SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Did she communicate these unmet needs to you before straying?

There's more to it than that - flip the coin.

Before WW's LTA - I KNEW we had problems, and I WAS INCREDIBLY UNHAPPY. I tried for years to get her to work with me to make our marriage better. I wanted a better, emotionally close relationship with her, but everything she did pushed me away. (and no, her affair hadn't started yet) WW was verbally abusive, she even broke some of my things.

Every single thing she complained about I tried to change for the better. I worked too much - so I changed my hours so I would always be at home on weekends... then when that wasn't enough, I started working from home. She complained that we never did anything fun - so we started going out on weekends, and when we could get her mother to look after the kids, we went to Vegas, and even took vacations in Europe together.

I didn't realize it then, but she was a black-hole of need. Whatever I did it was never enough. Maybe I should have been the one to cheat then huh? I was belittled, she would take off on her own on weekends sometimes because she didn't want to be around me, she yelled and screamed at me all the time, and the more I tried to fix things the angrier she became. I had TONS of unmet needs - and guess what I never cheated.

This unmet needs stuff is just [insert a word I shouldn't say here].

So...I get it. The “she cheated because I neglected her” serves both of you. She gets to blaimshift and put some of the responsibility for what she has done on you. For you, you get to maintain an illusion of control.

If her cheating was the result of something YOU did then can ensure it never happens again. You will love her correctly, or give her the attention and affection she deserves and you will live happily ever after.

But the reality is that you don’t control anything. If you feel you should treat her differently because if who you are or what she deserves or treat other women in future relationships differently, then by all means do so. But do it because of the person you want to be. Do it because of how you feel about that person. Don’t do it because you think it will have any impact in their behavior because it likely won’t.

People cheat because they are neglected. People cheat because they are smothered. People cheat because their spouse is a doormat who they don’t respect. Because their spouse is controlling...Notice a pattern here?

If you had loved her just right she would have cheated for another reason. I fear that this blameshigting and rug sweeping while it may be easier to live without th for you, is going to get in the way of real healing and progress

If she was a trained marriage therapist, and had told me all of her unmet needs, and had let me know about all of our other problems, we would not be in this shitty shape would we?

People cheat because they want to. That to me is the bottom level of it.

Someone appealing comes along.

They can get away with cheating.

So they cheat.

Whatever we do or don't do doesn't make a lot of difference. Could we become better spouses? Sure - and that would be great, but that won't keep them faithful.

I believe this:

If her cheating was the result of something YOU did then can ensure it never happens again. You will love her correctly, or give her the attention and affection she deserves and you will live happily ever after.

Is something a lot of us grasp soon after Dday. We don't want to be hurt this way again, so we take responsibility for causing the affair, and thereby feel we can control whether it happens again.

When a WS promotes or allows this belief, it is IMO just another layer of abuse.

Ironically it appears the author had a long and happy marriage:

Early in their married life, Robert and Ella Wheeler Wilcox promised each other that whoever went first through death would return and communicate with the other. Robert Wilcox died in 1916, after over thirty years of marriage. She was overcome with grief, which became ever more intense as week after week went without any message from him. It was at this time that she went to California to see the Rosicrucian astrologer, Max Heindel, still seeking help in her sorrow, still unable to understand why she had no word from her Robert. She wrote of this meeting:

In talking with Max Heindel, the leader of the Rosicrucian Philosophy in California, he made very clear to me the effect of intense grief. Mr. Heindel assured me that I would come in touch with the spirit of my husband when I learned to control my sorrow. I replied that it seemed strange to me that an omnipotent God could not send a flash of his light into a suffering soul to bring its conviction when most needed. Did you ever stand beside a clear pool of water, asked Mr. Heindel, and see the trees and skies repeated therein? And did you ever cast a stone into that pool and see it clouded and turmoiled, so it gave no reflection? Yet the skies and trees were waiting above to be reflected when the waters grew calm. So God and your husband's spirit wait to show themselves to you when the turbulence of sorrow is quieted.

Jimmy1962 I wish you all the best on your journey. It is no one else's journey but yours.

If she’s been faithful for twenty years, she’s proven that she can be a safe partner.

It is good you own up to your shortcomings. But don’t make excuses for hers. You each have to own your shortcomings in order to grow.

If she was a trained marriage therapist, and had told me all of her unmet needs, and had let me know about all of our other problems, we would not be in this shitty shape would we?

If she were a trained therapist she would have known that heaping adultery into the pile would have been the worst thing a person can do in that situation. My wife and I had this conversation shortly after Day. She commented something to the affect of "we needed a wake up call in our marriage. "

I said something to the effect of " I agree we did , however we would have stood a better chance of building a healthy marriage if we would have worked on our problems like normal people instead of fucking someone else to get my attention. Now I know what you are capable of ."

