SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi All....new here,and I have a question for the WS's. Everything I have been reading says that as a WS, we should not defend ourselves in any case, and be supportive, understanding, etc.to the mood swings and ups & downs of our BS's. What I would like to know is....have any of you WS's experienced an attitude from your BS about everything that you argued and fought about BEFORE the A?

It's almost like everything that was wrong before this happened has suddenly become inconsequential and trivial in comparison to what I did. All of the times I was talked to like a dog, put down, criticized....basically served as a verbal punching bag for my BS and his frustration...I am noticing that all of those things are now being categorized as 'I was flustrated....I didn't really mean them.' Well, you know, there was no sign on your forehead flashing at me to not take him seriously when he was saying it....I guess what I'm afraid is happening is that all of MY issues with him that we SO need to work out are going to become trivial and unimportant in comparison, and I will be left feeling frustrated myself and have these unresolved things hanging over us.

Do I have any right to even EXPECT that he will one day take responsibility for his part in what led up to this disaster? We have been married 23 years, and I have stuck with him through thick & thin, until January of this year. I turned 46 and that day all I could think of was 'You've lived like this for 23 years....can you do another 23?' And the immediate thought was 'No.' I became very dissatisfied and short fused by him ignoring me and having nothing nice to say....at that point I considered us more 'roommates' than anything else...he had gone on the antidepressant Pristique to deal with his Dad's death in Dec 06, and lost all interest in EVERYTHING. He basically checked out on me....no sex at all for over 2 years, maybe a hug or two during that time....no 'I love you's'....the verbal assaults elevated then...one night he told me it even bothered him that I was just sittingthere breathing. I felt unloved, ignored, lonely,and miserable, and this was what led to my mistake.

I feel we have a lot of shared responsibility for what led up to this, but I just don't know how to get it across to him that me doing what I did does not give him a 'get out of jail free' card that negates everything that came before. Or do I even have the right to feel this way to begin with?? Thanks for the input.

It's almost like everything that was wrong before this happened has suddenly become inconsequential and trivial in comparison to what I did

It has. That right there is one of the toughest thing about this bowl of suck we served ourselves and our spouse.

With our fucked up choices we robbed ourselves of any ability to address and real valid issues we had with the marriage. Our affair makes us impotent, just as it did our spouse who was robbed of choice and knowledge.

You mention in your post that you lived a pretty miserable existence for 23 years. You stuck with him. Why?

Reconciliation with your spouse is a choice you can make too.

You know your marriage isn't why you cheated right? Mine was fucked too. I should have filed for divorce. My choice to cheat makes the abuse and affair/s my ex had pale as far as the damage it did to me. That needs to be your focus right now. Why you thought an affair was a viable option.

Anger at being treated poorly is appropriate. Dealing with it by having an affair isn't.

(((hugs))). This is an awesome site and the members here are amazing. Keep posting.

You mention in your post that you lived a pretty miserable existence for 23 years. You stuck with him. Why?

Uncertainone: I always thought that 'it will get better'....or 'he's just stressed'....I know now that Dr.Phil was right about one thing...'We teach people how to treat us.' I came into the marriage at 23 with self-esteem in the gutter due to lifelong issues with my Dad-STILL dealing with those, and I am just now realizing just HOW MUCH they have impacted me and my marriage over the years.

I have never been the 'dominant' force in our relationship...even the hubs says when he met me I was a doormat, and he put some back bone into me. I just don't like confrontation and conflict, which in and of itself is highly laughable, considering the drama I created all by myself...FOR myself. He has never lifted a finger towards me in anger, and is a very compassionate, loving person...EXCEPT when he is stressed. Then he snaps at me, speaks before thinking, etc. I think that all of the things he did and said that hurt me were swept under my rug just in order for me to cope with life. When I snapped this spring, I remember telling him that my rug has so much shit swept under it that it looks like a camel's hump.

You know your marriage isn't why you cheated right? Mine was fucked too. I should have filed for divorce. My choice to cheat makes the abuse and affair/s my ex had pale as far as the damage it did to me. That needs to be your focus right now. Why you thought an affair was a viable option.

