SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Why is it that I was so against infidelity before I had my A. Why is it that I'm so against it after the A. Why did I end up having one and ignore all of my basic beliefs? I find someone who is totally different in all aspects compared to my BW and have an A. Instead of doing something about what was lacking in my marriage I look elsewhere. I find someone who is not as smart, hardly as good looking, not as motivated, but gives me what I perceive as lacking and run with it. I take something sacred as sex and go against my values. The numerous times I ended contact I would go back again. Why couldn't I just go. My AP was nothing special and now looking back, I see the while reason she hung around was due to my career and salary thinking I would leave my BW for her. I played all the games telling her we were separated when we were not. Putting down my BW to my AP. I can only remember one nicety I told my AP in regards to my BW. The rest was negative and all untrue. I've destroyed my BW. No matter what I do I can't mend the hurt. I can be that better person going forward but what does that do for the past? All the support in the world won't unbreak my BW. All I've accomplished is turned a person who was happy, helpful, and full of energy into a sad, depressed, and obsessive person who has a hard time looking at me. This isn't a pity post. This is what I see every day. A person who I'd love to fix that doesn't want to be fixed by me.

Takes some guts just to put what you wrote out there. I can relate to many aspects. "Affairing Down" is one thing that really bugs me, most especially on the intellectual and "core quality" levels (my BS's prettier looks aside). It was truly insanity to project onto this empty vessel the qualities of a princess...especially when I am already married to one.

But this isn't about my xAP, but rather what inside me is so broken, so lacking in self-esteem and confidence, that I needed to externally create the "false fantasy validation unit" (ie: my xAP) to feed my ego and selfish wants. Add in doing all that while undermining those that believe in, and love, and rely on me...and it adds up to some very ugly and unpleasant truths to face.

I'm sure you'll get some good replies here.

[This message edited by JustDesserts at 1:30 PM, July 9th (Tuesday)]

Sam, my FWH could have written this post--word for word. I was devastated and depressed by my FWH's A. It took me a long time to make any positive progress. It took me until six months in to get on an AD. Before that, I am sure that my FWH felt he had broken me as well. But he hung in there with me and time, IC and the ADs eventually began to work. I remember a significant period of time during which I was certain I would never feel happy again, about anything. I know that I have said this to you before--IT TAKES TIME. You need to buckle yourself in for the long haul.

Please be patient. She can't be fixed by you. She can be supported in her healing. The way you can help her is to concentrate on yourself and become the best person and H that you can be. She will improve. She may never be that same happy person that she once was, but she will get better.

You have asked the questions, now how are you going to answer them?

I'm a BS. The realization that there is nothing that my WH can do to fix what he did to himself and our marriage came to me a few months ago. I searched, and thought---but there's nothing, ever. It started a week-long spiral the likes of which I had never had since dd. I think I hit bottom at that point. Or I hope that is my low.

WH can't fix me. I'm forever changed, as is our marriage. He wishes he could, I wish he could. I am beyond furious about him ruining the "us" I thought we were, forever. Not fair!

If there was anything a WS could do to fix it, it would most assuredly be written all over the forum. No amends are enough, you see.

All you can do is not cause any further damage, and fully realize

what you've done. Never leave your morals on a shelf, even briefly, even only in thought. Find out what stupid little thought first put a toe onto the wrong path to the slippery slope. It may be very simple, it may be a maze of things that hit like a perfect storm. That's what "digging for the why" means.

That will perhaps make you the man you need to be. For both yourself and your BW. The man you thought you were when you detested infidelity before and after. It will be the measure that bridges the two and eliminates the ability to ever start down the wrong path.

My WH says many of the things you say when he speaks of his A. How could he suddenly become someone he woud detest? He's seeking those answers in IC. I want them as badly as he does. He is not a safe person for me until then. I cannot really consider R before he is able to show me a better H. The H he says he wants to be and that I deserve.

It's not that your wife doesn't want to be fixed by you, she can't rely on you.

I wish you both the best.

You know what HL? I'm going to answer them like it wasn't me asking them.

I always looked down on cheaters because how could they do something like that to someone they loved. What was so bad in their life that caused them to do this. For me it was I always felt I wasn't good enough. As a kid I always tried to be likeable. I'd end up doing something stupid to wreck it. I had an uncle I liked when I was a kid. I'd see him once or twice a year when our families would get together. Without missing a beat I'd do something to annoy him. I'd usually break something of his every time I was at his house. I'd never do that at home but would when I was there.

When I was starting to fail I'd just let it slide. If I was failing a class in college I'd stop going instead of asking for extra help. I would give up to easy and find the quick escape. Looking back at my A I see the damage it has done. Not only to my BW but also to our families. Again my thoughts of cheaters is the same as before my A. They are selfish people who only think of their own enjoyment and not the damage they are causing.

