SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am in your age bracket, josie. I will never have another romantic relationship, and my retirement was gutted from the divorce and one of my kid's medical,expenses.

But, I am healthy and, best of all, free from a disordered ahole. I live frugally but am content.

You have some good years left. I hope you can relax and enjoy them.

Recommending R

I don't think there's ever a situation on SI that calls for recommending R or D. The best we can do is help someone figure out what they want and what is achievable, and/or confront people with the inconsistencies in their thinking, and/or share one's responses to what a member posts, and/or share one's experience.

Intentionality

...any human with a conscience will think through "isn't this wrong? Couldn't I hurt my wife/husband? What if they find out?"

Has no one here had the experience of doing something wrong, hurting someone close, and then realizing they should have known they would hurt someone before they committed the hurtful act?

People are not perfect. There are lots of threads to life and lots of threads to most decisions. It's easy to get caught up in a moment and lose track of some potentially important inputs into a decision - and the consequences of that can be catastrophic to one's own life and the lives of those who are in one's circle of influence.

Abuse?

I think the terms one uses affects one's thinking and behavior, and I think it's relatively easy to abuse 'abuse.'

The more energy a person puts into thinking in terms of abuse, the less energy is likely to be available for healing, IMO.

Calling infidelity 'abuse' mixes the focus up. The WS has one set of problems to solve. The BS has another set of problems. Healing requires focus on oneself. When 'abuse' is in the picture, the picture is about the effect of one person's actions on another, and that takes the focus away from the work that's needed for healing.

Further, if one sees oneself as 'abused,' it's too easy to fall into self-pity, and once in self-pity, it's hard to get out.

I think a much better metaphor for a BS to adopt is that of 'collateral damage.' That is, my partner fucked up, I've been dumped into a combo garbage dump and cesspool through no fault of your own, and I'm the only who one can get me out of this mess.

Sometimes one gets to choose the words one uses. When one has a choice, one might as well use the words that help most.

When one has work to do, it's better to choose words that give one the power to do the work, not the words that give power to someone else, one's abuse.

Sure, infidelity is abusive, by many (most? all?) definitions of 'abusive.' What implications will one draw from that fact?

Resentment

I get your point, stinger - sometimes (I think it's pretty often) a WS cheats out of resentment of the BS, and that is really hard for the BS to take - at first.

A little thought, however, reveals that the resentment is the WS's problem. It's not built up against the real BS. It's built up against some filtered view of the BS in the WS's head.

sisoon

I always love to read your posts. Always have a great way of explaining things.

A little thought, however, reveals that the resentment is the WS's problem. It's not built up against the real BS. It's built up against some filtered view of the BS in the WS's head.

Yes. Very much this. I like how you articulate this, I try but those issues that lent itself to that are so complex it's harder for me to boil down. I always like it when I can see a simplification that really fits.

It really reminds me of the other post that is up today about the 8 reasons people say they cheat. The fluidity of how we tend to look at things changes with growth, even backwards growth. Clarity can be such a climb.

Yeah, I agree, the resentment was unjustified. I know I bandy this disordered term about a lot. I had never heard of a personality disorder before my lawyer suggested my XW was a borderline ( lawyer had been a therapist before going to law school).

No one could have pleased my XW. She resented me for this and cheated to let me know.

So, I divorced her.

MH here. JMO following.

I’ve been raped, physically abused, early CSA, trafficked, murdered immediate family member, teen sibling’s suicide, on and on. I’ve been cheated on. Lots of “Big T” Trauma and FOO crap.

I think each thing is distinct and cumulative. I think unhealed past trauma impacts how betrayal is felt and processed. I don’t understand the purpose of comparing pain or engaging in false equivalencies. My husband and I engaged in a lot of this thinking until we disengaged from drama triangles a bit more. But then, that’s from my own MH standpoint.

I agree with Kingrat and Underserving. I’d rather get cheated on a million times than again experience being physically prevented from leaving a location as a teenager (all the better to rape me at knifepoint). My husband’s cheating was not about me and mine wasn’t about him. Maybe this makes me cold hearted but I’ve learned that for me it’s much more important to identify whether if something is acceptable to me and what I’m going to do about it in my own sphere of influence. I can only control myself. My therapist calls that resiliency. This has been a really difficult process to learn for me: it’s fight/flight/freeze. IOW, I have internalized shame from my past trauma (because abuse can get us to spin on the wheel of someone else’s wounded bicycle) but it never was about me. I’m sorry, but really, I can’t understand saying adultery is rape right after saying adultery is about the betrayed... would you please clarify point 1, Thumos? How is abuse about the victimized?

After a lot of time and therapy, I’m able to see them (and my past self) as, “wow, how sad for them.” Because it was. Carrying around their stuff was how I lived my life before and I used it to justify my horrifically destructive choices. My husband too. No more. No victims here. Just, this is what happened, here is what I will accept. So... I understand this post, I do. I have lived it. It kept me stuck, personally.

YMMV.

Thank you, Sisoon, that was a really great post.

The abuse is always about the abuser. There is no other healthy way to look at it.

Carrying around their stuff was how I lived my life before and I used it to justify my horrifically destructive choices.

Yep, yep, yep. This pretty much sums up everyone's feelings about their horrific choices. But therapy is so helpful in showing you how to break up with what has been done to you and all the feelings that come with it. Freeing!

No victims here.

Yep, we comfort ourselves and self-soothe. And then we take our power back and make healthy choices to create the lives we want. No. Victims. Here.

[This message edited by OwningItNow at 4:48 PM, October 1st (Thursday)]

One can be a victim and recover. Just semantics. I bet most of us, while admitting the injury, carried on, lead happy enough lives for the most part( although thinking life was meant to be happy seems unrealistic).

