal.
Sometimes it feels like she's back in the relationship because she feels sorry for me.

I can tell you we women feel JUST like that. All of every bit of that. And from what I hear, it's standard for all BS. Don't let anyone tell you that it's not masculine to feel shit. (That's part of what led my fwh down the primrose path, TBH. He was filled with ideas of how men are and how men cope... )

i feel the exact way you do. it has been almost 2 years...and the pain is still there.

everything you wrote is what we all feel after discovering our spouse cheated.

hugs to you.

I don't know if it's the best way, but helped me go to the brink of divorce and back (we're slowly backing away from the edge).

I acknowledged the feelings and felt them. If needed I found someone to whom I could vent...in your case I'd hope your fWW would be amenable to the role. Most of all I accepted that I was who I was...flawed like everyone else.

I took a hard look at my contributions to the problems in the M and resolved to work on addressing them. Sometimes they were things that I needed to simply do for myself. I accepted that it wasn't anyone else's responsibility to make me happy than my own. I recognized the initial depression for what it was and made sure that I was involved in activities that I'd enjoy with other people.

I'm still dealing with the emotional aftermath, but I'm taking it a day at a time and know that in the long run I'll be alright. You will be, too.

Dude, that's me. That's exactly me. Ya, i go through that. There are days i want to grab her and just yell "WHY?! Other days I want to hold her in my arms and tell her how happy i am now. Still others...I'll admit...I cry like a newborn baby. But it's in her arms. And that does make a world of difference. And trust me...I'm not exactly the softer side of Sears.

2married, we are just about the same time out. What helps me is looking back at the journey and make note of how far we've come. The changes we've made.

It sucks man. It's a shit sandwich i know. But gets better everyday. Guy or girl.

You are normal. OM is 20-30 pounds heavier than me, double chin, father of 5 and older. Still....I wrestled with what you are.

At about 1 year out I finally owned the fact that people always affair down. I was then strong enough to face the fact that even if it were Tom Selleck hitting on my wife....if my wife had just said "no" all of this would be a non-issue. Early on my wife believed that he was "special" he "understood" her. That was a lie she told to herself first and believed....then through her lies and TT I chose to believe it. It's natural to do this.....but lies are just that. Lies. No matter how much they are professed or how many adults state them....the fact remains they are lies, not facts.

Try to float when this gets too tough.....refrain from putting into action those thoughts you have. Post often, reach out to relationship friendly men too.

Key is to reach outside yourself. To internalize your feelings is to plant seeds of anger and resentment....fruits would be depression and hard hearted mess.

Make it a goal to grow better not bitter.

This is traumatic level experience. The pain is immeasurable.....that's why it takes YEARS to expose and heal from it.

Keep the faith, brother. We got your back.

God is with us all.

[This message edited by blakesteele at 5:23 PM, June 30th (Monday)]

Thank you guys. It's so hard to go on. Women do get more permission to expressing their feelings and it's okay. But a guy doesn't. I can't be crying every time she comes home from work or moody or things of that nature. Go cry on a shoulder perhaps. I don't. I don't have that luxery. But the advise here is generous and correct. Thank you guys. THANK YOU!

Guys caught me at work crying, my daughters have too. I know it's real, I know I'm human and in serious pain.....but it still sucks to be caught. So don't mistake my support as saying I don't wrestle with this too.....I absolutely wrestle with this.

Peace.

Your first post describes me. Exactly.

Glad I'm not the only one.

Our DDays are almost exact. I guess you could say we're in the same graduating class.

Thank you for having the balls to start a thread like this because I don't, and its nice to know i'm doing about as well as someone else with about the same time period.

[This message edited by saturnpatrick at 11:44 PM, June 30th (Monday)]

2married, I'm a female BS who is obviously feeling everything you are. And you are right, women have more permission to explore it and feel it then men.

I know prior to dday I hated it when a man cried, men aren't meant to cry are they, they are meant to be strong, the saviour, bullshit, crap, crap.

Truth is I need my WH to break down now, to show me the pain, I find men who cry and feel and show their feelings to be so much braver and stronger then a man who bottles them up... now.

Our culture has dictated how men and women should act in times of pain and suffering, I think each man brave enough to show emotion in front of their children outside of happiness and anger, gives the gift of understanding that people, all people, hurt and its ok to show it to those we love!

I hope you find an outlet 2married! :)

I think one of the hardest parts of being a male BS is that the infidelity discovery is itself intrinsically emasculating, and then the aftermath (for me, anyway) has been full of crying and sadness and other stereotypically more feminine coping mechanisms.