Yes, the marriage itself was not why I did what I did. It was the feelings of abandonment, isolation, feeling unloved, unwanted...more like an aquaintance than a wife...and an aquaintence he didn't really even LIKE very much to boot....those were probably my reasons. I felt like I had done everything I could...like I watched my marriage die day by day for the 2 years he was on the Pristique. We talked about him going off of it many times, but he said it took away his physical aches and pains and allowed him to function in his job, so how could I ask him to go off it and not feel selfish in doing so? When I met my AP and got to know him over a little bit of time, it seemed clearer and clearer to me that the marrigae was over. That's what an EA will do for you. I even said to AP that I wish I hadn't met him until I was free to date/get into another relationship-I hated that the timing was such. I wanted it to be clean. I never EVER thought I would have done this, as I grew up despising my Dad for cheating on my Mom...and I honestly thought that my AP felt the same for me as I did for him....I was being honest, open, and telling him...no lies, be straight with me about how you feel...he claimed he was, but then disappeared on me after achieving his 'goal', hence my User Name of 'GullibleGirl'. So now I have MORE abandonemnt issues to deal with. I was lookin at him as my next chapter, and he was looking at me as his next piece of ass.

I am happy to say that since my transgression against BH, we have become closer than ever before...honestly I think we are closer even then when we were engaged and newly married. he and I have both said that we wished we could have gotten 'here' without me going 'there'. *sigh*

Honestly, during the A and now-I almost felt that it wasn't ME doing this horrible thing-it was like I was watching someone else's life from a distance. I wonder if anyone else felt that way?

It was the feelings of abandonment, isolation, feeling unloved, unwanted...more like an aquaintance than a wife...and an aquaintence he didn't really even LIKE very much to boot....those were probably my reasons.

Gently, those are not reasons why you cheated, they are excuses.

I felt like I had done everything I could...like I watched my marriage die day by day for the 2 years he was on the Pristique.

If the marriage is dying or dead then you divorce and bury it. Unfortunately, we learn that lesson after the fact. But now you know for the future.

I am happy to say that since my transgression against BH, we have become closer than ever before...honestly I think we are closer even then when we were engaged and newly married.

I feel like this contradicts your previous statements. If the marriage was bad for 23 years why would you consider R at all? But now it's better than ever, because you cheated, then why the need to go to things before the affair? Those issues are no longer a problem, are they?

I see an individual who was in pain and coping with the death of their parent, and coping not very well. Could you have done more to help him during that time? I just think bringing up that time to your BH would be such a slap in the face and your own response and actions during that time will be seriously called into question.

If you are choosing reconciliation you are moving forward today. If there are behaviors cropping up from the past, today and forward, you can choose your path, and hopefully in a manner that does not involve cheating. The way I see it is that you are wanting one more go at raking him over for treating you badly. You already did that by cheating, you already showed him and stuck it to him pretty good, deal with today's issues from here on out.

I hope that makes sense, and am not trying to be harsh, I'm having problems being eloquent.

I am happy to say that since my transgression against BH, we have become closer than ever before...honestly I think we are closer even then when we were engaged and newly married

If this is true, then I'm curious as to your first post.

Caspers is correct. That's not why you cheated. All that you mentioned would have been very valid reasons to separate or divorce.

When you asked yourself the question, "Do I want to live like this for the next 23 years?" and your answer was "no" how did the solution become an affair?

You mention your affair being a get out of jail free card for your h to pull to excuse his behavior of you, yet you are attempting to use his treatment as one as well. Doesn't work that way.

We can't choose another's actions but we absolutely choose how we deal with them.

Your husband saying you were a doormat when he met you would be a huge red flag and a clear map of how he'd treat you going forward.

Your description of your actions with your AP and your choice of a user name is not accepting the very clear choices you were making for a very defined payoff.

I posted a threat here call feeling used where I share how I view that. It seems like you feel a bit like a victim. Mistreated for 23 years, doormat, significant FOO issues, used by the AP.

The reality may be a bit closer to - actively chose to stay, built resentment anger and hurt, aggressively lashed out by having an affair, disappointed it didn't work out the way you wanted, continue to stay in marriage using previous behavior to justify affair, blame h for using affair to justify previous behavior.

Do you see that you are making active and rather aggressive choices using toxic and hostile thought processes?

Are you in IC? I'm not trying to be hard on you just trying to get you to see you have power and you've used it. Just not in healthy ways. You can learn to, though. Many of us have and still are.

Caspers1wish...thank you for your input. There are times I ask myself too if it was an excuse. I think what held me there for so long was the knowledge of who he 'could' be, the man I knew he was capable of being, but instead always showed me his harsh side. I chose to stay in it and hoped for improvement. Maybe I was kidding myself all along. Maybe I am kidding myself NOW that he won't trot that side of his personality out again. He certainly has his own excuse to do just that now.

I will never ever repeat my actions of this spring. I don't care if we both live to be 100. That's one burner this girl won't be putting her hand on again. If things slide into the abyss again, then we will end it once and for all without the complication of a third party being involved on my part.

