SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So, they’ve been caught. Self preservation sets in. They HAVE to find a way to make what they did not so horrible. They’ve seen your pain. They’ve felt your anguish. How do they cope with that? By finding a way to make it so they aren’t so horrible. That they aren’t responsible for your pain. So, they begin to re-write the marriage.

You no doubt had some issues in your marriage. We all do. They will begin to dissect the problems until they find a couple they can spin. They start saying that they’ve been unhappy for years. That they’ve been just hiding it so as not to hurt you or the kids. You don’t understand them or their needs. They lace just enough truth into their story to knock you off balance. You start questioning your marriage. Were they really that unhappy and you weren’t sensitive enough to their feelings to see it? Did you somehow miss their desperate cry for love and attention? You start to feel some responsibility for their actions. You start to question everything.

They have to find a way to make themselves not the villain of their own story. I believe they actually come to believe their new story. They start to tell “their side of the story” to garner sympathy and weaken your position. Their family and friends start to have some empathy for them. Poor selfless, unfulfilled, martyred little muffin. They just couldn’t help but fall into the waiting vagina of OW. (Or fall onto the penis of OM)

And we start to fall for it too. Why? Because we need some logic or reason for how they could hurt us like this. This can’t be the person we fell in love with. That person would be incapable of this kind of cruelty. And so our confusion adds to their sense of victimization. If we leave, then they can just walk away and keep using the new truth to justify their behavior. If we stay, they can keep using this ammunition to keep us from demanding full disclosure, transparency and IC. If we are willing to shoulder some of the blame, they won’t have to work so hard. They won’t have to look inside and find out the true WHY.

Well said!

And on they go...

This certainly speaks to me.

They can lie all they want. They think they are helping themselves, but now the lies prevent anyone from helping them. The lies only hurt them.

There is always something underlying that makes people act this way. And they need to address and be honest so their family and friends can help them.

My IC told me the only way that my WH will begin to get better is to first admit to his sex addiction (in my case). He hasn't even admitted it. She says that for someone who has an addiction, they will continue to lie until someone becomes the "bell ringer".

She suggested the idea of telling him family and friends the truth, so that they will not be bought into his lies and actually a very troubled, disturbed and broken man heal.

But, SA is different from drug, alcohol or gambling addiction as it only 'seems' to affect just the person in the relationship and the kids. What are his buddies going to say, "gosh, stop watching all that porn. Prostitutes are bad!"

To them, it's just sex. To them, it's just our relationship and its none of their business. Which it's not. The prostitutes, the porn, the soliciting, it doesn't affect the family and friends.

But what the family and friends done realize is this man, who is saying "oh woe is me, my darn wife doesn't know how to communicate, and she kicked me out!" (Never mind the 50+ prostitutes he paid during this year alone), they don't realize that he is doing this because he is seriously depressed, lost, overwhelmingly sad, self-destructive. And it's not bc of me.

There's always something deeper and darker hidden in their head that caused this. And if they really cared for the WS, they would want to know the truth to truly help their friend, brother, son, whatever.

EXACTLY Athena!! My WH is an SA also. I know that he isn't telling his family the whole story. They know nothing about the CL ads. The blow jobs from strangers. The solicitation.

They just think that "we don't want the same thing in our marriage." Well, I guess we don't. I don't want my husband having sex with strangers or cheating on me!

In my case, WH is using the re-write to justify his not getting help for the SA. If we aren't together, then there isn't anything wrong with his behavior. So he'd rather lose the marriage than learn how to cope with the disease. And this is from a guy with 22 years sobriety who is a worshipper of all things AA! But he just can't see the parallel here. And he is using this as an excuse to avoid AA as well. So, he's a dry drunk and a dry adulterer.

He even admits that he is falling into addict behavior without drinking. But he still uses the re-write to justify not addressing the issue.

I hope he does go back to AA. We don't have any SA groups or CSATs here so AA is all he's got. But I hope he goes back. And if he does, someday down the road he will acknowledge (at least to himself) that I wasn't a horrible wife and that we DID want the same things. But it will probably be too late for me.

Athena - similar situation here. SAWH has been seeing a CSAT since end of June. He told a few of his friends what was going on - he said they don't believe that SA is REAL. They laughed at it when Tiger Woods was treated for it. My guess is that these guys have some level of addiction, too. It's my hope that through his therapy, SAWH learns who he is and what real friendship is...which is people who care about you and are genuinely concerned for your life challenges that you are willing to share.

I don't think he is really connected to friends who are really there for him.

You know, even though they laugh about Tiger Woods and think, "great for him", they still seem to be dishonest about their own stuff.

They can rewrite history all they want, throw the blame around, take the heat off of them and they will still suffer inside.

These people who are dishonest with themselves and others, SA or not, are suffering inside and will continue to suffer.

Their family and friends who either don't want to be involved or are not privy to the real information, will allow that person to die inside.

I very much distrust my WH. I very much don't care if he suffers and destroys himself.

But I would think the people who do still care about him would not want him to destroy himself. But then, maybe if they knew the truth, maybe they wouldn't want anything to do with him either. Hence, the reason he lies, to keep his family and friends from not disowning him, which keeps him doing what he's doing, and no one helping him get help.

Hey...how about instead of lying, how about admitting what you did was wrong, don't shift blame and STOP DOING WHAT YOU'RE DOING! GET HELP!

This is it!

Perv fits this category and puts me in a little box labeled with descriptive words or phrases that he changes when he needs to.

It's all about him and if it's about me, how absolutely horrible I was and it goes on and on... yet, there is evidence to the contrary not only about that but about his own life that he talks down about now and it's sad to see the influence of OW and the other people there on him.

He took this to some other levels, as well. One thing he did was to try to convince at least one counselor against me and some other things. He tried at one point to get our children to go with him and be removed from me and there were some other things he did, besides the cheating, which is bad enough.

The problem is that sometimes it is done in such a way, the rewriting, that it messes with our heads...he did those things to me, but then went out in "society" and lied to anyone who would listen to him, to gain their sympathy away from me and for himself and OW.

Yes, as I read your post over, CM, he also said other things you did, like he was not happy for years-yet there is a magnitude of evidence, from pictures to children, a house and so much more.

It's sad for me to think of what people throw away.

And I've often said lately that in some ways I wish he could have just cheated and go away-but he's still causing damage to people who touch his life and I can't clean up the messes fast enough anymore.

And yes, you question your marriage, your life, your values...your-self.

My stupid, d-bag stbxh did this. He cheated and actually called my family to try to turn them against me. They believed him until they asked me what happened and I was totally lost. Now, they're just like, "oh we love you," and i'm just pissed he tried. Obv it wasn't going to work, but what a stupid retard. Like seriously? What did he think that was going to help? They're family and he's some guy they knew for two months who has weird transsexual fetishes. LOL i'm glad i f@cked my ex in our bed after i kicked him out. sure makes me feel better! I'd love to tell him, but seems to me that adding fuel to the fire is no good...so I thought i'd have a laugh about it on here. keep rewriting history, guys......just know that no one cares to listen.