SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I know i am a ww and i know i need to be patient and realise r is really hard, but i am so tired of fighting over things i feel are pointless. ONS, pa, ea definitions to me are pretty clear. I had cybersex on aff with multiple men. I don't consider either an ea or pa more like a bunch of ons. I had one guy that I chatted with more than anyone else, also cammed with him and the only one who saw my face. At the time i liked chatting with him (it makes me feel sick now) but we did not exchange real names, details of our lives or any personal info. My bh woke me up at 4am (1st problem for me because i am a complete bitch when i get woken up that early, BUT he had a bad nightmare) and we started arguing because he still thinks this is classified as an ea. I have always maintained it was like a ons just longer than one night, not ea. I am fighting the desire to just agree with him, because its easier than fighting and I know how bad he feels. "Labels" seem to make him feel better, and i know my difficulty communicating with him has hindered his recovery, but dammit i think im right and he is obsessing, thinking it was "closer" emotionally than it was. Im venting i know. Feel free to 2x4 me if I'm wrong. I am restarting ic next Thursday and I plan to work on my conflict management, communication skills as well as other things.

At this stage, arguing over semantics is pointless - fact is, you cheated. Period. ONS, EA, PA, doesn't matter. You betrayed. If labels make him feel better, than so be it. Why is it so important that you be right? Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?

One of my biggest problems is conflict avoidance and the resulting resentments I feel as a result. It's not so much I'm trying to be right but trying to have him understand what happened. While it wasn't obviously physical as it was online, it wasnt an emotional affair. i know cheating is cheating but I don't want him to think it was something it wasn't. Emotional attachment had nothing to do with what I did.

[This message edited by Silentthoughts at 4:05 PM, September 5th (Thursday)]

I agree with MissesJai.

Also,

What is the definition of emotional infidelity?

It’s an emotional connection with someone of the opposite sex that you keep a secret from your spouse, says Peggy Vaughan, author of The Monogamy Myth: A Personal Handbook for Recovering from Affairs. Basically, emotional affairs occur when one partner is channeling physical or emotional energy, time and attention into someone other than the person they are in a committed relationship with to the point that their partner feels neglected.

You even said you liked chatting with one guy. Sounds like an EA to me

Well then all cheating would be emotional affairs, yes? For me it was just about validation and opportunity. He was interchangeable and i didn't miss him if he wasn't online. He was my fav only cause he worked harder than the others. It sounds horrible when I say it and it is just horrible no matter what. I am working on the whys but we are pretty far past dday and are working toward fixing our m and the jacked up roles we have assumed, one of which is me avoiding conflict. If it wasn't at 4am I would have agreed with him even tho I really disagree. How is that honesty and transparency? he wants me to feel free to tell him how I feel but how can I when I don't feel "safe" to disagree and I suck at arguing in a healthy way?

[This message edited by Silentthoughts at 4:16 PM, September 5th (Thursday)]

Let's be clear here. You got some kind of connection out of chatting with these guys.

Did you ever say " I love you" or " I like you" ?

Was it just some lustfest?

Point is you got some kind of satisfaction and gratification that you did not include your husband in on. You got some sort of pleasurable release from some other men and whether it was emotional or not....it's still betrayal.

You continually chatting with one particular guy gives me the inclination that you favored him. If you were just living out a fantasy with him, this can still be an EA, just under an alias. You could have said your name was Broomhilda, yet you were still Silentthoughts behind all of that.

Your bh is trying to wrap his head around this. He won't be able to for a long time.

Don't argue the semantics right now.

It just makes you look defensive and not receptive.

You don't even really understand what you did,so why argue the "labels".

However, try looking at it this way..you never physically touched him so all you could really share was emotional "feelings"

No talk of feeling... We are talking about maybe 6 nights total with him in a total 15 day or so total time on aff. Aff is all about illicit sex. I wish I didn't do it and I am sick every time I think that I did this. I am working on me, but why make it more than it was. Emotional affairs to me is when you turn to someone other than your spouse to share thoughts and feelings. Sure I was getting something out of this mess, validation and self esteem boost. But emotional support?, not even close to that. We had no personal conversations and the whole thing was disgusting and sordid. That being said, bh is in pain and I hate it. And I wouldn't have argued with him about this if it wasn't 4am. The consensus seems to be to just tell him what he wants to hear? I Isn't that the number one big no no for us waywards?