A little thought, however, reveals that the resentment is the WS's problem. It's not built up against the real BS. It's built up against some filtered view of the BS in the WS's head.

Agreed entirely. And not my problem.

The abuse is always about the abuser. There is no other healthy way to look at it.

If your face is in the way of their fist, it really doesn't matter.

I know my ex would have done just the same to another guy. It still doesn't bring back my time spent, money spent, trust spent.

And in answer to Sisoon, the WS doesn't have to solve their problems. My ex got what she wanted. She wanted power. She wanted to know that two men wanted to marry her and she could cash in on that. All I can do is move on. It's true I wanted to marry her at one time. I wish I had looked elsewhere. But I really didn't have enough info to know that. She hid it very well.

Like I said, the WS doesn't have to solve their problems. BS can divorce and that's about it. WS can cheat, say they want R, do a little bit of work, then stop and call the BS bluff. A lot of the BS aren't willing to divorce really, so they blink, and the cycle continues.

But a lot of WS clearly gain some primal feelings that they crave from the cheating itself.

Very well thought out and articulated premise, Thumos. I agree entirely.

You can call a skunk a rose. That doesn't change the fact that it's a skunk. Calling the abuse of adultery something else doesn't change the fact.

One can be a victim and recover.

You can be a victim of many things and recover. You can be a victim of abuse and recover. You can understand two things at once like recognizing you were abused by your spouse and recognize and work toward healing and finding joy and peace.

You can be a victim of many things and recover

Yes. Being victimized is not a choice. Identifying as a victim is.

Self-pity is the enemy of empowerment.

[This message edited by OwningItNow at 6:38 PM, October 1st (Thursday)]

I chose to call myself a survivor of sexual abuse, rape and am a survivor of my husbands infidelity.

That's how one is empowered. Right?

^^^ OIN, thank you. And Dragn, I agree.

For me, looking at myself as a victim means that I still have healing to do. Self actualization I guess, which Maslow says is about our attitude about ourselves.

From my own experiences with therapy and from working with DV survivors, the order I’ve experienced is empathy —-> empowerment. Victim itself is a legal term with afforded protections. IME, it’s also used as a self identifier in the process of personal recovery.

I've been jumped by 3 guys and wound up hospitalized for several days.

I'd rather that happen again than my real wife cheat on me.

[This message edited by GoldenR at 7:09 PM, October 1st (Thursday)]

I do understand this ^^^^, GoldenR. Emotional hurt is the most intense pain I have ever experienced, I admit.

I've mulled this over a bit. I came down to separating it out in my mind like so.

Cheating in any form is abuse of the marital relationship, it doesn't matter if the spouse is aware or not.

Unprotected sexual contact and exposure of the BS due to that is direct physical abuse and endangerment.

Gaslighting is direct mental abuse.

But I've never been physically abused so that's not part of my frame of reference.

I think getting beat up would've been easier

I know the answer to this.

Yes, being beaten up is easier. It is much easier. I got beaten up in the street when I was young, I was scared, and I was beaten up by a kid in high school, I was in grade-school. I was, only a year or so later, burned by kids with cigarettes in an incident that I've nearly forgotten about, rough section of town.

A year after D-day I was surprise attacked by a man with a large knife and wearing brass knuckles in broad daylight.

I still laugh about that last one, suckerpunched in the head with brass knuckles, cut, bloodied, fighting, and finally chasing that guy for over half a mile while he ran (yes, there is nothing scarier than an overweight middle-aged man covered in blood chasing you, zombies got nothing on me).

Why was it funny?

Everyone was worried about my mental state, "are you ok", or "are you doing alright", and I would just literally burst out with laughter when they asked me that.

Why?

Because I'd spent the entire prior year in MC because of my wife fucking some random guy she met and lying, gaslighting, and obfuscating all the details. Let me tell you, I'll take the physical abuse and dangers any day over the other.

At least, when someone attacks you with a knife you have a clear and incredible story to tell if you survive. If you survive infidelity, all you get to do is join some anonymous forum and post in the middle of the night when you can't sleep.

FWIW, there isn't a forum for survivors of knife attack where people post for years afterward. There are plenty of forums where people post about "how to survive a knife attack". I'll save you the time in reading those, the answer is "fight like Hell, kick, punch, keep moving, and be lucky".

At least, when someone attacks you with a knife you have a clear and incredible story to tell if you survive. If you survive infidelity, all you get to do is join some anonymous forum and post in the middle of the night when you can't sleep.

Cant argue with that one bit. Totally true.

FWIW, there isn't a forum for survivors of knife attack where people post for years afterward. There are plenty of forums where people post about "how to survive a knife attack". I'll save you the time in reading those, the answer is "fight like Hell, kick, punch, keep moving, and be lucky".

I pity the person who attempts to attack me now. Before wh infidelity I would have probably not fought back. Now all the years of bottled up rage would be unleashed and the attacker would be the attacked.

I've been jumped by 3 guys and wound up hospitalized for several days.

Oh, lord yes, it's not even close. Jumped, still have the scars. Shot (a .22, and an accident, but still, hurt like hell), still have the scars. In horrific car accidents. Saw someone die in front of me. As a young man, held down by a bunch of women and raped (at the time, it wasn't anything more than "girls getting a little out of control", today, it would clearly be considered a rape). All of it added together, it's not 1/10th the emotional damage that my W's A inflicted on me. Put another way, I'd sign up to go through all that trauma again, 9 more times, if it would make my wife "uncheat" on me.

It's by far the most impactful (negative) thing another person has ever done to me.