OIN: “dwell and obsess about what the OM took from them, that he won, that he bested them”
CT: “There's something whiffy about the idea that a man validates his ego via sexual dominance over a female, even when that female is his wife. A healthy ego shouldn't be that fragile.”
Frankly, I find both of those comments to be infused with more than a little misandry. There may be men like that in the world (the news has been swirling for months about a couple of prominent ones), but I don’t personally know those men, and I don’t perceive that any of the active posters on this thread fall into that category.
Back to my cake analogy for a bit. Most men enjoy variety and imagination in their cakes. When we marry, we usually end up with a repetitious, sometimes limited menu of the same cakes over and over, for life. Giving up the possibility of a life of cake variety and imagination is part of what we men do when we marry. We support and protect and uplift our spouse and put thoughts of other women, baking other imaginative cakes, out of our minds.
What bothers most BH’s when our wives cheat isn’t the fact that another man “took” his cake (it’s easy enough to bake another), nor is it a rumination about how much enjoyment his WW took from baking cakes for another man. Rather, it is the fact that his WW injected brio and energy and imagination into baking fanciful, tasty cakes for another man, cakes that the BH himself would have enjoyed had she baked them for him. We, as BH’s, could be enjoying a variety of cakes from a variety of women if we hadn’t married. The WW is giving the AP the “single man experience” (i.e. the “GFE”) that we ourselves have foregone.
My point is that, for most men, the degree to which this is a factor impacts the ability of a BH to R.
In WWTL’s circumstance, he and his WW had developed an intimate and mutually pleasing palette of cakes, pleasing to the palate, a selection that they would lovingly bake together to their mutual pleasure: some layer cake, some pineapple upside-down, some angel food. Then, when she cheated, his WW invested frenetic energy serving up a pallet of wildly imaginative and creative cakes to the AP, whatever outrageous cake he requested, even if was humiliating to her to deliver them. He wanted, she delivered like the Great British Bake Off.
What husband would not like that sort of service, even if just once a year on his birthday or such? In WWTL’s case, it was even worse because, in her zeal to provide cakes to the AP, she started cutting corners in the cakes she baked with WWTL, even going so far as to assemble his cake with the used remains of one of AP’s cakes and literally feed WWTL with cum-stained remains of one of AP’s cakes, all so that she could avoid having her bubble popped.
Who does that, even to an enemy? Any decent person, no matter how awful the consequences, should have said: “Stop! Don’t eat that cake!”
We talk about “the fog” here on SI a lot. I’m not a believer in that concept, mainly because of the implication of some external factor impacting the cognitive abilities of the WS. This is a perfect example. WWTL’s WW decided that she would rather see her husband eat that cake than face consequences for her choices.
I completely understand why WWTL could not reconcile. No amount of remorse by a WW could reverse the impact of knowing that the woman you are looking at is a woman who made that choice. No amount of trying to bring the Great British Bake Off to the marital bedroom post-Dday is going to erase the the fact that she chose first to bring this to another man outside the marriage (but also in the marital bedroom, with photos of the family staring down at them). Some choices are simply irrevocable.
Edited later: As Devastated Dee says so aptly, below, it's not about the AP "winning" or "taking something". It's about the BS losing. Some losses that are foisted upon the BH by the WW are just too profound to ever come back from.
Since I’m on this analogy, let’s talk about FG. Prior to his marriage, FG was somewhat of a rake, raking in the cake. In his marriage, it’s strictly pound cake, or nothing. Every once in a while, maybe a teaspoon of a la mode on the side. He has accepted this limit as one of the compromises a married man makes in his sex life. In her A, with the AP, it was also strictly pound cake. The same damn pound cake she always serves up. With his WW, it’s basically pound cake or nothing.
Nonetheless, I can fully understand his lingering injury. If he’s going to commit to a diet restricted to just pound cake, he’s doing it because of the sacred covenant of marriage, including a pledge of fidelity. But his wife didn’t honor her end of the bargain. She didn’t carry her weight. FG is still stuck with the pound cake diet, but he doesn’t have a faithful wife in exchange. He’s not getting what he thought he was promised, yet he’s giving exactly what he promised.
WWTL left his marriage because it was his only alternative. I realize FG could also choose to leave his marriage one day, or stray and become a MH, and I frankly would not blame him for doing either. In a marriage post-infidelity, every day brings that decision point to a BS. Every day, for life. I would reckon there are not many BS's who don't ask themselves some version of "why do I stay in this marriage" almost every time they look in the mirror.
Back to my initial point about the misandry embedded in the two quoted statements, I have seen plenty of threads here by BWs who express very similar sentiments of sexual humiliation by physical aspects of their WH’s A. A WH who has ED in the marital bed, but is dangling wet bath towels from Tumescent Tommy in the cell phone snaps taken at the Motel 6 with the young and pneumatic Coquette. Etc. In other words, sexual humiliation might be experienced more widely amongst males, but it’s not universally male, and it’s most definitely NOT about dominance, ownership, or control of the WW.
[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 9:09 AM, September 3rd (Thursday)]
