SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Does anybody feel like there's an imbalance in the way WW's are treated as opposed to WH's? I oftentimes see very vitriolic posts, advising new BH's in the most florid of terms, terms which are obviously designed to inflame the BH's injury, that they should deal with they cheating wife in the most hostile manner possible. Sometimes advice such as exposing in the workplace, even after a divorce decision has been made and when it might harm a BH's divorce settlement, is forcefully argued. I've noted that it's not unusual for these threads to grow and grow, but seldom do we see the same on BW threads.

What say you SI? Are WW's treated with more contempt than WH's???

I think this is somewhat due to the biological imbalances present in male/female relationships. They're somewhat unfair, and they make WH stories more tragic than WW stories.

For men, since any cheating includes the possibility of being cuckolded (which causes a severe primal disgust), AND older men, even with children, have decent prospects.... men tend to tell other men "just walk away, bro, there's plenty of fish in the sea that won't cheat on you, and losing the money is worth it." Beating on the WW is just part of that communication.

Meanwhile, a married woman with children has poorer (not impossible, just poorer) odds of securing a new, wonderful man to replace the cheater. It's harder to say "walk away and take the gamble, it'll all work out!" Cheating men are scum, but it DOES seem like in almost all cases, a WH chooses the BS over the AP when the choice is forced.

Another mitigating factor is that I think (?) that females don't feel the emasculation aspect of being cheated on, which let me tell you ladies, is SEVERE.

I think it is important to understand the different ways men and women are treated in the media and news.

If something happens to a woman, the headline is something like "A mother of three *insert tragedy here*". If a woman has children she's defined as a mother over being a woman. This tactic is common to generate sympathy and to amplify the victimhood. If you think about it, it makes sense. But men are rarely identified as dads in media unless it's relevant to the story.

I think recent statistics are something like this: over 65% of divorces are filed by women, over 50% of first marriages fail, women get primary custody 85% of the time, married millennial women cheat at a higher rate than married millennial men, nearly 50% of men who financially support their children have no visitation rights, etc.

So on the one hand we have all of this media narrative of how women are angels and men are trash. On the other, we have the Red Pill reality. I think a lot of what we see is men fed up with being called trash while women get the benefit of the doubt. Think about the number of times we've seen in all media "Man cheats, he's trash. Woman cheats, well obviously her man didn't give her what she needed."

Oh how I've woken up after my shit show. Thankfully my son gets it too after all the drama.

[This message edited by Cromer at 7:22 PM, August 7th (Friday)]

So we're going to thought police what people are saying and how long threads are now?

ChamomileTea I have agreed with you more often than I have disagreed. I have called out your posts as being very wise. The reason that thread ran so long, frankly, is because far too many people kept trying to come up with new excuses for a very selfish person who has hurt a very good person. Let's leave it at that. I went out of my way to say he should be kind and never intentionally cruel to her, but he needed to protect himself. I think the "mob mentality" nonsense was ... nonsense.

For men, since any cheating includes the possibility of being cuckolded (which causes a severe primal disgust),

And I agree with this. The visceral disgust is also heightened by things that women don't have to experience or at least experience in far lower volume or quantity, such as vasopressin and extremely active visual centers in the parietal lobes (which is a pretty good bet for why the "mind movies" seem to a be a more prevalent male experience).

We're different. And so what? Generally this means men and women each have strengths and weaknesses that can compliment each other. Great in a functioning monogamous pair bond.

Jonathan Haidt has done some amazing research on disgust as it pertains to moral views, and I would suspect he would tend to agree here as well.

[This message edited by Thumos at 10:25 PM, August 7th (Friday)]

I think recent statistics are something like this: over 65% of divorces are filed by women, over 50% of first marriages fail, women get primary custody 85% of the time, married millennial women cheat at a higher rate than married millennial men, nearly 50% of men who financially support their children have no visitation rights, etc.

And women have achieved parity with men for infidelity but this is rarely acknowledged and in fact is challenged vigorously. But it's true. There's an entire subgenre of books dedicated to glorifying female infidelity and how empowering it is. Movies have been made about it.

