SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Getting to acceptance and decision to R is a difficult and painful process. I spent the first year after DDay trying to find out the “why” that would make sense. I have discovered the different whys only made accepting the A and trying to R much harder. The different whys were confusing and conflicting. The reality is there is no why that makes it all better. I believe the why is to help us BS to realize the A was not about us or what we were not doing. Once I came to the realization the A was not about me I could go on to the next stage which was the A had nothing to do with me or the problems in our marriage.

The A was because he could and had the opportunity and thought I would never find out. I even found an email sent 3 months after DDay (I found the email 9 months after it was sent – WH forgot to delete it) and he said he had no contact with OW since the week after DDay. So contact continued and the reason for the contact was – it was stupid. My point exactly – how stupid are you to continue to throw away our marriage?

The question is how you know they will never cheat again. The answer for me is I don’t – at least not at this stage. I have told WH this and he realizes I might never trust him again. So how do you attempt to R when you can’t trust them? The answer for me is he has to show me he wants to R and some of the things I need to see are:

1. His friends our friends of our marriage. They can’t disrespect our marriage

2. Cut back on drinking with the guys. Only meeting friends for drinks twice a week. No going to bars on the weekends unless I am there.

3. He needs to respect me

4. Work on his insecurity issues, selfish and narcissistic behavior

5. Stop expecting me to be just like him. I am a woman and he is a man – we are different people with different personalities.

6. Spend more time with the family and be involved in our kids activities

Can I trust again? It will take me a long time. I do know I have to trust myself. The hardest to accept is that the trust I had, the ability to not worry about him having an A are gone. At this point I can’t say I don’t worry about him cheating. If this does not fade I know the M can’t survive. I can’t handle living wondering what he is doing. It is not a life or a loving marriage. I hope to get back to the place I was before the A – trust and knowing he will not cheat.

sri and sorrow- I understand completely where you are coming from. My situation is the same-he did it cause he could, he liked sex with someone else and he cared nothing for me or my feelings after 25 years of being together. I truly dont think we will make it through this. Too much tt and dishonesty still. After too much time. He still thinks nothing of inflicting pain on me. I hate this place i am in.

cry to the therapist about how the world did you wrong...

Anyone who has gotten support for self-pity in therapy has gotten some bad therapy. A decent IC will listen - and then move the client toward changing. The point of IC is to become more functional, not to become more satisfied with being dysfunctional.

IC isn't a cure-all - IC for a WS doesn't help a BS who wants R unless the WS's goals include R and unless the WS is willing to do the necessary work.

I'm at that big "why" point too so this post really resonates, because yes, in the back of my mind, even with the whys and explanations floating around, the fact is he fucked her 5 or more times. A ONS, I can see drunkenness being to blame, but when you do the same thing over and over again you obviously enjoyed it and thought you could get away with it, and didn't care enough to stop. Sad truth.

I totally agree. We all have baggage. My husband's baggage wasn't "bigger" than mine, just different.

I hate to sound holier-than-thou, and I know that I do when I say I would never have cheated on my husband.

It's a fuckupedness that I can't attribute to anything other than what your IC said, "he wanted to and he could." Some folks have that sense of entitlement regardless of whether their Foo was good or bad.

It feels sort of liberating to accept that my husband cheated because he wanted to, it felt good, and he was selfish enough to go forward with two affairs. The possibility of my pain if I found out wasn't a strong enough deterrent. Because he wanted to cheat. Knowing that, I can put down a lot of the crap about his whys. His whys are for him to sort out. I just need to know that he won't betray me again. And, frankly, I will never "know" that again, after what he did.

I appreciate your post. It totally helps me.

I get why you keep asking and hoping that this one time you will hear something, anything, that will make you feel better and take away some of the unbearable pain.

But the truth for me is in my situation (WS is a SA) it is imperative for him to acknowledge what was going on in his head when he cheated. He has to figure it out for his recovery. Him being a SA and having sex with only hookers doesn't make the pain any less.

I may never know the whole truth, but he has admitted so very much to me that he didn't have to and he is working so hard to repair this mess and fix himself that for now, I have to accept I know enough to move on.

Does it still hurt like hell? yes! But the why of it all doesn't seem as a way to ease my pain anymore, but it is important for the marriage as a whole.

If they don't recognize why they cheated or what was in their fucked up head at the time,then they won't know how to stop it from happening again.

For me, I'm afraid if he doesn't fully understand why he had an A, he will do it again. Outwardly he's a very confident guy and has never admitted to me or himself that he is really insecure and needs other people to approve of him so that he can feel good about himself. OW gave him that boost...that and his KISA complex. He felt better because he thought he was helping her in her marriage. He needs to work on self acceptance and not look towards sources of outward validation.

THE BOTTOM line is that my husband cheated on me....because he wanted to do it....PERIOD. now, i can sit here and go on all forever about why he did it...he needs ic, he needs help....he needs this and that to figure out the why.....blah, blah, blah....he cheated becasue he wanted to. and here is the dirty truth:

I agree with everything you said including the dirty truth.

No Why or Excuse or Explanation is going to make me feel better and I no longer care to know. What my WH showed me through this ordeal is how broken of an individual he actually is.

He IS someone that I never thought would be capable of doing the amount of damage he did.

BUMPING because this is one of the best threads I have read, & I think it will help a lot of others

Bumping because there's good stuff here and it's been awhile.

Love the post & thread. Thank you..I totally agree--my WH cheated because

1)he wanted to

2) he thought he could get away with it &

3) didn't stop until he got caught.

That is the answer to the "why" question for me. I am enough. I deserve better. I need to remember that

So glad you bumped this as I've never read it before.

I've said and believed from day 1 that my WH did what he did because at the time it was worth the risk to him. He hates when I say that but that just means there is some truth to it.