I can't imagine my WW being attracted to me when I get teary all the time. And she certainly wasn't during our false R.

Also, I've never had ED problems before but I do now, at least partially. Viagra helps. Someone else on SI said that it's hard to stay, er, hard when you don't have full trust. I think that's true.

I feel the same way. No advice really just wanted to chime in. I also like what Blakesteele wrote about the Goal being to become better not bitter. That is awesome and something I am struggling with a great deal.

mhca - Never had an issue with ED problems until now.

When you're a male and your wife cheats on you, how do you cope?

I know it's tough but really take a look at that sentence. Who should be coping here?

I think the first mistake that men (and everyone frankly) makes right after discovery is to not turn to your so called partner and stick up your middle finger at them, then show them your ass as you walk away.

I consider myself reconciled (whatever that really means) but in that process I have discovered what I knew all along about myself, I am fiercely independent and won't tolerate having friends or certainly a spouse who is an idiot. People who have A's are behaving like idiots. Don't tolerate those people in your life.

This does not mean that you don't want to stay with them, often times in a M, there is a lot of history, commons (kids, house, etc) that make it worth staying around for a while to see if your newly developed idiot can turn their life around and become someone respectable again. Those are the why's of staying. The how's, once you really get down to the brass tacks of it are pretty easy.

Your opinion of yourself is the one that matters - not your spouses.

You need to explain to your spouse what she need to do in order for you to stay in the M. Tell her you want it to work, but here is the benchmark. Give them time, but progress and actual achievement of those things are needed otherwise get ready to roll without her. That's forever. Poor behavior can't return. They used their get out of jail free card and guess what, community chest is closed.

Most importantly - it is your life. Get busy with it. Your new expectation should be that you live your life and your spouse comes along for the ride. This can last as long as you want, but remember if you don't ingratiate her back into it eventually she has little reason to stay around, just like you don't want to live with and idiot.

Do your thing and do it really well. Make a plan and execute it. Build a business, change a career, start a club, by a lake house - whatever.

My biggest qualm with MC they many of them want to jump to "communication" and togetherness right away. After an A I think it very healthy, I would argue critical, for emotional separation for a time period. Depending on the couple this could be 3 months, for some it may need to be 3 years....

All those items you listed, if I had to guess, are feelings most of us have had post A. Feel them, get help for them yourself, decide how you want to handle them and don't look to her to fix shit. I mean frankly she most likely she has enough shit to fix and struggle with.

After 3 years I am just reaching the point that I really want my W back. She has grown enough at this point for me to be confident in that. It has built over time, but at the end of the day, she will always be sprinkles on my life not the ice cream. I'm the cream baby. And so are you. Start living that way.

take care .....

[This message edited by wert at 8:48 AM, July 1st (Tuesday)]

There's a whole lotta things I haven't wanted to admit. But the A is very emasculating. All of you make some really great points and I'm also very glad I'm in good company. Glad I could voice what some of you are feeling. I hate being this emotional mess and put up a front that all is good because that's what's expected or else you'er a wuss.

I feel all of those things everyday, I am 8 month in and its still terrible. Sometimes I just wanna run.

There's a whole lotta things I haven't wanted to admit. But the A is very emasculating. All of you make some really great points and I'm also very glad I'm in good company.

Glad I could voice what some of you are feeling. I hate being this emotional mess and put up a front that all is good because that's what's expected or else you'er a wuss.

Sorry to hear that. An affair is very painful.

There are days, when I wish my children were older, so they would understand what cheating and lying and deception is.

Then it would make it easier for me to just file for divorce.

I see so many false reconciliations here that it is scary.

They have people who come back and say they though reconciliation was going well, but then they find that the affair went underground, or the cheating spouse has started another affair.

Some find out right away, some seven or ten years later find out that the cheating spouse is cheating again.

I seriously feel hopeless when reading these posts because there are so many of them here.

I just know that sometimes you feel like the butt of the joke.

At the risk of breaking the rules here, I did get this link from the Media library here. But I think it's pretty interesting how it talks about how men deal with being a betrayed spouse. It's different for us apparently.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_8616955

Have you heard of retrouvaille ? Its a great program for hurting couples . I highly recommend it . I too I'm a hurting male . I found relief when I searched inside of myself to find out what I needed from my Wife . These are the things I came up with
1. Remorse - I needed to see genuine remorse not sympathy
2. Working on herself to find the reasons she made the poor choices -
3. Most of all ! I needed to know she loved me .that the A was a bad choice she made .

Once I got the above the healing process started working and I'm in the forgiving stage . Retrouvaille can defiantly help