SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

As a BS, I thought of this briefly and even expressed this to my wife. I was so hung up on the "unfairness" of her A, and also the inequity that I felt. It wasn't until I realized that in a marriage, things will never be "fair". Things will never be even, and they shouldn't be. My wife told me that we should be treating each other with more gentleness, and her heartfelt apologies helped me through that RA mindset. IMHO- your spouse may do as I did, and come to the realization that there isn't some grand marriage "scale of justice." No score keeping. It isn't fair, but then again, it is not supposed to be. Coming to that realization was one of my first steps toward true forgiveness. Don't get me wrong- we still struggle A LOT. All I can work on is me.

Hopefully, it is that she is only sharing the thought and expressing how angry she is that she's driven to these thoughts, and not that she's truly intent on doing what she's thinking. If she is a reasonable person, she will understand that it is the worst thing that she could do for her own healing and for your relationship.

Best you can do is help her stay reasonable - without saying that word, mind you - but with your patience and humility.

At this point I would be hurt but I don't think it would make her feel any better. I think she would feel worse actually. I feel it will just cause more confusion and hurt feelings.

Hopefully you've said these very things to your BS. Right now she is lashing out and just wants to hurt you. Keep telling her that you love her and that her body is to be cherished and savoured and how much you love her for keeping herself inspite of your foolishness. Reassure her in every possible way.

I never wanted a revenge affair. Once I understood what was happening, I first tried to appeal to him to stop. He wouldn't. Then when he did stop, I just wanted to run away. Do you understand? You want to run to the person you usually do and when that person is the one who hurt you, it really becomes a major conflict of emotion in oneself.

Come back, run away because you might be hurt. Push away the one who hurt you in such a terrible way that you can't put yourself in more danger by running back.. to the person who hurt you and try to get relief.

Probably she is letting off steam. I would just listen to her when she says that. All I ever needed to hear was I was being listened to, that he understood, he was there for me, this thing he had done would never happen again because he didn't want to, he knew how badly he messed up and how he hurt me. Ineeded to hear it a lot. Over and over.

As for the impulse to put you into the position to abase yourself... it is the demand of a partner is who is hurt and frightened and angry and they are not getting what they need.

To the poster here who said that abasing themself was what got them here in the first place and once they ended the affair, they would not further humiliate themselves by acting in such ways anymore.. I don't know you and I am very aware this is a protected board... when did you start to feel you would be abasing yourself in terms of doing "anything" to help your partner recover?

I feel a little cynical, sorry. :(