SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

"Our intention creates our reality." - Wayne Dyer

Magnificent.

In my way of thinking, the most frequent "fantasy" aspect of infidelity (in most cases -- certain cases I've seen like UO's excluded) is the view adopted of the BS. The BS as obstacle, as the thing holding someone back, or even the simple idea that they're not "meeting needs". The fantasy aspect is the creation of a bogeyman at worst, or simply a negation of their reality (what they don't know won't hurt them, they'll never find out).

In the fantasy, the BS stops being a real person and becomes a cardboard cutout for whatever traits the WS chooses to ascribe to them. A character in an elaborate fiction.

For what it's worth, I think the same thing every damned time I see someone post about Better.Than.Evar aspirations. And every time I see a WS post at 3, 6 or 9 months out that they're a "completely different person" than they were way back in the day when they were having that bad, old affair and not thinking straight.

If the relationship was real, if the feelings were real, if the actions were real...then all of the ramifications of what those sorts of behaviors mean about who a person is, definitionally, at their core, are also real and true. And a lifetime's worth of dysfunction isn't repaired in a year.

Except in fantasies.

[This message edited by wincing_at_light at 9:52 PM, November 21st (Monday)]

I tend to agree with your analogy but would offer a slight twist. Potential is just that..., potential. It is what could be. The problem lies in the equation that potential requires work to become reality. I think that in a world driven on instant gratification, we tend to look past the hard work and only see what we would like it to be, or what it could be.

So while I am taking this on a wild tangent, I would propose that if:

potential + work = reality, then potential – work = fantasy

So then, regarding marriage:

(2 x potential) + (2 x work) = M

(1 x potential) + (2 x work) = false R

(2 x potential) + (1 x work) = false R

(1 x potential) + (1 x work) = D

Sorry. I don't drink enough.

WAL, why are you so damn good at expressing my thoughts?

Seriously, that is the "fantasy" part for me as well. There is no positive connotation for me.

The thoughts,feelings and actions were real and served their purpose at the time.

And oddly enough, helpme's view of why a BS calls it fantasy is pretty close to my view of why a WS would do the same.

And "better than ever"...that definitely sounds fantastical to me. But that's another thread.

Thank you for your very interesting perspective.

It took me a long time but I learned that whether he felt it was fantasy or not wasn't the point.

The fantasy was mine.

The fantasy that 'this' would never happen to us. The fantasy that any friend of mine would do something so horrific to me. The fantasy was that our marriage was normal. The reality was MY life was just that; fantasy.

I really don't care if he felt it was his fantasy or not. My reality was that I had to find a way to pull myself together for our kids. My reality was I knew I could not live the rest of my life wondering, even if just briefly, if he wasn't quietly still thinking/longing/loving someone else. My reality was D.

Words like fantasy, reality, potential, etc,,, are often used in describing/justifying the WS' behavior. We can deliberate that all night. But at the end of the day, the only reality we have any control over is our own.

IMO, the trouble so many BS's have with calling the A 'fantasy' is that doing so seems to let the WS off the hook.

It IS fantasy and the WS IS 100% responsible for every inch of it from start to finish.

When I was a little girl there was a house in my neighborhood that was a little less kept than the other homes. Me and my little friends would walk past the house and point to it and talk about its 'ugliness'- the weeds in the front garden or the chipping paint.

As time went on, we began to notice that there was something strange about the house. We agreed that the house was causing us to have creepy feelings. We agreed that the creepy feelings were coming from inside the house. We agreed that something very bad must have happened or is happening inside that house. We agreed that a whole family was murdered inside that house. We agreed that the old man who lived in the house was the person who murdered the family and we agreed that he killed random neighborhood pets for sport...

We'd work ourselves up until we were screaming our asses off while running nonstop until we were safe in one of our homes. With tears rolling down our faces and hyperventilating, we'd beg a parent to believe everything that we saw and heard in that house and how we couldn't let our pets outside!!