It hurts like hell to know that talking to and spending time with OW was worth the risk of hurting me and losing his family. Especially because he claims she meant nothing to him. In my mind there's just no other way to see it. I still don't understand why he felt that way and he'll never admit why to me or himself anyway so....ugh I hate this feeling so much.

He did it because he was selfish....pure and simple...selfish behavior....

And he kept up that selfish behavior for 2 years...until he got caught....

He knew it was wrong....did it anyway...lived a life of lying and betrayal....looked himself in the mirror everyday....made his plans with someone else....came home as if nothing happened....selfishness....pure and simple...

That guy is nowhere to be found 22months later

thank God....

But if I catch a glimpse of him he'll be called out on it instantly....

I wonder if sri624 still carries this same perspective?

I personally needed to know the whys of my wife's affair to understand her problems, to see changes in my wife, to see changes she was working on, to call her out if she was failing, to trust myself in spotting trouble, to trust my wife she will not repeat history, to have hope.

Whys, excuses, explanations, reasons, - it doesn't matter to me what you call them. IMO, they are all hinge points, all cause and effects. The bigger question is, which of them do you place your finger on and attempt to fix? I believe belief based problems are the ones to fix.

[This message edited by still-living at 8:38 PM, September 16th (Tuesday)]

I agree that there is nothing that can explain why he did this. Even he says that. At the moment it no it's hurts more to know he did it because he wanted to, that he placed more worth on her than our 17 year marriage, me as his wife and our 6 kids. He did it because he wanted to, he enjoyed it any any guilt he claims he felt still wasn't enough to make him stop,after the first kiss that she initiated he pursued her and set up their meetings. Ashe was more than willing but he did it because he wantd to have sex with her.

I don't know how to ever recover from that. I don't want to live without him, but I don't know how I will ever not be devastated by this.

I want him to work out how he allowed himself permission to do it and thought it was acceptable to try to minimise the risk of him doing it again. But now I know he is capable of doing it, I question myself everyday why I stay. Stupidly as usual I guess I love him more than I despise him and his actions. But then I always think I loved him more.

I just don't want to be in this anymore, not the marriage but my life.

Interesting perspective from Sri. Bare, ugly truth.

This thread tailed off right around my first Dday, before I discovered SI.

(((StunnedMullet))). Hang in there. Sometimes its just so hard to take, isn't it.

[This message edited by Crushed15Feb13 at 10:29 PM, September 16th (Tuesday)]

Thank you for bumping this. I have been having a very hard time the last couple of days. I could never understand HOW my WS could cheat like he did for all those years. It never made sense. He was always such a kind and generous person. Everyone liked and respected him. A real stand up guy. But, he wasn't, was he? And he even told me it was easy to do. He was disgusted with himself but he always did it again. And I always felt it was because he wanted it. He didn't give a shit about me. It was all about him. The only problem is now, how do I live with this man, this monster? Because anyone who would do this over and over with no regard for me, is a monster. Make no mistake about that. And who would want to live with a monster?

I had not seen this post until this morning. It speaks the same language I have told my WW. She had a LTA with a COW which started when we were married 25 years and our youngest daughter started university (all three daughters out of the nest). I think she felt freedom to do anything she wanted.

I do want the "whys" and the "hows". I think she needs to find this out in order for her to heal and in order for me to see that there will be some measure in safety with a continued relationship with her. She started an EA with a COW that she supervised. Within 3 months it had moved to a PA involving touching and kissing. I became convinced that something was very wrong. I confronted. Lies and more lies. I convinced her to start IC. She did. Six months later sex started while she was in IC. IC the day of the first sex (1.5 hour appointment before meeting him). IC 3 days later - another 1.5 hour appointment. The IC subtley gave her permission to continue with adultery and "go all the way". The f**king continued on a minimum of once weekly basis (every night when travelling together) for 3 more years. It ended. Why? She got tired of him. Not morals, guilt, conscience epiphany. There were no cell phone records because she told him not to phone her. He was seperated from his 2nd wife because she caught him committing adultery through cell phone records. There was only sex. No gifts, no closeness, no tenderness, no little gifts, no dinners, nothing. Just get together and f**k and don't make it last very long.

So, the "whys" and "hows" are important to me that she find out for her healing and to provide me with some sence of safety with her. (Never completely safe again..ever again..or with anyone else, either.) The big reason or why is that she found him physically attractive and he was "nice" to her. He made her very horny. There was opportunity because they worked together and travelled together and his place was 5 minutes away from work. I t was well considered and thought out. It was a deliberate and conscious decision. The first physical touch was 3+ months after awareness. The first sex was 6.5 months later. Lots of togetherness and enjoying each other on the sly to get to that point. Then 3 more years of very frequesnt and regular sex - all of it taking less than an hour together and most not much more than 1/2 an hour. A few nooners. Opportunity, desire, lust, I want to, I can get away with it, so I will do it. Even when my BS confronts me and I lie and deny I still think that I can get away with it. Those are the real "whys".

Like I said, I hadn't seen this thread before. Thanks for bringing it forward. It supports what I have said to my WW. I am not alone thinking this. Many people have issues. I think most people have issues. Only some feel they have the right to find a soother elsewhere.

I have after one year of searching for that why, have came to the same conclusion. I asked WH why again the other night. He said "sometimes there just might not be a why". Sounds spot on to me. He has owned it and I don't think there could be a much more honest answer. Any why he comes up with will NEVER be good enough. He wanted to do it at the time, and nothing I could do would change that. There just simply is never a good enough why when being honest with each other.

It totally get it too.

And, I agree, all the why's and reasons are simply excuses.

Worse those excuses mentioned are all simply a way to blame the Loyal spouse.