SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am going to try very hard not to make this rambly, because my thoughts are all over the place...

This has been said quite a bit, but I wanted to spin off on what uncertainone, and others, have said on several occasions.

I think that most affairs can be classified as Revenge Affairs. They are tit-for-tat in nature. Not getting enough sex at home? Fine! Go out and get it elsewhere. Married to an emotionally unavailable person? Fine. Go get your emotional fill-upedness somewhere else. Spouse gambles and drinks too much and won’t listen to, communicate with, or have sex with you? Fine. Throw the ultimate temper tantrum and go have sex with someone else. And the all-time winner… You fucked someone else? Fine… Watch this…

We all have real and perceived wrongs in our marriage. Not all of us cheat. Thinking that there is some sort of justification for the Revenge Affair because *cue stomping foot* “HE/SHE did it first!” After d-day, my H came clean about some very inappropriate, cheating-type things that he had done in the previous 2 years of our marriage (while my A was going on). There were drunk make-outs, and some webcam internet porn things that still make me want to vomit, but that is a different post… 8 months after d-day, I found some VERY inappropriate texts to a girl he worked with (17 years younger) and when I confronted him, he left the house. He then went out and took a girl back to his hotel room. He felt better he said, because now we were “even.”

Can I be honest here? I was a little relieved. I was relieved that if we were “even,” as he suggested, maybe we could get to the marriage and not focus on all the infidelity stuff. (HA!) Do you know how long we got to be “even?” Hmmm… I’d say about 48 hours. Because all of a sudden, when I had questions about her 22 year old ass and boobs, I would hear, “Are you kidding me??? What you did was SO much worse!!!” Ummm... Ok. What happened to being even? HA! I didn’t learn this until later, but there IS no EVEN! Not EVER!

This is when I started to realize that I had to fix me. I was working so hard on fixing him and us and our marriage, I had forgotten that I was the most important one in MY life that needed to be fixed, and that is where I am… On the journey to fixing myself…

The truth is that what uncertainone was saying in AR's thread about being broken as a WS or as a BS is true- 1000% true. My husband gambled- his financial infidelities destroyed my immediate hope for a financially stable home for myself and my children. But his gambling did not BREAK me!!! It did not destroy ME!!! I didn’t have the proper tools at the time to draw good boundaries and stand up for myself. I didn’t have the tools to know that my affair had NOTHING to do with my husband’s choices. It was my choice to search desperately for SOMEONE to fill the emptiness that I was feeling. I blamed it on my husband. I was wrong. He owns his fucked-up choices in the marriage. (or he needs to)… And I own mine- All of mine.

I know that every marriage is different. But I also know that entertaining the notion of a RA or engaging in a RA points DIRECTLY back at the one HAVING the RA. WSes have all sorts of excuses in the beginning, don’t we? Wasn’t getting enough attention, wasn’t getting enough/any sex… Emotionally disconnected from spouse. Etc, etc, etc… I guarantee you, when I, as a remorseful WS, was faced with the ugly reality of the Revenge Affair and the subsequent excuses that followed, “You know, I never would have done this if YOU wouldn’t have…” I thought. You know, I’m not going to accept ME being the reason for YOUR fucked up choices, just as I am not going to accept YOU being the reason for MY fucked up choices.

Uncertainone has it right. This seems to be an “accepted” frame of mind in the world of infidelity. If your spouse has an affair, you have the same choices your spouse had BEFORE they had an affair- you can leave, you can fight, or you can stay and find some kind of way to live in this marriage. My husband’s choices had absolutely nothing to do with my decision to have an affair, and in the EXACT same light- my affair has NOTHING to do with my H’s choice to fuck around, either.

I may have to go back and edit this for clarity…

But his gambling did not BREAK me!!! It did not destroy ME!!

Good for you. I'm sure there are many betrayed spouses (not just due to infidelity) that can walk away unscathed.

But do you really think that those of us who are broken, who broke down in a puddle of tears in the bathroom floor night after horrible night, who seek IC and ADs to regain our footing, who have to find a way to not end up bitter, cynical, and jaded CHOOSE to be this way?

I am responsible for my actions. If I choose an RA, that is all on me. But brokenness? Seriously? If I had a choice I would chose to NOT be broken. And now I find myself testing ADs, trust me, not by my choice at all.

I'm waiting on Salma Hayek. If she calls, I'm having a revenge affair with her. And I dont' care what anyone says.

But with anyone else... I tend to agree with you. Not worth it.

If I had a choice I would chose to NOT be broken.

who says you don't have a choice, though?

But do you really think that those of us who are broken, who broke down in a puddle of tears in the bathroom floor night after horrible night, who seek IC and ADs to regain our footing, who have to find a way to not end up bitter, cynical, and jaded CHOOSE to be this way?

icbtih8, I was not clear in my post (that whole editing for clarity thing)...

At the time, I believed that my H's gambling DID break me. I believed it was he that was breaking my heart and my spirit. I believed that his constant rejection was killing me. And because of that, I believed that my affair was justified. I could not see past the pain. I could not see past the rejection. I could not see past the heartbreaking realization that I had made a terrible mistake by marrying him... And I did go on ADs.

