SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

My observation is that there is an aspect of "just happened" involved in many affairs. Many affairs require a number of elements to exist at the same time and place. One of those is a married person who has reached a low internal place, a place where he/she perceives a need that is not being met by the marriage and also not being communicated to the betrayed-spouse-to-be.

Another is a conveniently present AP who tickles the specific need that the soon-to-be WS is feeling. Often, it appears the A would not have occurred with anybody else other than that specific AP, in that specific place/time, under those specific circumstances.

However, even if all of the above exist, in the end, the WS must decide to cheat, and all the other stuff that goes with it (lying, sneaking, etc.). So in that sense, no matter what, the actual A itself cannot "just happen". A cheater cheats after deciding to cheat.

Do I think my WW is at "high risk" for giving me a repeat of this shitshow? Well, probably not, but we see it happen all the time, don't we? And I certainly never thought she would do it in the first place.

ALL WSs are at high risk for repeat behavior. All of them.

Even the ones who do all the work are at risk. But it's less likely for those who do it.

And for those who don't--fuhgetaboutit.

[This message edited by Vomitousmass at 11:29 PM, December 10th (Thursday)]

It would have been a way to have my WW essentially confess to the premeditated murder of our marriage and also identifying the body.

.

And where she hid it.

Well, she'd have a tough time using the word "mistake" again, to say the least.

My WH says that all the time - "it just happened". Another favorite is "it was just the perfect storm." I have to remind him each and every time it DIDN'T just happen - every text you sent, every phone call with OW, every sleazy parking lot hook up - all conscious choices. When you drove to her house to sleep with her -you took off your clothes and inserted yourself inside her -all conscious choices.

I think many WS like to say it just happened because they can absolve themselves of responsibility. As if they have no control over themselves so they can't be held accountable. WH also likes to blame me saying if only I had been the wife I was supposed to, he never would have cheated. "Just happened" is another way to blameshift. As long as they don't lay the blame on themselves.

I don't know you. I mean, I know you, obviously. But you're a stranger to me in so many ways now. For whatever reason, I don't think you're willing to confront these things in yourself and really give me a true accounting for who you are and what led you to do this."

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This is a really interesting comment. I know my wife better and more than I ever had, yet she is a complete stranger.

But the idea of affair proofing a marriage is the same as expecting a friend to rob you. In both cases you're anticipating the strong possibility that someone you ostensibly trust is at high risk for violating that trust and committing a transgression against you. And if it's the case that we expect a spouse to have a high danger for violating our trust and betraying us, what's the point of marriage again? Seems like a raw deal and not a good deal on paper or otherwise.

Yes. All that. If I thought I had to put in safeguards to keep my spouse from cheating, that would be the equivalent of taking on another child instead of having an adult life partner.

I really really really really really really really don't want a spouse who needs to avoid interacting with women because he thinks that is what he needs to do to not cheat. Really don't feel safe with that kind of thought process. Really don't like it from any point of view. If my boss felt that way, I'd not have my job and it would be damned hard to find another one that didn't involve close interaction with men. My ability to be a functional person would be profoundly impacted by this kind of thought process.

36 is right IMO, Thumos. Now you do know your wife, at least more so than before. This was always within her.

I now know NPD, and recognize it in my XW. Before all this, yes, she was an abusive ahole. But, now I know she is a cheater ,too.

[This message edited by Vomitousmass at 10:04 PM, December 10th (Thursday)]

They don't just happen.

There are a series of choices that are made by the WS and AP. Whether It's a well thought out plan of betrayal or that one decision that makes it happen.

It's all a choice made by the WS.

They always say we are one choice away from a different life.

I’ve heard arguments that a ons may “just happen,” if someone is so blind drunk that all judgement goes out the window. I personally, however, am not even convinced about that. I have a personal history of alcohol abuse while being married. I was a binge drinker, of liquor, and I’m embarrassed to even mention the amount of booze I went through. It absolutely lead to poor judgement and me making decisions I would have never made sober. I put my WH through a lot (this was before he ever cheated) and I am very aware of how difficult it must have been to live with me. All that being said, I never once had any desire to cheat, even when I was wasted. The day I got married I fully committed to always being faithful, and not even alcohol could sway me from that. My commitment to that was so strong that I didn’t put myself in situations while drinking that might lead to me crossing a line. There was one time I ended up being driven home by a guy I went to high school with after getting separated from a girlfriend at a bar (the only time I ever went to one without my H.) I was drunk enough to be saying stupid shit, but even then I sat in the back seat because “I may be a drunk but I’m not a cheater.” And when he told me how “hot” I’d grown up to be, I told him it gave me great pleasure to hear him say that so I could turn him down because I never thought he was all he thought he was in high school.

