SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I haven't been around much lately, but I stumbled into some thoughts while reading/posting elsewhere.

We all know that affairs come with shame. For the betrayed and for the betrayer. It's something that couples in R need to realize, accept, and deal with.

As a BH nearly 3 years from DDay, I have done a lot of work. Intensive therapy. Lots and lots of it. I still struggle with a lot, but one of the deepest-rooted struggles for me is shame, and it has been very difficult to shake.

It manifests as many different feelings. The feeling of not being "man enough to keep BW happy." Of being "cuckolded." Of "losing" the competition to other men. Society places immense pressure on men to be strong, competitive, to win at business and love and life. Men place this expectation on each other more so than women, but it's real, and it's something than boys feel, learn, and internalize from the time they're running around on the playground playing games.

Recovering from this shame is something we talk about a lot in IC and on these boards, though it's not always so direct. We talk about how it's not personal, it was the failing of the WS. It isn't about being desirable, it's about ego kibbles. It's not "losing" because you have a strong and happy M in the end.

That logic makes sense... but shame is so deeply rooted that logic often doesn't dispel those feelings.

Other BH--how have you dealt with the shame of being betrayed? WW, how have you helped your BH deal with it?

Since my H would never in a million years discuss such a thing, I did all I could do by telling him that my A was not a reflection on him as a man or an H. Impossible to do anything else.

I never felt shame. Her actions were a reflection of her. They never defined me or my worth; I was always comfortable with myself. I also understood that it was very probable that of the roughly 3.5 billion men on this planet, there are quite a few she would find attractive and want to have sex with. I also consider myself intelligent and attractive. Finding an attractive woman to hook up with wasn’t ever hard for me. I never felt insecure in that regard.

What devastated me was the fear of losing my best friend. I shared an emotional connection with someone that you just don’t find around the corner. It was special and incredibly rare; sex is not. That’s what really gutted me.

[This message edited by KingRat at 6:54 PM, November 5th (Tuesday)]

I did all I could do by telling him that my A was not a reflection on him as a man or an H.

Lol that's the infidelity equivalent of dumping a GF or BF with the bullshit line "It's not you, it's me." Um, but I'm the one being dumped. Except in infidelity, a man is dumped (usually unwittingly) and cuckolded (also usually unwittingly), so when DDay comes he learns about both of those things at the same time. Let's be clear about one thing: every wayward who decides to cheat decides, as part of the bundle of decisions that she/he makes, that she/he no longer wishes to be exclusive with his/her betrayed spouse. Some waywards may claim to be messed up in the head and therefore not conscious of that decision, but it is in fact one of the decisions, in the bundle of decisions that must be make when a wayward decides to cheat. It is among the most personal of insults a wayward can direct toward her/his betrayed spouse.

I certainly felt that sort of shame, for a long time. In my case I was in fact dumped for the AP, which hurt, but it also freed me up to seek solace with other women. I launched into several years of being a true cad. I had lots of sex with lots of women. I wove tangled webs of future-faking and other forms of dishonesty. Sex with more than one woman in a single day, etc. I realized years later that this was partly driven out of rage, but mostly it was an effort to assuage my sense of shame, of not being man enough to keep my woman. The sad ironic reality is that all of the women I hurt in that period bore the brunt of the initial trauma of my Dday.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 7:24 PM, November 5th (Tuesday)]

It seems to me that every man if free to define masculinity for himself. That might mean rejecting patriarchal stereotypes, but wouldn't that be liberating really? I mean, if you think about it, isn't this mindset a bit of societal indoctrination? A couple hundred years ago, a man was "shamed" if his wife wasn't a virgin.

It seems to me that every man if free to define masculinity for himself. That might mean rejecting patriarchal stereotypes, but wouldn't that be liberating really?

