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[This message edited by Thanksgiving2016 at 8:56 PM, November 5th (Tuesday)]

I agree. The cheater obviously doesn't care about you and you're likely to make them feel vindicated in some way by stooping to their level. People behaving poorly love to see this as it reinforces their belief that they're not so bad. Nobody wants to feel like a bad person, and look, the BS just showed that can would've made the same choice. And of course, it's a false equivalency to boot. I get the desire to RA, but I see it as being detrimental to any kind of reconciliation. It's probably great if you're set on divorcing.

That was a great post Chamomile Tea.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Malibu, what is wrong with sleeping with a random person that you are attracted to if it makes you happy and helps you recover from your WS? Or generally speaking, sleeping with random people?

There isn't anyone I'm currently attracted to. I am not looking to be with some random person. My heart is sealed but that doesn't mean my body is up for grabs. I'm no where near having that intimacy with someone new.

Plus it boils down to the question of could I really break my vows despite the fact his were shattered. I don't know. But there's a part of me that wonders.

I’m not divorced from LLCAH (low life cheating asshat) but I did see a lawyer and told him irrevocably I’m done, we are divorcing when I found out (the first tiny bit of truth...it was over then never mind the avalanche of disgusting that later came to light).

But a few months ago I started dating some. I’m enjoying it. I’m really really enjoying it! The discovery that I AM attractive and wanted after so many moths of feeling cast aside and rejected is wonderful. I’m no where near ready for emotional intimacy, but dinners out and dates and consensual fun sex I am, and it’s been really good for me. As a woman in my late 40s thinking my youth had been stolen and wasted on a jerk, and no one would ever find me attractive...it’s been invaluable. I’m desirable and sexy and fun, and I’m also in IC to deal with the fact that I also thanks to LLCAH feel fatally flawed and ultimately unlovable- but that’s why any kind of serious relationship is off the table.

This is emphatically NOT a revenge affair. The marriage was over, done, when I found out as it wasn’t the first time. The paperwork is complicated since we live overseas is all. I never cheated when we were married, even after the first time, because I wanted to stay married. I no longer do, I’m out. (To be honest it never would have occurred to me to cheat, I’m just not wired that way) He knows that. I am doing nothing wrong, and it is t comparable at ALL to anything he did. I am simply starting to remake a life without him.

But the point stands- it is cathartic to have sex, date, as far as my recovery from all this goes. It wouldn’t be if I had any intention of staying married though-!

I have not read this entire thread.

This topic comes up periodically.

I’m owning my choice to have them with him; no one put a gun to my head and forced me to get pregnant twice. But it doesn’t lessen the feeling of being trapped.

There's a difference between feeling trapped and being trapped. Feeling trapped is of your own doing.

Kingrat defined integrity very well. Basically, it's doing the right thing even when no one else is watching. The difference between not stealing because you can't get away with it and not stealing even when you can get away with it. IME, most people do not have integrity. We are raised in a system where we are rewarded for being good and punished for being bad. We learn that there's no reason to be good if we aren't going to get something out of it. We also learn that it's perfectly fine to be bad as long as we don't caught or punished. If the only reason you don't break the law is because you don't want to go to jail, you are missing the point.

Cheating = lying, being dishonest, deceitful. I am not a lying, deceitful, dishonest person. Therefore, I will not cheat regardless the circumstances. That's where my values and integrity lie.

I agree that a RA brings you down to the cheater's level in their eyes. They will see all things as equal now and use your RA as an excuse to not work to be a better person.

Isn't R settling anyway you look at it?

Nope. R is the opposite of settling. R is saying, "This is what I need. This is what needs to be done so I can have that. If it's not, I'm done." Settling would be rugsweeping.

There is no requirement to attempt R. It's ok if the cheating is a dealbreaker from the moment you find out and you walk away.

Nope. R is the opposite of settling.

Agreed. To me, the only reason to R is to require the type of relationship - going forward - that I want and need.

R is saying, "This is what I need. This is what needs to be done so I can have that. If it's not, I'm done."

Exactly. I tend to over-explain, but this is succinct.

Settling would be rugsweeping.

Agreed again, I don't think any of us should ever settle. Aim high or get on to better things elsewhere.

There is no requirement to attempt R. It's ok if the cheating is a dealbreaker from the moment you find out and you walk away.

So true. Great stuff Coco!

I would only add the Unhinged qualifier, that infidelity is ALWAYS a dealbreaker, and that if you stay, you need a better new deal.

Integrity is my moral standard that is not conditioned upon outside influences or actions.

I have to disagree on the premise here. Of course your moral standards are based on outside influences, of society, of your upbringing, of your religious beliefs, and any other factors that determine and define your personal "integrity".

