SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I need him to know I'd do anything for him. As long as it helps him to heal.

It won't help him heal. He will every feeling he currently has about your infidelity, PLUS the soul suicide of his own.

It is a disastrous choice, IMO.

If he wants to R, that is a wonderful gift. If the A was a dealbreaker, so be it.

But I don't think a revenge affair has ever had the "desired" effect.

CinnamonGirl,

You have been on here long enough to know that the title of your thread is a rhetorical question.

Need me to spell it out?

Cheating destroys relationships. More cheating doesn't rectify that.

If fucking other women is your husband's idea of coping, it is terribly unhealthy. It will be the beginning of the end.

Recovery takes 2 invested people.

Unlikely to be helpful. Not impossible, just very unlikely.

Unless you're both truly okay with opening up your relationship to allow sex with others. Not to fix your relationship, or to even things up.

Not saying that it's the right thing to do - but technically if the SO agrees and knows about it it's not cheating.

Not that I'd ever do that.

Thank you for your responses everyone. I know the answer seems like an easy one, but I'm just having this terrible internal struggle between what's right, and what's guilt. Id expand a little more, but I've been super triggery and filled to the brim with anxiety today. I think I need to step away from this for a bit, try and clear my mind so I can get some sleep tonight.

Thank you all for your responses again. I truly appreciate it.

Not saying that it's the right thing to do - but technically if the SO agrees and knows about it it's not cheating.

Really? Yeah, "technically" and evey other way it most certainly was. I broke my vows. I don't believe in open marriage for myself. I had an affair. That's cheating.

I'm sorry I would like to address one thing first. If the SO is okay with it because they feel like they deserve it guess what still cheating. You are using their emotions of guilt and shame and allowing them to justify behavior that you as the original betrayed already know is harsh, painful and at times debilitating but hey its okay because I know you're about to go fuck this other girl. So now the SO is subject to all the emotions of a betrayed and also know that they "let" it happen. Sounds like a lame excuse to get your rocks off and purposely inflict damage to someone.

To cinnamongurl, hun I am surprised in a way to here this from you. You know this will solve nothing but I get it. I was willing to have a threesome with SO if it meant him and me being okay but reality hit me when it came time to do it that it would fix nothing and just add more pain. It was too late though and I opened a door that did not stay shut which is why I am now a madhatter. You thought it was bad when you first joined the club no one wants to be a part of? Believe me you don't want a double membership the fees are way to high...it destroys you on levels you don't want to think about. If this is his solution then both of you have a lot of evaluating to do. He needs to figure out why he thinks it'd be okay to do this not to you but to himself. You need to figure out why you would allow him to do this to you. You both have some work to do. As always hugs and I'm always here to talk.

ETA: I wanted to make it clear that I die not go through with the threesome. Rereading my post I realize it sounds like I did, I did not I realized it would be a terrible choice before it went down.

[This message edited by Unagie at 6:22 AM, March 29th (Friday)]

Thanks Unagie, sometimes emotions and guilty feelings cloud the real impact. I've got a lot of thinking to do. This really hurts.

t/j

I wonder if some waywards don't breath a silent sigh of relief once they discover that their betrayed have also fallen

Not if they love them. Who would want anyone they cared about to feel guilt and shame? Breathe a sigh of relief? Far from it.

I agree. It was right after Dday. CL had just found out and he was crying.. shaking .. din want me to touch or talk. I was too stunned to see him hurting like that. I mean I knew he would be hurt if he found those mails. But THIS REACTION!!! It was beyond my imagination. I wasn’t prepared for it. He couldn’t eat, sleep .. I could feel his disbelief, stress, hurt, pain just by entering the room he was in. He stayed in separate room for couple of days. I would peek in and would be terrified just to see him curl up in bed.

It was too much to handle. I was still deep in fog. I couldn’t understand why he was hurting like that. It wasn’t about him anyway. When 3 days passed and there was still no improvement in his mood, I started getting restless. I just wanted him to stop hurting. I had this crazy idea that if he inflicts same pain on me, that would make him feel better.

After the fog started lifting, I started having sleepless nights. The anguish of betraying my loved ones was too much to take. It still is. I still have trouble sleeping. The disappointment in myself is so great that I wouldn’t want CL to experience it. None of it. The shame, guilt none of it. Just acknowledging I had this crazy idea makes me sick. It just indicates how far I had gone from rational thinking.

Its like I had left myself far behind. And when I stopped and looked back I saw a huge path of destruction and me standing right at the begininng.

Its funny that I discussed with CL few days back that I thought being a victim was way better than being a culprit. And then another thread pops up which mentions otherwise. Its all messy.

[This message edited by EmotionalFool at 6:04 AM, March 29th (Friday)]

bs here.

have you heard the saying "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves everyone blind and toothless?"

if he has casual sex that may even the score between you two, but how does that help your relationship? evening the score is what enemies do.

i would tell him that if he has to have casual sex, then the two of you should break up. tell him, that you realize you made horrible decisions that hurt him but that you are doing everything you can to help the relationship and him. That you don't believe that him having casual sex will help the relationship. how could it?

i think you need to hold firm on that. if you're both trying to save the relationship, then you both have to be trying to save the relationship.

and if he has to go because of what has happened to him, then he has to go. it would be better for the both of you than for you both to continue hurting each other. anyway, that's my opinion.

