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Let's say that my wife and I own some very expensive antiques and China (the marriage). One day, my wife goes a bit nuts and starts to destroy these possessions (the affair). If I want to get even, would it be best for me to also start destroying these precious items (Revenge Affair)?

I see your point. I, and perhaps others, view ot another way. I view it more like this: a couple has a home together, have created a home together. The cheater burns thst house to the ground, and the spouse is greatly injured in the fire. The cheater is unhurt. If the spouse cheats as well, they are injuring the cheater.

The house is already destroyed. The cheater did this. And by cheating as well, the betrayed spouse is doing two things: evening the playong field, making the cheater feel as bad as the BS. The second thing a RA does is halt progress on rebuilding and perhaps cause the BS to feel guilt, further hampering progress

I would sympathize with the teenage girl. But, unless she did the killing while being raped ar while the dad was attempting to rape her, she would likely be charged with murder in the 1st or 2nd degree.

So even the law defines murder in different degrees.

I feel bad for BS who never were with anyone else. The WS was their one and only and now they are angry that person experienced all the emotions with someone else. BS has only ever had one person ever to share that with. Sometimes I see it when BS feels they gave up a rich wide choice of experiences for love and got treated as if that was nothing. So in both cases, the BS feels denied and their limiting themself to one person was not valued by WS.

I can see how someone feeling that might choose a RA without considering the consequences.

It never came up in my mind even though I had very little dating experience. My first thought was to save my relationship even though I'd been through years of neglect and gaslighting from my WS. I didn't feel anger, only more crushing sadness.

I wouldn't want to drag anyone else into a mess and also I couldn't be ok with myself and the stress of doing it would destroy me. I can't turn off my feelings and I fear becoming limerent with someone else. I know what that is and it's very hard to bear when you're with someone. You can be limerent without the other person even knowing. It can exist without any reciprocation at all. Trying to fight off the limerence and get it to stop is a special kind of endurance struggle. I feel for WS who have to do it as they try to R. It's so hard.

So just for that reason I wouldn't go anywhere near a RA.

I absolutely agree with this title.

1) I don’t see it as ‘evening the playing field’ I see it as losing the high ground. I’d rather be the better person.

2) The ‘excuses’ used are exactly the same as for the original WS’s affair, validation, revenge for real or imagined injustices, lack of attention... ad nauseam. If we’re passing a WS’s reasons off as pathetic excuses the same must be said of a RA.

3) If you class infidelity as abuse, then how does continuing the cycle of abuse fix anything?

4) I seriously doubt any WS who is then betrayed thinks ‘aha I GET it now, what a fool I’ve been!’ Their thought process is more likely to be ‘see I knew my BS was really cruel/vengeful/neglectful, I knew they ALWAYS wanted so and so, this is WHY I had my affair!!!’ I honestly think we’re deluded if we think a WS thought process would be anywhere else! Even if they’re crying over your vengeful act this is what I believe will be at the core.

5) My WHs affair did NOT imo ‘open my marriage’. An open marriage is agreed sexual conduct between two consenting adults. I do not consider myself in an open marriage because he secretly fucked another woman. I consider myself a victim of infidelity. I’m in a closed marriage, I made vows and I didn’t break them and won’t.

6) I think the saddest part about all of this talk of infidelity and revenge affairs is the lack of discussion around the damage done to the family unit and to our children. I rarely see them mentioned yet they watch everything and are aware of much much more than we can possibly imagine. I say that as a professional who has been lucky enough to work with children for nearly thirty years, My own children were in terrible pain after my husband’s infidelity. My priority was always them. Not making things worse by heading out to fuck someone else and adding another layer of toxicity on the already damaged family unit! My job was to break the cycle. THE PAIN STOPPED WITH ME.

These are just my thoughts on it.

We have certainly seen situations on SI that bring different degrees in affairs. Many members view EA’s as less harmful

than PA’s ie. “I wish my wife only had an Ea!”. We’ve had members whose WS was suffering from severe personality-changing mental disorders and that either led to cheating or the meds played a factor in the cheating. We’ve had members who suffered from sexual assault and in their trauma sought to regain their power through affairs.

