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My BH and I have been together for 11 years, married for 9. From the second we met, there was an instant connection and a strong fire that kept burning. We have always been so in love, connected, best friends, passionate. He is the most incredible husband, father and life partner. Literally better than I ever could have imagined. The kind of guy that all my friends tell me how lucky I am to have and we have had the most beautiful life together. Everything I have been reading about why people tend to cheat indicates that there is generally something wrong in the marriage or a persons needs were not being met. My BH treats me like a queen, we have always had an amazing sex life, and has never made me feel lacking or wanting more for anything. So now, 4 months post Dday, I am still so confused as to how I got here. How I was even tempted and how I could have made such terrible choices. I also want to add that I have always been a confident, level headed person. Never suffered from low self esteem or codependency issues. My childhood wasn’t perfect but no major traumas. I feel like I have healthy relationships with people and have always, until the A had healthy boundaries. Did anyone else have a perfect marriage and still mess up so badly or am I a complete unicorn?

cheat indicates that there is generally something wrong in the marriage or a persons needs were not being met

That is not true. There are plenty of people here that cheat (including me)on wonderful marriages. Even those that claim it was the marriage, can be shown how it really was about them. Those that claim their needs weren't met...well who sets those needs? Whose fault is it when those needs aren't realistic because they certainly aren't healthy if they are cheating to meet them.

Are you truly facing yourself if you are a confident person? I challenge that you were always level headed. Level headed people don't cheat. IMO you aren't a complete unicorn...tell us your story and perhaps we can help you see why and where. Every cheater here has had to look at ugly truths in order to move forward. To see that cheating was not out of character for them. They see patterns of behavior to show it.

Hi Confused,

Welcome to SI. You're in good company.

I share with you the confusion of how I chose to stray. I even affair downward, at that. This question consumes me and I sit and attempt to learn and learn.

Look up the Cherokee tale of the good wolf and the bad wolf. The internal fight that rages in us all. You finally fed your bad wolf. While you perhaps have lead a model life and had a model M, you have a dark side that had yet to show itself. Look around at the likes of the richest man in the world who just threw his family away for no apparent reason. So take in the mystery and keep looking for answers. Get to know your deep flaws that you haven't seen until know.

Everything I have been reading about why people tend to cheat indicates that there is generally something wrong in the marriage or a persons needs were not being met.

Now you'll see that this line of thinking above is not fully baked........there's a chronic tear in your moral fabric that had never been tested before and this issue is in you.

Confused89. I commend you for sharing and seeking advice.

Welcome to a world of unicorns. Each of us unicorns sought to be the unicorns that we thought we were, and it turns out, there's nothing unique about it.

It's time to go deep on this. No one on this forum can guess as to why you cheated without understanding more of the story. However, when I hear someone who says they had the perfect marriage, I will admit that my suspicions go toward self-sabotage. I, too, had the perfect partner in my life (as perfect as a human can be, IMO). And I too made terrible choices which destroyed that wonderful person. To some extent, I wonder if I destroyed my marriage because it was a template of success. As if to say, I didn't deserve happiness.

Anyway, your situation may be wildly different. Whatever it is, Ms. Unicorn, you can't hold the bloody knife and say, "I don't know how I got here." You have to go deeper than that. Examine every unturned stone. But I'll give you a clue: it had nothing to do with your partner.

Keep exploring, going deeper.

Perfect marriage.....There is no such thing.

There is rug sweeping issues, there is putting up a front for appearances sake, giving up and accepting your fate, etc.

Maybe you were looking for the thrill, the romance and illicitness that made it all exciting and you felt alive.

OK, the above are just some examples. So tell us your story - why or how did you A start and how did you feel. Was it the sex, companionship, the attention that your AP gave you? What?

Confused89

Everything I have been reading about why people tend to cheat indicates that there is generally something wrong in the marriage or a persons needs were not being met.

This is so not true. That's not to say your marriage was or is so perfect. You are probably in denial about problems that you have, but the problems are within you and you'll have to do lots of reading to begin to understand.

You've come to the right place.

I recommend Helping Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair by Linda McDonald and Not Just Friends by Shirley Glass as books you should start with. Does your BS know about the affair? The first thing you'll need to do is inform him.