Sure, pretty much everything about our marital and family structure is a social construct. But in the end, it's kind of irrelevant when we're feeling pain. It reminds me of that scene in "Catch 22" when Yossarian is in the hospital and he gets in trouble for fondling nurses. The shrink says to Yossarian: "You realize you only do that to assuage your feelings of sexual inadequacy." "Yes," Yossarian replies. "So why do you do it?" asks the doc. "To assuage my feelings of sexual inadequacy."

Shame was definitely a part of those first couple of years, no way around it, and I'm a very logical guy.

Logically, as KingRat pointed out, my wife's actions were her brokenness and not anything to do with me.

But yeah, that shame still hung in the air for a while.

So, it was a combination of things that pulled me out of that spiral.

The only thing I did wrong was to love my wife.

That's it.

It helped that my wife really went after the issues that previously made her vulnerable. Her AP dumped her hard and that actually helped her 'wake' up too. She felt used and had her own shame spiral for giving it up to a jerk that never meant a word he said to her.

A focus on where she went wrong and then her work to be a better partner was a start.

I know now I couldn't have done a damn thing to alter her poor choices. She had to fix that.

Then I looked at the other relationships in my life and looked at what I bring to the table. My cool factor. It sounds silly, but we do have to look at what made us or makes us desirable in the first place.

Working out, listening to music, reading, writing, doing things that bring me joy helped to get in touch with the pre-damaged self image lost after dday.

The last six months, I feel as good as I have in years. Rolling toward my 55th birthday I'll be in the best shape of my life, and that not's bad for a former Jarhead. AP never had a damn thing on me, he got the very worst version of my wife on her lowest days...congrats dude.

Twice -- you kept your vows, you held your family together in the face of a horror show no one would wish on anyone else, you're a fucking badass. Focus on that. A lesser man would shrink from the unique challenges of the bullshit of infidelity.

[This message edited by Oldwounds at 8:19 PM, November 5th (Tuesday)]

It may help you to read my thread on my own experience and what I recently learned about the biological nature of emasculation and shame experienced by BH’s. It’s not a social construct, not an imaginary thing that can be talked away with pretty words and psychobabble. It’s a true, authentic experienced biological reality — and science is even beginning to say so. So don’t beat yourself up. Your WW did the one thing that seems designed to disrupt and alter a man’s internal hormonal and brain chemistry. That’s on her, not you. The way of men is to be honored and ancient ways of masculine healing should be listened to. A lot of the most sage advice is about doing it away and apart from her.

I don't feel shame because my FWW cheated. I'm not responsbile for her choices. All this shit running around in your head about 'not being man enough" or "losing to other men" is blaming yourself. It's natural, brother. We all do it at some point and to some extent or another. We all want to know how to avoid any such trauma in the future.

I know it's hard not to take all this infidelity shit personally. You're not alone. Over the years, I've read stories from dozens of BHs and the only thing we all have in common is that our wives betrayed us. If there was even one thing, besides being betrayed, that even a plurality of us had in common, then I might be inclined to think that it was partly our faults. And yet, nothing stands out. Rich or poor, tall or short, fit or fat, brilliant or a Cubs' fan , good careers or struggling, the life of the party or the fly on the wall... what-the-fuck-ever!

There is no reason, I believe, to feel shame because your wife had an affair. The shame is all hers.

Now, there are times that I do struggle with the shame having remained married to a woman who cheated. I stayed because my son was 4 years old at the time. I gave my FWW a chance to own and fix her shit and become a much better, healthier, wiser woman, wife and mother. I don't feel any shame for having given her and our family a second chance.

All of this being said... it's fucking shame all of this shit happened in the first place.

[This message edited by Unhinged at 8:52 PM, November 5th (Tuesday)]

BW here - I thought I would throw my two cents in. I feel all the shame that you feel but in female form. I feel like I wasn't satisfying, and frequent enough. I feel like I wasn't woman-enough, I feel like I wasn't pretty enough, skinny enough and smart enough. Ugh. Writing all this is very painful. I just wanted to let you know that it's not all Men's shame!!.