However - in all of these different situations, while those members receive empathy for the unfortunate circumstances that contributed to poor decision making, they are always reminded that “having an affair was the wrong way to handle it.”

Regarding RA’s, I can empathize with the trauma being betrayed brings - many of us initially handled our pain in counter-productive ways - but it’s no different than other

affairs. “I’m so sorry your spouse cheated on you - we know the pain. Cheating in response was not the healthy nor moral way to deal with it.”

[This message edited by SI Staff at 12:59 AM, December 29th (Sunday)]

REVENGE AFFAIRS DON'T HELP ANYONE

Well this is a bold statement and at least in one case it most certainly saved my marraige.

The idea my W could have an A without a response is ludicrous, the options were either D or an RA, R would never have happened without the RA our relationship would have been to far out of balance.

Forgiveness is all well and good but with forgiveness comes retribution otherwise you have the mind movies and the feeling your spouse got away with it.

saved my marraige.

You mean re-established dominance and control in your unhealthy marriage? Then yes, your revenge did that.

I could be wrong, but overall it seems that people who have RAs do it instead of introspection or work on themselves or seeking guidance and support from a professional. If someone is not open to seeing their faults or working with an IC on their emotions and/or Whys, it would be impossible for them to see the err of their ways. Just like every other blame shifting and unremorseful WS.

A marriage continuing and a healthy marriage continuing are two different things.

This thread is simply comprised of unremorseful WS justifying their cheating; it doesn't matter that they were BS first. And as we all know, many WS never become remorseful. It requires a lot of emotional intelligence and self-knowledge and hard work, and many WS are not capable of that type of self-analysis. It's always easier to look at others as wrong and keep the magnifying glass off of themselves. The victim mentality is common whether WS or BS turned WS.

In the end, cheaters who would rather justify than reflect cannot be helped. So I'm gonna 180 this thread now and reclaim my emotional energy.

[This message edited by OwningItNow at 6:12 AM, December 29th (Sunday)]

I haven’t read all the responses.

I had revenge affair thoughts immediately after dday so I understand where the desire for revenge comes from. I wanted wh to feel what I felt but I also knew that he would never feel it like I did for several reasons.

He would never be blind sided like I was. There would be a part of him expecting it.

He wouldn’t feel as betrayed as me because clearly he didn’t value fidelity like I do.

His feelings for me were clearly disposable enough to share himself with someone else.

There was also a part of me that wanted to feel that new and exciting feeling for someone else. A part of me that also needed to hear that I was worth something and that I was attractive even if my why’s actions made me feel otherwise.

We bs’s are severely traumatized in dday so for us to think about doing something we normally would never think about doing is probably fairly normal.

The desire for revenge seems to be something that a lot if not most of us desire.

So I understand how and why revenge affairs happen and while affairs are just affairs, I do believe some can be considered revenge because some of us would never do it except for the desire for revenge after being severely traumatized.

Thankfully for me, I knew I shouldn’t act on impulse. I shouldn’t act in sheer desire for revenge. I am someone who thinks things through to the outcome before acting-something my wh has admitted has never occurred to him to do. For me, acting out for revenge would equal harming myself. I would be betraying my own integrity. I would have been putting aside my beliefs to try to hurt someone that I still loved even though they couldn’t have hurt me anymore than they had. It wouldn’t fix anything for me. It would be lowering myself to try to hurt him like he hurt me. Except, my wh had a lta and I really would need a lot of time to even that particular score and that is a long time to act against my beliefs. That is a long time to betray myself. I had already been betrayed by my wh, there was no way I was going to hurt myself further by betraying my beliefs. That is literally the only way to hurt me more than I already had been. His actions were not going to reduce me to hurting myself more.

So, while that feeling came and went over the years many times, I feel like honoring my own integrity and keeping to my beliefs was as important to my healing as anything else I have done.

I asked wh what he would have done if it had been me who cheated. All he could say was that he hoped he would have tried to be able to continue with the m but I could see that he knew down deep that it would be a deal breaker for him.