Moral standards are changing all the time, you can see that in every day headlines.

We should probably define "reconciliation".

the Roman Catholic sacrament of penance

The reestablishment of friendly relations; conciliation or rapprochement.

Reconciliation is not about making it "even", it's about finding a way to deal with it that both sides can live with. You settle, or divorce. Individual circumstances dictate the terms.

Again, I'm not advocating "revenge "affairs, but it seems to me there isn't any real atonement, other than confession of your sins and expecting forgiveness. Sorry, that doesn't make everything fair and even. That makes you a bigger person, or a sucker, depending on you perspective.

Cham Tea identifies that the only true reconciliation is with yourself.

You cannot undo the adultery. It happened and it can't be erased. It's the analogy of the expensive broken vase. You can expertly glue it back together so it's almost invisible to everyone, but it will never be worth what is was before, and here you are with no insurance that pays the atonement to fix it, or to salvage what it contained.

That is where we end up, and least in my case. The fWW has done all the motions, but only the minimal required in my opinion. I really don't think she knows how to do anything else, and don't know what else I can do either. Kids and family kept me from walking away, my choice. I would not screw up their lives at that point, I've seen too many screwed up kids damaged from divorce, my wife included.

And to be honest, after rationally evaluating all my options, the legal and financial costs of splitting up and going our separate way simply wasn't worth it, to me. It wasn't worth the hassle, to me. And I was looking out for me alone on that factor. Again. my choice.

I'm struggling trying to find a sports analogy.

You're in a football game, and the wayward team is allowed to run and throw passes, but the betrayed team is only to run the ball. The score gets lopsided before the betrayed team realizes the rules are not fair.

So when the betrayed side begins to pass the ball, it's kinda hard for the ref to throw a flag. What right does the wayward team have to protest? Do you ignore all the points on the board already? Do you start the game over? Can the wayward team just ignore the inequity and carry on? Should the wayward then be not allowed to pass for the rest of the game, while the betrayed team can, just to make it "even"?

Should I expect a wayward to accept my infidelity and forgive, if I did hers? Does it matter if it was a simple ONS, or is it different if it was multiple AP or LTA?

After a decade here, integrity and virtue is subjective, because there is no possible way to right the wrong. You can't fix what has already happened, but can you justify making it fair and even?

Twisted,

I really think you have made some good points in your post. A couple of thoughts, if I may:

Again, I'm not advocating "revenge "affairs, but it seems to me there isn't any real atonement, other than confession of your sins and expecting forgiveness.

As a ws, I never saw it that way at all. I still don't expect forgiveness, at least not for me. If it's something he needs to come to in order for him to feel peace then that's wonderful. I do not feel I am owed anything. I didn't feel entitled to keep my marriage, I fully understand I broke it.

Instead, I see it as H has decided to try again. I will do my best to help him rebuild a marriage that we are both happy in. I have spent a lot of time rebuilding myself, and truly working towards change. I am a work in progress, and I wish I would have done that without having had an affair. I feel that contrition will be paid, I don't see it as just confessing my sins and expecting something. But, in truly trying to redeem myself and be the woman who can be deserving of him and our marriage. Even if he decided 5 years from now to divorce me, I will forever know it was me that put that break in there no matter what the circumstances are 5 years from now.

He didn't have an RA, he does not have those things to fix inside of himself in addition to the damage I did. I can understand since you haven't really seemed to experience a remorseful spouse, but I would not want him to have to experience that end of things at all. To have shame over the fact he hurt so badly and couldn't cope without going to the arms of another woman. Because, regardless of what it looks like from the outside, there is a great shame and further humiliation in that. It gives away your power in many ways, and is destructive to the person who cheats - if they are a remorseful person owning up to the dark places within themselves.

You're in a football game, and the wayward team is allowed to run and throw passes, but the betrayed team is only to run the ball. The score gets lopsided before the betrayed team realizes the rules are not fair.

So when the betrayed side begins to pass the ball, it's kinda hard for the ref to throw a flag. What right does the wayward team have to protest? Do you ignore all the points on the board already? Do you start the game over? Can the wayward team just ignore the inequity and carry on? Should the wayward then be not allowed to pass for the rest of the game, while the betrayed team can, just to make it "even"?

I can certainly understand what you are saying here. But, from my standpoint, if my BS goes and has a retaliation affair it will not have the same penalty my affair had on him. I had my affair in a "happy marriage", he was blindsided by it. Shock. Trauma. Had he turned around and said "I am going to do the same thing", it would have hurt me but I don't think it would have shocked or traumatized me in the state things were in after DDAY.

