SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

It almost reads to me like we're accepting a certain amount of unhealthy behavior, even abuse, heaped upon the WS by the BS. Am I getting that right?

Hmmm. Not from me you aren't. Unless you somehow categorize asking simple factual questions, asking to see texts, not accepting gaslighting, asking for a timeline, asking for a polygraph as "abuse." I mean, last time I checked I don't think polygraph examiners shove bamboo under fingernails or anything. Waywards get the chance to plant their butts in comfortable chairs and answer it's a few yes/no questions. Boo hoo.

Yet this is precisely the way many WW's seem to frame these kinds of matter of fact things. We read far too often about crazed WW's making up all manner of horseshit about "abuse" -- usually it's the "verbal and emotional abuse" variety. One tried this recently, in fact, in the JFO forum. My wife herself seemed to tiptoe up to this. I told her one night "I want the truth" sort of gritted teeth Tom Cruise style. I didn't raise my voice, I didn't move toward her. I just said it evenly. She recoiled in horror and gasped as if I was going to hit or her, or as if I ever had. It really disgusted me. I told her if she ever tried to foment a false domestic violence charge against me I'd divorce her in a New York minute and seek primary custody of our kids.

[This message edited by Thumos at 7:09 PM, July 28th (Wednesday)]

This came up elsewhere, and I think it is perfectly relevant to our discussion here.

DevastatedDee has made the point that divorce ought to actually be the default in infidelity situations. So contra to the pressury desire to put the betrayed spouse on the spot with a legalistic ticking clock to decide what to do with their "wayward" spouse (such an odd term when you think about it) maybe if instead divorce is the default bar/default advice given by therapists to abused betrayed spouses ... then betrayed spouses can work from there, and will probably be better off either way.

Why? Because they can immediately establish some modicum of equilibrium, gain some agency and autonomy that has been denied to them, and gain some physical room and much-needed head space to think without the constant pressure of a wayward spouse still trickle truthing, footdragging, still lost in the fog, still minimizing, still justifying, still blameshifting, still gaslighting ... while also pushing to "move on" "forgive and forget" and rugsweep.

Which we know happens in most cases, rather than few cases.

In my view, if this were the default, betrayed spouses could be much more firm about their expectations for possible R from the outset, and it would put a wayward on their heels immediately to either step up and "do the work" or call it a day.

To me, this actually makes R much more likely than the reverse-engineered process of starting with R, or being in limbo and trying to muddle through to R, or trying to put an egg timer on expectations of a betrayed spouse's healing.

For example, one of the biggest "star" couples on the reconciliation circuit were divorced for several years after the WW's infidelity. The default was divorce. The husband simply didn't put up with his wife's philandering. The WW thought she knew better, pulled the cliched routine of essentially telling her husband he was boring, liked the attention she was getting from other men, and herself readily agreed to a divorce.

The betrayed husband moved on with his life. After a few years, the WW realized how empty her "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" life was and came crawling back and tried to approach her now ex-husband. He laughed in her face (They talk about all of this in a video about their story and their work).

So she went back to the drawing board. It was only after the WW did a ton of work did she even become the kind of person her betrayed husband would even give the time of day. Even then, it took a tremendous effort and consistent actions for the WW to convince the BH to give it another try. Which he finally did. Now they are happily remarried, to each other. This is a real reconciliation, or as Desmond Tutu would say not a "superficial reconciliation."

Divorce was the default, and it got good results in terms of R.

I didn't read about this rather well known couple and their ministry until quite recently.

And if I had known this from the outset, I think it would have saved me a lot of heartache, and honestly my WW a lot of heartache.

Instead I was pushed by an MC to rugsweep. And I was pushed by people around me to "give it time." Who knows what would have happened had I elected instead to press ahead with D right after D-Day? I sense that things would have gone better. I would not have ended up in limbo, I would not have had to endure a WW dragging her feet for three years on a timeline, playing mind games with a poly, pushing me to the brink of a heart attack. I would not have endured her other mind games and the ridiculous things that have come out of her mouth. The games would have just ... stopped. I might not be happy-go-lucky Mr. Divorced. But I wouldn't have had to put up with things like I have.

[This message edited by Thumos at 7:31 PM, July 28th (Wednesday)]

swmnbc

And yet stuffing down your feelings and declaring infidelity an out of bounds topic is inauthentic and fake.