You have to stop taking on blame that you are responsible creating this mess. There is the marital problems that most people work through , then there is the shit show that is infidelity . Your wife has to own 100 percent of what she did to you and to the marriage.

How would it make you feel if you knew your wife would probably cheat if she became unhappy? What we are talking about is piss poor coping skills.

A couple of things:

Ella Wilcox is quite famous if you know poetry at all. She wrote that poem that began:

"Laugh, and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone."

Second, and someone else has mentioned this, she was reportedly happily married. So she isn't necessarily writing from her own experience.

Third, even if she IS writing from her or someone else's experience, it was over 100 years ago. Divorce was not an easy thing to get. The poem says she DID communicate, he brushed her off. Doesn't make the cheating OK, but look at it at least through the lens of the times.

Lastly, why all the shit on Jimmy because he's worked on himself? Don't we all in R try to do that? I commend him, myself.

Lately there's been several posts about the sex demands of BH in R. At least one post said "We have sex about once per week. That's not nearly enough". In other words, for R to happen, WW was expected to meet BH's needs. Fair enough.

Is it not reasonable to think that in R BH also needs to meet WW's needs? Or is it to be a series of punishments for as long as they both shall live? At some point real R means you are both trying to meet each others needs.

AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Real life intrudes, of course, and feeling like your needs are unmet is NO excuse to stray. But the point of R is that you are TRYING.

I don't know about faithful for 20 years proving a partner is safe. My WW cheated on me before marriage with 4 different men. I didn't know. She was faithful for 25 years then a physically attractive COW she supervised caught her eye. This is after being a self professed born again Christian. She committed adultery for 4 years and only quit because of a career location move. I found out 7 years later. 25 years didn't make any difference. There seems to be many on SI whose marriages were a long way into double digits before the WS decided to get some on the side. They were faithful until then. Were they? Really? Emotionally and committed?

Like nightmare I wanted a better, emotionally close relationship but my WW pushed me away. None of my top needs (His Needs, Her Needs) were being met very well. All of WW's were. She cheated, I didn't.

Issues began to surface in our marriage. She didn't want to deal with them. I wanted for her to get help because I started to believe that there was a lot in her childhood that was affecting her. There was nothing wrong with her so it had to be me that was the problem.

Cheating is opportunity, appealing partner, they think they can get away with it so they cheat.

Feeling your needs aren't being met is no excuse to cheat. The point of a marriage is that at least you are engaged, investing, working hard on it and trying. Marriage is hard work. Cheating seems to be easier than doing the work.

Jimmy;

2 months after DDay I too said exactly what you are saying. In fact I remember a conversation with WW where I said;

"I drove you there, hell, I showered you, dressed you, put you in the car, drove you to his house, walked you to the door, knocked on the door, gave you a condom and said i'll be back in an hour. You are responsible for what you did then, BUT with my actions I am responsible for getting you there..."

These are the "actions" I felt responsible for;

No PDA

No holding hands

Falling asleep by 430pm so WW had to cook dinner on her own.

WW was fed up of looking at the back of my head every evening while I was on the computer.

She went shopping/school run etc on her own.

I didn't trust her.

I always checked up on her when I was at work.

I treated her like a child.

I wasn't fun; but too responsible.

I was often angry.

I didn't listen to her.

I only told her I loved her because I had to.

I only wanted her for sex.

There were more but these were the main ones, and apart from the last two, were pretty much true. As you can see her life was pretty much a misery....

So fast forward maybe a year and we are discussing the above, and she suddenly looks at me with pure horror and shock on her face, falls onto a chair and starts sobbing "oh my God, it was over nothing, oh my God it was bullshit" over and over again.

We had agreed on the reality of my actions;

No PDA

This is true... but a man can only be ridiculed for so long for being soppy. I wouldn't disrespect her wishes when she showed she was uncomfortable in public. I learn't the hard way to keep my hands to myself.

Falling asleep by 430pm so WW had to cook dinner on her own.

Again true, but I had been up since 4am, worked a mentally demanding job, drove an hour home, helped the kids with their homework all while WW was playing on the computer. half the time I would wake around six my DD cuddled up beside me with WW still on the PC and have to remind WW of the time and the kids needed feeding. I wasn't allowed to cook; "its MY kitchen". Its true I did set the kitchen on fire once when cooking, and I was NEVER allowed to forget it.

WW was fed up of looking at the back of my head every evening while I was on the computer.

Not every evening but pretty often, I couldn't get near it at any other time of the day as WW would be on it. It was pretty much the only company I had, WW would be engrossed with her phone or TV.