I never felt shame.

I never felt humiliated.

I a really confident sort of person, don't mind losing, but don't have the word "quit" built into me.

But, what I have felt, and still wonder is "What was it that you saw, that you heard, that he said, that he did, that made you willing to take the chance to destroy our marriage, to break up the home, to have our children end up with divorced parents and shared custody arrangements?"

What was so fucking incredible that it was worth that chance?

18 years later, I still don't have than answer.

Yes, she might have been hypomanic, yes, it may have been her meds, yes, there was the childhood shit and all that, yes she was drinking, yes she is now and acknowledged alcoholic (hiding it all before and at the time of the affair), but what was the final straw, flirt, innuendo, etc, that led to sex.

I felt shame. Not about losing her to another man or being cuckolded though. It was less focused on the “other” and came from more about how I felt about me. Inadequacy. The poor shlub who’s wife cheated on him. It was very inward and took a long time to get through it. Logical thinking played no part of it, but that didn’t make it easier to deal with.

I just wanted to let you know that it's not all Men's shame!!.

We're probably more similar than we are different.

It helped me confronting the OM. He was trembling and scared, but had he been the exact opposite it would've helped too.

I don't feel shame, at least not a great deal of it. I do feel the need to constantly put down and cut down the OM's.

I never felt the shame in the term of masculinity.

Any embarrassment was not social, but my own failure in not seeing it coming, and putting my trust in someone that didn't deserve it.

I felt the shame too twicewounded. I spent some time in therapy too. Did EMDR. Read a few books. I have come to the conclusion that I feel shame because I stayed with someone that did this to me. Esther Perel mentions this in a ted talk.

I guess It just feels weak to me. I feel like the battered wife that stays with the brute that beats her because “she loves him” and he “feels terrible and will never do it again”. Everyone pities those people. I don’t want to be pitied or thought of as weak. It sucks and I don’t know how to fix it either.

Totally Emasculated is what I have. Lots of shame too.

I used to walk into a restaurant with my wife and I would look around at other men, sizing them up, seeing who may be a threat. That is something that I subconsciously did everywhere that we went. Now I do not look around, I keep my head down. If someone close looks like a threat, I just look off. It is really humiliating. I am not "the man" anymore. I don't know what I am.

I am envious of those that can look on their wife's infidelity and not feel some sort of shame. Good for you.

For me shame is just one of many words that could be used to describe how i feel now.

I'm a BW. Not sure why the shame of BH is somehow more painful of the same for the BW.

Infidelity is about attack on a self-respect of BS. I never cared about AP being prettier or younger than me. WH is not a prize himself to expect a perfection. My shame comes from staying with WH, as I believe that A is always a deal breaker and destroys the union.

An appropriate respond to A is a divorce. Yes, there are all kind of circumstance keeping us stuck with the cheater, but really it is about self respect. Everyone deserves a loyal spouse.

I do not care how remorseful the cheater is, he/she made a decision to sh.t on the spouse for their selfish gratification, and in essence rejected a marriage as a union worth sacrifice.

I always cheer for Bs who has managed to get rid of the cheater.

I will never treat WH as a husband, he is a co-parent with benefits, this is our 'new marriage' as it is often referred here. This is my response to the never ending shame of staying with the cheater.

Forgiveness means divorce. A cheater must have consequences.

Much as DF, my wife made the case to me that what happened shouldn’t have been a reflection of me as a man or husband. Even though she said the words, and logically I know she is right, it still didn’t help my humiliation or blow to my pride

Having someone younger, fitter, doing sex acts that my wife professed she didn’t enjoy hit me like a ton of bricks. Even worse is that I didn’t destroy him, or that she had very little consequence other than having her marriage turn to shit, amplified everything. I never could look at her the same way, and I couldn’t look at myself the same way either.

It wasn’t until we separated and I dated and had sex with other women that most of the crummy way I viewed myself dissipated.