I do find it amazing when a wayward agrees that it would be a deal breaker for them but they want forgiveness and the m still. That is hypocrisy to me. Something they should have considered before crossing that line.

REVENGE AFFAIRS DON'T HELP ANYONE

The title of this thread is such a blanket statement. Like Buzzy, I disagree with it. Sometimes, a BS having sex with a person other than his or her WS does help the BS. Real life is nuanced and the nature and extent of harm caused by infidelity is usually situational.

I do agree with the basic notion that, if a BS is having a RA with the idea that it will somehow hurt the WS as much as the WS has hurt the BS, the BS will normally be disappointed to find that it doesn't work like that. Nor does it "level the playing field".

But I disagree that it "brings the BS down to the level of the WS", as is parroted so often here on SI.

36 says that having sex with somebody other than his legal wife violates his personal mores. Fine, I get that and respect it. I would suggest to 36, though, that you spend some time thinking about the fundamental nature of marriage. You have a marriage license with your WW, and therefore in the eyes of the law you are "married". But from your description of your lifestyle, you do not have a marriage. You live separately, have no sexual contact or physical affection, spend holidays apart other than when necessary to do things for your family, and in every other respect live life as a single man. It puzzles me why you would choose to continue living that way.

Set aside the RA for a moment. A WS contemplating an affair can use the exact same logic you postulated. If the logic is acceptable for a Revenge Affair it is also acceptable for the original affair.

Agreed. If one were to meander to the cesspool for cheating on reddit ( not for weak stomached) that very justification is used on the daily. Its ww thinking, no matter who its coming from.

The title of this thread is such a blanket statement. Like Buzzy, I disagree with it. Sometimes, a BS having sex with a person other than his or her WS does help the BS. Real life is nuanced and the nature and extent of harm caused by infidelity is usually situational.

The above is a very interesting statement. But, in my mind, it lacks a logical basis. Once again I hear WS all through this comment. If screwing someone other than your spouse may somehow help the BS, then the exact same can be said of the WS.

Perhaps the WS might actually help the marriage by taking an affair partner…perhaps he or she can bring new excitement to their marriage through the act of cheating on their spouse…perhaps…perhaps.

Real life might be nuanced, but bad decisions are still, and always will be, bad decisions.

I do agree with the basic notion that, if a BS is having a RA with the idea that it will somehow hurt the WS as much as the WS has hurt the BS, the BS will normally be disappointed to find that it doesn't work like that. Nor does it "level the playing field".

This is mostly a true statement, but it also leaves out the notion that a RA is still an affair. Plus, what if the BS does not really see it as a matter of revenge but more as a right gained by them due to their spouse’s cheating.

But I disagree that it "brings the BS down to the level of the WS", as is parroted so often here on SI.

And I disagree with your parroting of WS thinking. An affair is an affair no matter how you justify it. Hell, let’s just change the vows to include, “if you cheat, I get to engage in guilt free extramarital sexual activities (no harm, no foul)".

36 says that having sex with somebody other than his legal wife violates his personal mores. Fine, I get that and respect it. I would suggest to 36, though, that you spend some time thinking about the fundamental nature of marriage. You have a marriage license with your WW, and therefore in the eyes of the law you are "married". But from your description of your lifestyle, you do not have a marriage. You live separately, have no sexual contact or physical affection, spend holidays apart other than when necessary to do things for your family, and in every other respect live life as a single man. It puzzles me why you would choose to continue living that way.

I really appreciate your thoughts in the above paragraph. It shows you have mostly paid attention to my journey through infidelity. I thank you for that. First, let me destroy the fundamental fallacy that you seem to ignore: I am not living my life through my loins. I stopped thinking with my little brain once I got married. In other words, the sum of who I am does not begin and end with my dick

I have considered the fundamental basics of marriage. I have concluded, based on my faith and my character that for me marriage is something I honor. Regardless of whether I am reconciled or divorced, I will have no part in the destruction of my marriage. My marriage is not based on laws. It is based on faith and commitment. It is not based on license. It is based on honor. It is not based on the state, it is based in God.