A week or so later we'd be out riding bikes wondering what to do next and one of us would suggest riding to the spooky house. GREAT IDEA!!

The reality was that the house often had some weeds in the yard and needed a little paint. The reality was that I would frequently go to that house with my friends. The reality was that the house had real potential for us to create a fantasy and get all freaky feeling. The reality was that every time we went there I'd end up crying and screaming in fear! The reality was that having the shit scared out of us was a whole lot of fun!!

That was the ONLY reality.

My feelings were very real but very contrived because they weren't based in any sort of reality accept for my willingnes. The house was real but it was a prop for my fantasy.

The only difference between my game of 'let's delude ourselves' and WH and MOW's game of 'let's delude ourselves' was the reality of consequences. My game didn't have any and WH wished his didn't!

I understand why a WS would have a hard time accepting their A was a fantasy.

When what he did hit him...I mean, the thing that hit him AFTER the pain and destruction he caused hit him- there was a meltdown like I've never seen.

The realization that his ability to delude himself to the degree that he did meant that he was a liability to himself. To say that it was a humbling realization or an a-ha moment would be a massive understatement!

He's been struggling trying to deal with this realization for quite some time now. Funny thing is, it's the same thing I'm struggling trying to deal with also. I don't know how to get past it.

This is an eye opener. I can see that I as a WH used this as an excuse to cover up what I had done.

To put a coating of sugar on a pile of shit. To hide the reality of the affair. All the lies I told to my BS during and after, to myself, to everyone around me to make what I had done ok.

When the term fantasy was brought up I jumped all over this and still believed it until your post.

Thank you for writing this. It has given me a new direction in sorting out what I was going through and how I was thinking during the a.

I prefer some words myself. I always subsitute adultery when I read posts for the word infidelity or affair (really dislike affair). Adultery is much more reality based.

Go back and substitute the word adultery in these posts and maybe you will see what I mean. Then again, maybe it is just me.

Great post, thank you for sharing.

[This message edited by Phoenix519 at 8:02 AM, November 22nd (Tuesday)]

Phoenix, what you wrote made a difference to me...just saying..

AP's discussing how they're hurting their spouses has the same quality as AP's rolling around nakad while simultaneously crying about how they could be doing such an awful thing.

It's just more food for fuel.

Phoenix,

I agree with what you were saying, and I just want to respond and say that when I use the term 'real' vs 'fantasy' I am in no way trying to 'make myself feel better.' At all. In fact, I think it is worse. I guess what it comes down to is that I view the term 'fantasy' as something positive. There was nothing positive about my affair (or any other I may argue). I was depressed, miserable, a total wreck.

Also, you mentioned that the hardest thing for you to understand was the fact that your WS did it maliciously - that it was discussed how it would hurt you and yet it continued. I know this pales in comparison to your pain, but this has also been the hardest part for me to understand. That this is something I could do, that this is the person I am somewhere deep inside. And, that I did it not for a week, a month...but for an entire year. That I not only kept it from my husband, but I helped another person gaslight his wife. Seriously malicious - and for nothing.

I hear a lot of anger in your post and I can totally understand that. Just wanted to say that I appreciated your response and can agree with almost everything you wrote and it helped me realize that the word fantasy is an issue for me because of the positive connotations it has behind it.

I view the term 'fantasy' as something positive.

But your A was a positive at the time.

Seriously malicious - and for nothing

How can you say that it was for nothing? It had to be for something so what was that something?

Fantasy- you were going for a feeling?

Love- because people in love are seriously malicious?

Phoenix what you said spoke my thoughts, also.

Real love. Real good sex. Real sharing. Real xxxxxx.

I think some WS's have no idea what we as BS's have to accept and what we have accepted as real. And how it feels. There is no way they can know, just like I didn't know until I had to start walking in these shoes, and they ain't no Jimmy Choo's either.

I think we all know as BS's how f**kin' real it was, thats why our hearts are broken.