This is a long process. I hope you'll start learning right away.

WS Only

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:34 PM, March 11th (Wednesday)]

Thank you all for your replies. I know 100% that my As had nothing to do with my husband or relationship and everything to do with me. Here is my story. Its really hard to retell it so bare with me.

My H and I were going about our happy lives, we recently bought a house, were raising our 3 kids, and just enjoying each other. We needed to get some work done in our house so we hired a contractor who we had used previously for other projects. While going through the quote negotiations the contractor made it clear that he was interested in me. Instead of getting rid of the guy (which I so wish I had), I realized that I can use this, and flirt with him to negotiate a better deal.In the beginning it was all very innocent and funny, my husband was aware of everything, so it didn't seem like anything was wrong. Well as time went on it went from flirting to slight touching, to more touching, to eventually meeting up at a crappy motel. It was completely unemotional, and the physical aspect was not great or satisfying, we didn't even have sex.

I wish my story ended there, but unfortunately it doesn't. Around the same time as all of this was going on which was about a 2 month span, my team lead and I had been working closely together (over skype as we work remotely and live in 2 separate states). Over time our relationship started shifting from professional to more of a friendship. We were scheduled to go on a work trip together. I knew before I went on the trip that I probably shouldn't go as I knew where it might lead, but I went anyway. Well as you can imagine. It went there. I let it go there.

I got back from the trip on a Friday. I spent most of Saturday crying in my bed, as the realization of what I had done hit me like a ton of bricks. On Monday morning, after dropping the kids at school I dropped the nuclear bomb on my completely unsuspecting husband. I just blurted out everything! It was absolutely terrible and so heartbreaking. The first couple of months were brutal. As time has gone on things have gotten a bit better, but still every day is a journey. We have both been to see ICs. I have done a ton of reading and we talk all the time. There is absolute transparency and openness between us.

So that's my story. Please help me on this journey of figuring out how I got here, how I allowed myself to make such terrible choices and destroy the one person I love more than anything in the whole world.

I gave you the wrong name for Linda McDonald's book. It's How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair.

What was your inner voice telling you when you made these choices? How did you justify your actions at the time? It’s nowhere near the answer but it can help scratch the surface as to why you are here.

Well as time went on it went from flirting to slight touching, to more touching, to eventually meeting up at a crappy motel. It was completely unemotional, and the physical aspect was not great or satisfying, we didn't even have sex.

Yes, you did have sex! Maybe you mean you didn't have intercourse.

We were scheduled to go on a work trip together. I knew before I went on the trip that I probably shouldn't go as I knew where it might lead, but I went anyway. Well as you can imagine. It went there. I let it go there.

Again, I think you're being a little passive here. You didn't just let it go there, you took it there.

I think you are a lot like I was, willing to blame others for my bad choices. "He came after me." Now I know that I was involved in bad choices throughout my 2 year affair...not just with my AP, but in other situations with others at the time.

I was in a great marriage for decades before choosing to cheat.

The fact that you have had a couple of these things in a row tells me that you are in deep denial about your own issues.

Look, self-worth/self-love is changeable. Meaning, you can have it and lose it and gain it all through your life. Someone who has self love and self worth upholds their own integrity. They deeply respect themselves and therefore they also deeply respect others. They do not feel entitled to cheat because they maintain a relationship that has balance, entitlement comes from a perceived imbalance. That's not about your relationship, that's about your own management of perceptions.

I was a successful person over all when I chose to have my affair. I had a good marriage, great kids, had gotten to the highest point in my career. I was a perfectionist by nature, and under perfectionism is always covering shame of not being good enough in some ways.

People who have a lack of self love and shame will either act out in two ways - they will want to fill themselves up with others validation or they will over extend themselves to get love. In the first scenario, they will just be a taker, they will come off selfish as a pattern for a long period of time. In the second, they will over give to the point of resentment. It's usually their own expectation of themselves and they grow to resent that in some way.

These things that we have to dig out are not always on the surface. But, without digging them out, we will continue to act out. Even if it's not cheating again, there will be some other form of self medicating that needs to happen.