I agree with you that I may not have a marriage in your eyes. But my marriage is not based on the thinking of man. I can understand your confusion about my choice on how I currently live my life. But, I’ll say once again, to me marriage is not based on what my little brain wants. Sometimes God uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.

In considering your response, my question now is whether a woman would prefer a man like me or someone who uses revenge to get even or level the playing field. Let’s get some feedback on that question.

Here’s the bottom line for me: after nearly 2 ½ years on SI, I am fully familiar with the horrendous damage that an affair causes. I am familiar with the really shitty though processes used to justify infidelity. I am familiar with the devastation and the life changes foisted on a BS. Wayward thinking causes destruction. But, I believe that my thoughts on the subject cause no one harm and add no additional carnage.

To RA or not to RA? Everyone is free to make their own choice and live with whatever the consequences may be. I’ve made the choice not to cheat. I can live with my choice.

[This message edited by 36yearsgone at 3:38 PM, December 29th (Sunday)]

In considering your response, my question now is whether a woman would prefer a man like me or someone who uses revenge to get even or level the playing field. Let’s get some feedback on that question.

It seems there are plenty of married women willing to have a relationship with someone other than the poor bastard they're married too. If a woman is attracted to you, it won't matter, she'll rationalize away any concerns if you just keep your mouth shut. That's been my RA experience anyway.

Why would this be a factor in the RA decision? Truthfully, why do you care if someone has an RA or not? I personally don't give a shit what most people do. RA or don't, it's really none of my business. I've seen men attempt R here under circumstances I know I couldn't handle. I don't judge them; I'm assuming they are doing the best they can in an overwhelming situation.

I think infidelity changes everything in the M. There are a lot of behaviors that wouldn't fly in a normal M that are deemed "necessary" for R. How many normally married folks need to be accountable for every minute of their day? Or turn their phone over for scrutiny whenever? Or get hooked up to polygraph machines? Or share email, facebook, and every other password? Or have to share financial records? Or sign post nups? Or do the 180? Most of those things are way outside the norm.

To each his own.

**Posting as a Member**

I dislike generalizations immensely, even the thread title. Everyone has their own perspective and, in the end, each must answer to the person looking in the mirror.

On the surface it would be easy to argue that they don't help anyone, and a RA is still an A. But consider a different perspective, for the sake of making a point about generlizations.

I thought about a RA to "get even." After over two decades of betrayal, I felt entitled. Plus, Xhole even gave me an implicit green light to do so. During one discussion his response to me asking "why" was, "I know you've done it, too!"

I was truly shocked he would ever believe such a preposterous idea, and at the time (before SI) I knew nothing about projection. That statement, initially, truly cut me to the core. It hurt, and it hurt bad.

The more I thought about it and the angrier I got, the more I started thinking, "Well, if he already believes I'm guilty, why not?"

Then my rational thinking took over and I realized that was stupid logic on my part. I would have compromised my integrity for a tit-for-tat. Additionally, but just as importantly, I DID have the moral high ground, whether he believed it or not. Had I engaged in a RA, it would have helped HIM by giving him legitimate ammunition to use against me. The last thing I wanted (or needed) was to give him an opportunity for, "I told you so!"

It would not have mattered if it was after the fact. Those kind of details make no difference to him. Regardless of timing he would have gloated and rode that pony as far as she would go. It would have decimated all the leverage I had in the D. Instantly.

So could a RA help anyone? Yes. It would have helped Xhole and bit me in the ass.

