SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Long time reader, although I rarely post. (I absorb a lot from reading the thoughts of others but don't feel I have much to contribute myself)

I'm in year 8, mostly things are going as well as can be expected. Actually, that's not true. I struggle each and every day and then I blow up about once every 6 to 12 months and it's an issue. I also drink WAY, WAY too much now. I'm working on that as well.

In the most recent blow up, I was actually much more calm in the aftermath and my xWW and I were able to sit down and discuss things without me flooding with emotions. We've agreed to start counseling again. We made the mistake of doing Marriage counseling right after and to say it was a mistake is to put it mildly. I've also committed to greatly reducing my drinking as it's affecting everything.

So, my xWW had a 1 night stand with her high school boyfriend while on a business trip to LA. She had sex with him at least 4 times in high school. I'm as certain as any of us ever can be that she is telling the truth so that's not the issue.

Here's the issue: She swears up and down and has for 8 years now that the night with her old boyfriend was traumatic and horrible. She's even tried to say that she was just frozen in fear and that she just let him finish because she was too afraid to stop. She says she didn't enjoy any of it and just wanted it over.

HOWEVER, and this is where I need help. Here are the facts as I have been able to gather:

1) I knew that she was going to meet up with an "old friend" who was going to take her around LA and show her the sights. What she failed to tell me was that this "old friend" was an ex boyfriend that she'd had sex with back in high school multiple times.

2) After their day of sight seeing, she invited him up to her hotel room to wait for her while she got ready for dinner with him.

3)With him sitting in her hotel room bed (room, not suite of rooms) she showered and then came out of the bathroom and sat next to him on the bed wearing only a bathrobe. And they kissed and it lead from there.

4) She alleges and always has that he stopped and went to his backpack to get a condom. And then he entered her and had intercourse. Despite her having an IUD already in place. And he happened to have a condom on him for a day of sightseeing?

5) After they finished, she went ahead and got herself ready and they went to dinner together.

So, I need some help making sense of this. Maybe someone with more wisdom can help me. From the facts I just laid out, it's clear to me that SHE was the initiator at every step. There's multiple points along the whole process where SHE could have made any number of small changes and she would never have ended up underneath him. And, if the sex was so traumatic how in the world do you end up going to dinner with him after? I can understand how the further away from the event it gets, the more traumatic it would become in your mind. But she swears that every second if it was traumatic and horrible while it was happening.

If it was so bad and you are not alleging that he was raping you or that you were prevented from getting away, then how can you say that while it was happening it was traumatic and horrible? I can't buy that.

She's not alleging that he was the aggressor or that he forced himself on her. She gave clear signals and he just responded to her signals.

Can anyone give me some insight in to how her feeling traumatized and yet being the one that initiated the whole thing could possibly be accurate? I'm open to BS and WS sharing their thoughts. I haven't been able to wrap my head around this for over 8 years now.

I'm really sorry you are in pain. Although it was technically a ONS on my ex's part that brought me here (it's a long convoluted story), the circumstances are way different than your wife's. To me it sounds like she regrets her actions, which is different to me than being traumatized. Her explanation doesn't make much sense. But I don't know. I'm just guessing.

I hope you're able to get to a place that's not as painful. Big hugs to you.

She says she didn't enjoy any of it and just wanted it over.

They almost all say this at one time or another. Ask yourself if it rings true. My WW says pretty much the same thing — this after she planned out a morning of sex with her AP in our home while I was out of town. This wasn’t a spontaneous act. It was methodical. It beggars belief to hear my WW say it was meaningless perfunctory sex she didn’t enjoy.

Short of abusive sex, even bad sex is probably enjoyable to some extent if both people want it and are turned on and are approaching with “good intentions” (that is to say they want to give each other orgasms).

Sex feels good to both men and women. Sex isn’t difficult. It isn’t complicated. It’s a natural human function. Yes someone can become a more attuned and better lover, but it’s silly when pop culture sells an idea that good sex requires a PhD. I’m bringing this aspect up because it just isn’t plausible for most sex to be “bad.” Maybe mediocre, but not much has to happen for a satisfying orgasm for both a man and woman.

Women like sex just as much as men. Women will rarely put themselves in a situation with respect to timing, proximity, isolation, setting etc with a potential male sex partner unless they themselves WANT sex with that man. Yes it can happen that women inadvertently find themselves isolated with a man they are not interested in having sex with. But more often than not, women will control such settings when they can.