I think sometimes there's something lost in translation, particularly when we're looking at things from different points in time on the healing journey. I'm NOT talking about "stuffing" your feelings. I do think though that at a certain point, we are giving something up by choosing the past over the present. Say, you're pretty far down the pike in R. You're sure your WS gets it. They've made great strides and big changes. You've discussed every aspect of the infidelity until you're both just blue in the fucking face with it. A trigger comes up while you are otherwise enjoying a nice evening together. This is like two competing moments both wanting your time, one from the past and one from the present. They're both raising their tiny time-hands trying to get your notice, right? Which do you choose? Are we going to dredge up the past in a bid for sympathy from the perpetrator?.. or are we going to self-comfort and get back to an otherwise great evening? Bear in mind, that our WS's remorse and commitment are NO LONGER in question at this point.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm DONE living in the past. I've been done with that for a while now. In a choice between having a nice time in the present or licking my wounds in the past... again , I'm opting to stay in the present. Now, of course you can't do that when you're still unsure of your R and you're unconvinced of your WS's changes. But that's not where I am anymore. We're not naive and we're not children. We do understand that when we take a trigger to our WS, we're asking them to re-live their place in that painful moment. Let's not kid ourselves about that. So yeah, it's never going to be that casual, "hey, remember that time you fucked a bunch of skanks and it broke my heart?", and then we all laugh, "good times, good times!". No. When we take our pain to our WS, shouldn't it be because we actually NEED the help? I figured out after a while that I didn't to involve him anymore. I could notice the trigger, comfort myself, and then let it pass.

I'm just saying what works for me. Your mileage may vary.

Because before, I would hide it from her, then eventually feel the need to bring up a raft of negative feelings she didn't even know I was processing.

No, I'm not saying never bring it up again. But eventually you'll have processed all those feelings. It wouldn't be like hoarding them up because you're done with them. THAT's what I'm saying. It's possible to be done with this, to move on from it, and to allow it to be something that happened in the past. I spend a lot of time talking about it here at SI, but IRL, it just doesn't come up anymore. I don't think about it while I'm peeling the potatoes. I'm not crying it the shower anymore. It's just not a factor in my daily life. So if a rare trigger comes up, I'm not trading whatever is going on right now to go back in time and indulge a sadz. Why would I do that?

DevastatedDee has made the point that divorce ought to actually be the default in infidelity situations. So contra to the pressury desire to put the betrayed spouse on the spot with a legalistic ticking clock to decide what to do with their "wayward" spouse (such an odd term when you think about it) maybe if instead divorce is the default bar/default advice given by therapists to abused betrayed spouses ... then betrayed spouses can work from there, and will probably be better off either way.

Why? Because they can immediately establish some modicum of equilibrium, gain some agency and autonomy that has been denied to them, and gain some physical room and much-needed head space to think without the constant pressure of a wayward spouse still trickle truthing, footdragging, still lost in the fog, still minimizing, still justifying, still blameshifting, still gaslighting ... while also pushing to "move on" "forgive and forget" and rugsweep.

I think we can say that the most appropriate response to adultery is divorce. If we were to select a punishment and stay within the law, divorce is about as far as we can go, right? But do I think it should be SOP that every BS divorce their cheating spouse? No. I just can't agree with that.

Every couple is different. Some will choose D and that will be the right choice. Others will choose R and that will also be the right choice. The worst choice is not choosing. If you choose D, mean it. Get to the lawyer, file, work the settlement, and MOVE ON. If you choose R, it's trickier. It's not just what you can do on your own, you've got to determine whether your WS's remorse and efforts are enough to put him/her back in good standing. If they are, then you have to apply yourself to accepting what happened and then putting it in the past. That's no mean feat. I think, that if you're doing it right, you're challenging EVERYTHING you thought you knew.

No one is required to do R. But if we choose it, shouldn't we give it our best effort? If we're sitting on our asses waiting for our WS to fix it, we're going to end up in limbo, because there's NOTHING a WS can do that will make their adultery okay. They can't unfuck anyone. There's no time machine. And that's what we want when we're inconsolable. We want that fucking time machine, yeah? But tough luck, we don't get one, and NO ONE is coming to our rescue because this is a deep, black hole that we have to climb out of by ourselves.

You know what the largest piece of my problem was? It was my own goddam ego. I just couldn't accept that he had done this to ME. My "ME" was in fifty foot letters with a fancy font. It was a constant primal howl in my mind, "How could he have done this to ME"??!!. And I know I've said this before, but it wasn't until I started considering the Buddhist way of relating suffering to ego that I could see just how big my ME was. It doesn't seem reasonable that at a time when our self-esteem feels like it's been shrunk to nothing by our mate's betrayal that the ego might need to be checked. We tend to think of ego as a bad thing, a narcissistic thing, "that guy is so egotistical", "her ego is so big, she thinks she's all that". But we all have an ego, and it's where our indignation comes from when we're oppressed, insulted, or otherwise abused.

My fWH's adultery WRECKED me, windshield meets bug. Splat! I was so shocked by how deep the injury was. I didn't actually think anything which didn't involve the death of a loved one could hurt me that bad. This caused what had been a general mild anxiety that I'd had for most of my life to become full-blown. It resulted in PTSD and depression, I shut most of my friends and family out of my life. I know I don't have to describe it to you guys because you've lived it. My self-esteem was gone, blown to smithereens. And yet... I had an ego problem. I couldn't accept that this horrible thing had happened to ME. It's the existential crisis bit that kind of tips you off, though, right? Where was God? Why had He allowed these bad things to happen to me. Where was my justice. The universe was against me. Luck had forsaken me... me, me, me. You see the pattern.