"To thine own self be true" is a quote by Shakespeare from Hamlet that my father drilled into my head since I was a child. As a kid I thought it was grownup gibberish and very probably rolled my eyes every time my dad said it. When faced with it as an adult, considering a RA, I found myself clinging to that embedded thought in the end. As a result, I like what I see in the mirror, and I don't need to justify anything to anyone. It's a good feeling.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 5:58 PM, December 29th (Sunday)]

If screwing someone other than your spouse may somehow help the BS, then the exact same can be said of the WS

I don't buy this logic. Before a cheater cheats, they have options. They can talk to their spouse, they can ask for MC, abd/or ask for a divorce, rather than sneak behind behind their spouse's back. For the BS, i think divorce is warranted most of the time. But if a BS wants to atay stay with their spouse, i dont think its WS logic for them to sleep with someone else. It is nkt healthy but it is not equivalent. At all.

my question now is whether a woman would prefer a man like me or someone who uses revenge to get even or level the playing field. Let’s get some feedback on that question

I would want to be with someone who fought for his happiness. If o cheated, I'd want him to break up with me or work to be happy. You seem like a great guy but i would not be ok with my husband not dating even if we are legally separated. I wpuld view it as him martyring himself and i would not like ot. I wouldnt want him cheating on me - if he is that angry, let us end it. If o had to choose between RA and your mwthod, I would rather RA. Absolute preference would be divorce or him working theoigh his pain

Just a thought that occurred to me, but it does embrace some sexist stereotypes. I am only asking if there is any merit to this theory.

Do men feel a need to have an RA because of a belief that staying true to one partner is a sacrifice? Hence the insistence on getting what they are "owed."

And do women traditionally feel an RA won't help because they entrusted their body to their WS, and hooking up with someone else won't change that?

Regardless of whether or not the gender impacts the mindset (probably not, idk) those who feel they have been giving up something in marriage seem to quickly jump to entitlement. Maybe that's an unhealthy way to view marriage in the first place? I don't think marriage should feel like a sacrifice, whether or not your spouse cheats. Not sure those people are marriage material, in my opinion. Marriage shouldn't feel as if you are doing without; it's supposed to feel as if you have gained something. Cheating suggests that you feel you've given up a lot to be married, with no thought to how proud you should feel of being a loving spouse and honorable person. A cheating spouse does not negate the personal pride associated with your own marital behavior. What does it say about someone who is so quick to throw that pride away for some low hanging fruit willing to help you get revenge on your spouse (yuck).

I haven't read since my last post, but I just wondered if one's view of whether you are gaining or losing in marriage has an impact on needing to cheat to fjnd your self-esteem again. (As usual, self-esteem is never found in someone else's pants or approval, but that's for an IC or MC to help someone figure out.)

Carry on!

You know, I’d like to think that on a website called Surviving Infidelity we could have agreement , as a minimum fucking baseline, with the idea that infidelity is fucking bad. Could we all argue that there are degrees and situations that mitigate the severity? Sure, we could also spend pages and pages debating how many angels can dance in the head of a fucking pin. But who gives a shit?

I agree with the sentiment earlier expressed that the arguments of the merits of a “Revenge Affair” or whatever you want to call it, sound remarkably similar to the shit I hear pouring out of the mouths of new WS’ here all the damn time. There is just the smallest degree of separation there.

Look, life is full to the brim with situational ethics and shades of grey. I’m not foolish enough to think otherwise. But I firmly believe that the clearest path to ethical behavior is to have some hard fucking lines in the sand with regards to personal behavior. Anything else leads to an individual teetering dangerously close to the edge of that slippery slope of rationalizations and justifications for all sorts of shitty behavior.

An example: I have managed to live 48 years on this planet without ever striking a woman. It’s a simple fucking rule I have for myself: Men should not ever hit women. Period. Full stop. Now, are there conceivably situations that might make hitting a woman unavoidable? I imagine there must be. But I don’t spend any time fucking thinking on that and trying to set up a sliding scale of women punching. I just go with a simple rule that hitting women is unacceptable and stick with that shit. Hard, solid, line in the sand ethical rules like that are the kind of thing that help me to avoid justifying terrible behavior on my part even when I am in the midst of extremely complicated and emotionally tumultuous situations. Say like when I find out my wife has been fucking my best friend. Situations like that.

Try taking some of these examples of justifications for RA’s and switch out “fucking someone else” with “punching my spouse in the fucking mouth”: I needed some way to level the playing field so I punched her in the fucking mouth. I needed justice so I punched her in the fucking mouth. I needed to get over my feelings of emasculation so I punched her in the fucking mouth.

