SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

There used to be an edit button, but apparently I can't find it anymore. Ha. Anyway.

Oh yes, I definitely know that this is a slippery slope for an SA for all kinds of reasons. As I'm thinking through this--I don't want to be responsible for policing her behavior. After the last and largest D-Day, I wrote that off. She is responsible for her behavior, and I do love her, but I am strong enough now that I'll leave in a heartbeat, no questions asked, if my boundaries are crossed. And she is well aware. If she makes that decision, so be it. Her SA is more of an addiction (as common with women) to the attention, butterflies, and value she would feel at other men wanting her, with the actual sex a much lesser component.

I suppose that means I'm looking at this situation and thinking--if she is interested in this for whatever reasons, but especially as some kind of amends for her past, I can make a grown up decision on the cost/benefit of it.

I am also used to the responses from those who are utterly flabbergasted that I'm staying, and how WW is a terrible candidate for R. She was at first. She may screw up again. But after the years of effort we've both put in, I'm not ready to bail at this point. And we all know "staying for the kids" is never a good idea, but I also know they *need* me right now and I need them (they're 2 and 4), and I'm not interested in a 50/50 split at best. The ghosts of the past do haunt me, but less and less frequently... I still have hope I'll be able to convince them to live harmoniously with me.

But, yeah. Gotta close this manwhore door.

At 77, I wish I could do what I was able to do at 52. 38 sounds like heaven.

Yeah, manwhore sounds awful. Exploring, OTOH, could be good, if that's what you want.

Perhaps you can get some comfort from the thought that you have the power of choice, and the power to choose what you want, and the power - with limits - to change your mind. I will share that I'm pretty happy about not pushing sexual boundaries when it was easy to push them (i.e. when I was younger, living overseas, or doing the road warrior thing).

I don’t miss the sex. I miss feeling love for someone. That part of me is dead, never to return.

TW

I understand where you are coming from. And yes while it would feel good in the moment, I can’t advocate with bringing someone else into the mix unless you were to D.

But what I do advocate is to make sure your WW knows what you are telling us here. She should know how you are feeling.

"I want you to know about the empty feeling I am left with from your cheating. I appreciate the work you have done to make me feel safe now. But that doesn’t negate the fact that you had sexual intimacy with 5 other people and I had none. I was faithful to someone who didn’t care enough to be the same with me.

I cannot break my marriage vows and do the same to have the same type of experiences. That leaves me feeling very sad and empty. I feel alone in this fact and do not know how to heal it or close that wound.

Since we need to be in on the same page, together in this relationship, I need you to know that.

I don’t have an answer, but if you have thoughts on how to help me, I’m all ears"

You shouldn’t be suffering alone in this marriage. She needs to know the pain she caused you fully and how it still affects you today.

Perhaps there are strategies she can employ to help ease the pain. It may sound silly but perhaps role playing (hopefully without trigger) can help bridge things. She could use wigs and you can both dress differently than you usually do in order to feel like different people. Find a unique location as well that would be a first for each of you.

But she’s have to be all in with the masquerade.

I’ll try to think of other approaches.

I’m not sure a 3 some would help really anyway. To me it would have to be a cuckold situation where she doesn’t get to participate but instead knows what is happening. That would be more of an equivalence. And that is something that would not be marriage rebuilding unfortunately. Sort of a catch-22.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 12:43 PM, Sunday, August 15th]

You can grasp at anything and everything to find happiness. But we all know (as betrayeds) that it comes from within.

A new house or job or romantic partner or even a threesome will not "make" you happy. It can ADD to your happiness but it’s not a "fix" to your inner pain or dissatisfaction.

I think you know that.

No one’s life turns out the way they planned. However you "make the best" of it. You change what you can and work on what you can and accept the rest.

Gratitude goes a long way for the good things you do have.

Steve, your advice is simple but somehow it's easy to forget that talking openly about these feelings is important. I've shied away from having this conversation with WW because it will be so easy for her to interpret it as "I want to sleep with someone else and am sad I can't." And, I mean... that IS almost it, right? I feel sad and empty that she got that fun, butterflies feeling with other people while I passed up every opportunity to feel even a smidge of that.

I DO have the power to make that choice now. And I'm choosing not to. But I'm a little resentful that I have to pass up fun, while she got to have as much as she wanted...and still got her marriage and family too.

Finding ways to have some fun, new experiences is a good idea too... the 2 young children are always in the way, though. Try to explain to a 4 year old why Mommy and Daddy have locked the door to the bathroom while we're both in there.

