SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am not a big Willard Harley fan. But, he did claim to have surveyed betrayed spouses that had been raped. He says he also included betrayed spouses who had lost a child.

He claims that virtually every one said getting over the cheating was tougher.

Now, here is where a distinction needs to be made between trying to quantify pain, and compare it. I would bet that any BS, given the choice, would undergo the betrayal vs losing a child. I know my pain would be immensely greater if one of my children died.

BUT, Harley is not claiming the pain of betrayal is greater. He is claiming the recovery is tougher. Same as regards rape ( and, BTW, I was molested as an 11 year old, so I have some frame of reference).

He claims infidelity is a tougher recovery for a number of reasons, some already menin this thread.

First, there is the volitional component. You are intentionally betrayed vs no intention when a child dies. You have no doubts re your child's s love for you or that you played a role, usually. Not so with infidelity.

Second, as someone already pointed out, there is much more support for a grieving parent. There is a funeral, a wake, folks console you, bring casseroles etc. Rape is a bit different, but still, there is much more support.

With infidelity, folks are upset if you are not over it in a few weeks( I mean Erica on All My Children was, right?). Everyone seems to understand the severity of the trauma of rape or loss of a child. Not so infidelity.

Third, with the loss of a child not all your past memories are vitiated. You do not look at your photos of the family trip to Disneyland and wonder if your child was faking loving you and enjoying being with you. With cheating, you do.

Finally, while I am positive that there are triggers with rape or loss of a child, with infidelity the reminder is always there in the form of your spouse.

The guy that molested me was a stranger. I had no trust relationship with him. Maybe that is why I think it was easier for me to get past.

And, again, I would take being cheated on any day vs harm coming to one of my kids. But, this recovery vs depth of pain distinction is what Harley was talking about, I think.

I agree with the premise, that adultery is abuse and no one should recommend R, at least at first or early on. Totally agree with that and often advocate that R should be off the table initially.

Adultery, unfortunately, inspires immediate rejection, jealousy, and a sense of competition. This is the extremely unfortunate side effect of being abused by someone in this way, the effect of immediately wanting your WS more (the Pick Me dance, hysterical bonding, etc.). Hysterical Bonding can be the most torturous mind f-ck ever, obsessively desiring the murderer of your heart. How do we quell people's feelings of wanting to win, of not wanting to lose?

It is only with distance and IC that many BS begin to realize that those initial emotions may have preserved the M but they soiled their own soul. Many of us look back at the Pick Me dance as disgusting, pathetic, weak. I will never, EVER value the M more than I value myself again. I hate who I was.

No, it's abuse. But I blame myself because I let my H abuse me in big and small ways. He knew I didn't value myself, wouldn't walk away. Like any abused spouse? Probably. In Lundy Bancroft's book Why Does He Do That? he talks about working with abused spouses rather than abusers because they have more luck enlightening them. "It is easier to change the abused and get them to stop allowing this treatment than it is to get abusers to stop." Yep, same here. So I guess it is all the same.

[This message edited by OwningItNow at 9:43 PM, September 30th (Wednesday)]

I really appreciate the substantive discussion here. I appreciate everyone’s contributions. Just wanted to say that.

Yeah, GMC, there seem to be different studies about the incidence. But, clearly, there is a significant amount of female on male violence,whatever the ratio. Yet, almost invariably, when the analogy to physicalmviolence is made, the male pronoun is used to refer to the perpetrator.

Sorry for the t/ j.

Well, maybe another district up n between the abuse of infidelity and physic as l spousal abuse is the clandestine nature of infidelity and the resulting th theft of time.

When a woman beats her husband( did that intentionally), he knows it. It is immediately evident and he can take steps to protect himself. He can make an informed decision as to what to do.

With cheating, your spouse might be carrying on for years, unbeknownst to you. Precious time is bring stolen, your prime sexual years being depleted, especially when the cheater is withholding relations so as to be faithful to the affair partner.

Your physical attractiveness may be waning during this time, due to age and the extra stress and rigors of having to be, essentially, a single parent while your spouse is off all the time pursuing the AP.

So, when you finally find out, you are past your prime resulting in fewer opportunities to find another relationship.

So, while there may be an argument that malicious intent was lacking, one's inability to mitigate like one would have after being battered, is not as great.

Same with STD risk. If your wife is physically battering you, you know it and can take steps to avoid further physical injury. With cheating, one is often actually trying to do something, be physically intimate, that increases the risk of physical harm.

Distinction. Hate this autocorrect.

I'll assume that a physical affair is not only easier to prove but also easier to accept socially as abuse than say an EA.