I don't know what your issues are, but in IC, they may be able to trace back through your childhood/early adulthood for unhealed trauma, or behaviors that do not serve you but that you are getting some sort of perceived reward for. Healthy, good people, do not cheat. You will have to put down that façade and really figure it out. It's a painful process. Once you know though, you will have a good amount of self knowledge that will be helpful in your healing and changing as a person. You need to. Putting away my perfectionism or need to have others see that was a journey that was very worthwhile. The reason I suspect it in you is because perfectionist and denial go hand and hand, and I think you are in a lot of denial right now.

@hikingout, I totally agree with everything you said, and I know I have to be in major denial about my issues, because I didn't think I had any until I became a cheater. Like you, before my As I was excelling at my job, in an amazing marriage, with really great kids. I too am a perfectionist, and am coming to realize that it is just a form of me needing to prove myself.

People who have a lack of self love and shame will either act out in two ways - they will want to fill themselves up with others validation or they will over extend themselves to get love.

I guess my As were about needing that validation. But why wasn't the constant validation I got from my husband, family, friends, and peers not enough? I am so loved and respected, what more did I need?

I know I have some major issues, otherwise I would not be here. And I have never tried to minimize, or shift the blame. I know I am 100% responsible for the choices I made. I am just struggling to understand why I made them.

But why wasn't the constant validation I got from my husband, family, friends, and peers not enough? I am so loved and respected, what more did I need?

For someone like me, for example, because I can't claim to know what your issues are..

I needed more. I had become complacent with what I had achieved. Took it for granted. I was looking for more things to fill that hole.

These are hard questions. It took me six months to find all my whys and to admit some very hard things about myself to myself.

Start with this...do you know why you felt entitled to cheat? To break the rules while you husband didn't? Do you know what that perceived imbalance was? For me, I did everything for everyone there was this little voice that would say "I deserve to..." Affairs take a lot of justifications, think about the words you said to yourself to keep nudging yourself along where that part of you wanted to protest.

If you do think perfectionism is one of your issues, I do recommend "Rising Strong" By Brene Brown.

Also, do not be afraid to think about what resentments you might have secretly held about your husband or your marriage.

They aren't the reasons that you cheated. BUT, it will tell you a lot about your perceptions so that you can evaluate them. For me, I found that I didn't admit them to myself for some reason while they were building. And, I had to answer for why I didn't bring them up or work with him to resolve them.

I had a great marriage. Noone has a perfect marriage. There are microabrasions and issues that build up if we don't communicate about them so they can be resolved. This is about how YOU manage your relationship, and how you interact within a relationship. There are answers there. You are right it's not the marriage's fault, or your husband fault that you cheated. But a lot can be learned about ourselves when we look at the lack of self awareness and inability to communicate. Maybe that doesn't exist for you, but I don't think it's off limits for exploration. I don't think you need to be looking for things to tell you husband to do differently as a result of that, I think it's a matter of looking at the perceptions and figuring out whether they are true and what your role in those perceptions were.

I was mortified to figure out that I did have resentments towards my H (I didn't realize it fully), and that those resentments were actually me putting expectations on myself and then telling myself a narrative in which I was doing those things because he expected them or in order to be a good wife or to deserve love I needed to do them.

because I didn't think I had any until I became a cheater

You refused to believe you had issues till just now because at the beginning of your thread you claimed....

I also want to add that I have always been a confident, level headed person. Never suffered from low self esteem or codependency issues.

You just aren't honest with yourself. In one thread you claim two different things.

Why do you need outside validation? Because you aren't confident and you do have low self esteem. You have used outside validation to feed yourself. The husband and job got numbing. Didn't work for you anymore. You took it for granted and then chose to take advantage of it.

This isn't out of character. You have had issues in the past. You have had TWO affairs. That isn't an oops Unicorn thing. The way you interact and try to be everything to been seen a certain way and to get validation was only the beginning. The affairs being the ultimate most destructive decision with the same needs.

You made these choices because you don't love yourself. You can't be confident or have high self esteem when you don't love and respect yourself.

So, you are a goldfish. Eating to the point of being sick and no one and nothing will satisfy you or make you full because you are an endless black hole. You have to face and accept that and begin to love yourself and be enough for yourself.