So, he goes out and does this, and then learns the same thing I learned in having an affair...that just because you have a lot of feelings that you can't cope with an affair is a temporary escape from that. It makes your problems bigger, more complicated. Whatever amount of fun you thought you were having, well you return to find that it did nothing but make that hole you were trying to fill be bigger.

To me, the reason not to have an RA really has nothing to to with the WS and what they may or may not deserve. It comes from the perspective that I know as a WS, I still had to find a way to cope with all the things I was avoiding in the A, AND now I had all the things the A brought to my doorstep piled on. And those things were worse, and darker, and harder, and caused destruction in my husband who was innocent and didn't deserve them. I don't think it's a great thing to pile some of those things on top of also being the BS - because it could really be more destructive for them than the WS.

It's not about what is fair or not fair at that point. It's about me knowing how bad my decisions are that I don't want to see my H, or anyone here re-enact them in some misguided attempt to feel better. It's hollow - having an affair is hollow. That's the part that is probably hard to see from your standpoint.

If my H had an RA, I would understand it. But, I would want him to examine some of the same things I had to examine in the aftermath of my own affair. Not to punish him, he actually never punished me. But, because I would want him to understand the same thing I have come to understand and that is that cheating doesn't solve anything, it's not the solution. I would want him to process his feelings and think about what would have been healthier for him. And, I would expect a few of the same outcomes - that he goes NC with the AP, that he attends IC. Because, I would want us both to process everything as fully as we could. I would have great empathy for him, but I would want to see he was moving forward choosing the marriage over everything else the way I was. Otherwise, we would have no shot at R. It would be a different story if he went out and had an RA, and then turned around and asked for a divorce. I would still know that I made the first strike and broke it. So, it's not really about justice, it's about R - and IMHO if you are working on R then both parties have to be all in or it will not work.

[This message edited by hikingout at 10:31 AM, November 6th (Wednesday)]

I have to disagree on the premise here. Of course your moral standards are based on outside influences, of society, of your upbringing, of your religious beliefs, and any other factors that determine and define your personal "integrity".

Moral standards are changing all the time, you can see that in every day headlines.

I was not talking about how my moral standard came to be defined or what influences that serve as a foundation, I was talking about its application not being conditioned upon external actions. For example, I do not steal. If someone steals from me, I do not steal from them. My standard of not being a thief is not conditioned upon others being thieves. It's my own personal belief. It's true for me. I never stated that it should be true for others. You are free to define and apply your moral standard as you see fit. I am not in a position to tell you what is best or right for you.

I recently found out my (now) ex husband had an RA before we decided to get divorced.

While finding out this information hurt, it was something I understood. I made him feel emasculated and undesirable. He wanted to reclaim his manhood, he wanted to prove to himself that he wasn't a loser and that women still found him desirable and wanted. He didn't need to explain this to me- I got it. I understand that desire, that feeling of wanting to get even, and that feeling of needing to find validation outside of yourself.

Marriage isn't about keeping score. The reason a sports analogy doesn't work is because it isn't supposed to be two opposing teams scoring against each other. We're supposed to be on the same team.

When I think about my marriage, I think of it like a garden. It had the potential to be beautiful and something wonderful for both of us. Instead, it was something we both neglected, abused, and avoided caring for. Weeds were overgrown, nothing was watered, plants had died, and we had both left a fair amount of waste/litter in there. By having my affair, I went ahead and dumped a heaping pile of trash in the garden. I should have either chosen that the garden was unsalvageable and chosen to leave, or to do my part in cleaning it up and tending to it's needs. By having a RA, my husband added his own heaping pile of trash. It may have made him feel like things were "even" ("You dumped all this trash in the garden and I have to help clean it up, that's not fair, so now you have to help clean up the trash I left too"). But ultimately, it just added to the mess and, had we chosen to clean it up, we would have had even MORE trash and crap to wade through and get rid of.

I don't judge BS who choose a RA. It's something I empathize with and understand. It makes sense to me. I get it.

But if you are going to R, I think that usually and ultimately, the RA does nothing to help with that and only adds to the mess.

Nothing will ever make it fair or even. If that's your goal, you will lose.

Nothing will ever make it fair or even. If that's your goal, you will lose.

And that one-liner is the best sum up I think there could be!

Nothing will ever make it fair or even. If that's your goal, you will lose.

Yes but I think it goes deeper than that. It takes a WS that understands that aspect as well as their BS does. The WS realizes/appreciates that the BS has had to accept that to have a successful R and it motivates them to do what they can to show how much that means to them. Not once. Not twice, but every day for the rest of the M.