For example the viewing of woman "models" online is what prompted my most recent thread. Wh isn't having sex with anyone and I'm sure if he brought up my displeasure at what hes doing with the guys he works with they would all call me jealous, hes just looking and it's a boys being boys thing. Even some woman I know say looking isnt a bad thing.

But it is a bad thing. Hes taking away energy from our relationship.

Getting that point across to the masses is like trying to convince a dog not to bark or sniff another dogs butt. Lol.

Getting that point across to the masses is like trying to convince a dog not to bark or sniff another dogs butt.

Hence my billboard ideas.

And Stinger does have a point - or at least one that resonates with me. I've been with my WH more than 1/2 of my life (oddly enough, dday was right at that "midpoint" of 1/2 of my life with WH), and he's been living some form of a secret life for pretty much the entire time. I will NEVER get those years back. There is no such thing as recompense for the lost time.

And like so many always say: It's not necessarily the sex that kills everything. It's the lies.

You can't lie about physical abuse.

It's the lies.

You can't lie about physical abuse.

Exactly. So seeing this abuse, admitting it, acknowledging it, feeling the anger and loss of it, takes time. The first feeling is rejection which instigates a "fight for what's mine" response, and then months or years later comes the acceptance of this abuse that was perpetrated, hundreds if not thousands of abusive actions you knew nothing about.

I think that this is why year two is often worse than year one and why the anger stage takes a while to arrive. This is also why a new BS frequently can't act to defend themselves yet. The first wave of feelings are rejection and fear; it's the second wave of feelings that kill the M unless confronted and the WS actively works to address them. Because you realize you are married to an abuser.

[This message edited by OwningItNow at 5:09 AM, October 1st (Thursday)]

I think that this is why year two is often worse than year one and why the anger stage takes a while to arrive. This is also why a new BS frequently can't act to defend themselves yet. The first wave of feelings are rejection and fear; it's the second wave of feelings that kill the M unless confronted and the WS actively works to address them. Because you realize you are married to an abuser.

Man, so insightful. This is what happened to me, and why I ended up finally posting on SI last year for the first time (which was around the 3-year mark of her having started her three month affair in 2016).

Somebody has to be contrarian here...

we see it said all the time "it's not about you" but of course it is

That's just wrong for must affairs, I'd say. Or its too broad a brush. Whatever the metaphor.

They want to live in their own private little world where you are a supporting actor, maybe without a last name.

There's a reason why so many lie about their affairs. It's because they don't want you to know.

When you punch someone in the face, it is definitely because you want them to know.

The idea that you mean so little to someone that they didn't take you into account is horrific and damaging all on its own, but it is just not the same thing as when they purposefully had an affair to hurt you. Which happens, of course, I remember the poster who lived overseas and the WH had a GasLight-palooza with the neighbor.

But lumping them together when they are not the same thing is a mistake.

And like so many always say: It's not necessarily the sex that kills everything. It's the lies.

This brought up something for me that parallels my CSA, rape and from my batterer. There is something really damaging about the lies and having to prove our truth. The gaslighting from my STBX such as being told I'm not seeing what I saw is similar to my half-brother who is the perpetrator of my CSA denying it and half of my family believe him and do not believe me. Same with the rape. When I came out with the rape half of my friends ditched me and called me a whore and 1/2 believed me. When I was battered by my ex-boyfriend those that saw my bruises believed me, but those that heard second-hand did not. My STBX's adultery brought all of these feeling back at once and the feelings of "I must have deserved this" were right under the surface.

[This message edited by crazyblindsided at 11:04 AM, October 1st (Thursday)]

Well, I'll be the contrarian to the contrarian.

In my case, and I think in the cases of many, the cheating is about the betrayed. The cheater has built up so much resentment over percieved grievances and deficiencies, that the cheating is,,essentially, a FU to the BS, an intentional FU.

BSR and her BH participated in some legendary rugsweeping if I'm reading their story right.

Indeed.

Now, here is where a distinction needs to be made between trying to quantify pain, and compare it. I would bet that any BS, given the choice, would undergo the betrayal vs losing a child. I know my pain would be immensely greater if one of my children died.

BUT, Harley is not claiming the pain of betrayal is greater. He is claiming the recovery is tougher.

Thank you for this analysis, Stinger. I admit that I often stay off threads where such comparisons are made, because I've lost two children, and there's a temptation to respond with, "Really? Ok, point to which of your kids you're willing to put in the ground in order to undo the affair, and then we'll talk some more." But this exploration of it not being a deeper pain, but rather a more complex recovery, makes a lot of sense to me. I'm definitely going to share it with my BH, because I know he has struggled with guilt over how debilitated he was by the affair as opposed to the deaths of our sons. It's not that the pain of the A was worse, but he was far less equipped to handle betrayal than grief.