I think the key is that I don't want to suffer alone.

Totally get this. It’s like being on a diet and finding out your diet buddy was eating burritos and not sharing.

Except it’s not burritos; it’s someone else’s dick.

No fix for this, dude. But I feel you. It straight up sucks. There have been people who could have loved me the way I deserved, and I passed on even friendships because I viewed it as inappropriate. I’ve always had hard core boundaries. But he never did.

Choices, right?

The empty feeling you have is resentment for the lack of Justice. The scales went so heavily towards the WS, and it is still lopsided.

There are other threads on this where it has been discussed to hell and back, but my take on it is that there will not be any good ending if you seek Justice for this.

The feeling will be with you for a long time. It will take time and concerted effort before this thought becomes a non-entity in your mind.

Your WS can try to find ways and means to help balance the scales in one way or another, but it will still not be the same.

Address it with your IC, to see how you can manage these feelings/thoughts.

I wonder how much of this feeling is because you're not entirely convinced that your wife is remorseful? I mean, obviously our FWSs were having a good ol' time at our expense in the moment. So I can understand that feeling of unfairness that you're describing. But mine has done a lot of work to show how that she understands pain and devastation that those "good times" caused (at least as well as a FWS can). Memories of those "good times" seem to hold nothing but disgust for her now.

That doesn't make them go away. You can't unring that bell. But it helps to feel that your FWS is not wistfully enjoying fond memories of those events.

That doesn't make it fair. It's not fair. But life isn't fair. It just hard to accept when the unfairness is a betrayal by someone we loved and have trusted completely - someone who spoke the same vows as we did.

Even if your FWS gave you a free pass for the next year to go and have your fun, I doubt that you could enjoy it without conscience the way a WS does. They have all their twisted pathologies to provide justifications and excuses while you would recognize that you extorted that "freedom" from her as penance.

Sorry, but this feels a lot like a typical mid-life crisis with the easy excuse of the A and maybe an incomplete R as justification for feeling like you deserve to sew a few more wild oats. If you don't think you can be happy in your relationship without evening the score then S/D are the way you should go.

And no, I don't think spicing things up by bringing someone else into the relationship is a good idea. That's like thinking that an alcoholic will be fine with a little wine at dinner because they always got drunk on beer before. For many FWSs attention and validation are a drug. Setting them up with a new supplier is a bad idea.

Unfaithful "five" times?

More than likely there's been even more.

I can appreciate your desire to stay, but you also mention your wife wanting to bring in another woman into the relationship (for another experience).

This is just me, but I'd have more concerns about "missing out on having ("fun") with other women".

Your wife is a serial cheater and you say she's put in the work but still mentions bringing another woman into the fold with you.

Brother, your 38, which is VERY young, and you're mentioning all of this now? There's an extremely HIGH probability that your wife is going to cheat on you again. There's something broken in her and she's trying to satisfy it with other people and her mentioning bringing a woman into the relationship should have set your radar off even though she was suggesting doing this with you.

So what's it going to be like when you're 48 and still dealing with who your wife is?

Or 58?

Again I can appreciate why you're staying but what a way to live on a daily basis always wondering when your wife is going to cheat on you again and again the odds are that she WILL.

You're frustrated now? Imagine ten yrs from now (and you're 48) you learn that she betrayed you again. Yes you say if she does you'll divorce her but you will also have pissed away TEN MORE YEARS of your life and again hit with the truth that she "got to have fun again" while you didn't because you were faithful.

It's VERY obvious that your wife isn't satisfied in a monogamous relationship and never will be.

You don’t have to accept the status quo.

If you really truly feel you are unhappy and unfulfilled— get out. Divorce. Leave and start over.

The grass may not be greener but you are not obligated to be resentful the rest of your life.

I was ready to D my H at 53. I didn’t care if I had a date ever again. It was for my own personal happiness and getting away from the lies and affairs that was it for me. Nothing more.

During R he was always afraid I was going to leave him and for quite sometime I thought about D every day. But I decided I did love him and he has changed AND I am happier with him than without him.

It was what fulfilled me. And no one else.

My take is you do not need to remain married. For any reason. You are free to choose. But in order to be happy you have to accept the affairs and look to the future with your wife ss your partner.

Anything less — move on. Life is too short to live with jealousy and resentment.

My gut says that you wouldn't be feeling this as long as your (intimacy) need were met.