Call me a martyr if you want to, but recovering post infidelity has taught me is that the only opinion that matter is the one I have of myself. If I can look in the mirror and like the guy staring back at me then the rest falls into place.

You are never going to escape yourself. You might as well enjoy the time you have left.

I learned in having an affair...that just because you have a lot of feelings that you can't cope with an affair is a temporary escape from that. It makes your problems bigger, more complicated. Whatever amount of fun you thought you were having, well you return to find that it did nothing but make that hole you were trying to fill be bigger.

I think maybe I've gotten to the point that I realize I won't get over it. My fWW proclaimed the standard stuff, she loves me, want to grow old with me, never thought about leaving, etc., but she slept like a baby the first week after I confronted. Maybe because it was all out in the open and hadn't kicked her to the curb right away.

I never felt she really did the work, on herself, or with me, that I felt was needed. I'm not sure I know what that was, but she sure didn't seem overly interested to find out either. Her tactic was to lay low and never mention it again. Sure she went NC, and would have given me access to all her accounts and phone which were all ready deleted, even pictures removed from scrapbooks, but that sure seemed it was her own self preservation, not my benefit in healing.

No doubt she was in uncharted territory, not sure of my reaction to anything she could do, so she did nothing. I think she was waiting for the other show to drop, divorce. We pretend the damage didn't happen, but every day the dents are still in the fender.

So I think many of us end up in the proverbial plain of lethal flatness, that land of indifference. Roommates with the occasional benefits, but tolerable. Should an extracurricular occasion arise, and I choose to take it, it wouldn't be serious, only a little fun and excitement, like she had.

Not exactly the fairy tale we all envision, but reality. Besides, I'm too old, too tired of trying to give a shit anymore.

I am sorry to hear that twisted. I can understand why you feel that way. I don't know your story fully, but I would say it might be better to do the thing I wish I had done instead of cheated...and that's to speak up. To say "this is not working for me". I know why you are hesitant to do that, you have explained why you stay. And, it's really on her to gain an understanding of what she did and how it effected you. You should not have to be the one to motivate her to understand that. I can fully see why you are in the place you are, but I will say cheating generally just ends up making you feel like shit, and that's why my general advice to anyone would to be take any other door. I am sorry your wife isn't stepping up, that's just insult to injury.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:24 PM, November 6th (Wednesday)]

Hiking Out, I understand that my personal experience was fundamentally different because I was dumped and therefore truly single.

But I do want to respond to something you said:

But, as a WS, I know the pain of not holding onto my integrity and moral beliefs because I needed a source of a trickle of feeling good inside an avalanche of feeling bad. This is how I cheated! What you just said. I was numb, depressed, and desperate.

I do understand your point. Mine is that the "avalanche of bad feelings" and the sought-after "trickle of good" both relate specifically to the sexual rejection, humiliation, and emasculation/defemulation that a WS directly causes in her/his BS. The one thing the BS longs to feel -- sexually desired, a sense that somebody is pleased sexually to be with him/her -- is the one thing the WS cannot provide. Is that a distinction of character or one of degree? Blurred lines.

For discussion, what about a WS who seeks FWB unattached sex after her or his BS consistently and repeatedly rejects her/him for sex for an extended period, telling her/him that the BS simply does not desired the BS sexually, at all. Depending on where you pose that conundrum, many will advise the "RS" (Rejected Spouse) that a discreet, purely sexual affair is okay in that circumstance.

I realize that I'm talking situational ethics here, and nothing gets denounced more resoundingly on forums like this than situational ethics. The dogma here on SI is a bright-line test: no extramarital sex, period.

In real life, ethical dilemmas always present themselves embedded in situations dripping with multiple evils, forcing us to choose among them. If the line were that bright, there would never be any R from infidelity. But this is a forum of people who are trying in some way to recover from infidelity. Everybody here has been impacted by infidelity in some way, and most people here are betrayed spouses, and many are trying to R with their cheater.

Choosing among evils. Which is the lesser? Marriage brings entanglements that are difficult or even impossible to unwind. Children, finances, business opportunities, religious obligations.

Reconciliation after infidelity seems so improbable and unlikely. It's such a profound betrayal of the core of what marriage is all about. Yet people do reconcile. I think it comes down to that ephemeral matter of the heart, in both the BS and the WS.

A WS whose BS is mean, abusive, demeaning, who slowly crushes the BS's self-esteem, driving the WS to cheat, and then grinds the WS's face into the stench of an intentionally hurtful RA, where revenge is the actual motivation, that fact pattern is one end of the spectrum.

