SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Have you ever gone to IC? Just for you? This is a lot for you to deal with on your own.

You absolutely have options. You are working. Can you work towards a promotion? Can you find a different job with different r pay?

Your husband isn’t willing to give you what you need. Sex is being used as currency to keep him content.

It’s easy for us to read your posts and say, leave him. I can see you are not ready for this. I implore you to focus on yourself. One of the best things you can do for yourself is set a high standard and set boundaries for you.

Do you have time to fit mediation in your day? I use an APP at night to To meditate.

What books have you read for self discovery? I want you to focus on you. You can even make a declaration. Husband, i have spent a great deal of time focusing on your affair. My extremely important unmet need. I will be making some needed chsnges. First being, i am number one now.

Be sure to include. You refuse to give me an accurate timeline of your affair. It’s cowardly. With out my request met, I no longer can attempt a true emotional involvement. Your self preservation is more important than my physical and emotional health.

Before you do this. Make a clear list of your boundaries. What you want to do for self improvement. You do not need to share this with him. You work on implementing. I don’t know what your boundaries are. These are things you can explore in IC.

I'm in agreement with other posters -- the first glance/notice isn't avoidable, but lingering or going back for seconds is. It is absolutely a form of disrespect, a lack of love and an indication of self-centeredness, so you should be angry.

Agree. Most people are visual and they look at attractive people of either gender. Problem is not looking but ogling! When I see men ogling, it reminds me of a pitiful dog with tongue hanging out...desperate for a bone he cant get!! Quite pathetic really.

Not all men do this. Not all people do this. He is being disrespectful to you AND the woman who is just trying to live her life without some random dude staring and being creepy.

Not all men do this. Not all people do this. He is being disrespectful to you AND the woman who is just trying to live her life without some random dude staring and being creepy.

This. About 100x.

OK Ladies get your slings and arrows ready. I am one of those who look. A little bit of background on me first, I have Chronic PTSD from age 11 so my head is ALWAYS on a swivel! I am always looking for threats or danger. I was an air traffic controller for 10 years so again I learned to keep my head on a swivel.

Second I consider women as "Fine Art" so I will always appreciate their beauty. Yes I LOOK not just glance. I DO NOT wolf whistle or make other horrible or intrusive catcalls. I just smile (NOT leer!) Beauty brings joy to my heart.

Do NOT think for a moment that I am not demonstrative with my wife (or girlfriend) because I firmly believe in PDA's and always walk holding hands or with my arm around her!!! My wife has NO DOUBTS that I am TOTALLY in LOVE with HER ONLY.

I was raised in the US but also in a different culture that has also contributed to me being loud and aggressive.

I was with a girlfriend's 18 yr old son once and was pointing out pretty Ladies to him (attempted "bonding") and of course as soon as we got home he went STRAIGHT to his mom to let her know. I figured that this "bonding" attempt was on it's way south fast. My girlfriend at the time (TREMENDOUS woman and one I should have married but was too soon after my divorce and I was too wounded- my fault totally) looked at him and said "I don't care where he wets his appetite so long as he eats at home"!!

Just a little different way of looking at it.

JMO YMMV

Hell, I do it too. Not intentionally.

For me its more akin to going 'SQUIRREL!!!!' than it is any conscious mental thing.

Sure I could try to control it. It'd probably be akin to focusing on constant regulating breathing or switching everyday tasks from dominant to nondominant hand. I'm sure after a long while I could get used to it.

I just don't see the value in that kind use of my energy. I smoke, I could use my energy to quit. I could work out more. I could ficus on shaving everyday and any of those three would take less mental energy and discipline to achieve than to rein in what you say is bothering you.

And I bring this up for a reason. He very well COULD learn to control it. Absolutely.

But is that where you think his energy is best used?

You are talking likely 2 years of effort if not more to achieve. That is if he agreed to do it. And was successful. Not everyone who wants to stop smoking is able.

For me, there is a subtleness that comes along with this action, a bit of a message being sent on some level. Intentional or not.

I don't want a husband "trained" not to stare, I just want a husband that would look at me the same way, naturally.

I am not stupid, I KNOW he looks, or glances. But on occasion, it was slightly more. I wonder what is going through his head at that point?

THAT is what bothers me.

Agree. The first glance doesn’t bother me. It’s the constant return for more glances and what bugs me the most, it’s the turning head last the attractive lady to try to pretend he is looking elsewhere but eyes landing in the attractive woman for a second as he passes by to land on another object, then do it again and again. Then say he didn’t do it like I am losing my mind but I know what I saw.

If u am out with my wh, I would really like for his attention to be focused enough in me that a gorgeous woman walking in May get a quick glance because if movement butnhis attention would return to me and only me. Like I’m the only one in the room that matters. Especially when we are in a date.

Lost infidelity. I need to be the only one in the room that matters in a date night. You know.

It is rude to gawk at other women when in the presence of your spouse.

It's not just men who do this. My WW does this too. I've noticed it a lot. I may be weird but I don't really see other women at all in that way. I have no issue with Libido other than it's way too high.

I guess we are all wired differently.