She went shopping/school run etc on her own.

True, But I always asked her "do you want me to come with you or do you need time alone". I was sometimes allowed to give her a lift in the car. I asked her where I was everytime she got home, her answer was "in the kitchen putting the kettle on for me", I asked her where she was everytime I got home from work; "sat in front of the TV on my phone."

I didn't trust her.

This was because every time we parted company I always said "Be careful please". I've always told her its my magic talisman, if I say it then everything will be ok, the one time I don't say it then something bad will happen, and that it wasn't her I didn't trust but all the other assholes out there. But my explanation didn't fit with her perception of me at the time so she dismissed it.

I always checked up on her when I was at work.

I just wanted to hear her voice and know she was ok, reassurance that nothing bad had happened.

I treated her like a child.

I wasn't fun; but too responsible.

Yup I did and yes and yes. Unfortunately I believed someone had to be the parent, someone had to be careful, someone had to be there ready in case something bad happened. How you act, so you are treated.

I was often angry.

I didn't listen to her.

Six words; "I'm fine." "I'M FINE." "I'M FINE!!" Usually in response to my "are you OK?" "whats up?" "can I help?".

I only told her I loved her because I had to.

I asked her if I was an honest person, she told me I was the most honest person she had ever known, and then the penny dropped. Apparently I said it so often it just couldn't be true, and it didn't fit with the ogre she "wanted" me to be...

I only wanted her for sex.

She saw every physical contact as me asking for sex, I just craved contact. Physical touch being my primary love language, turns out that hers is too, now, but she had repressed it due to FOO issues.

The moral of all that I just wrote? (apart from it being cathartic for me).

It took us a long time to move from the "I drove you to it" to understanding the reality of the situation without our personal bias influencing us. Most of the time it wasn't that WW rewrote the marriage history, but that her perception at the time was off kilter.

One further thing to add.

Naturally we talked about how I perceived her and her actions pre-A and the reality of them.

Her conclusion was a stunned shake of the head and the question;

"why wasn't it you? why didn't you have the A's?"

My answer;

"Because I love you, always have always will. I wanted US to be happy, not just me....."

Hope all this helps someone somewhere....

I caution about taking on too much responsibility about marital issues before the adultery issues are dealt with.

steadychevy

I am not taking responsibility for her affair, I am simply acknowledging my part in our relationship issues.

I'm not quite sure why people can't understand that when someone takes responsibility for their part in a bad marriage but REFUSE to take responsibility for their BS's A, that's it. They still accuse the BS of taking responsibility for the A. It boggles the mind. What part don't you understand?

I've spent a lot of time on this site and I've come to realize that people who did/do NOT have a remorseful spouse cannot believe that it can actually happen. Maybe because there are many who pretend to be remorseful but end up eventually showing their true colors.

However, there are truly remorseful spouses out there. I know. I have one. I believe Jimmy does too.

imokay

I am happy to see that you clearly understand my post.

Life is way too damn short.

It is okay to be bitter and angry about what happened along the way too. As long as you're taking on the the tougher emotions head on as well -- and not bury them, I think it makes possible to get to some of those happy moments or at least enjoy them more when they happen.

It is unique when we discover infidelities from a couple decades ago, despite the pain being brand new. It is tougher to describe sometimes as we start to see how long it is been with some good days in between.

And, I don't see you taking blame for the affair, just recognizing what it is was that contributed to the distance in your relationship before your wife selfishly made her own bad choices.

oldwounds

I have never read a comment of yours on my or any others post that I did not like. You seem to always have wise words!

You've mentioned more than once that she tried to tell you how she was feeling, but it was always while you were on the phone, otherwise occupied. Then would get mad at you because you didn't immediately hang up when she came to you

hellfire

My wife wanted to have my attention. I spent a lot of time on the phone for no good reason. I would talk to people at restaurants, the grocery, the mall, while we were grilling outside, I was a big talker. I told stories and they were long ones. All the while my wife was feeling ignored, she felt unimportant to me. My wife wanted, no, she needed my attention. I could always work in a long story but did not have much time for my wife. We had no friends, we only had each other. When I pushed her aside, she had no one.

So...I get it. The “she cheated because I neglected her” serves both of you. She gets to blaimshift and put some of the responsibility for what she has done on you. For you, you get to maintain an illusion of control.

If her cheating was the result of something YOU did then can ensure it never happens again. You will love her correctly, or give her the attention and affection she deserves and you will live happily ever after.

MakingMyFuture

I guess that I am a bad communicator. My wife had an affair, she is guilty of that, she is responsible for that. I dropped the ball, I stopped making her feel important, I let her feel lonely, for that I am guilty. If I had continued to be the man that she married and not the man that she ended up with, she never would have noticed him.