A gob-smacked BS who has been unwittingly playing the pick-me dance for an extended period while his/her WS continuously rejects him/her sexually, only to learn later that this was the case because the WS was saving him/herself sexually for the AP, who commiserates with a simpatico person of the opposite sex and it becomes physical out of a desperate need for even just one instance of sexual affirmation, that's the other end.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 6:30 AM, November 7th (Thursday)]

The one thing the BS longs to feel -- sexually desired, a sense that somebody is pleased sexually to be with him/her -- is the one thing the WS cannot provide

I disagree. I didn't, and don't, have any issues with feeling sexually desired by my fch. My fch can and does provide that.

My situation was different from most, I think, because my fch did not withhold anything from me that he was giving to someone else. We were not living together at the time of his A. The one instance he did come home during that time, we had sex.

Idk, maybe it's just not that important to me. I very much enjoy sex with my fch more than I ever did with anyone else, but I could live without it. I don't worry about whether or not he desires me. There are much more important things to me.

We could have all the amazing sex in the world, but if he doesn't share his intimate thoughts, ideas, feelings with me, it means nothing.

Butforthegrace,

I am not heartless, I honestly would advocate for a BS to feel better any way they can. Of course we can understand the trauma and shock and the injustice. Putting morality aside, there are some very good reasons that I have for advocating against and all of them come from insight gained as a WS. And, this is really only if they don't know if they want R or want R. If you are going to separate, divorce, and this doesn't go against your moral code I can understand the train of thought you don't owe the WS anything.

1. It greatly decreases the chances of R, but not for just the reasons you think. I don't think many WS's will just stomp off and say "well you cheated it's a dealbreaker then". I mean some might be that dense, but maybe they would never be R material to begin with. I would like to say I would R, I know I would knowing what I knew deeper into my own therapy. I would attempt it today, I truly believe people can change because I believe I have. But, we are typically talking about early on when the WS has their head planted firmly up their ass. So, then you have the following things happening:

a. The BS is expecting the score to be evened out, but it isn't. The WS is not exhibiting the shock and trauma. They are hurt, mad or whatever but the element of surprise is really gone. They can further interpret that as further proof the WS doesn't give a damn about them. Then, the WS is expecting that the score is settled and an entire new dynamic is at play. The WS doesn't feel as beholdened or humble, and IMO this is a critical aspect as to what makes R move forward.

b. Entanglement. So, to be ethical the BS goes to find a single person to have an affair with. Based on what I know by looking for good feelings from someone else, that may need to be more than a ONS. But, let's even assume a ONS. A single person willing to sleep with a married person, there is an agenda there more times than not. Single people are free to sleep with other single people, so one that picks a married one likely has some issues of their own. And this maybe assumes this is a BH and a single female. I actually think a BW could find a man less complicated. Are they looking for a KISA? Likely. They think they can snag the married man away. Or they are a KISA themselves "saving the BS from their awful spouse", or a bunny boiler. The other aspect is this is how limerence even can start because they keep going back for the good feelings to escape their bad feelings.

c. You can't escape healing. The affair is hollow, it's an escape, and it temporarily eased your mind and gave you some good feelings. Guess what happens when it's over? Oh, the crash. The crash of having to go back and deal with reality, most WS experience this, and a BS doing this would not escape it either. You feel 1000 times worse suddenly. The dopamine hits are gone, you are now just looking at this person who cheated on you and feeling more depressed. It would have been much more efficient to have managed those feelings and worked on them, now it's like you had a vacation and you would rather do anything but that. You now have nothing to prop you up and you still have to go through the motions of trying to get your validation from yourself and your WS. (Every relationship has validation, I am talking about healthy validation).

The fallout of cheating is never worth the cheating itself. Cheating is always a temporary relief from something you need to address anyway. Will it take longer to do some of the sexual healing with your WS? Yeah, but no longer than it will after you had an affair. The BS ends up bringing themselves more pain. On the other end of that, I think the BS MIGHT see how hollow an affair is, that affair sex isn't what many BS think it is, and that people who are hurting hurt other people. It may give them enough insight to understand what the WS experience is. But the cost to do it is so great, they could get that knowledge through therapy, books, and hopefully a remorseful WS.

But, R is not for everyone, and I am not suggesting it is. I am saying that when a BS hasn't made up their mind about it, they may be cutting off their nose despite their face. Almost all my advice against it outside of some of the thoughts about betraying ones own integrity still lies in the further damage that I know a BS is going to put themselves through. Because RA's have some of the same elements of an affair, and I can tell you what's hiding under that rock ain't as pretty as it might look not having ever having experienced the other side. As for Divorce, you may or may not lose your legal advantage depending on where you live. A BS has a lot to lose with an affair.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:33 AM, November 7th (Thursday)]