Can you please clarify this for me:

The way I see it is that you are wanting one more go at raking him over for treating you badly

. Do you mean by me feeling like the original issues will go by the wayside now and never be dealt with? I have pondered your statement since reading it and can honestly say that I do NOT feel a need to rake him over, I just want him to say 'hey, I know I did things too that were unfair/unkind/hurtful to our marriage.'

EXACTLY how I feel. I didn't cheat because he was nasty to me, called me horrible names, told me he was still in love with me, just not physically attracted to me, or because I begged for sex I could never get. I didn't cheat because he would talk about how attractive other girls were or because he went out with friends and left me at home with a baby every weekend.

I cheated because of what those things turned me into. I was confident when I met him. Every man before him had built me up and made me feel like I had a lot to offer. The verbal abuse didn't start until about a month after we had our baby and at first, I, like you would chalk it up to him being stressed as a new father. Plus, after having a baby, I was 40lbs heavier, I was laid off from my job and that contributed to my lowered self esteem. He would always "joke" about cheating on me, just to keep the upper hand I think.

So stupid me, decided I was going to play his game. I lost all the weight, made him "give" me one night of the weekend, started going out with the girls and hooked up with the first guy who paid attention to me. Since I was such a mess, he was able to sweep right in there and I fell into the A. So, here I was, growing cold and distant and he finally takes responsibility for how he's been treating me because he thinks this is why I was acting the way I was. That's when I decided to make it work with my H, because he was ready to be the man I longed for. I broke it off with OM, but it was too late. My H found out a week later and it turned me into the whore. It made everything he had done null and void and gave him the right to be even nastier. I've let him walk all over me since the A, he uses it to get whatever he wants out of me. There are moments, when he grants me a conversation where he will take responsibility for his actions prior to the A. The other night he even apologized for how he handled things after finding out, but he still does as he pleases and when I ask anything of him (like more family time), he says I have no right to expect anything. I sometimes feel like I'm being strung along just to do his laundry, take care of his baby, support the lifestyle he has become accustomed to because of him taking a temporary but huge pay cut. UGH! It's so frustrating sometimes. I have my days where I am angry that I have allowed myself to become such a doormat and this is one of them, as you can tell by the length of this reply. I'm sorry, I just really identify with this and I think I will be discussing all of this in therapy next week, because although I take full responsibility for what I did and give him every right to be angry, something in me just doesn't feel like the way he treats me is right and I feel like I somehow need to demand him treat me with some respect, even though I cheated on him.

I cheated because of what those things turned me into. I was confident when I met him. Every man before him had built me up and made me feel like I had a lot to offer

Respectfully, no you didn't and no you weren't. Being confident because other men built you up is not true confidence. True confidence is based on healthy self worth and self respect. If you had that when your h treated you poorly your boundaries would have not allowed that and you would have left.

I fell into the A

No, you didn't. You chose to have an affair. Hopeful, you are not taking full responsibility for the affair. Your husband's behavior has been toxic. You have every right to be angry and hurt. You are shorting yourself and impacting your healing when you don't hold yourself accountable for choices that demeaned and lessened you.

As I was sharing with GG, an affair is a very aggressive hostile act many times. It is an exercise of power. To cloak it as a helpless response to abuse is completely counterproductive. Recognize tha power and utilize it to getting healthy and making some hard choices if need be.

You both are strong. Now couple that strength with courage and commitment and you're golden!!!!

When you asked yourself the question, "Do I want to live like this for the next 23 years?" and your answer was "no" how did the solution become an affair?

Uncertainone....I had not even met the AP at that time, not for several months later, matter of fact. Here is what I think was going through my jacked up head, now that time has passed and given me a little distance and perspective: I had already started making contingency plans before meeting the AP....met him in April, but from Jan-March I was looking at condos, figuring my finances and the impact of being on my own, what I could afford, etc....but curiously I never got around to meeting with a lawyer. When I did meet AP, it started out innocently enough but escalated pretty quickly. I was naive enough still to think that we were on the same page and wanted the same things, and if I had a chance at being happy, I was taking it. As I stated before, I did NOT like the fact that it overlapped what I felt was to be the end of my marriage, but stupid me went ahead anyway. You are right, I wanted things to be different than they turned out (at the time)and I let my desperate need to just be HAPPY completely wreck my whole life.