But the context here was that half of all marriages end in divorce. Cheating statistics are through the roof. I have no magical powers which protect me from bad happenings. I'm not so special that I can't be a statistic. And it doesn't mean I've been abandoned by God or by the cosmos or that I have bad karma. It just means that shit happens and we can't always control it. My fWH did what he did for him, because it was part of the weird mental place he was in at the time. He did it because of his FOO and his middle-aged angst and his lifelong NEED for external validation and admiration and because there were no boundaries in his flawed character to stop him. It was not done TO me. It was done to him by him. And yeah, he should have been thinking about me and he should have remembered his vows. Sure he should have. But that's why we're all here, isn't it. Because they didn't.

I've become pretty much convinced that as long as we're making the adultery about us, as long as we're standing at the center of that event with our fifty-foot ME rather than the periphery where the injury actually occurred, we can't heal. And I can hear the "buts" already... "but this really did happen to me", "but the WS knew that this would injure me", but, but, but, me, me, me.

All I know is that when I shrunk my "ME" down to size, my suffering shrunk with it. Yeah, he should have known he was hurting me. I'm convinced he did know. He could never have known how much, but that's another post. So, I was collateral damage in actions which were about HIM. He can't change that. Neither can I. It happened. It was NOT okay and it happened. I can either move forward with R or I can get a D, but NOTHING changes the fact that the adultery happened and that it was NOT okay.

But this is where I am now, six and a half years later. Earlier on, that divorce first stuff wouldn't have worked for me. I needed to SEE my fWH making changes and working hard. I needed to be comforted by his presence. Divorce is contentious. It's ripping asunder. We might argue that the adultery does the ripping, but turn a couple of lawyers loose and we all know there's ripping yet to be done. Unless there's additional abuse going on I tend to think that couples who want to try R should stay together. The longer a separation persists, the more likely it is to become permanent. I can see the attraction from a justice perspective. The WS does the crime and the divorce is the consequence of it. But what happened still happened and it was NOT okay. NOTHING ever changes that. We can only accept it... or not.

[This message edited by ChamomileTea at 12:50 AM, July 29th (Thursday)]

I think we all wish we could have said, without a tear in our eyes, "Oh, you cheated? I will pack your things. It will take me a few days to find a lawyer, and you should do the same. When should we tell friends and family? I think the sooner, the better."

Bam.

WS's jaw on the floor, their whole life thrown into chaos. The shock as they realize we don't even want to discuss it.

No begging from us, no questions or discussion, no twisting ourselves into a pretzel, no demeaning or blaming ourselves. That's the dream, that we could be that CONFIDENT AND SELF-ASSURED DURING SUCH A TRAUMATIC AND INJUROUS MOMENT. But, of course, it's not realistic. We are the ones who see life as we know it flash before our eyes on dday, the loss of finances and time with our children. We're the ones who are terrified.

We all just do the best we can, but when we look back, we usually regret the Pick Me moments when we falsely believed we were "fighting for the marriage." It's only with time that we realize we should have been fighting for ourselves, and the WS should have been fighting for the marriage. We had it backwards, only because we didn't know any better.

If we right the ship and fix our thinking, and the WS starts towing the line and doing all they should be doing to make us feel safe again, then there should be a statute of limitations on the drama, especially the digs and insults. I like equations:

Healing WS behaviors + BS work on their own self-esteem = natural reduction of triggers (which lead to conversations and heated discussions)? This is what I believe to be more true than an actual expiration date. So if the drama continues, the WS isn't doing the work, or the BS isn't doing the work. This is what I find to be true after years go by.

You know what the largest piece of my problem was? It was my own goddam ego. I just couldn't accept that he had done this to ME. My "ME" was in fifty foot letters with a fancy font. It was a constant primal howl in my mind, "How could he have done this to ME"??!!. And I know I've said this before, but it wasn't until I started considering the Buddhist way of relating suffering to ego that I could see just how big my ME was. It doesn't seem reasonable that at a time when our self-esteem feels like it's been shrunk to nothing by our mate's betrayal that the ego might need to be checked. We tend to think of ego as a bad thing, a narcissistic thing, "that guy is so egotistical", "her ego is so big, she thinks she's all that". But we all have an ego, and it's where our indignation comes from when we're oppressed, insulted, or otherwise abused.

My fWH's adultery WRECKED me, windshield meets bug. Splat! I was so shocked by how deep the injury was. I didn't actually think anything which didn't involve the death of a loved one could hurt me that bad. This caused what had been a general mild anxiety that I'd had for most of my life to become full-blown. It resulted in PTSD and depression, I shut most of my friends and family out of my life. I know I don't have to describe it to you guys because you've lived it. My self-esteem was gone, blown to smithereens. And yet... I had an ego problem. I couldn't accept that this horrible thing had happened to ME. It's the existential crisis bit that kind of tips you off, though, right? Where was God? Why had He allowed these bad things to happen to me. Where was my justice. The universe was against me. Luck had forsaken me... me, me, me. You see the pattern.

Ooh you might have drilled down to where we have a fundamental difference. Yes, the outrage that he had done this to ME. I see your perspective on that and I'm not saying it isn't valid. At the same time, that hit to the pride and ego of ME made me self-protective. In my mind, "you don't get to do that to ME" was me standing up for myself and being my own best friend. Because no, he did not get to do that to ME. He was not allowed to break me. No one gets to do that and the only one who can prevent someone from doing that is ME.

