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How does respect ever return to marriage after ws has committed the ultimate disrespect how do you respect the ws for doing it how does a b.s. respect themselves for staying with ws? I know can't live in the past but lets get real who would want to have a marriage with no respect?

Respect isn't something that is taken away forever. You can respect someone who has changed. No one should stay in a marriage that is disrespectful. Is your marriage respectful now?

As always, sometimes infidelity is just a deal breaker.

I felt exactly the same as you for a long time. But thankfully some respect has returned. I don't respect what he did and I never will. But I do respect the way he's facing up to the hurt he's caused and the work he's putting in with his IC to understand why he did it.

What's your partner doing to show remorse and to face up to their mistakes?

Ww is doing all she can I guess I am just not getting it. I can respect the effort but really have no respect for her and about the same amount for myself for even giving it a chance.

I just have no grasp on how it will ever return respect trust all the things that should occur in a marriage.

I can respect the effort but really have no respect for her and about the same amount for myself for even giving it a chance.

You kept your vows, you didn't KNOW the A was going on and once you found out, you demanded the behavior to stop and changes to be made -- no loss of self respect anywhere in that. As long as you're not enabling the same treatment to continue -- that would be a problem.

...no respect ... for myself for even giving it a chance.

I felt this way for a while. I realized that what was making me feel this way was what other people would think about me if they found out that I wanted my wife back after she had cheated on me. After I realized this, I began to think "Fxxk what other people think, go after what you want" and... I knew I wanted to try to fix it. So... I started respecting myself for trying to keep my family together. I respected myself for not running away like she was doing. I respected myself for having the internal fortitude to turn down the hookup that was offered to me before my wife ever meet her AP. The list keeps going, you just have to look for the reasons to respect yourself... the reasons are there. You just have to choose to see them.

Respect yourself man! No matter what happens, you are doing great.

I feel that the WS has to earn the respect back.

As for respect for yourself, that is tough. I’m guessing you always thought you would react one way towards infidelity and reconciliation was not it. But the fact is you don’t know how you will respond to a situation until you are actually in it. Would you judge your son or daughter so harshly if they were in your shoes someday? What if they were in your wayward wife’s shoes? Most of us wouldn’t give reconciliation a shot if not for our kids. Is that true for you too?

Do you see yourself happier with your wife or without her? Are you in IC? Have you read any books?

I have great respect and admiration for my H.

He owned his choices, he did the hard work, he fixed his shit, and is a much better man than he was before this all happened.

I respect that he did the hard part, and really worked to fix himself. I respect that he made choices that were painful and difficult for him.

I respect that he lives authentically, and is painfully honest these days.

He is a good man. He is a great father, and he is a wonderful spouse. I respect that.

I have read tons. Not in ic n o not really sure if that is something for me. Only reason I have attempted is because of our son. Yes I have always said I will not stay with a cheater that is a huge betrayal to myself. I do respect that I haven't cheated knowing I had many opportunities. The biggest issue is the betrayal of my word to me.

WH had absolutely no respect for me while he was cheating. I had no respect for him after I found out.

Since then he has done a lot of work in IC and learned how to be and act respectfully toward me. He has learned to give me the respect I deserve as a human being and as his wife.

In turn I have developed respect for him again.

As far as respecting myself, I would not have stayed if he did not really do the work that was required to experience real change in his character. It was tough coming back, but it was with the understanding that he HAD TO make those changes. He has.

I get this. And waffle with this struggle. How can I have any self respect for attempting to R with someone who did this ultimate hurt to me? [trust me - the fact that I am attempting R was a shock to me as I'd have never given anyone else that advice].

BUT...how could I have a any self respect for myself or to my family if I didn't give this R and our family a chance? Double edged sword.

So...I take it day by day and moment by moment.

I have time to figure it all out. When I know, I'll know. Beyond the shadow of a doubt. And I'll also know that everything played out and there really was no other viable option.

Time will tell you if that respect [for your self, your WS and your relationship] can be restored.

How do you view your wife today?

Her character today, her depth of love for you?

Has she changed herself, not just words, but ways of coping with her internal struggles and the world itself?

How I view her now is as person that made huge mistakes in judgement. Who will never be the person I married. There will never be love and admiration that was once there. In a nutshell she is now tainted to me regardless to what she does.

Baseball dad,

You are not alone my friend. To some degree all betrayeds struggle with this. My mantra was "You cheat your out", I believed this to my core for 15 years, then BAM. Guess what, I'm still with her almost a year later.

For me, I had to sit down and really think about did I lose all respect for her and I had to do this months after DDAY once my emotions started to stabilize (THANK YOU EMDR). Otherwise, I would cry about losing all respect for her and myself for staying with her. I was a weak man for staying with someone who disrespected me so much.

I came to realize when I broke it down. I truly hadn't lost all respect for her. I still respected her as an employee and the great job she did. I respected her for the friend she was to her dying Best Friend and all she did to make her remaining days comfortable. I respected her for being a good mother, then BAM. She was not a good mother during her affair. However, I respected her that she would never physically harm her children or me. Once I got there I realized I didn't respect her for the choices she made and the hurt she deliberately caused. Everything else around there, there is respect. I respect her for all these reasons today and little by little my respect grows. As others have said, she is facing herself, she is digging in and trying to change the bad wiring that made her disrespect herself and her family and the AP's family. Its hard to have respect for someone who doesn't respect themselves.