My wife complained about me doing this and said it was one of the reasons why she cheated. But in my opinion, she was way too sensitive to it. For example, we were talking with a cashier at the supermarket when at some point I saw a motion behind the cashier. For a split second I looked to see what it was, and it was a lady pushing a cart. Then I looked back at the cashier and resumed the conversation. I didn't think I had done anything abnormal. But next thing I know, she's tearing me a new asshole for "checking out that woman". There were many other occasions when she would accuse me of looking at women whose presence, frankly, I was not even aware of. The fact that she is so hypersensitive on this issue is one reason among many why I didn't have any interest in reconciling with her.

I think it's unreasonable to push your significant other on this issue to the point where they don't even feel like they can be aware of their surroundings when with you in public. Not only unreasonable, but abusive. I say all this as a general statement.

But this doesn't seem like what happens with the OP. In her case, I would recommend: Detach. Detach. Detach.

[This message edited by OneLittleVictory at 4:51 PM, July 2nd (Monday)]

My h never looks at other women when he’s with me.

It’s just that his neck hurt and he needed to stretch it all the way around, or maybe we're lost while walking and he needs to look behind him to get his bearings, or he gets lost on the beach and has to walk thirty feet in the wrong direction before he can find our chairs.

Recently I was at a funeral and a children’s birthday party. (Not the same outing!) Two women at the funeral dressed for a nightclub outing. One woman at the children’s birthday party wore a thong bikini.

Smack him? Smack her? Smack them both?

OLV, I’m speechless. I hardly push my husband to the point that he is unaware of his surroundings. And I am not the one who cheated, HE WAS.

I did not realize that wanting my husband to not stare at other women was so unreasonable.

I hardly push my husband to the point that he is unaware of his surroundings.

I didn't intend to impute this behavior to anyone but my wife. I wasn't calling out anyone in this thread. I was hoping that was clear. My apologies if it wasn't.

I agree that it's disrespectful as long as you're not being overly sensitive to it like my wife is.

Glances I have no problem with. At all. The staring that leads me to believe he wished I weren’t present bothers me. And I KNOW the difference.

Before DDay, his quick looks never bothered me. At all. I mean, I was so secure in my marriage and trusted my husband. But now he had to go and ruin that, didn’t he.

OLV, thank you for clarifying.

Welcome. :) I might further clarify that in my marriage I was not the one who cheated. So I didn't ruin anything for her. This was baggage that she was already carrying when we met.

It's one thing to notice.

It's entirely another to linger.

I think men are hard-wired to notice, but it's a CHOICE to linger.

I notice. My wife notices too, and as far as I know... she's 100% straight.

The point, as suggested above, is to not linger. It's okay to notice; it's never okay to stare.

It's one thing to notice.

It's entirely another to linger.

I think men are hard-wired to notice, but it's a CHOICE to linger.

I'm in agreement with other posters -- the first glance/notice isn't avoidable, but lingering or going back for seconds is. It is absolutely a form of disrespect, a lack of love and an indication of self-centeredness, so you should be angry.

It’s humiliating. Then it was like I had ruined the night. These little things chip even further away at what remains.

Agree. The first glance doesn’t bother me. It’s the constant return for more glances and what bugs me the most, it’s the turning head last the attractive lady to try to pretend he is looking elsewhere but eyes landing in the attractive woman for a second as he passes by to land on another object, then do it again and again. Then say he didn’t do it like I am losing my mind but I know what I saw.

These posts resonated with me BIG TIME. While at a friend's daughter's wedding I saw my WH glance at a woman there. She happened to be a woman he had told me years ago, when we were first dating, that he'd had a thing for but could never date her because she'd dated his friend. I wasn't even offended or upset about him glancing at her AT FIRST. Everyone was noticing her. She was part of the wedding and was beautiful. It wasn't until later in the night when they were all mingling with the guests that I noticed him watching her covertly... out of the corner of his eye... like I might not notice. Then later in the night when one of our other friends, who was seated at our table, looked at WH for a moment, then pointedly turned around in her chair to see who he was watching, then pointedly looked at ME with her eyebrow raised as if to say "REALLY??" Talk about humiliation!! To quote one of our favorite movies "Humiliations Galore". It was horrible. Each time I noticed him watching her covertly, he'd look at me a moment later to ask if I was "OK". Like he was waiting to see if I'd noticed or if I was going to say anything. NOPE. It's bad enough that he has put me in this situation where I now am uncomfortable and unsafe in my relationship. I'm not going to be the wife that starts an argument at a wedding because my WH can't control himself. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I'd said a thing... a single thing, he'd have denied it and told me I was crazy... like all the times I was "crazy" before.

I used to see this behavior a LOT before Dday. I do have to admit that other than the above situation, he's mostly tamed it... Or he's more careful about it... so he's attempting in some way to be less disrespectful.

"And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I'd said a thing... a single thing, he'd have denied it and told me I was crazy... "

same here. why? it's such cowardice behavior. why lie about it. if you wanna be free to look simply divorce and go for it. but to continue to gaslight someone after all we've been through? just why?

Before DDay, his quick looks never bothered me. At all. I mean, I was so secure in my marriage and trusted my husband. But now he had to go and ruin that, didn’t he.

I get this.

So, if you are on a beach, with 1/2 naked beautiful people all around you... do you ignore it? Do you pretend it doesn't exist?

I think pretending you didn't look is dishonest... Of course I would look ... I think we all do, men and women. I also believe that woman want to be noticed, but that it's socially unacceptable to admit that... so the game begins... She didn't dress that way to be noticed, and I didn't look.

But if you are the WS... the rules change... you need to be extra careful and thoughtful of this if you really care about your spouse...