I didn't question God or the universe or why bad things happen to good people. My perspective was that this person just betrayed me, treated me like I was nothing and that was intolerable in every cell of my body. I burned with rage. ME is big because ME is all I have. One day I will die, and the only person truly there with me in my head will be ME. The state of ME drives what my entire life will be and how I will be with others. So to attack ME and break it down into so many components by infidelity trauma was one of the greatest crimes he could commit and I was not and am not interested in forgiving him. He's in the "dead to me" category. I loved him very deeply, but his betrayal(s) put ME at risk of destruction and that is too much. That was a dealbreaker. That was an unacceptable risk.

My ego and pride absolutely make me not R material, and yet I would not change it. That ego and pride have enabled me to survive and thrive.

ChamomileTea,

When I read what you wrote about the ego and "ME", it makes me think about victimhood and moving past that as a part of recovery. I would guess most BS initially feel like a victim of their WS's infidelity. I know I did. Then I reached a phase of acceptance, and "ok, now what am I going to do about it?"

At nearly 5 years out, I would not say my WH and I are reconciled, but we are on the path of building a new marriage. As such, I am determining what behavior and terms are acceptable to me in this new marriage. I'm expecting my WH to decide what is acceptable for him.

I do have some problems with the following way of viewing my new marriage.

At what point does the WS become the victim?

I do think there comes a point where the WS should bail out when the scales have tipped toward prolonged abuse. But that's not really what we're talking about here. This is more surreptitious, quietly contemptuous of the WS, but not overtly aggressive. At what point does the balance shift and the BS becomes the unethical party?

The problem for me is that if I took that view, I am not giving both us free agency in this new marriage. Instead, I am deciding for my WH what is appropriate for him. I need to think of him as being able to do that for himself.

I don't think every single thing in my new marriage is necessarily ever going to be fully equal again. My husband has to decide if that's ok. As an example, I don't know if I'll ever be ok with my husband having female friends or going out on guys weekends with old college friends. But I plan to do the equivalent. My husband once took an adventure travel trip where he was gone for a month, only a few satellite phone calls, and a GPS that wasn't working half the time. I took care of the children, the houses, and even some of his other commitments and responsibilities. I doubt I'll ever be ok with him doing something like that again. And yet... If I want to go to a Buddhist retreat for a month in Thailand, I think that's acceptable in my new marriage.

I don't see this as my WH being the victim. I can't. There are all kinds of marriages. He can divorce me any time if this new one isn't working for him. I can't decide that for him.

If I need to talk about the affair every week for the rest of our marriage, I will. I understand that my husband can find that unacceptable eventually and leave.

I do think there is a tendency for WS in general toward having the ME in bright lights and victim thinking in their marriage. They seem to have a harder time getting out of that than BS. But I agree that a BS can get stuck in that phase also.

he WS is returning to a marriage where they know the BS considers them before all others. The WS has a faithful spouse and all the perks that go along with that knowledge.

I wasn't faithful in the hope of getting something in return. I was faithful because that's what fit my values best. I was faithful because I freely chose to be faithful.

Yeah, my W got to have sex with someone outside of M ... and she has to deal with the pain she was trying to avoid and the pain she added to her life by cheating and the shame of failing as human being ... thanks, but no thanks.

Yeah, my W knows I love her. How is that bad? It would be bad if I were co-dependent. But she also knows I can leave her, even while loving her, if she stops being a good partner.

W & I are different individuals. She makes her choices. I make mine. It took her a long time to realize 'love' does not mean feeling and perhaps thinking the same things at the same time.

This is like two competing moments both wanting your time, one from the past and one from the present. They're both raising their tiny time-hands trying to get your notice, right? Which do you choose? Are we going to dredge up the past in a bid for sympathy from the perpetrator?.. or are we going to self-comfort and get back to an otherwise great evening? Bear in mind, that our WS's remorse and commitment are NO LONGER in question at this point.

...

When we take our pain to our WS, shouldn't it be because we actually NEED the help? I figured out after a while that I didn't to involve him anymore. I could notice the trigger, comfort myself, and then let it pass.

...

No, I'm not saying never bring it up again. But eventually you'll have processed all those feelings. It wouldn't be like hoarding them up because you're done with them. THAT's what I'm saying. It's possible to be done with this, to move on from it, and to allow it to be something that happened in the past. I spend a lot of time talking about it here at SI, but IRL, it just doesn't come up anymore. I don't think about it while I'm peeling the potatoes. I'm not crying it the shower anymore. It's just not a factor in my daily life. So if a rare trigger comes up, I'm not trading whatever is going on right now to go back in time and indulge a sadz. Why would I do that?

...

"hey, remember that time you fucked a bunch of skanks and it broke my heart?"

I really do think we mostly agree here. Maybe the occurrences for you are so far apart you really aren't going to run into the issues I'm about to describe. But consider this. A WS that owns their actions and the recovery will know that you bringing up a trigger is not something you are doing in order to hurt them or pull them back into the past. They will be able to take the bitter with the sweet and have an authentic evening with you. Because it's not ruining the moment.

