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catlover50, I think your description might be the best synopsis I have ever seen of what I believe my FWH was going through: He most certainly was caught in a toxic, destructive situation that he was not equipped to deal with. He says that even though the sex was good at the time, the guilt that he felt in the immediate aftermath (every single time he was with her) took a lot away from the "good". Plus, once he realized that he could not end it easily (since she was crazy and totally willing to out the A to me), that just added to the toxic mess.

It is really hard to understand from the outside, but I think it is true that, while he had a little bit of fun, the entirely of the experience was the worst thing that ever happened to him. The whole thing is actually surreal to him. So, I guess that it doesn't make much sense for me to dwell on the very small "good" part of the experience.

What he is doing now is great, BTW. Better to dwell on that.

What Catlover50 said times ten.

It really didn't matter to me whether sex with her AP was awful or a mind blowing experience. The fact that she did it, and carried on 4 months of deceit was all I needed to kick her to the curb and divorce her, no questions asked. On top of that, I caught her red handed. Who she did it with and the circumstances surrounding her affair made it even easier for me to dump her.

That said, we are slowly attempting a careful R after our divorce. R while still married to her wasn't possible for me. She had to suffer a painful consequence for what she did. We've both have been heavily engaged in IC on ourselves. This topic came up between us while dining out together. Lots more clarity 6 months after the fact in a less emotionally charged time.

I travel ALOT in my job. A price I pay at this point in my career. She obviously was lonely at times. Her former BFF's POS husband took advantage of the situation. He was already a known cheater, yet her former BFF never kicked his ass to the curb. It started as quickies while I was out of town then progressed to very blatant flings on the way home from work, out running errands etc, while I was at home. The sex itself wasn't great at all for her, as he basically treated her like a call girl. Sex for us was never a stolen moment to get rocks off. From what she tells me, she seldom orgasmed with him. Never enough time nor was he interested in her needs. Her euphoria came more from the high of taking the risk and seeing how far she could push the envelope. For whatever reason, she felt entitled to do this.

Not a real good reason to risk life together as she knew it before she decided cheating was justified. Life came crashing down around her once her shennagins were exposed. The old life was eradicated with our divorce and only recently have I become open to trying to attempt R. Amazing what euphoria will allow some to do to themselves.

[This message edited by BryanP37 at 9:58 PM, October 14th (Monday)]

Razor - as much as we don't want to hear that we need to acknowledge this is true for men.

Rebreather - yep, good point. So very true & so very sad.

JustDesserts - thank you for your honesty. Hurts to read it as we all would prefer it to have been awful. It's easier to cope if we believe that it wasn't any good but we're kidding ourselves. Sex for men is generally always good.

It's so much easier to stick our head in the sand of denial & cling to the thought that our WHs didn't enjoy being intimate with the OW then it is to face facts. So much nicer to pretend. Reality is a lot harsher - of course it wasn't awful! Maybe in some cases (small percentage I would imagine) but if we allow ourselves to face the facts we all know that for the WH at least they enjoyed the sex - otherwise it wouldn't have continued. Yes, they may have felt disgusted afterwards but the lead up & during would have been them having a great time. Ouch, yuck, makes me want to vomit - hurts like hell. I hate reality.

Yeah, the actual sex sucked, but the high and the excitement of cheating was great! Being told how beautiful and sexy you are by someone new...she didnt believe me when I said it.

In our case, the sex was the price to be paid for the attention and external validation that was so desperately craved.

Did she enjoy it? Undoubtedly. Orgasms...only his.

Does she remember it fondly? No, she was left with nightmares, horrible memories, and it ruined, absolutely ruined our sex life for nine years afterward.

Razor - as much as we don't want to hear that we need to acknowledge this is true for men.

JustDesserts - Hurts to read it as we all would prefer it to have been awful. It's easier to cope if we believe that it wasn't any good but we're kidding ourselves. Sex for men is generally always good.

This ^^^ is the double standard I was referring to in my post. Sex can be awful for women, but not for men.

If you carry that to it's logical conclusion, then when men are sexually manipulated, degraded, used or abused--it still feels good for them. If they chose to be part of a toxic sexual situation because they are damaged, they will still be enjoying the sex. Is there no amount of shame or self-loathing that could make sex feel wrong/negative/sad/gross while it's happening?