As to your comment about the 'doormat' statement....my hubs was VERY protective of me when we met and married because he, as an outsider, looked at my family dynamic and felt that everyone used me and crapped on me....and I allowed that. He wanted to teach me to stand up to people doing that and learn to say 'no' when need be. Unfortunately, by not calling HIM on his sketchy behaviors over the years, I also let him do the same thing, to an extent.

Can you tell me what 'FOO' issues are? I am not quite up to speed on all of the little acronyms yet.

The reality may be a bit closer to - actively chose to stay, built resentment anger and hurt, aggressively lashed out by having an affair, disappointed it didn't work out the way you wanted, continue to stay in marriage using previous behavior to justify affair, blame h for using affair to justify previous behavior.

Do you see that you are making active and rather aggressive choices using toxic and hostile thought processes?

You know, I don't think that I felt that when it was happening, but it certainly makes a whole lot of sense to me when I read it now. I am not currently in IC, I am pondering the value of IC vs. joint marriage counseling and which would be more beneficial.

Honestly, I think I will be doing both, because the issues that have been coming out since the A that pertain to my younger years and familial relationships have been a bit overwhelming and painful. Of note is the fact that I lost 4 family members in 2009, an Aunt & Uncle within 3 months of one another, my Dad, who passed with so, so many unresolved issues between us, and lastly, my beloved maternal grandmother, who passed 12 days before Christmas that year. We also had custody of my h's 11 yo nephew (who was removed from his mother for behavioral problems)while all of these losses were going on, and I kind of had to 'put aside' my grief and keep functioning to take care of my nephew and keep him on the straight & narrow...and you're talking to someone who never had kids here, so I kind of became a new Mommy of an 11 year old w/major issues overnight. Oh, and I also work 2 jobs (70 hours a week.) I really think I kind of had either some kind of emotional breakdown or just snapped under the pressure.

2011 will definitely not be remembered as my finest hour, that's for sure, but I am hopeful that maybe I can resolve some of the myriad of issues that plague my heart and mind. I have seen some on this forum refer to being in a 'fog' during their A. I can relate to that. Not justifying it by any means, just saying I know what they're talking about.

FOO, family of origin.

Yeah, my ex was very "protective" of me when he met me too. It was a perfect hook. He showed his true colors several years into the marriage and his "protection" required me to file a RO.

Sharks smell blood in the water and doormats are only attractive to those that want to wipe their feet on them. Philanthropists donate time and money to causes. They don't date them.

I'm sure you didn't recognize it at the time. I didn't either. I do now. I believe infidelity is an act of aggression in many cases.

I would think at this point for you IC would be critical. Just make sure you getva good one. One that helps you work on a goal and has a defined agenda for each session that keeps you focused and accountable. Too many of them become social events.

You're open to views and are not defensive. A very good start!!! I was neither when I first joined.

I understand posting with a stop sign and that's a good choice, although I have to tell you the WS's here swung 2X4's at me like batting practice so I figured what the hell, y'all come. BS's have offered me very helpful perspectives as well.

The WS's on this site are amazing and many are friends IRL. They called me on my shit and still do.

GG - It's like this:

If you are 100% committed to R, then you will throw all of your effort into making things safe and whole for your H. Period. Don't worry about past issues right now. This is bigger.

However, if he us 100% committed to R, he will recognize you as a partner in the relationship and work to resolve things that make the marriage good for you.

It won't happen at the same time. He is hurting. Get to work fixing your shit and the rest will come if you work as a team.

[This message edited by longroadhome at 11:28 AM, October 14th (Friday)]

Do you mean by me feeling like the original issues will go by the wayside now and never be dealt with? I have pondered your statement since reading it and can honestly say that I do NOT feel a need to rake him over, I just want him to say 'hey, I know I did things too that were unfair/unkind/hurtful to our marriage.'

I guess I see what you are saying, you want him to acknowledge his bad behavior from the past, I get that, and maybe he might see it that way someday.

To me, it appeared he treated you badly and you say is why you cheated on him. That's his punishment for treating you badly, according to you, you chose to cheat. So it just seemed like wanting to go back over how badly he treated you just seemed like, overkill. I don't know, sorry to be confusing, not even sure I'm making sense to myself.

And I agree, you have a great open attitude and are not being defensive. Kudos.

Casper....looking back at my mindset from back then, revenge for his treatent of me was NOT my motivation. Where I went off into the ditch was meeting AP and him 'seeming' to be everything I wanted but was lacking.in my BH. It seems very immature on my part now, but when I saw him, I zeroed in on him and wanted to take the shortest path from A to B to be happy. I had just had enough of being unhappy and focused on the outcome I wanted. Very selfish of me.