I’m not saying that I’m any better than my H. I’m saying that affairs no more “just happen” than my drinking “just happened.” Believing that is a cop out stemming from an unwillingness to face yourself, your faults, and your fears. The behavior is merely a symptom of a problem, not in the relationship, but in the individual. This could be said for any hurtful, selfish behavior. Each time it’s done, there is a choice. Do I choose what I want at the moment at the cost of someone else or do I choose love and integrity? What’s interesting to me is that the first choice is nearly always the worst choice for the individual in the long run as well, regardless of what it feels like in the moment. But eventually, they make the same selfish shitty choice over and over again, justifying it however they have to, until they forget there ever was a choice and are completely blind to the damage they’re inflicting on everyone around them, and ironically, on themselves. That is an extremely painful thing to face. It’s much easier to say “it just happened” or as my WH would say “it’s just a bad thing I did and there was no reason for it.” It’s hard to face the defect in ourselves and the tragedy of Regrettable choices that we made because of it.

[This message edited by AintGonnaLose at 5:57 PM, September 17th (Thursday)]

The way I could have prevented my stbxw from having affairs while she was married to me is... I could have not married her.

That's the only thing I can think of that would have worked.

I should have waited for a different person, or not married at all.

But I got my daughter out of it, so I wouldn't change it if I could.

The only thing I would change is that I would divorce her much much sooner.

My WH claims that "the perfect storm" caused his affair to happen.

To him "the perfect storm" included 1)his own unhappiness with getting older/feeling less attractive/questioning if he's made the most out of his life, etc., 2)disconnection in our marriage, and 3)opportunity.

That's simplistic of course, and I don't want to negate the fact that the affair happened because he made horrible decisions. But I think it's fair to acknowledge that maybe if one piece of the perfect storm puzzle had been missing, his marriage vows would still be intact.

I do believe that couples can build on the commitments they've made to each other and set personal boundaries in place to keep infidelity at bay.

I'm hopeful that you're right because otherwise what's the point in trying to reconcile?

sisoon’s “dry drunk” comment is right on the money.

You can see people at a restaurant or bar - even exchange glances. But the difference is whether you are “looking” or are in your own mind “available”.

I think all of us have been on the receiving end of one of THOSE looks… But if you’re not available and you’re not looking and you’re not interested, you look past them as if they were a hedge outside the restaurant.

But if you pause… If the look becomes connected in someway,… That’s a different story. And you have given an impression that you are a possibility.

When you are not a possibility, most of the time you don’t even realize that you’ve looked in someone’s direction. Or that they have looked at you.

When you are not looking, and not a possibility in any setting, there is no need for perimeters, or self control.

I live in a nice, safe neighborhood, but guess what? I still lock my doors. I have am alarm system. Am I truly worried about a break in? Not particularly. But, having been burglarized many years ago, I know it can and does happen. I just don't want it to happen to me.

I think you're making a category error here. The more accurate analogy would be if you were afraid someone you knew, a good friend, was going to decide to rob you blind -- and so you took extreme precautions to "burglary proof" your home from your friend. In which case a lot of people would say "hey man, maybe you shouldn't be friends with this guy, he doesn't seem trustworthy. Maybe call the cops on him."

OK, let's try a different version of this. First off, I agree withe first post, why tempt fate? I firmly believe that for a whole lot of people, and likely myself, there's some combination of situations that could get me to cheat. I don't think this is a huge stretch given that it's so prevalent in society, but it's an important basis from which to start the conversation.

The more apt analogy, IMHO, is working in a bank. Let's say I'm a VP in a local branch. I hire the people I trust, and I build a team I'm incredibly proud of. But, guess what? I still do a cash count every night. I still have cameras on every drawer and require all the money fanned out. Not because I think the great time I'm hiring is going to steal from me, because I don't WANT THEM to steal from me. I put the controls in place to prevent it being so "easy" that they slip up and do something they wouldn't do if I'd just taken a modicum of "give a sh*t" about the cash in the bank. No, I don't think they are going to steal, and I work hard to make sure they aren't tempted to steal by making caring about it and putting effort into stopping them from thinking "nobody cares".

My wife was convinced that there was NO combination of factors to get her to cheat, she, obviously, was wrong. And, IMHO, I think a lot of cheats are like this, they are convinced they won't right up until they will. Now, I fully admit, and I know a lot of these, there's another kind of cheat "looking for it", actively trying to recruit and land new APs. The only illusion these people are living under is "I won't get caught", they don't think they won't cheat, they just are looking for the next one.