Looking elsewhere is also an easy way to deal with my issues. It avoids confrontation and I'm the king of that. Would I have been in this situation if I wasn't approached and lead by my AP? No, I'm not like that but given the opportunity to escape my reality, I took it. The funny thing is my reality wasn't that bad. Why keep going back when the multiple opportunities to stop the A? The external validation. When I first met my BW the external validation was wonderful. After we got married my brain changes from seeing it as something she wanted to do to something she had to do because we were married. This is where an AP comes in. It's something I saw she wanted to do. If I gave more than a seconds thought to all of this the validation my BW gave me was because she also wanted to. If she had to she just wouldn't give it. Putting down my BW was a way for me to justify what I was doing. Nothing I ever said about her to my AP was true except for the one compliment that I can recall. I was just adding more fuel to the fire. As I go day to day trying to fix myself, I would love for my BW to open up to being fixed or at least try. She didn't put herself in this situation so I would love nothing more then to help her deal with it.

I will comment on the other posts when I finish spending time with my children. Thank you all.

wow, I could have written much of this post as well. so much resonates with my situation too. went against everything I believed in prior to and still today regarding cheaters. still don't get it at all. the escape from reality and all the shit that was going on, the external validation even though my BH was supplying plenty....I hope to be able to understand and get to those whys

Sam, thank you for your honesty and openness. Wayward spouses who offer insight to us betrayed spouses help more than you might realize.

I'm still trying to understand what my wife constructed in her head to make sexting and kissing + feeling up the other guy permissible. With help I'm getting an idea. She was seeking escape from our marriage troubles, and on a smartphone screen everything can be a fantasy and not real or part of the real world.

And the slide into the real world with the kissing? Still trying to make sense of that.

Am I allowed to post as a BS? If so, read. If not, STOP.

If my wh wrote this post and gave it to me I would kiss him and thank him and get back on with the business of loving him, asking him to be patient if I took a while to recover my self-esteem.

Somewhere out there is a bs wishing to hear things like this. Don't know if its yours.

Thank you for this thread.. I needed this. My fiancé shows me love... But it has been very hard to understand his A.

Just to let you all know that what I post is just scratching the surface. I have yet to understand why I still would choose an A over fixing myself. Until I understand this myself I can't begin to heal properly. This in turn will allow my BW to begin healing.

Sam, you ask a lot of questions that only you can answer. I'm pleased to see you begin to answer you're own questions, and start to dig. Though, I get a feeling of disconnect from your posts, almost like you're writing about someone else's life.

I don't know, maybe I'm a little off base, but the tone strikes a chord with me. I've been there. Its really hard to be able to truly reconnect with yourself, all of yourself, including the part that is/was a cheater. I stiil see you putting a lot of your focus on how you can't undo the past or the pain you caused your BW. Well, yeah, that's a given. Now what are you're plans to help her move forward? What steps will you take to make her feel safe? What parts of you do you feel you need to change? How will you approach this change?

You're making some good progress in learning empathy, and beginning to peel back the layers of why, but I think you need to work a bit on owning your feelings, actions, etc. Focus inward on what you feel you need to change and why, for you! Not just what you feel your BW needs to hear.

Keep at it Sam! I think you're on the right track! Just stay focused on the goal.

Why is it that I was so against infidelity before I had my A. Why is it that I'm so against it after the A.

This is something that has had me baffled since learning of my fWH's A. His sister had an A and my fWH would not speak to her for 11 years because he was so disgusted with her... but DURING that 11 years he had his A

It's crazy to me. I have given it a lot of thought and I have come to the conclusion that on some deep level he felt that the rules didn't apply to him. Rules were for "ordinary" people, he was on a different plane.

Sam I am. Your post so resonates with me. I have written it in my head a dozen times. Why, when I professed to hate cheaters did I cheat?

My A was entirely virtual so not only was I ever forced to face the fact that I was doing this with a real human being (AP) but also allowed me to never apply the cheater label to myself. I never slept with the AP, never kissed her, sent her pictures of my parts or video of nasty acts; never wrote the f-word or called my dear BW nasty names. Cheater? Me? Never!

I had this A because I wanted to and I could. I bad-mouthed my BW because my BW couldn't hear my words, couldn't defend or rebut and I was too much of a coward to actually tell her what I was feeling - not just about her and us but about me. I made her the villain of my fantasy universe.

My second IC mentioned that my A must have been incredibly freeing and it was, but there are some thoughts we have in our darkest hearts that shouldn't be voiced. They are vile lies we tell ourselves and totally destructive to ourselves and our lives and the lives of our most loved. In my A I gave free-reign to some of those thoughts and was encouraged to do so by the AP. I destroyed my BW, my world and myself.

Part of the torture of my own recovery is the realization that I can't fix all of what I broke. I can't undo, unwrite or unthink it. I can redo myself but the broken parts will still be there. The monster still lives and i have to always be on guard against it. My poor BW has seen the monster and can't forget it. I love her so but I can't heal her. I can only, if she lets me, be present for and witness to her healing and then only as long as I continue with my own.

"In our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair comes wisdom, through the awful grace of God." RFK