Well, I'll be the contrarian to the contrarian.

In my case, and I think in the cases of many, the cheating is about the betrayed. The cheater has built up so much resentment over percieved grievances and deficiencies, that the cheating is,,essentially, a FU to the BS, an intentional FU.

Can I be a contrarian to the contrarian of the contrarian?

I do think that is the case for some affairs.

I also think that for me it was an unconscious FU to my husband. I was unaware I was holding those resentments until further introspection after my affair.

Either way, I think it exists when it's an exit. I consider my affair to have been an exit affair even though in the end I did not exit.

I think cake eaters are a completely different story and it's very much more about getting more rather than resentments and entitlements.

Affairs do have a lot of similar elements, but each one is composed of different common elements.

I don't think I am disagreeing, more saying it's more nuanced and varied than that.

Agree. That is why I said " in my case and I think many cases".

BSR, when I used to see the pain compared to loss of a child, I , too, balked. I think I am relatively tough, but know I could handle betrayal much better than losing one of my children.

And, I am not sure Harley actually does limit his analysis to Recovery being tougher. In fact, now that I think about it, I am pretty sure he does not and simply says the pain is greater. I agree, he is probably wrong on that, at least he would be in my case.

I hope you do show this to your husband. I bet there are other distinctions between the recoveries that I

did not think of and some may weigh in favor of the child loss recovery being tougher.

I do know, first hand that I recovered from the CSA faster and more easily, not that it was all that easy or complete.

Sorry about your children. I cannot imagine.

"Really? Ok, point to which of your kids you're willing to put in the ground in order to undo the affair, and then we'll talk some more."

Yeah, I can't imagine comparing being betrayed to the loss of a child. That's an entirely different level of loss magnitudes of order beyond marital fidelity. As empathetic as I like to think I am, the thought of it makes me literally ache with sadness all over.

I can only try to imagine the pain and I'm so deeply sorry you've had to endure that.

If someone was asking me to choose being betrayed by my wife or losing a child, no question which one I'd pick. I'd probably take it further and say, "can I also offer up an amputated limb just to make sure we're square about not taking away my child?"

I want to follow up on this, from my post.

The idea that you mean so little to someone that they didn't take you into account is horrific and damaging all on its own...

When someone is happy or angry with you, they care about you. You mean something to them. you are important enough that their life and yours are intertwined better or worse. You at least have their attention.

But when they don't care, when you are a bit player in their life (especially when you've tied Who You Are to them and believe they should feel the same) then you are meaningless, not worth caring about. It is a direct attack on your fundamental Self.

I believe this is why affairs are different and worse.

I dont have much to contribute (you guys have said so many amazing things I agree with on this thread) but I will chime in on this-

I do think my stbxww's affairs, at least the last few, were about me. I read the texts where she pretty much says that. I wouldn't be surprised if she would have been screaming "IMC is a lazy asshole" while having sex with her flavor of the week.

Edit: in regards to losing my child, I'd offer my own life first without a split second of hesitation. I am so deeply sorry for anyone who has ever experienced that kind of loss, and it shouldn't be compared to ANYTHING.

[This message edited by Idiotmcstupid at 1:08 PM, October 1st, 2020 (Thursday)]

What an interesting and introspective discussion. I love this and except that it would never fly, I'd love to see the Rule to join this website be that people have to read this thread. What insight into the thought processes that we go through trying to figure out how to repair our lives and how to heal.

And it also illustrates the important point that one size doesn't fit all because we all have different stories, we've all developed different coping mechanisms based on our life experiences and we all have our own world views. So it's only natural that what would work for one person won't work for another but as long as they all start from the premise that infidelity is abuse, their thought patterns are more likely to bring them to a place of healing and peace. At my age, what my XWH did WAS the worst possible thing he could have done to me. But I've never been physically abused so that's not part of my frame of reference. I just know that I'm old, I wasted my life supporting him, I allowed myself to become isolated and now I face my final years alone, very few friends and without the financial security I thought I had. So from my point of view, maybe I think getting beat up would've been easier because they could've given me pain pills while my bones healed. Naturally, I realize I'm simplifying it all but I'm just trying to make the point that the level of pain is not just dependent on the actual type of abuse but depends on a wide variety of factors.

(That said, I do believe physical assault is worse but that belief is not good for me because when I feel sorry for myself, I don't get angry at my situation because I immediately chide myself for daring to be upset over XX because look at poor CeCe, she has it even worse because XYZ happened to her.)

The human mind is an amazing thing. Thanks for all your posts, this has been a great read on a rainy afternoon and given me much to think about.