You don't bring things up just out of "need". I think that makes it almost it's own little transactional type of interaction. I should be able to bring up a negative emotion related to the A, my fWW understand it's not an attack on her, and I don't necessarily need anything from her (sympathy and an apology never hurt). Say I have successfully self soothed five triggers, not said anything. Then I get really overwhelmed. How is my wife going to understand when I finally bring this one to her that I've been dealing with this shit on an ongoing basis?

Maybe, because not all betrayals are the same, when I do bring it up the implications are more directly related to the violation of trust than something more "pornographic".

But do I think it should be SOP that every BS divorce their cheating spouse? No. I just can't agree with that.

Actually I probably didn't make my position on this clear. My fault. I didn't mean that it should be SOP that every BS divorce.

Instead what I meant is that it should be SOP for divorce to immediately be on the table, to be recommended almost immediately by therapists, and for it to be serious (not a threat or a gambit).

That's a nuance, I'll admit, but hear me out.

I think it should be SOP for a therapist at the very least to strongly encourage a therapeutic separation of no less than 30 days. At the same a therapist should make it clear to a WS that they should immediately write down a timeline in their own hand, be prepared for a polygraph, and voluntarily take a full STD/STI panel.

I think it should be SOP that every BS see a divorce atty immediately so that the process of divorce is not a black box mystery (which it is to many of us, because we never thought of divorce as a possibility).

I think it should be SOP that the WS be told immediately that divorce is on the table, and that a therapeutic separation is warranted. If possible economically, a WS should be willing to move out of the marital home to give the BS space. They obviously should not break NC or shack up with their AP. These would be immediate dealbreakers, and then do not pass GO and immediate divorce.

I think this stress tests the immediate aftermath of D-Day in a very effective way. It will surface immediately whether a WS is serious about wanting R, and doing the things needed for R. It will give the BS space immediately, both physically and psychically. It will prevent love and sex bombing, which is quite harmful and confusing as I have come to learn.

It brings the mindgames to an almost immediate halt.

It puts the BS in the driver's seat.

It completely bunker buster bombs the fantasyland of the affair, because now the WS is faced with the sudden shock of their entire life heretofore known ending, a family destroyed and usually a decade or more investment in a marriage ending.

As I said, I think this is probably far better than the reverse engineered process of trying to coax a shy woodland faun to do some basic adult things that any adequately intelligent human being over the age of 25 ought to be able to accomplish.

At this point, then, the 'shit or get off the pot' becomes the WS decision, not the BS decision. That's really where it belongs. The BS is at the very least in a position of physical and mental safety, as we would recommend for any other abused spouse. And the WS must decide very quickly whether they are willing to step up and do the very basic things necessary to show they want R.

This is somewhat akin to an intervention for an addict, in my view. It's tough love.

Anyway that's my thinking at the moment. I think R as often outlined here is a bit like requiring that a shell-shocked soldier be sent back to the front because of the technicalities of their conscription orders. I look at this discussion on a statute of limitations in much the same light.

I think a default to divorce -- not necessarily carrying out, but also helping a BS find the strength to be absolutely serious about it and not use it as a tactic -- has a better chance of actually avoiding D than the torturous route of back-asswards "R" so many here on SI find themselves in over and over again.

As far as this ....

"How could he have done this to ME"??!!.

The better question really is "How could he do this to any other human being, ever?"

Did you ever ask that question? Because that is not an ego-driven question, it's a basic decency question. It's a moral question.

As I've noted elsewhere, I don't buy into a narrative that portrays BS's as being abusive, or distant, or not meeting needs, or anything else. Sure it happens. But it's the distinct minority. The very presence of most BS's here is a testament to that. What you see on SI is a group of thousands of BS's, tens of thousands of BS's, who are thoughtful, articulate, relatively self-aware people who seem to have high EQ and lots of empathy. They tend to be people who go by the motto "work hard, be nice" to steal a phrase.

By contrast, most of the WS's who show up here are absolute basket cases, and I'm sorry but they seem to emanate a lot of darkness in their posts. Yes, always the caveat that there is a group of WS's here who seem to be incredibly self-aware people who authentically have found remorse and are trying to restore a relationship with their BS. But if saying the quiet part out loud, this doesn't seem to be the experience in the majority of cases.

This is why I have such a huge issue with my WW trying to convince me I needed to be on an SSRI when in fact my gut was firing on all cylinders and I was not paranoid at all. I was having panic attacks because my WW was fucking another man, and my body knew it. See, I simply CANNOT contemplate ever doing something like that to another person. It's why I brought up the whole thing with my dreams about "The Dark Secret of Harvest Home." It's like my brain processed this and said, "Hey, here's the best narrative analogy for what just happened to you."

My WW now says "I didn't really mean it" and "I knew you would never go to a psychiatrist and get a prescription anyway."

Think about those two responses for a moment if you will.

[This message edited by Thumos at 11:33 AM, July 29th (Thursday)]

The better question really is "How could he do this to any other human being, ever?"