We also have this weird grievance studies critical theory rhetoric filtering into mainstream culture about "toxic masculinity" and the like, which when you examine it is basically arguing masculinity is some kind of birth defect. Product ad campaigns (like the Gillette campaign, one of the weirder self-sabotaging marketing debacles in history) maligning an entire gender. And the othering of boys, which many moms have thankfully begun to speak against.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Meryl Streep speak against it. "We hurt our boys by calling something toxic masculinity,” she said. “Women can be pretty fucking toxic … It’s toxic people.”

[This message edited by Thumos at 10:27 PM, August 7th (Friday)]

CT:

Are WW’s treated with more contempt than WH’s? Well, in general, in my three years actively posting here I would say yes. You’d have to be blind not to notice. But I think Sunspot spoke accurately. It is what it is. I liken it to seeing blood in the water. Some new BH’s head for the hills when confronted with the palpable hatred for a woman the posters have never met. But most BH’s seem to get it. They understand where the hatred comes from, appreciate where the pain originates, and still sift through the advice to find what works for them.

And women have achieved parity with men for infidelity but this is rarely acknowledged and in fact is challenged vigorously. But it's true. There's an entire subgenre of books dedicated to glorifying female infidelity and how empowering it is. Movies have been made about it.

A few weeks ago I saw this video from a relationship therapist and she said that we shouldn't call it "cheating", maybe "stepping out", and if men would only put their woman's clitoris and orgasm at the center of the relationship, no matter where she got her pleasure, then we would be happier. Geesh.

[This message edited by Cromer at 7:29 PM, August 7th (Friday)]

I mean this all just anecdotal. Do you all have any actual statistics to back up the claim of imbalance?

I also typically recommend BH's read "The Way of the Superior Man" - next I'll be hearing this is "toxic" too I suppose.

A few weeks ago I saw this video from a relationship therapist and she said that we shouldn't call it "cheating", maybe "stepping out", and if men would only put their woman's clitoris and orgasm at the center of the relationship, no matter where she got her pleasure, then we would be happier. Geesh.

Thought experiment: Imagine a therapist making a video claiming that we should just call male infidelity "satisfying natural urges for release" and that society would be better off if we recognized men's natural need for polygamy and sexual variety -- in fact, if women would spend less time complaining and more time worshipping the magical wonders of the male penis and put the male orgasm at the center of marriage, WE WOULD ALL BE HAPPIER.

I guarantee you that would be the lead story on CNN and MSNBC and NPR and above the fold in the New York Times the next day as an example of "male privilege" and "toxic masculinity."

[This message edited by Thumos at 10:28 PM, August 7th (Friday)]

I mean this all just anecdotal. Do you all have any actual statistics to back up the claim of imbalance?

I take her thesis on faith without even needing to research it. The hammer comes down on WW much harder than WH on every infidelity forum I've ever seen.

Another thing I think is a factor is, it's easier for WH to "unring that bell."

Men are so afraid of raising a cuckoo that we've adopted, across almost every culture, a virginity fetish. Can anyone argue that the MOST painful stories are the one where a BH goes from "her one and only" to becoming "just her first?"

Women IMO are mollified a great deal when the man gives up the affair. The existential dread a woman feels in an affair is abandonment, and it's possible (correct me if wrong ladies) for a cheating husband to eventually provide security that not only takes away the risk of abandonment, but also gives the BW a feeling of having won the competition.

A BH has always lost the competition. Always. The AP of a WW has always emerged the victor. There's no way to undo the existential dread of what a man feels, and all the symptoms that go with it (mind movies, disgust, emasculation).

So I think part of burning the witch is to help the BH deal with that.

[This message edited by Sunspot at 8:02 PM, August 7th (Friday)]

Women here....

I think WW are treated harsher on the onset....however....once R starts I think BH are handed their ass more often.

They are reminded to be kinder, gentler, etc than BW here. BW yells...its an expression of her pain. BH yells....abuse.