About the poem.

I do not see it as blame shifting.

I see it as a persons point of view. To me it states how she felt, what was going on in her mind and in her heart. We all have a point of view.

AN UNFAITHFUL WIFE TO HER HUSBAND

"Me me me me me me

me me me me me me.

Me me me me me me.

My needs, my needs

My needs, my neeeeeeds!

Me me me me me me

Me me me me me me.

ILYBINILWY.

Just friends.

It's your fault.

It was because of you.

You weren't there.

You didn't love me anymore.

What about how I feel?

Me me me me me me

me me me me me me.

Why does everything have to be about you?

Me."

Reality Truth

Written around Beginning of Time.

[This message edited by keptmyword at 1:27 PM, November 12th (Sunday)]

Who on earth can fight that off?

Any man or woman with a shred of integrity, self-respect, and who gives a fuck about how not destroying their children's lives.

Any man or woman who is not an excuse-filled, weak-willed, weak-minded, weak-hearted, pathetic, self-seen victim of their own low self-esteem.

That's who.

Perhaps we should just change the traditional marriage ceremony from taking sacred vows,to a simple exchange of our individual needs. Humans have not changed since the beginning of time.People are either givers or takers.The givers are the people you see at gatherings who are hustling around doing all the work. The takers are the ones sitting on there butts complaining loudly about anything and everything.

People who are so damn upset about not getting there needs met, would be better off pondering why they are so needy.

Jimmy, I see you heading down a dark road.

In another thread you talk about messing with om. Maybe this is too much info ... But I went to the apartment of om precisely to kill him. I planned on duct taping his hands and feet and literally torturing him with a knife, waterboarding, and a host of other stuff. I got by 3 security doors and to his door but he wasn't home. So i went to his work (bartender) with the modified plan of getting him at bar close and just planting a knife in his throat and sawing my way out. Then disappear into the darkness. I guessed my chances at getting found out to be at about 1% and figured even if I were I could do the 5-7 years in an Italian prison quite easily and that it would be worth it. But I didn't think I'd get caught. I was well trained by uncle Sam to run ops and not get caught.

But he wasn't a work either. He had been fired and then moved. I found his new job and went there too with the plan of following him home, setting an ambush another night, and then killing him - unless I got an opportunity. But honestly I wanted to keep him alive with me and a knife for a few days.

But he had been fired from there too. I realized researching left a trail so

i decided to give it a few years and then get him. I'm a patient man.

Its been a few years now. But you know I've decided hes just not worth it. If it hadnt been him it would have been some other guy. The problem wasn't really him, he's interchangeable with any other pond scum.

Think on that.

If your om had not seen a chance he would have stopped. If he'd never come in then some other guy would have and persisted and eventually it would have happened. Predators seek the weak and easy target. Your wife was weak and easy. If it hadnt been this guy the next predator along or the one after or the one after, etc. She was weak and easy and predators sense it and it draws them.

A key point is she was weak and easy and available to anyone who was willing to wear her down. Why be mad at someone when it could have been anyone?

Your wife was weak and easy. Did you contribute to her being so? Maybe, probably, sure. Somewhere in there - for all of us.

But So do lots of other things. Working a mundane or stressful job, life becoming drab and gray, boredom, lack of intimacy due to life pressures, wanting an escape, entitlement, resentment ... The list is endless and each WS can add to the list their little lists. Your wife had her list too.

BT here is another key point. We ALL have those issues. We all have and experience life and its little joys and disappointments. We all do. Bs have their little lists as well. Funny enough reading those lists reveals they are identical to the WS lists.

In groundhog day (the film) bill Murray asks two guys in a bar 'do you have any idea what its like when everyday is identical and nothing you do can make a difference' and one replies 'that about sums up my life'. It sums up just about the life of everyone, ever.

Except most people don't betray their spouse, family, vows, and self by deciding and choosing to have an affair.

But your wife did. That's the main issue.

Your anger at om and desire for revenge are understandable but also blame shifting away from your wife (you love her and this is a normal stage to protect yourself and your view of her) and ultimately is futile.

Your wife chose to have an affair. That's core. The rest (who with) isn't.

You are avoiding the core issue preferring to focus on om instead. Focusing on your errors (good to an extent) while using those errors to absolve her of her decisions.

Finally, you are going to get killed or go to jail in regards to om. They have a paper trail leading right to you. He can kill you and claim self defense and go cry tears at your funeral and have people pat his back and tell him he did the right thing. Think on that. Not only is he unworthy of your time you upped the ante and put your life in his hands. Jesus, what were you thinking? Smh