I view the term 'fantasy' as something positive.

But your A was a positive at the time.

Seriously malicious - and for nothing

How can you say that it was for nothing? It had to be for something so what was that something?

Fantasy- you were going for a feeling?

Love- because people in love are seriously malicious?

Sorry, my post was in direct response to Phoenix....but I was writing and had to go somewhere and finished it when I got home and she deleted her post....so it doesnt make much sense now :-).

Again, I was not in love with my AP...so your last sentence doesn't really pertain to me. I am not talking about love when I am saying that the word fantasy bothers me.

My A was not a positive at the time. Unless you would also consider being a drug addict 'positive'. I guess if you mean that when I got the 'high' from it that it was positive....well, ok....but other than that, a total negative. I was moody, short-tempered, miserable....

I'm not going to get into what I got from the affair, but you are right, obviously I did get something from continuing it, but it was nothing I should have wanted to get - it was a direct result of some pretty deep FOO issues.

As far as the 'nothing' I guess what I meant by that is not 'nothing'...but I threw away everything I had for .... hmm, can't say nothing again can I?

The ONLY positive I can see now is that this situation forced me to work on my shit. Forced me to delve into some pretty horrible things that happened to me while I was growing up, how I was treated, etc. What all of that did to me despite me trying to shove it deeper and have the exterior of someone with a good history.

If the relationship was real, if the feelings were real, if the actions were real...then all of the ramifications of what those sorts of behaviors mean about who a person is, definitionally, at their core, are also real and true. And a lifetime's worth of dysfunction isn't repaired in a year.

Except in fantasies

Perfect!

If the relationship was real, if the feelings were real, if the actions were real...then all of the ramifications of what those sorts of behaviors mean about who a person is, definitionally, at their core, are also real and true. And a lifetime's worth of dysfunction isn't repaired in a year.

Except in fantasies

Perfect!

I also COMPLETELY agree with this. Have I come a long way in 6 months? Absolutely? Am I fully repaired? Hells to the no. My BH and I keep open communication about how I'm feeling, things that happen, etc. He knows where I am at every turn. Sometimes I get frustrated and express it to my therapist and she basically says 'you entire core being was created in a very unhealthy environment, you were formed in this way and lived it and coped for 20-30 years.....it's not going to be easy to 'reprogram' yourself, but it can be done.'

I think the fantasy part of an affair for me comes in the role-playing. I haven't heard many WS's say, "I felt exactly the same way toward the AP as I did my spouse and I behaved exactly the same way." They got to re-create something: the high of new love, old familial patterns they thought they'd gotten over, feeling like being single again, etc. In the meantime, the BS is stuck in the other part of the marriage, oblivious, because in reality world when you marry one person, that's what you expect to get. It's only in fantasy world that you get to lie and sneak around and be this other person. I don't care how much anguish you have over the infidelity and lies, it wasn't enough anguish to stop you from doing it. Whether you considered your SO's feelings or not if they found out really doesn't make things better; all it says is that you were willing to do it until you got caught.

So while you really did things and you really may have felt certain emotions, all of that, for most people, came crashing down on D-Day once the truth was revealed. Reality was your shell-shocked or angry, no longer trusting or wanting to trust too much, BS. Reality was the judgment of your friends and relatives. In order to keep the affair going, you had to tell more lies; otherwise it could not survive. That doesn't seem to be very reality-based.

Interesting turns.

It IS fantasy and the WS IS 100% responsible for every inch of it from start to finish.

If I'm 100% responsible for it, which I am, you don't get to label it.  

Here's the thing FOR ME, I see many times on this site BS's explaining to other BS's how WS's view it and how they felt. I'm telling you exactly how I felt. I'm offering a different perspective that may work for some not for others and I'm most certainly not the spokesperson for all, most, many waywards. My disrespect of my ex was complete and so very real. That's why he could have found God and brought him to me as a reference and I would have left. Reaching that level is toxic and fatal for me.