If you can’t do that substitution it’s because you have a hard line that punching people in the mouth is unacceptable fucking behavior. I would like to think that we could all agree that infidelity is also unacceptable fucking behavior. Otherwise what in the hell are we all doing here making all this fuss about?

So maybe, here on Surviving Infidelity of all places, we could all agree that infidelity is fucking bad. Ok? Can I understand how a person can go there in the midsts of dealing with there own betrayal? Sure I can empathize with that. But it’s still just bad. There is NO positive there that could not be better accomplished by some less hurtful and destructive method. And hey, if fucking someone else while married some how helped you feel better about your own betrayal? Then yipee I’m glad it helped in some way but that outcome does not change then essential negative nature of the act itself. Hell, it’s conceivable that had I punched my wife in the mouth on Dday that act might have somehow made me feel better in someway. But that fucking outcome would have done nothing to mitigate the evil of the act itself.

HT

It's been suggested that this thread is making generalizations. If that's true, then isn't stating that infidelity is wrong is also a generalization? A broad generalization?

This is Surviving Infidelity. If infidelity isn't considered wrong in all cases, then ok, I'll accept that infidelity in RA's can also be broadly acceptable.

Now, as for the suggestion that I am being a martyr because I choose not to date or sleep with other women while separated or still married, I am not being a martyr. I am not hanging on a cross for my wife. I am merely honoring the one who hung on a cross for me.

When I started this thread several weeks ago, it appeared to go nowhere and died very quickly. Then it was suddenly resurrected (not by me).

Forgive me for using generalizations. My thoughts are, of course, my opinions. But, my thoughts on RA's are thoughts that I truly believe. I believe them because they are consistent with my specific beliefs on infidelity. They are not beliefs that I impose on anyone but myself. However, I can extend them to others who are considering RA's, as a warning to the possible consequences that may follow.

I also hold very strong opinions about integrity. honesty, kindness, faithfulness and loving my neighbors.

[This message edited by 36yearsgone at 9:24 PM, December 29th (Sunday)]

Now, as for the suggestion that I am being a martyr because I choose not to date or sleep with other women

If you are referring to my comment, I apologize. I think you are doing what is right for you. I did not mean to imply you are a martyr. I meant that i wpuld view a vuy in my situation as a martyr. Not in anyone else's. People should act in lone with their ethics

If you are referring to my comment, I apologize. I think you are doing what is right for you. I did not mean to imply you are a martyr. I meant that i wpuld view a vuy in my situation as a martyr. Not in anyone else's. People should act in lone with their ethics

I didn't take offense. Everyone lives within the confines of their own personal paradigm. I absolutely appreciate you sharing your opinion. Alternative opinions help me grow.

What if a revenge Addis done not for revenge? After my wife cheated on me with a guy 1/2 her age I felt so emasculated I could not cope. I seriously considered suicide but my children thank God prevented that. I felt like there was a scream in me so powerful that if unleashed it it would shake heaven and earth. I had sex with several women after. One night stands. Know what? It helped me. I felt like a man again. I even told my WW what I was going to do and for what purpose. I told her “ you can not fix what you have done...... I can and I will”

We are still together 10 months after DD. I still don’t know if I will be staying with my WW. We have been married 19 years and together 28. I was faithful for all 28. I feel the need to see if I need my WW. I love her but what she did was disgusting and may be a deal breaker. Some may say “ just leave her”. I get that but after 28 years I need to know if that is the right thing to do. I feel the need to know if I need her. Being loyal for so long has left me wondering what I’m in is my relationship a fraud? What I feel is a good relationship actually not good? I feel the need to separate and date other women to find out. There is a part of me that hopes any girls I date are miserable people so I will know staying is the right thing to do

For anyone who says I’m wrong and insensitive....... fine. Ok. I get it. I will end my point of view with this...... I was happy. A good man who adored his wife. I wanted none of thus. I was prepared to live my life with her until my death. Now for that, I feel like a moron