So it’s a brute fact you are dealing with here that your wife planned to be penetrated by another man, and it’s more probable that she enjoyed the sex or at least found it relatively satisfying — than the story she is spinning for you.

This is the source of your anger (and drinking) 8 years on. You know you are being lied to and that your WW doesn’t respect you enough to give you the truth. I’m in somewhat the same place 4 years out from DDAY.

Using reason and logic applied to our situations can bring clarity, which is what I just did here.

Your doubts and questions are axiomatic and answer themselves. I understand not liking the answers. I don’t like the answers in my case either.

The truth with most acts of adultery is that the perpetrator wanted it, liked it, and thought they could get away with it. They didn’t give much thought to you, or it they did it was as an annoyance or “what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” This is functionally the equivalent of intentionally abusing you. I find it doubtful a condom was used as most acts of adultery aren’t safe sex. Add all that up and do with it what you will.

[This message edited by Thumos at 8:44 AM, November 11th (Wednesday)]

XWW? You're divorced but still live together?

Women will rarely put themselves in a situation with respect to timing, proximity, isolation, setting etc with a potential male sex partner unless they themselves WANT sex with that man.

This is a really good point. I'm 40 years old and other than some drunken nights in college with platonic male friends, I've actively avoided being in a setting like that unless my intentions were to have sex with the guy.

Yes, sorry you are still in pain. I agree with Jana that her explanation does not make sense, but she is relating the events through the lens of regrets. Whether she enjoyed the encounter or was actually hit with a wave of guilt at the time and it was horrible as she says, one can only guess. I do hope you can get to the point where your pain has lessened. Good luck.

Women like sex just as much as men. Women will rarely put themselves in a situation with respect to timing, proximity, isolation, setting etc with a potential male sex partner unless they themselves WANT sex with that man.

This. A woman with any modicum of sexual experience knows exactly how it works. Women are highly conscious of their position relative to a man in terms of sexual opportunity. Ending up on a hotel room bed, freshly showered, in just a bath robe, with an old flame, that's intentional.

My theory is that she knows that she wanted to have adulterous sex with her old boyfriend, and that she enjoyed it, but she now regrets having allowed herself to have this desire and enjoyment and therefore her memory is revising the reality to help her come to grips with it.

Slap, we are still married. I just used the xWW to indicate that she's no longer an active WW and she's done a fairly large amount of work to make herself a safe partner. It's just I can't get past this claim for 8 years now and it keeps coming up every time things blow up.

It's becoming clear to me that I've been in denial for a long time now that I'll be able to work through this. It probably was a deal breaker, but I didn't want to face that reality. I couldn't do it to my kids. We get along well enough, still have a pretty active sex life and our kids are thriving. But I'm wearing out under the enormous burden. I've chosen to shoulder it all myself to protect the kids (and her to a large degree) and I'm wearing out from the weight of the burden.

Is there anyone, WWs or BWs, that can look at this and see that it makes sense to them?

I’m very sorry and what you describe also describes my experience.

My WW has done a lot too. Same situation with the kids. It’s beyond painful.

But when they won’t be fully authentic and transparent with you, what have you really got to work with? Gently this means she isn’t an “ex” wayward at all. She’s still in that place.

The things they do afterwards are nice. You understand they want you to feel better. You understand they regret what they did.

At the same time you’re dealing with the fact that your wife betrayed you for another man, but now she won’t even respect you enough to be honest about it.

This is quite sinister when you actually consider the implications.

Your inner integrity keeps asserting itself and demanding that this be dealt with in the full light of day — while they just want to run away from what they did.

It means they want you to accept a lie at the heart of your existence. It’s impossible to do as I’ve found out for myself. You’ll also just keep going in circles with this because they don’t want to acknowledge the truth.

I feel I’m wearing out under the burden also and know well this certainty that you understand it as a dealbreaker but just couldn’t bear the thought of breaking up the family.

I struggled mightily in limbo with this the past four years. It’s starting to take a physical toll. In august I informed my WW I want a divorce. We haven’t done it yet but I want it.

[This message edited by Thumos at 9:07 AM, November 11th (Wednesday)]

Gutpunch, no, I'm sorry. Even if somehow her intentions were not to have sex, her actions that enabled it to happen were so disrespectful and unprotective of your marriage that she might as well have planned it.

I just used the xWW to indicate that she's no longer an active WW and she's done a fairly large amount of work to make herself a safe partner.