Cheating is, at least in my eyes, one of the things where false positives are real cheap and false negatives are massively expensive. A "false positive" is "I don't spend time 1-1 with women I find attractive because I might cheat, even though I wouldn't"; it has a very low cost to me and it's easy and simple to implement. A "false negative" is "I can hang out with hot women all day and will never cheat, but, then, I do cheat". A great example of this is wearing a seatbelt. The "cost" to wear a belt is basically 0, it's laughably easy. The "cost" of not wearing a seatbelt cannot be higher, you die when a belt would have saved you.

My wife was convinced that there was NO combination of factors to get her to cheat, she, obviously, was wrong. And, IMHO, I think a lot of cheats are like this, they are convinced they won't right up until they will

Agree. I couldn't have imagined myself doing anything of the sort. Never considered it, never fantasized about it, couldn't understand why anyone would do it.

Loneliness, resentment, desperation and low self esteem make it easier for the affair to be justified by the WS.

It's just that all those can be fixed if one can commit to counseling, therapy and hard work.

Committing to that though, requires hope and seeing positive examples of redemption and reconciliation (even over smaller wrongs) in your own life.

I think for some WS, they didn't have that example of healthy relationships in their own life and that leads them into poor coping mechanisms (holding resentment, self loathing). Since they haven't seen hard examples in their life of reconciliation or redemption, they believe it to be a fairy tale and not to exist. So, with no hope for improvement, why bother working on it? Why not just escape into an affair to survive the marriage?

Affairs may not be consciously premeditated in some, but they definitely DON'T "just happen." There's a long trail of poor coping, poor decision making and finally desperation. At least in my case... can't speak to serial SA examples.

I think that affairs "just happen" in that they were not planned. I think they "just happen" because your WP was "open to them happening" - and all the rules in the world aren't going to change that. It will lessen the odds of it happening, but not because your WP is a safe partner, it's just because you have put them in a place where it is more difficult to be dangerous. In some circles we call that jail: you can't be trusted to do right so we are going to take away most of the opportunity for you to do wrong.

So no, I don't believe you can 100% "prevent" an affair from happening any more than you can 100% prevent your kids from ever doing drugs. You can put all kinds of boundaries in place - you can talk and talk and talk about things - you can make it less likely - but prevent? Nope.

Add to that that what one person sees as a preventative step, another sees as controlling. I'm a BS and I hate this idea, for example:

For example, meeting with people of the opposite sex (if you are hetero) should be avoided.

If I were to meet someone new, for example, and they said "let's be exclusive, but I am really not okay with your meeting people of the opposite sex" that would be a MASSIVE RED FLAG to me that this person is controlling, and a bit insane, and that I should run as fast as possible away from them. Furthermore, in my world the "rules" must apply to both parties to the marital union equally - which would mean that if I told my WH he could "not meet with" any members of the opposite sex (whatever that means as I'm not completely sure I get it) that would also apply to me - otherwise its a dictatorship not a marriage. So I would have to erase from my life three of my very close friends, and never "meet" with any men (without a chaperone present? Another co-worker, a family member?) - no business lunches, no going golfing (hard to find a consistent female partner to golf with - or it has been for me)...um, no. I'm not agreeing to that. I'm not a child and I'm not in jail - my partner is neither my warden nor my father.

Does it mean I might find someone of the opposite sex that I "met with" attractive? Yep (just like at work or at the grocery store or out at a bar assuming I ever do that again after COVID or anywhere I see/come into contact with men). The problem isn't the meeting up - it's the mindset - the open to the affair part that is the problem. At these rules are simply prophylactic measures. Your partner is only as safe as their brain is - it they are open to the A all these other rules are not going to help much.

*****All this presumes of course when you said "meet with" you meant it in a way more like having lunch and less like butt naked in a hotel room.

I honestly believe that if you are truly happy and in love with your SO then staying faithful is easy. But if not, and you aren't being honest with your SO and you start keeping secrets, then Pandora's Box is opened and who knows what will happen. But this is just my opinion.

In my opinion, affairs have very little to do with happiness in the marital/SO relationship or love.

They have everything to do with bad coping mechanisms, an unhealthy desire for excessive validation, entitlement, lack of empathy and in some cases, a tendency to live life untruthfully and a desire for thrill-seeking.

None of these things have anything to do with the BS or the relationship. None.

Cat