Did you ever ask that question? Because that is not an ego-driven question, it's a basic decency question. It's a moral question.

Standing ovation, Thumos. Right on with your whole post. This part too. Yes, I asked that question and the answer led me to truly seeing him for who he was. Not who he presented himself as or who he said he was or who I had interpeted him to be, but who he was at his core right then. It wasn't pretty. When someone decides to R, that is the version they're starting with. That's the version with the gaslighting and mind games and bullshit that makes up at least the first year. No one has any business being married to that type of person. No one has any business being in the same home with that type of person. That person should have to earn their way back in with actual changes. The mindfuck with legs has to leave and try to unfuck themselves first instead of hanging out and handing out more abuse to the BS in the aftermath.

I know, not everyone will agree that the person needs to leave and I know not everyone is able to enforce that after being wrecked. But like Thumos, I wish that was the standard response.

[This message edited by DevastatedDee at 11:53 AM, July 29th (Thursday)]

Hmmm. Not from me you aren't. Unless you somehow categorize asking simple factual questions, asking to see texts, not accepting gaslighting, asking for a timeline, asking for a polygraph as "abuse." I mean, last time I checked I don't think polygraph examiners shove bamboo under fingernails or anything. Waywards get the chance to plant their butts in comfortable chairs and answer it's a few yes/no questions. Boo hoo.

Yet this is precisely the way many WW's seem to frame these kinds of matter of fact things. We read far too often about crazed WW's making up all manner of horseshit about "abuse" -- usually it's the "verbal and emotional abuse" variety. One tried this recently, in fact, in the JFO forum. My wife herself seemed to tiptoe up to this. I told her one night "I want the truth" sort of gritted teeth Tom Cruise style. I didn't raise my voice, I didn't move toward her. I just said it evenly. She recoiled in horror and gasped as if I was going to hit or her, or as if I ever had. It really disgusted me. I told her if she ever tried to foment a false domestic violence charge against me I'd divorce her in a New York minute and seek primary custody of our kids.

Agreed with this comment and divorce being SOP after betrayal. D and immediate separation should be the default position. In part, for the waywards who immediately go into defense, like claiming they're the victim because of questions, disgust, and anger directed at them for their infidelity. The wayward takes this position which puts everything on a path to rugsweeping, after all, should they wayward have to suffer the verbal abuse of questions about their unethical behavior? Silly once you take a step back and examine in the rearview mirror - but in the moment everyone is fighting this no-win scenerio.

If D and separation were SOP, a couple could get past the trauma, a truly remorseful spouse could work on themselves, and things like MC, disclosure, etc, could come after the triage phase. Also, the motion toward divorce does all the positives you mentioned for the betrayed, who is in desperate straights.

On the Statute of Limitations, there is no such thing. The betrayal is a permanent part of the marriage history. But hopefully, a resolved part of the history, were the wayward did the work to present themselves as a safe partner: which means they are always transparent and can speak about their poor choices in the affair with genuine honesty and compassion. If they actually did the work and recognize were they failed then that is the "old them" and the "new them" can look at it all clear eyed and without shame. Remorse, sure, regret, okay, but they don't have to carry a cross for the rest of their life.

The ability to speak about the affair and have a shared understanding has to be an essential part of a reconciled marriage. This means there is no need for a statute of limitations needed.

OIN

Healing WS behaviors + BS work on their own self-esteem = natural reduction of triggers (which lead to conversations and heated discussions)? This is what I believe to be more true than an actual expiration date. So if the drama continues, the WS isn't doing the work, or the BS isn't doing the work. This is what I find to be true after years go by.

Agreed. Again, the thread title is provocative in order to get us thinking. What I've noticed though, is that yeah.. there's plenty of threads we jump in there and hold a WS's feet to the fire. But it's tough to be critical of a BS, even when they might need it. I can think of one divorce where neither party is really happy to be on that path, but the BS hasn't done ANY work toward healing and has become so abusive in that marriage that it can no longer be sustained. There does come a point where we can allow our injury to make us into a monster.

[This message edited by ChamomileTea at 2:14 PM, July 29th (Thursday)]

I'm coming around to the idea of S or D (more S) as step one out of infidelity. Get yourself to a safe space. This is a key component of fending off PTSD per The Body Keeps the Score. The longer one feels unsafe or threatened, the more likely they are to suffer long term issues from it.

So I agree mostly that S is a good thing. For all of the reasons listed and the PTSD avoidance issue.

But I also agree with CT in what she is saying. I've been thinking a lot about forgiveness lately. It ties into this conversation and the points CT makes about betrayeds having to do some work.

It's taken me 2.5 years to even come close to understanding the idea that forgiveness is for the betrayed. That sounded like a shit deal for the betrayed and a bonus for the betrayer.

But forgiveness is in it's essence, discharging a debt. In the case of infidelity, it is a debt that can never, ever be repaid. Unless, like CT points out, there is a time machine, this wrong cannot be undone. There really is nothing a betrayer can do to "make it up" to the betrayed. yes, they can correct course and become a better partner, but the damage is done and it is permanent. Read these boards and you'll see 1002 steps, rules, what have you, laid out for WS to atone for their crime. Still, no BS writes "we're even now." Ever.