Normally here people use "fWW" ("former wayward wife") for that. The letter "x" is almost always used here to refer to a spouse from whom you have divorced (as in "ex-wife").

It sounds like you engaged in some rug-sweeping. It never works. It always comes back to haunt you. You either work through it head-on, with your WW being 100% transparently honest ("yes, I wanted him sexually"), or you move on. This half-stepping ("the sex was awful and I had no idea it was coming") is just a charade that prolongs your pain.

Anyone who tries to claim anything short of what Janagreen just wrote is merely twisting themselves into intellectual knots and doing a disservice to you.

It is obvious you want to live in truth authentically above all else.

Live not by lies. Love not by lies.

This half-stepping ("the sex was awful and I had no idea it was coming") is just a charade that prolongs your pain.

Yes.

I think what she is saying, and even possibly thinks, is all through the lens guilt and regret and fear of grappling with the thoughts. She may even genuinely believe it, after applying that filter for so many years. But I would be of your mind, I would believe that, in the moment, she wanted to have happen what she set in motion. Showering, walking out with just a bathrobe, sitting next to him......and him being a very familiar person with whom she held warm and fuzzy thought about.

Her years of anger at herself and the regret and guilt could easily have caused her shift in how she applies what she came to think about it over time. But, at the time, I think she had the evening she was looking for. I will offer though, I am not sure how much difference her liking it or not would have added to my anger and indignation. What would heighten my level of anger would be the nagging sense that she is lying. It is the hiding consequences behind the lies that for me would be the biggest, lasting issue.

Sorry for your pain. Infidelity is indeed the shitstorm gift that keeps on giving.

I'll give you my thoughts on how it might have played out. It's not a defense, because what she did in the seduction phase was deliberate and indefensible, but it is at least a possible explanation.

It sounds to me like your WW was playing with matches and realized mid-act that she had set herself on fire. Up until the sex actually started, it was a reckless adventure where she felt she held the power. But once they were actually doing the deed, reality broke through. This wasn't a fun, validating fantasy; it was a violation of your trust and an act of deliberate self-destruction. This made her want to shove him off her and hit the undo button, but there was no undo button. They'd already had sex by anyone's definition. She realized that the OM had every reasonable right to believe this was what she wanted, because up until that moment, it's what she had believed, too. Society tends to support the idea that if a woman welcomes sexual advances up through penetration, then the ink is already on the contract, and she can't take it back. She may have felt like she owed it to him to continue, or she may not have had any idea what would happen if she told him to stop. Would he get angry? Would he dismiss it? Would it just be crushingly embarrassing to admit she didn't know her own mind, or would it turn into an angry rape? Wouldn't that be more traumatic than just letting him finish?

So there she was, frozen in guilt, and fear, and regret, all while her partner was thinking that things were going great. She picked an option that other women have chosen before her: tough it out, leaving him with positive memories of her, and deal with the fallout on her own. Going out to dinner afterwards was just roleplay, reassuring both him and herself that everything was A-OK.

It's easy to parse this out logically in retrospect, but it isn't easy to think clearly in the moment. It's only later that the thought process solidifies. It might be that she felt many different things in the immediate aftermath, but that every time she dredged up the memory, the frozen, trapped version was what came to the forefront. Memory isn't static; we rebuild memories every time we access them. Over time, this has become her truth. There's literally no way to know how much of it was true at the time.

I have written many posts, and my H has read them all, but this is one that I discussed with him beforehand, and he told me he doesn't plan to read it because it's such a severe trigger for him. What I'm describing is similar to my last encounter with OM. There are some key differences, but the sense of obligation, of regret because of signals I sent, the difficulty of ending the act midway are all accurate. That's how I can understand how your WW could both have given consent and yet also feel like the act itself was traumatic. But I did something additional and even more unforgivable: I described this event to my BH as the only time that I slept with OM. In fact, there was a previous instance, one that was entirely consensual and enthusiastic, and that was the center of my TT after D-Day 2. I don't feel like it's honest to not disclose that to you, given that I'm putting forth my experience as a possible argument for believing your wife. But I do feel a painful familiarity in what she's describing.

OP, whatever you do don’t buy what I call the “little lost girl in the woods” narrative. It’s actually anti-feminist and false and in some ways deeply misogynistic. It’s saying women are basically as described in “As Good As It Gets.” I don’t believe this and I don’t think you do either. I respect women enough to treat them as adults who know what they are doing.