I am quite certain the for some the fantasy description is very true. I believe my WS friends when they tell me how they felt. I also know perceptions change with health and growth.

Arguing over whether it's fantasy or not is rather pointless as the actions and fall out are quite quite real.

Wincing. That's exactly my point and in my case very true. My actions were real. My feelings were real and my thoughts were real. I am and was that person and can't ever understand how an affair would EVER make a marriage better than ever, but I know that people have expressed this so others must experience it.

I think some focused on the first part of my post, which I understand, while sort of reading the second part through the perceptions they formed while reading the first part. My point was reality is important for ALL to focus on.

If delusion is a mental illness there are many deluded people and not all who you might think. The sad thing is we want to believe the best and can do amazing mental gymnastics to support that thought.

I see so many posts asking how long will it take for their WS "to get it". Post after post in recon about waywards getting pissed at triggers, pain of their spouses, "this again?" and the support, yes it's hard hang in there. It takes them a while to understand.

That's what this was about. They are getting it. They understand. This is where they are right now. This is what you have. The posts that he's/she's starting to get it because they looked sad today and seemed nicer just breaks my heart. Really? Do you not see how similar the thought processess can be? How weaving our "hoped for outcome" can become so very dangerous? The deception? The gaslighting? The justification? All done to oneself. "I'm pushing them away", "I'm taking too long to heal", "He/she had a hard day and I added to it".

How can anyone truly believe that? An affair is supposed to end relationships. You're not supposed to get through this shit. It's a fucking lethal blow. Because some are able to survive it and pull through together strengthened, whole, healthy, happy, is a testamony to the amazing people out there. The heroes we read about that stand out from the crowd.

How many others just continue to suffer waiting for that "potentially" good person to kick in and finally have the life they dreamed of? Whether that's delusion, potential, fantasy, whatever, it's such a waste in an already far too short journey on this awesome rock. Those are my thoughts. As much as I may piss some off and not be a favorite, I care more than many of you will ever know and fucking hate the scraps some of you are thrown and see you make them a banquet, on BOTH sides.

Hi UO

On normal days i'd be inclined to disagree with you, however at the moment I completely see where you are coming from.

The little glimpses of hope that my WW may finally understand i'm seeing slowly are just that. Me hoping.

However I do feel that some and perhaps far more than we give credit for, people are able to work through this. I do like to believe that there are far more "good" people lead astray in the world than there are deliberately "bad" people.

For someone such as yourself in a toxic relationship as you put it, I fully understand why an affair would be the end of it, and support you whole heartedly. I read many stories of WS's who just don't care and the BS's who patiently wait for them to "get it" when they could be using the time to move on with their lives and "get" something better.

I like to think i'm in the middle camp of these things, my marriage was "good" and we weren't unhappy. I was being neglected in my mind and taken for granted, but only in the very recent months before her A. My WW admits that there is nothing wrong with me, and there was nothing wrong with our M. She is just selfish/greedy and wanted more, so put herself in a position to have an A. Which from reading a lot of the R forum seems to be a fairly common case. Its these people who need to have hope, they need that "chance" to prove they are not at fault and are worth loving. That is not a fantasy, that is true. Everyone here deserves to be happy, as you say life is far to short to put up with too much crap.

Pretty much all BS's said their vows and meant them, for better or for worse. This is just them sticking to their side of the bargain. The "fog" or "Fantasy" well they help people justify things. It allows our minds to let a WS off the hook, and not engage them and hold things against them for the rest of their life. Whether an A is fantasy or reality entirely depends on both BS and WS and how they make it.

Realistically though once something has happened it is in the past, it cannot be changed, it cannot be altered. You can learn from it and you can choose not to let it go. It only exists in your head now anyway, so who is to say its not a fantasy, reality is what you make it, its what you do now. The past is made up of memories, all of these can be altered in your own head using your own perceptions of things. So if you want to split hairs and do semantics, all of the past is a fantasy!