So betrayeds are owed a debt that is impossible to collect. Our choice, whether we D or R, is to decide what to do about that. My thoughts are leading me to forgiveness. Why? Because as long as I feel owed, as long as I feel entitled to compensation that is never coming, I am a victim.

Yes, I was victimized by my asshat of a spouse but I do not want that to define the rest of my life. I do not want this victim label pinned to my chest like some twisted scarlet letter I have to bear. In fact, as my strength grows, I'm more angry thinking about carrying around this debt more than anything else. That's when I started thinking, well, you're the one carrying it. Put it down. Let it go.

If freeing oneself of the burden of this debt isn't enough to inspire, let's talk to your ego. Aren't you stronger and better than the broken souls who wreak havoc in our lives? Don't you look in the mirror and see a capable, loving, lovable, good human being? Is there possibly room for pity, maybe sympathy, for the destroyers who do the most harm to themselves? After all, in the ladder of life, you, the honest, faithful betrayed are ahead. Why demand recompense from someone who is a few rungs down struggling with their own brokenness? They can't give it anyway.

My thoughts on this are not yet fully formed but that's where I am. So statute of limitations? Not sure. But betrayeds moving out of feeling owed and into healing? yeah, whether you R or D, I think forgiveness needs to come. Set yourself free.

[This message edited by TheEnd at 2:49 PM, July 29th (Thursday)]

I think this is VERY good, TheEnd. Very good. Incredibly well stated and thought through. Thank you for posting it.

I myself feel some days like I've completely forgiven and other days ... well. That's why I try to look at it as a process.

DevastatedDee

I didn't question God or the universe or why bad things happen to good people. My perspective was that this person just betrayed me, treated me like I was nothing and that was intolerable in every cell of my body. I burned with rage. ME is big because ME is all I have.

My "me" is pretty big these days too. I've invested in a healthier "me". But when I talk about that outsized "ME" in fifty-foot letters and fancy font, I'm talking about the "ME" who believed that God and the universe had failed to protect me, etc. etc., the ME who felt like the unluckiest person on the planet. So, it's not about healthy self-image, it's about the outlandish belief that you are so special that nothing bad can happen to you. This isn't even narcissism. It's just a naive, leftover from childhood where we are the CENTER of our universe, and we don't even realize that this vestige of outsized toddler ego is still online.

humantrampoline

I do think there comes a point where the WS should bail out when the scales have tipped toward prolonged abuse. But that's not really what we're talking about here. This is more surreptitious, quietly contemptuous of the WS, but not overtly aggressive. At what point does the balance shift and the BS becomes the unethical party?

The problem for me is that if I took that view, I am not giving both us free agency in this new marriage. Instead, I am deciding for my WH what is appropriate for him. I need to think of him as being able to do that for himself.

I'm thinking this is more of a touchstone for thinking about ourselves. For me, it's kind of a tool to make sure that I'm not changing into something I don't want to be. And I think you're right, some things do have to change. I will never tolerate my fWH having friendships with other women. He has abused that in the past. But, if I had divorced him, I wouldn't tolerate it in another husband either. It's a damned slippery slope. So, I don't expect my fWH to tolerate close male friendships on my part, nor would I have expected a new mate to tolerate that. In terms of traveling and that sort of thing, yeah, a few years ago, it might have been off the table. Even now, I'm not going to lie, I'd feel the trepidation and we'd have to talk about that. But, I'd let him go just as I would expect if there were something I really wanted to do on my own. See, it's not him who would be the prisoner if I didn't. It would be ME, held in thrall by my own fear. Closer to DDay, I do think it's a different story, and that the WS needs to EARN their way back to full partnership. But I'm further out than that.

This0is0Fine

You don't bring things up just out of "need". I think that makes it almost it's own little transactional type of interaction. I should be able to bring up a negative emotion related to the A, my fWW understand it's not an attack on her, and I don't necessarily need anything from her (sympathy and an apology never hurt). Say I have successfully self soothed five triggers, not said anything. Then I get really overwhelmed. How is my wife going to understand when I finally bring this one to her that I've been dealing with this shit on an ongoing basis?

I don't understand why you would bring it up if you didn't NEED some help though. What are you accomplishing besides reminding her that she hurt you. What do you get out of that? I mean, if you are capable of self-soothing, what's the point? Sharing? That's like walking around the house and yelling "I farted" after a big, gassy meal. It's sharing your thought/feeling/event, but what's the other person supposed to do with that? My triggers are/were ghosts. They're brain hiccups that have nothing to do with what's going on NOW.

I know that in the beginning triggers are AWFUL. It all feels like it's happening again, and yeah, if you're in R, you need some comforting and you need to know your WS is deeply remorseful. But I'm six and a half years out now, and even so, I stopped bringing triggers to my WS long before that. As soon as I realized that I could self-soothe and get back on track, I was no longer willing to "bring the room down", as it were. He can't change what he did, and I already KNOW he's sorry. And I don't know if there's a correlation or not, but it wasn't too long after I started handling triggers on my own, that they pretty much stopped bothering me.