I am with BSR, I have had encounters that are very much similar to what BSR describes.

Sex feels good to both men and women. Sex isn’t difficult. It isn’t complicated. It’s a natural human function. Yes someone can become a more attuned and better lover, but it’s silly when pop culture sells an idea that good sex requires a PhD. I’m bringing this aspect up because it just isn’t plausible for most sex to be “bad.” Maybe mediocre, but not much has to happen for a satisfying orgasm for both a man and woman.

Hmmm...I disagree. Women are more complicated than men sexually. I can have good sex and not climax. But, I have had lots of really bad sex too. The differentiating factor really has a lot to do with whether or not the man is attentive or not. We are not built like men with that saying of "sex is like pizza, there is no bad pizza". And, climax for some of us can be elusive at times. If he treated her like a cum dumpster and she was expecting him to be in awe of her or be more excited about her specifically, she could honestly have hated the sex.

I do not claim to not have enjoyed the A sex, but no Climax occurred. That's not a minimization, it's just factually what happened. It takes a lot of getting comfortable and getting to know each other before I am out of my head and being present in the experience. I don't think that all women are like me, but I think there are plenty who are.

I don't know about how "traumatic" it was for her. But, I would go as far as say there have been times (not many) I would have described sex with my husband similarly. Not really traumatic or rapey, but I didn't want to do it, I felt obligated, and then pretty much resented it the entire time. And waited for it to be over.

And, there is a lot of "after" feelings. I didn't feel humiliated at the time of the A sex, but I certainly felt humiliated afterwards. Sex has a lot of complicated mental things for women as we have a lot of messaging and conditioning men do not typically have and from an early age.

Women like sex just as much as men. Women will rarely put themselves in a situation with respect to timing, proximity, isolation, setting etc with a potential male sex partner unless they themselves WANT sex with that man. Yes it can happen that women inadvertently find themselves isolated with a man they are not interested in having sex with. But more often than not, women will control such settings when they can.

I agree with this. I think that sex usually doesn't happen unless we have decided to make it so. But, I have definitely been an instigator, and have greatly anticipated, and the experience be a complete let down or cause me to have negative feelings I wasn't expecting. And, that has happened in most of my sexual relationships at some time or another. But, especially so with casual encounters or new partners.

I think it's plausible she is minimizing, but to me it's equally plausible that she is telling the truth.

I think at some point, you are going to have to decide - if she did enjoy it, does that really change the picture? I get that lying does, if she is in fact lying. But, let's say you knew and she said that she enjoyed the sex with him? Is that worse? I do not have a predetermined answer btw, the answer might be Hell Yeah it's worse.

Have you considered a Polygraph?

[This message edited by hikingout at 10:13 AM, November 11th (Wednesday)]

BSR, is on target. I am a BS but I understand how easy it is to build up to the Romance Of The Century only to discover that he is just a guy. He doesn’t have a golden pen*s. She got herself under a delusion and when they sat down on the bed flowers didn’t burst forth, birds didn’t sing. He prosaically reached into a bag for a condom. Thud! Reality. So she felt obligated to go through with it but whatever romantic ideas she had never appeared. She came home ashamed of herself and realized she had romanticized herself into a situation where she felt dirty. I’m guessing your wife is a decent person who learned a valuable lesson. That you bloom where you are planted.

Women are more complicated than men sexually.

Women aren’t any more complicated than men. This is an Age of Romanticism notion I simply don’t buy. Men have just as complex interior lives and also plenty of psychological and physical issues with respect to sex (especially betrayed men - hoo boy).

Sex isn’t complicated. It doesn’t require a manual.

Women are not mystical woodland fauns. Come on, now.

[This message edited by Thumos at 10:09 AM, November 11th (Wednesday)]

But, I have definitely been an instigator, and have greatly anticipated, and the experience be a complete let down or cause me to have negative feelings I wasn't expecting. And, that has happened in most of my sexual relationships at some time or another. But, especially so with casual encounters or new partners

And? This doesn’t make women special. Men have the same experience. But back to OP’s original question - he’s being lied to, she’s minimizing, and he knows this. That’s the defining issue and it has left a gaping intimacy hole at the heart of their relationship she chooses to ignore. That’s a recipe for a failed reconciliation attempt.

[This message edited by Thumos at 10:22 AM, November 11th (Wednesday)]