I think i got lost in there somewhere.

I completely get and side with the position that people experience things differently, and what is true for them is not necessarily true for others.

What I balk at in this thread is the nested generalized statements that don't follow that theme. UO, this:

Arguing over whether it's fantasy or not is rather pointless as the actions and fall out are quite quite real.

Condemning discussion about whether or not it's fantasy is pointless condemns this entire thread to the same fate, since your original point was to demonstrate how very real these things are, and not fantasy.

I know your situation does not much apply the same perception skews as others. In a way I see that as similar to my own failure to connect to the experience of dating and the superficial relationships people seem to have to sift through. I can look at them and deconstruct them and discuss them but I have no experiential view of the topic so I am predisposed towards the other extreme of the nature of relationships.

What I am growing increasingly confused about is the die hard investment placed in rendering the term fantasy as not applicable to what a WS experiences. People who suffer real delusions - schizophrenics, for example - are often not connected well to reality and live in a rather dark fantasy world; their actions, also, have a very real and devastating effect on the objective reality to those around them. Delusion really is a very specific medical term. It's often employed in slang but if we're wandering into etymology that becomes a very important differentiation - delusion does *not* apply, since it is involuntary.

There are many WS who did compartmentalize their secrets so they would not have to be influenced by objective reality and view their affairs in a positive light at the time.

This is like arguments about the fog. How it's used as a justification to sit and wait and accept that your WS didn't really mean it and wasn't that person and will suddenly wake up if you love them hard enough or fuck the hate out of them or whatever it is people think.

Both of these are processes independent of personal responsibility. It is very much the same, when a BS takes on responsibility for the WS attitude and eats the shit sandwich or suffers the guilt of being a horrible spouse or parent and 'driving' the WS to the A or 'driving' the WS away. It's the other extreme of making other people responsible for our own feelings, and it completely ruins a lot of people who slog through a shitty day every day waiting for their winning numbers and superspouse to come home that never will.

I think condemning the concept of fantasy in place of another process that can substitute for, or work in conjunction with, entirely undermines the end goal there and I just don't get the purpose of that.

I am not trying to be obstinate or piss anyone off. I'm probably getting too invested here myself and should back off, so I think I'll do that with additional apologies to anyone I may have unintentionally poked.

[This message edited by StillGoing at 10:31 AM, November 22nd (Tuesday)]

What a mess.

Helpmetogetoverit, the 'fantasy' is the fact that participants in an A for the most part are ONLY showing their best features. They lie about their home life to justify what they're doing (fantasy), they don't discuss boring mundane things with the AP (fantasy), they get to become someone else to make the AP happy so that THEY get that attention they're so desperate to have. Does the AP have to sit and plan car repair arrangements or argue about how much was spent at the mall? Do they have to sit around while the WS is sick with a runny nose and vomit breath? Do they have to watch you snore or get frustrated because you're out of toilet paper? No. Your analogy to high school and college makes no sense, imo. Those are REAL events and people are REAL in them. Having bills or other responsibilities doesn't make things real.

You get to be someone else with the AP. And guess what? They are someone else too. That's part of the fun.

Is the relationship real? Yes. Is the sex real (in a PA)? Yes. Is the thinking of that person and wishing you were with them real? Yes. Is it all based on a pile of lies? Yes. THAT is the fantasy part. The part that usually says neither party is showing their complete true self and that neither party is 100% honest about things. That's the fantasy part.

It's so funny seeing a WS say that they lied and they don't know how they could have done that and yet never quite grasp that the other person is lying too. The A is usually with a fake person, just as the WS is fake.

No one is saying the feelings or the sex wasn't real. It's the participants that weren't real. They got to pretend to be so witty and sexy and funny all the time. Just a couple of liars having sex is what an A is. That's fantasy. You're pretending to be someone else and you have sex with someone else pretending to be someone else. How special, really.

I hear a lot of anger in your post and I can totally understand that.

No, you can't.