[This message edited by ChamomileTea at 2:53 PM, July 29th (Thursday)]

My "me" is pretty big these days too. I've invested in a healthier "me". But when I talk about that outsized "ME" in fifty-foot letters and fancy font, I'm talking about the "ME" who believed that God and the universe had failed to protect me, etc. etc., the ME who felt like the unluckiest person on the planet. So, it's not about healthy self-image, it's about the outlandish belief that you are so special that nothing bad can happen to you. This isn't even narcissism. It's just a naive, leftover from childhood where we are the CENTER of our universe, and we don't even realize that this vestige of outsized toddler ego is still online.

I get you now. Yeah, I didn't have that "me". I think that got knocked out of me too early in life to come back up in adulthood. I knew that bad things could happen to me and the universe wouldn't care. When they happened, I had to marshall all of me and pull myself out. I was shocked that the terrible thing happened to me at his hands and that's where the profound trauma of it came in.

[This message edited by DevastatedDee at 3:27 PM, July 29th (Thursday)]

I don't understand why you would bring it up if you didn't NEED some help though. What are you accomplishing besides reminding her that she hurt you. What do you get out of that? I mean, if you are capable of self-soothing, what's the point? Sharing? That's like walking around the house and yelling "I farted" after a big, gassy meal. It's sharing your thought/feeling/event, but what's the other person supposed to do with that? My triggers are/were ghosts. They're brain hiccups that have nothing to do with what's going on NOW.

The point is sharing and open communication, yes. It is about being emotionally intimate and vulnerable with my wife. It also reinforces that it's ok for her to share her pain or other feelings with me, even if I'm responsible for creating those feelings. Something she has historically struggled with. So if we were to identify the "need" it's not something that is an immediate need, but something like a fundamental relationship need. Emotional intimacy.

I don't think it's like announcing your farted as you walk through the house, but if you let one loose in bed, it's nice to warn your partner, because they are most likely going to smell it. "I'm sorry I just farted." Now, maybe it would be even better to excuse myself out of the room to release any gas I have, but I'm just lazy I guess. I've stretched the analogy to the breaking point.

Thumos

Instead what I meant is that it should be SOP for divorce to immediately be on the table, to be recommended almost immediately by therapists, and for it to be serious (not a threat or a gambit).

That's exactly what I did. And yeah, it works like gangbusters. You either get a divorce from a remorseless cheater, or you get R from a WS who has snapped to attention. On DDay, I made his dinner and sent our nearly grown children out of the house. I knew he wouldn't be able to choke down a bite after I was through with him. He'd been out all day with his most current paramour, so he scarfed down my cooking same as usual. It's weird the things you do when your heart is broken, isn't it? Anyway, when he was done, I just flat out told him that I had looked at his phone bill and his phone put him in the same town as a certain number which I had noticed calling and texting him in the thousands and that I wanted a divorce. I didn't even ask him if he was fucking her. I just told him that I didn't care about the details, didn't want to hear his side of it. I was done. He could split the banking and I would find us a lawyer. Of course, he's frantically trying to clear his messages under the table, but he basically admits it, and admits to two others as well. He gives me his best hang-dog look and agrees that divorce is probably for the best, then.. tears off for the guest room to text his AP. I start doing the 180 before I even know what it is. But he only lasts a week before he comes to me asking for time to prove himself.

So, this is where I part ways with you... If he had been out of my sight at any point for the next six months, I don't think I could have continued. I needed to SEE him working. I needed to be comforted. I needed to know he was remorseful every single day.

I do believe in coming out strong, and I do think it's necessary to put that WS in the one-down EARNING his/her way back. But I also think that once they have done the work, we need to be prepared to allow equality again.

The better question really is "How could he do this to any other human being, ever?"

But that's the point... He did NOT do this to me. He did it to himself. I was never the target. I was, at best, on the periphery.

We are bystanders, Thumos. The attack is not directed at us. WS's come in all types, yeah. Some are narcissistic, remorseless assholes who truly don't give a shit about anyone else, but even then, the cheating is about them. They've been hiding their REAL face from view for the entire relationship until they just can't hide it any more. Others though are like my fWH, a messed up guy with a nearly fatal character flaw. That flaw allowed all his mess to build-up and pour out of him in basically a binge of selfish hedonism which lasted for almost a year. Now, we can either believe that it's possible for a cheater to make real changes, to heal, to correct their character, or we can say "once a cheater, always a cheater" and write them off. That would be much quicker, I'll grant you. But I do believe that people can change. I believe my fWH has made those changes and I actually have some empathy for how he got so fucked up and turned around.

The point of R should be that we love our WS and we love the life we've built together enough to get out of our comfort zone and WORK to save the marriage. It doesn't mean compromising our own values. It doesn't mean that we in ANY way agree that what happened was okay. What happened was NOT okay. And we don't come this far with a WS who hasn't done (or won't do) the work. I just don't think it's possible to heal without letting the WS carry their own baggage on the cheating. As long as we believe it's about us, we're victims.