Once I got there, I realized, I am not a weak man for staying. I am a strong MoFo for staying. It takes strength and courage to look at the one you love the most and see the amount of betrayal they chose and still remain full of mercy and grace. That is strength brother!

Basically you're saying that true reconciliation is definitely not in your cards?

Does she know all of what you've shared here?

It sounds like a deal breaker. That's ok.

Yes she is aware but really what is true R accsess to electronic devices GPS on vehicles? The open communication that didn't prevent it in the past the knowledge of what the ws is capable of hoping they don't do it again? The sloppy,seconds in the bedroom?

Jump over to the the "I Can Relate Section" and read the last two pages of "How to regain trust in your WW" (or something like that). I made several posts that I think you'll find interesting.

Here is one of them - my apologies to the moderators if this is against forum rules but it's my own post...

5 1/2 years out from dday with a wife who had an ugly, 3 year affair.

Here's how respect returns. It returns very slowly and only in the face of steady, committed, obvious work from your wife. It comes from having your wife stand in front of you and say, "I will do anything - ANYTHING - you ask and I will prove myself worthy of you and our marriage." It comes from her ability to ACT in a way that you NEED.

I have been around here for a while. My experience and understanding is that this type of remorse does not happen a lot. You do get a lot of wayward wives who dive back into the marriage - often wholeheartedly. But that still isn't the type of remorse I'm talking about and it's the reason why so many guys, 10 years later, are STILL unable to move past the affair. TRUE REMORSE, the kind that heals and propels a marriage to a new (and often better) place isn't just about becoming a "safe" wife again. It is, instead, the million little things that force you to see that she really is a different person and the nuclear bomb will never go off again.

What do I mean by that? Any WW can give you her passwords. Any WW can write a no contact note or go to therapy. But not every WW will call her AP, with you on the phone, and say, "Don't you ever come near me again you f'n POS or I will call an attorney immediately." Not every WW will leave her job immediately, career-threatening or not, and jeopardize her future earnings to prove that she means business. Not every WW will look you straight in the eye and say, "Anything you want sexually is yours" - not because she's trying to be a whore but because she wants you to know that SHE KNOWS how much sex can help bond and heal... and if it helps... she's in. TRUE REMORSE resides in moments of tenderness, acts of passion, the creation of new memories, and newly found time spent together.

When your WW acts in a way that is unequivocally committed to healing the marriage - not just the little shit - but the BIG stuff, the HARD stuff - THAT is when you can say, "Wow. I had really lost respect for her. But look at what she's doing. Look how f'n hard she's working."

Don't get me wrong - there will ALWAYS be that little hole - that little bit of "how the fuck could she have done THAT?" You will never be whole.

But for as ugly as my wife's affair was - I look at her now and clearly see someone who will NEVER cheat again. She's not the same person.

That gets respect from me. I would accept nothing less.

[This message edited by LifeisCrazy at 4:13 PM, February 20th (Tuesday)]

Baseballdad all I can say is I know exactly how you feel...because I feel the same way about my WW.

I still like her a lot, she's a good mom and she tries to be a good wife. We still enjoy each other's company and the sex aint bad. But after what she did I doubt if I will ever have any real respect for her again.

Before her A she carried herself as this prim and proper Christian woman. She looked down on others who did these kinds of things, preached right and proper living to anyone who would listen... and then she went and threw her legs up for our church Sunday School minister.

So no...I don't look for respect to return. If it does, it will be Christ granting it to me on her behalf.

It's hard to respect someone when they've had an affair and you know details of the deceit. They were not respectful people during the affair and even after. Even an outsider would lose respect if they learned of the details. They didn't respect themselves during or after the A, ask that question, did you respect yourself or the AP during the affair and during the "fog".

Respect needs to be earned, like trust, and it will take time and a lot, I mean a lot of rebuilding that they earn your respect and trust again. I've told my H it, respect and trust will never be at the level it was say when we were just married or had our first son or second son. That's his choice to stay with me knowing that or if that's a deal breaker. He has chosen to take the challenge and in the end if he does it, he will again respect himself and I will too. I've also taken the challenge to respect him, give him the chance to rebuild. But for both of us, we will never respect him 100%. B

[This message edited by HurtDec at 3:12 PM, February 20th (Tuesday)]

To my mind, reconciliation is:

WS does the work of becoming a safe person.

Open, honest, emotionally vulnerable, 2-way communication.

Betrayal becomes an old scar, rather than a gaping wound.

Respect is restored.

I don't think I could have stayed in the first year or more if I didn't believe this was possible. I read the reconciliation success stories and I believed it was. I was open to it and as H followed through on his work consistently and proved himself to me, we got there, too.

It's possible.

You've taken what she did and, rather than frame her as a broken person, worthy of redemption, I read that you've framed her as used up, whorish and forever tainted. Unredeemable.

Is that accurate? Would you change this for a shot at true reconciliation if you could?