SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

The oldest excuse in the book. "You didn't fulfill every need so I had to get it fulfilled elsewhere".

No.

Marital problems won't turn a person into a cheater. Just like financial problems won't turn someone into a thief!

How you respond to a problem is a reflection on who you are, and when someone's response is so fundamentally fucked up it's because THEY are fundamentally fucked up. It's the not the situation that creates the affair.

"problems in the marriage that send the couple on a trajectory to divorce also send one (or both) of them looking for intimate connection outside the marriage. Most marital therapists who write about extramarital affairs find that these trysts are usually not about sex but about seeking friendship, support, understanding, respect, attention, caring, and concern - the kind of things that marriage is supposed to offer."

Yes, a M in trouble leaves both partners emotionally isolated. At some point they need to commit to reconnecting emotionally, or D'ing so they can find someone else to reconnect with...IN THAT ORDER.

Gottman implies that married people have no choice but to go outside the M for emotional bonding when their M is in trouble.

He is WRONG. Seeking emotional bonds (and/or sex) with people other than your spouse, is WRONG, no matter how broken the M is.

He doesn't address the promises people make to each other on their wedding day, and that they are broken when a person CHOOSES infidelity. He doesn't address the deceit of infidelity.

My wife's affair started before she met me. Maybe my lack of existence in her life had something to do with that empty tank?

How you respond to a problem is a reflection on who you are, and when someone's response is so fundamentally fucked up it's because THEY are fundamentally fucked up. It's the not the situation that creates the affair.

Love it, House. Well put.

We still have to work this out in MC, but I think what broke my wife was the tension between the risk of losing me forever and the intolerable pain and anger she felt from years of me rugsweeping her concerns and gaslighting her. She couldn't bear the thought of not being with me, and that fear drove her to make a Monumentally Fucking Stupid Choice. (MFSC, soon to be trademarked)

Understanding this is helping me clear the way to eventual R, if we stay in MC and we're able to work through the pain on both sides.

People like yourself here at SI are instrumental in saving both marriages and the people in them, by the way. Thank you, and everyone here at SI.

The real question is why does your WH respond to a perceived lack of attention from his spouse by looking for attention elsewhere rather than dealing with his spouse?

And the answer often is that...it's the path of least resistance.

It's easier to start fresh with someone who doesn't know the WS, all their faults, their shortcomings, their annoyances. They get all they want within that bubble with only their charm and possibly good looks. This AP never sees them digging in their nose, leave dirty cups laying around the house and their inability to make simple, timely decisions.

The WS gets all the EGO tank filled with ZERO effort.

If it were that easy to keep a marriage going, no one would ever divorce.

Basically, imo, the WS is just too lazy to put in the effort, too lazy to go to counseling to learn ways to put in the effort, or too lazy to file for divorce before they move on.

Lazy/scared/conflict avoidant. Whatever. Issues or no issues- I think the marriage vows are pretty clear when it comes to infidelity. There's no valid reason to do it.

Fuck that love tank stuff, I want a sex jet. With lasers.

Anyway, the idea that an affair is a response to an empty love tank somehow loses the intermediary connection of "WRONG" there. A) EMPTY LOVE TANK - B)WRONG - C)RESPONSE

A to C skips B. We can swap out B with all sorts of shit, from divorce to counseling.

I'd tell him that the book you choose to read and discuss with him is "Not Just Friends" and unless he reads that one, there is no reconciliation. I would not accept him reading a book that allowed him to blame the marriage for his choice to cheat.

Using the logic that problems in the marriage cause affairs, then every marriage is looking at an affair. But, that is not true. Why?

All marriages have some kind of problem because the union is made up of fallible humans. Marriages cannot be affair proofed because every single one of us comes from a different beginning. What would send you over the edge would be every day life for someone else that would never cheat. Affairs come from poor coping mechanisms to life's everyday, mundane issues. No matter how much a spouse "works" on the marriage, they cannot "work"on their marriage partner's internal compass. Sooner or later the possibility of dipping outside the marriage will present itself. The outcome depends on each person, not how much the other partner has done or not done. The cheater owns it and should claim it.