BW tells her WH to leave..she found her bitch boots. BH tells his WW to leave...he threw her out in the street. 0

They are also on the losing end in during divorce. They tend to lose more assets and time with their children even if they are not the ones that cheated. They also have the heart wrenching status of questions their child's paternity. Men who show up here wanting paternity test ARE EATEN ALIVE by women posters telling them they are wrong. It shouldn't matter. A recent poster was even told HE would treat his child differently. Another poster struggles with a vasectomy and was called selfish because he had agreed to R and that meant sacrificing for his family.

WW maybe burned at the stake...but BH are expected to climb in the pot and enjoy the slow boil to death.

Let me be clear- they are both equally pathetic.

I have seen this kind of post before.

The basic reason men treat WW's meaner than BW's treat WH's is BIOLOGY!!!

A woman ALWAYS knows that her kids are HERS!!! All a man has had throughout history has been his TRUST in HER!!! When a W becomes a WW than she has DESTROYED all trust!

Now he HAS to worry about if ANY of "HIS" kids are really his??? I know how I felt when that happened me so I can imagine how other men are feeling.

I really don't think women even consider how much that fact ALTERS a mans existence.

A BH has always lost the competition.

I have to admit I had a different mindset about BHs until I joined this site. MY opinion doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things...but I have come to see that BHs are the STRONGEST men EVER . A BH has stayed faithful...most even after they have been cheated on...and to ME...that is very admirable!

I hate to be the one to highlight the obvious biological differences in sex between the sexes.

Let's just say, men almost invariably do not retain and bring home DNA which might be present inside the body for at least 10 to 14 days, possibly, speculatively for life (micro-chimerism) which might result in a possible unknown fraudulent legal and financial commitment for at least 18 to 21 years.

This invokes a visceral and primal emotion in men which is on such a base level, we find it all but impossible not to react to.

We can speculate whether this is unjust or hurtful. It certainly is from the perspective of a betrayed wife, who is suffering very real and very personal pain, but the factual imbalanced biological impact on a betrayed husband can not be denied.

[This message edited by DictumVeritas at 9:16 PM, August 7th (Friday)]

Does anybody feel like there's an imbalance in the way WW's are treated as opposed to WH's? I oftentimes see very vitriolic posts, advising new BH's in the most florid of terms, terms which are obviously designed to inflame the BH's injury, that they should deal with they cheating wife in the most hostile manner possible. Sometimes advice such as exposing in the workplace, even after a divorce decision has been made and when it might harm a BH's divorce settlement, is forcefully argued. I've noted that it's not unusual for these threads to grow and grow, but seldom do we see the same on BW threads.

What say you SI? Are WW's treated with more contempt than WH's???

Agreed 100%.

And posters who try and present a more balanced approach get roasted a bit as well. SI, over the time I have been here, has become somewhat of a man cave. These things tend to ebb and flow. Right now, we lean to burning WW's at the stake first and ask questions later. In a year or two, we probably will shift the other way more so.

But so long as it doesn't become personal (and it has been of late), then we get into real problems. But that's an issue for board management to work out.

[This message edited by thatbpguy at 9:52 PM, August 7th (Friday)]

So if a BH doesn’t have kids or his wife cannot bear children the pain is less?

WW maybe burned at the stake...but BH are expected to climb in the pot and enjoy the slow boil to death.

Great observations. I just climbed out of the pot and am on the rim about the make my leap for freedom.

As far as the to the victor go the spoils, yes the AP wins in a BH’s case. Wins that round. OM gets the “spoils”

But ... what you realize is, there are other rounds coming up in life. And what the AP won was hot coals heaped on his head.

You don’t have to be Judeo-Christian to contemplate Proverbs, which talks about what happens to a man who goes down into the pit with an adulterous woman in Chapter 7:

18 "Come, let’s drink deeply of love till morning;

let’s enjoy ourselves with love!

19 My husband is not at home;

he has gone on a long journey.

20 He took his purse filled with money

and will not be home till full moon.”

21 With persuasive words she led him astray;

she seduced him with her smooth talk.

22 All at once he followed her

like an ox going to the slaughter,

like a deer[a] stepping into a noose[b]

23 till an arrow pierces his liver,

like a bird darting into a snare,

little knowing it will cost him his life.

[This message edited by Thumos at 10:37 PM, August 7th (Friday)]