[This message edited by Silentthoughts at 4:55 PM, September 5th (Thursday)]

trying to have him understand what happened.

You gotta let this go - he's not going to understand. You have bigger fish to fry.

I reread all the posts and I do sound defensive and I don't want that. I want to be healthy, bh to be happy and our m to be healthy. Maybe deep down I am trying to make myself feel better about what I did, ea to me is worse than ons. How fu*ked up is that, like any of it is okay. I will have to think about that.

he wants me to feel free to tell him how I feel but how can I when I don't feel "safe" to disagree and I suck at arguing in a healthy wa

Why don't you feel safe to disagree? Because he doesn't believe you or gets angry? Because he questions and doubts? Because he has difficulty believing you?

Well that's all very normal in a M suffering post A. He is trying to make sense out of a situation that just doesn't make any sense at all. He is trying to find done sort of narrative that works for him. Which is just one if the many reasons it is so important to work on your whys. And IMHO, it feels very much like you want to put the word just in front of the ONS description as if your behavior was not that big a deal because there was no physical contact and because you feel you had no emotional connection.

But there was something. Something that made you want to keep going back. Something that made you want to hide it from your husband. Sure, you say validation, but I think that's just the surface. Really think about what you were getting out of it. If you can describe that to your husband maybe he will begin to understand.

You have every right to disagree with him. Provided you are doing the work to back that up. But don't be surprised when he doesn't like the answers. How else can you work on these differences in opinions? You would be surprised how many times my husband would say something and my first inclination was to defend my stance and say he was wrong, only to further discuss it and realize he had some pretty damn valid points. But we had to talk about them first. Hone it down. Which took time, effort, and emotion on both our parts.

I didn't agree with everything he said. But I looked for the answers so that I could explain to him why. We are finally on the same page and its a great feeling. But you can't get there when your stuck on semantics.

there was an emotional component to your cheating. Period. The man you favored was meeting an emotional need - therefore, at least to me, it was an EA.

you never physically touched him so all you could really share was emotional "feelings"

Bingo.

Silent....

I didn't see a stop sign so I thought you might want to hear from a BS point of view.

While I do agree that all cheating, in any form, is horrible, I am hearing what you are saying about the lack of feeling behind your situation. For me, I would have been over the moon if my hubby had just "done this for sex". To have 5 years of emotional and love attachments thrown in, well that's the part that almost broke me in two.

Have you been to any Counseling? A seasoned professional can help your husband to understand a bit more about your particular situation. Have you found any literature on what you call AFF affairs? He might benefit from reading them.

The biggest thing I suggest is to stop communicating in a way that is making him defensive and even more hurt. Acknowledge his feelings, he needs that right now, but then find a better way of communicating what it is you are trying to tell him. A good MC will help you developer a better communication style that works better for the two of you.

Hope this helps. But please know your H is trying to tell you in his own way that he feels there had to be emotional feelings for you to do this. He can't or isn't capable at this time to understand that feelings had nothing to do with it.

T

No talk of feeling... We are talking about maybe 6 nights total with him in a total 15 day or so total time on aff. Aff is all about illicit sex. I wish I didn't do it and I am sick every time I think that I did this. I am working on me, but why make it more than it was. Emotional affairs to me is when you turn to someone other than your spouse to share thoughts and feelings. Sure I was getting something out of this mess, validation and self esteem boost. But emotional support?, not even close to that. We had no personal conversations and the whole thing was disgusting and sordid. That being said, bh is in pain and I hate it. And I wouldn't have argued with him about this if it wasn't 4am. The consensus seems to be to just tell him what he wants to hear? I Isn't that the number one big no no for us waywards?

You do realize that what you posted above was all justification...glad you are seeing that.

You feel disgusted right? Now magnify that by 10000.That is how your husband feels.

That is why he can't sleep.

That is why he is on edge.

That is why he wakes you up at 4 am. To him whether it was an EA or just lustful cybersex, his world has imploded and you threw the bomb. He wonders how you can sleep. It goes beyond him knowing you're tired. It goes to how could you do it at all in the first place.

His trust being shattered makes him question everything you did affair wise. To him you did every hurtful thing he can imagine.

I really appreciate the replies. This is why I like si, keeps me from bullshitting myself, dammit just when i think i have a handle on this i blow it! i am going to reopen the conversation with him about this, probably later tonight when he gets home.