I kind of visualize it like a 2 year old who wants a toy on the other side of the room and will step on and break all of her OTHER toys to get there. The destruction I left in my wake has been life changing and simply devestating. I think about things a lot, and lately have this problem of just bursting into tears in random places. Last weekend it was in Pizza Hut. I looked at him, happily munching on his pizza and wondered HOW on earth I could have ever done this. The poor waitress thought something was wrong with our order. Just typing this has tears running down my face.

As a side note, lately I am really hating the phrase 'Once a cheater, always a cheater'...maybe that's true in a lot of cases, but there must be other WS's who are truly and deeply horrified by their actions, as I am, and would not repeat them for all the tea in China. I always fantasized about having a time machine as a child.....boy would it ever come in handy for me right now!!! Wishful thinking that I will somehow wake up and this will all be a bad dream.

looking back at my mindset from back then, revenge for his treatment of me was NOT my motivation.

Don't dismiss this. Don't minimize. You are being very open and honest. Be honest with yourself as well. There is always an element of revenge/punishment in an A. Usually it is subconscious.

He basically checked out on me....no sex at all for over 2 years, maybe a hug or two during that time....no 'I love you's'....the verbal assaults elevated then...one night he told me it even bothered him that I was just sitting there breathing. I felt unloved, ignored, lonely,and miserable, and this was what led to my mistake.

You are blaming him for how you feel/felt, blaming your unhappiness on him, etc... Blame-shifting and minimizing draw out your own healing process. The sooner you can face yourself honestly and own your own shit the sooner you can start getting past your own defenses and into the heart of your issues.

Do I have any right to even EXPECT that he will one day take responsibility for his part in what led up to this disaster?

IMHO, you can't expect him to even think about that now. Maybe 2-3 years down the road you can talk about your past resentments without him feeling attacked but not anytime soon.

It would be best if you have resolved all of your resentments with yourself before you talk about them with your BH anyway. That is going to take some serious work with a psychiatrist/counselor.

#1 You only control you. No one else controls you. And you cannot control anyone else.

#1 seems easy... it's not.

Hang tough, it's a long roller-coaster. (((GG)))

Thank you for posting this. I re-read the entire thread a few times now, it made me think about my own search for "how" and "why" and wanting to blame the marriage as a cause of the affair.

Our MC finally helped me understand this. Marriage issues made me more suseptive to the affair, like if someone sits in an airplane with a ton of germs for hours, they are more suseptible to getting sick. But being in that environment is not what makes them sick, their own weak immune system does that.

I like you, used the marriage issues to justify the affair, to keep it going, to rationalize that it was ok. But if we were so unhappy, we should have addressed it, discussed it, go to MC, etc. I did none of that, and made a concious choice to cheat instead.

I am so lucky though that my BS agreed to listen to my pre-A issues with the marriage and has already addressed them. Now I am focusing on fixing myself, understanding what caused me to make the choices I made.

Sounds like one of the issues you have is similar to mine. Needing external validation to build up self esteem, that was one of my issues which I used the A to make myself feel better.

Please go to IC and MC, it was very helpful to talk to through kind of stuff and have them show me (more MC) how that thinking is wrong.

[This message edited by bunny0711 at 8:56 PM, October 14th (Friday)]

Our MC finally helped me understand this. Marriage issues made me more suseptive to the affair, like if someone sits in an airplane with a ton of germs for hours, they are more suseptible to getting sick. But being in that environment is not what makes them sick, their own weak immune system does that.

This is interesting way of looking at it. Now you have to ask yourself, do I want to be on this airplane? Is this environment still going to be too much for my immune system?

You made wrong choices by cheating, but you husband also made wrong choices by the way he treated you in your marriage. You both have to be willing to make changes in order to make your marriage a good place for both of you. You both have to be willing to forgive the past and move forward.

Depending on the circumstances of an affair and the feelings of both spouses the path to reconciliation will vary.

I have read on this site many times that reconciliation is a 'gift' that the BS gives to the WS. I do not believe that this is a one sided way to look at it. Reconciliation is a choice that is made by each of the spouses depending on their inner feelings and the actions and feelings of the other spouse.

Gullable, You have to make the choice to stay and figure out exactly what you expect from your spouse and let him know. He also needs to make the choice and tell you what he expects from you. Together you can both decide if your marriage can be a place where you can both forgive and move forward.

Maybe 2-3 years down the road you can talk about your past resentments without him feeling attacked but not anytime soon.

This I totally do not agree with. You have to talk about everything and the feelings and perceptions on both sides. Especially when the WS was planning to leave the marriage.