My BH literally said "no way, are you serious?".

As lot's of others have said, two wrongs don't make a right.

Edit

[This message edited by sosorryididthis at 9:40 AM, September 24th (Tuesday)]

Thank you for all your responses. Logically I know that this is wrong. And I know that it would devastate me. It's just that illogical guilt that makes me reason this away.

I know that my boundaries separate me from poor decision making and prevent any future slippery sloping or wayward A behavior. I feel secure there. But the boundaries that protect me from being hurt by the people I love on the other hand, I have a hard time establishing those.

Its kind of a weird "aha" moment that has come from SO suggesting he can only heal through experiencing casual sex. I've spent a lot of time thinking and exploring this and have come up with a pattern that has been there as long as I can remember. Afraid of "letting people down" I tend to try and do what I perceive to be the "right thing" for them, regardless of how it makes me feel. Healthy people don't do this. Healthy people aren't doormats.

Through my own healing, I'm learning that this type of breach of my boundaries is just as damaging as stepping over the line outside of my relationship. That it perpetuates my unhealthy thinking and breeds resentment, self disresepect, and provides an open door into the realm of stuffing and compartmentalizing my true feelings. I'm positive this is not a road I want to travel EVER again.

I have a lot of trouble drawing that line with family and BSO. It comes from a deep seated fear of being abandoned for sticking up for myself. This fear also makes me react defensively. I've been wanting to tackle this with my IC, but she's been on vacation for a few weeks, so that hasn't happened yet.

Does anyone have any suggestions on breaking that cycle of fear and being able to create those much needed boundaries? I would really appreciate the input. I've been allowing my emotions to get the better of me lately, and my mental clarity has been cloudy at best.

Start by speaking your truth, even when it's uncomfortable. Every time you do makes it easier for next time. Eventually you will be comfortable in your boundaries and it will be your new, healthier pattern!

This was huge for me and I spend a lot of time working on it in IC.

"Speak your truth, even if your voice shakes!"

"Speak your truth, even if your voice shakes!"

I love this! Thank you AN!

That particular phrase helped me through much of my process. So simple, yet huge!

Does anyone have any suggestions on breaking that cycle of fear and being able to create those much needed boundaries? I would really appreciate the input. I've been allowing my emotions to get the better of me lately, and my mental clarity has been cloudy at best.

I think you already have those boundaries, but you've so far only applied them to yourself.

The boundary: intimacy outside a committed relationship is wrong. Romantic and sexual/physical intimacy will be reserved ONLY for the committed relationship.

When you apply that boundary to yourself, you know what this feels like. It can be difficult to self-enforce this boundary if you have poor and unhealthy coping mechanisms. So as you have done, you examine, shore up and ultimately fix and strengthen those coping mechanisms and behaviors until you're walking the moral path you believe in. Then the boundary becomes self-enforced. You believe in it, feel it, act on it.

When you apply that boundary to your partner - this is the part you're struggling with. That boundary holds up no matter what. There are no exceptions. Despite guilt, despite fear, despite anguish, this boundary withstands all of those things. It's solid. It doesn't distinguish who did what first. It's always there, and crossing it is always wrong. You can still uphold that boundary with your partner. Your guilt and his pain don't change it. You may feel like you don't have a leg to stand on because of your past behavior, but the boundary itself doesn't make that distinction. Cheating is wrong, and it will remain wrong forever, no matter what.

The workaround is leaving the relationship. The boundary is that intimacy is reserved for the committed relationship and will only happen between both partners. If the boundary is crossed, the partners have the choice to leave the relationship. He has the choice to leave. You have the choice to leave. Or you both have the choice to stay and rebuild within those boundaries.

I'm a mad hatter. I had an EA, then two years later my FBS had a PA. Where did that leave us? With 5+ years of healing, MC, IC, stress, bad memories and pain. There are no such things as free passes to have sex with someone when you're committed. Anyone who tries to say as much is speaking wayward-speak.

Not saying that it's the right thing to do - but technically if the SO agrees and knows about it it's not cheating.

"technically"? What does that even mean? That IMO only describes an open, non-monogamous relationship. I don't think the OP is in an open relationship so technically any sex outside the relationship is cheating.

Chiming in to say 2 things: Mrs Panda's post was spot-on, and if your marriage vows included language such as 'forsaking all others' and 'holding only unto him/her for as long as you both shall live,' then it is cheating, even if the other person knows.

Why are you afraid to set these boundaries? Fear, you say. Of what? Being alone?

If he has already started down the slippery slope, the gane is already over. If he is really serious about his "request", I think your chances for R are slim.

So, on the one hand, you really have nothing to lose by seeting this boundary.

But that's not a very healthy way of looking at it. Because you should be willing to lose him, if it means maintaining your self-respect.

It all boils down to self-respect, in my opinion. If you do not value yourself, you don't stand up for your beliefs. You belittle yourself to please someone else.

Cinnamon, you wrote some really good thought in your last post. You get it. Go with that. Be true to yourself.