Fm, how can i sleep is a good question. His nightmares are way better and usually he will say he had a nightmare and we have some type of physical connection (it makes us both feel better) and we go back to sleep. Our arguing in the middle of the night is rare these days.

BS here. Thought I would chime in.

My H had a LTA. It was weirdly unemotional. He is not trying to claim it wasn't an EA as well as PA, but when I use words like passion, affection, fun, etc, he steadfastly refuses to allow me to apply them. He insists that I don't understand and that with my view point it will never make sense to me, but that he can't allow me to attach feelings or sentiments where there were none.

He has been very adamant about this and ultimately I appreciated it.

So I would say communicate your feelings, and be true. However, the label really doesn't matter, if it's important to your BH.

We talked about it last night. We basically talked about what the definition of ea meant to each other and we both agreed it wasn't the traditional type of ea, but neither is cybersex a typical affair. That being said I decided after thinking about the views expressed here that i was trying to make myself feel better about what I did. We had a fairly productive conversation about this but I still struggle with feeling like we will never get past what I did.

[This message edited by Silentthoughts at 4:22 PM, September 6th (Friday)]

BS here, thought my perspective might help, sorry if it doesn't.

If I were your BS I would say to you "It really doesn't matter if you don't think it's an EA, it was to me." And if you pushed me, I would get stuck on it and it would be very hard to move forward. My attitude would be you did THIS and you're arguing with me over the definition of an EA???? I would view it as you trying to say that what you did wasn't THAT bad.

And this actually reminds me of some of my FWH's and my fights - an issue we've had in general. We'll get into a fight and he'll take the smallest piece out of something and zone in on it. The big picture of the argument is totally lost on him because he's focusing on some minute detail.

An example. He once said to me "I never told her I wanted to leave you and the kids." And I said "NO, but you told her you wanted to run away with her - same thing. What you'd run away with her, me, and the kids???"

Him: "No but it's not the same, I never said I wanted to leave you and the kids."

That fight went on for a while. It's the same thing to me. It's splitting hairs at the end of the day.

I think you're also splitting hairs here. It's good you guys discussed what an EA is to each of you, but if you want to move forward I think you need to understand why he thinks of it as an EA and not only accept that, but respect it. Instead of trying to tell him he's wrong, maybe you should sit back and see that it's what he believes.

One other thing that might help. I'm only seven months out, but A aside, when my FWH was in his A (and for some time before) he was an arrogant SOB who wouldn't listen and would split hairs over everything. He had a "roll his eyes at me" attitude. I have said from day one of finding out that I won't leave because of the A. I'll leave if THAT person returns. Because that cocky SOB was entitled, and ASS to me and *that* person will cheat again. The fight over "I never said I wanted to leave you" happened in a recent episode where, for the first time in months, I saw THAT person. It's quite possible your BS is feeling the same as me. Like it's not so much about disagreeing, but that in you pushing to prove you're right you're coming across as "get over it" and you're showing signs of being the old you. I could be totally off base, just sharing my experience in hopes it will help.

I would see this as minimizing and I'd hate that.

I would see this as minimizing and I'd hate that.

This^^^^

And a need to be right. Let go of that. Right now, your need to be right about how he sees this and it is labeled in his head is a little far down the list. Bottom line is, you did take emotional energy away from the M and away from him.

ea to me is worse than ons

Sorry to be blunt, but what difference does it make what's worse to YOU? You should be worrying about how your BS feels about it, not telling him how he SHOULD feel - which to me is what you are doing. Minimizing your betrayal, not validating your BH's feelings, justifying why what you did wasn't 'a typical affair' or somehow as bad as it might have been. Like he should feel LUCKY it was 'only' (fill in blank) type of A.

My reaction to this as a BS is and

Every once in a while a thread pops up along the lines of which is worse, EA or PA (or CA)? It's bullshit, because the worst betrayal is the one being suffered by the BS.

Quit worrying about definitions and start working on the M. If your BH is still having nightmares almost 3 years since Dday, it does not seem that you (as a couple) have worked through the infidelity. If that is the case, I would think that you have a very shaky R.

ETA: slight change in wording since the original came off sounding more 2x4-ish than intended.

[This message edited by DeadMumWalking at 10:53 AM, September 7th (Saturday)]