And, then I went and decimated myself further by having an affair. I destroyed myself. I was the one in the heaping pile on the bathroom floor not able to function for months because of what I had become- because of what I did.

I could have stayed there forever- really... but I chose not to. Yes, I believe that, after a period of time, we choose our own misery. NOT in the immediate aftermath of our world being destroyed by an affair or other life-altering, life-exploding events. If we choose to stay where we are and nothing is changing, and we are miserable, then, yes, we all choose our own misery after a while.

My husband cannot fix me. My husband cannot make me whole. My healing started to come when I realized that I was broken- not because of him. And the only way I was going to heal was to look in the mirror and become a whole person- with or without him...

Because no one in their right mind says:

"Self, you know what would be good tonight? Insomnia! Followed by a dose of teary-ness and some suicidal thoughts and I'm all set."

If I had a choice I would chose to NOT be broken.

who says you don't have a choice, though?

^^^THIS!!! The overwhelming healing comes when you realize that you do have a choice- ALL of us...

Maybe a T/J

(((icbtih8))) I'm sorry that you are hurting. You should be proud of the fact that you are seeking out IC and are willing to use AD's along with other healthy tools available to you in response to those hurts to heal yourself. That is awesome when so many people don't ever even try to fix their brokenness.

The #1 thing that they teach in psychotherapy is that only you control your reactions to the things that happen to you.

No one chooses to have other people hurt them. Everyone chooses how they respond to hurt. Ownership of one's actions and feelings is the foundation of authenticity.

Ownership of one's actions and feelings is the foundation of authenticity

awesome and very, very true....

Maybe it's all semantics then because I agree that people have a choice to fix themselves or get help from others to fix themselves. But you don't fix something that isn't broken. So in order to say "there's something broken; I need to fix me" I need to be broken first. I don't think I have a choice to not be broken to begin with.

Because no one in their right mind says:

"Self, you know what would be good tonight? Insomnia! Followed by a dose of teary-ness and some suicidal thoughts and I'm all set."

icbtih8, I don't want to beat this to death under any circumstances, because your pain is palpable, but who is supposed to fix that self talk? Your H? Your IC? The only person that can change your self-talk is you...

(((icbtih8)))

only you control your reactions to the things that happen to you.

Exactly! We can't control what happens TO us. We can only control what we do and how we respond to what happens to us.

No one chooses to have other people hurt them. Everyone chooses how they respond to hurt. Ownership of one's actions and feelings is the foundation of authenticity.

This is very true. But, everyone should go easy on themselves because we all have different abilities when it comes to coping and moving on from hurt. Think of it like physical fitness, while one person can run a marathon, another might have to work hard to walk a block.

The only person that can change your self-talk is you...

I would never have these self talks if I wasn't broken to begin with.

Like I said, perhaps it's all semantics. I dont think people have a choice in becoming broken. I do think people have a choice in remaining broken.

The fallout of an A for many of us IS brokenness and not by choice. Whether I wallow in it and what I do with my brokenness are my choices.

[This message edited by icbtih8 at 6:32 PM, November 3rd (Thursday)]

Yes, but the person that runs the marathon had to do extensive training and a LOT of hard work to get there. In most cases, the person that can hardly walk around the block is CAPABLE of running marathons, too... They just have to get up and train a lot, too. The marathon runner doesn't just wake up one day and run a marathon.

The fallout of an A for many of us IS brokenness and not by choice. Whether I wallow in it and what I do with my brokenness are my choices.

I guess it is semantics, because that's exactly what I was saying. I just don't like the idea that ANYONE has the power to break me- other than me. But it took quite a while for me to get there...

Weird... This thread was supposed to be about Revenge Affairs...

Don't ever let nobody bring you down.

Don't ever let nobody tear your world apart.

Look in the mirror and see who you are.

How beautiful U R.

Lyrics from one of the songs I listen to during my walks. I've been known to loop it a few times. It changes my internal dialog from negative to positive.

Our now is inside all of us. Shine light onto the darkness inside, purge it. Dark begets dark. Light begets light. We are all a work in progress, ever changing, ever evolving, creating our right now. Consciously decide your now WILL not be your past.

Revenge in any form is rarely a good idea.

I take issue with the idea that my husband's affair was in some way revenge for something I did. Our situation may be different than most people, but our marriage was actually fine (I know it sounds crazy). He had other issues going on, didn't deal with them well and did what he did in a self-medication sort of way. It really had little to ever do with me.

I take issue with the idea that my husband's affair was in some way revenge for something I did.

I don't think ANY affair is about what the BS did. I think the WS justifies it as "revenge" for wrong done- real or perceived, and not necessarily revenge against the BS.

I can't help thinking that some of us old timer's regression is due to us ignoring the extent of our brokenness.

I think about a few BS turned WS years out from dday and wonder if their A could have been prevented if they had acknowledged their brokenness instead of ignoring it.