Men often chose damaging, bad relationships. Aren't they capable of choosing damaging, bad sex? Or is there simply no such thing for men?

I think human sexuality is complex. Either gender can be aroused and yet feel bad. Either gender can do sexual things that they really do not want to do, act in sexual ways when they do not feel sexual, and repeatedly seek out self-destructive situations involving bad sex.

It doesn't take responsibility away from WS's when the sex sucked. It doesn't make infidelity easier to deal with either, IMO. But I think it's important for both spouses to know the true nature of the affair and understand it as deeply as possible.

If you're attempting R and your WS says the sex was bad, question them further. There is a possibility that they're telling the truth. It doesn't lesson their betrayal one iota, but it may give you insight into your spouse and the work they need to do to fix their damage.

My wife says that it was not very good. The talking about it all was good but the let down came when they had sex.

Considering that I have all of the emails and text messages between the two I beg to differ. Not only do I have the words I have the pictures too.

Looks like they had a pretty good time to me. Not to mention the guy gave John Holmes a run for his money and my wife seemed to love that like she said in her messages to him. Maybe it was her trying to build him up like he did her?

I just had this conversation with her last night. She cried and claimed that it wasn't the sex she was after but the validation. It could've been both who knows, I guess I really never know since she has totally ruined my trust in her and anything she says.

My husband said it was awkward, uncomfortable and he had trouble staying hard all 3x. He said MOW was non-orgasmic so it was mostly one-sided and strictly missionary and she was quiet as a church mouse. He also said he was only able to penetrate her halfway... ummm.. what? He said he asked her why that was, and she said it was because she hadn't done it in so long . As a female, I have never heard of such a thing and I am skeptical of it.. as it supposedly happened all 3x they had sex (all in the same week). I asked why he went back twice more and he said he thought he was in love with her so he thought it would get better, but it didn't. He still climaxed all 3x.. once via blowjob .

There was a 4th and last time, but he says he was so inebriated that he passed out naked before attempting sex. He also said that when he woke up the next morning he started to ask himself wtf am I doing? That was the beginning of trying to extricate himself from the A without it blowing up in his face. MOW made sure it blew up in his face.

[This message edited by LadyLove at 3:30 PM, October 15th (Tuesday)]

She called my exbf a "limp dick" and he STILL went back and fucked her some more..

It doesn't take responsibility away from WS's when the sex sucked. It doesn't make infidelity easier to deal with either, IMO. But I think it's important for both spouses to know the true nature of the affair and understand it as deeply as possible.

If you're attempting R and your WS says the sex was bad, question them further. There is a possibility that they're telling the truth. It doesn't lesson their betrayal one iota, but it may give you insight into your spouse and the work they need to do to fix their damage.

If my WH actually discussed this openly and honestly then I'd be inclined to explore the darkness of human sexuality. After all, I had to let him know that at sixteen I was seeing experienced in certain realities of sexuality that made his head spin. Unfortunately, he's not honest with me or himself and doesn't even know how to traverse these murky waters.

So, until he does, I'll just believe that sex with the slut was mindblowingly awesome, that he's too ashamed of how awesome of a time he had and he's questioning why he's with such a sucky sexual person like me.

She looked awful.

He came back to me after his affair a broken man. He had Ed and said it happened with her on occasions. It sounds like the sex was OK but the thing is with him he said he loved her.

He describes the sex as good sometimes.

I think "how was the sex" is such a subjective question that there is just no way to prove the answer. Even the person giving the answer might not know how they feel about it. Physically it was probably good, mentally and emotionally it was probably great at the time, and bad when you get caught, and worse when you are trying to R.

If the WS says it was bad, and the BS inevitably finds an email where the WS was telling the OP how awesome and sexy it was, the WS just says they were lying to OP to get more "attention". How can that be disproven? It can't.

Yes, my FWH hauled out the standard 'sex wasn't good, lost my erection, didn't orgasm' line of defense. I didn't press for details because that's not my thing, but the generalities he described were the same as I read so much here - the mechanical nature, how boring and gross we can make sex sound, just by describing body parts in a certain way.And yes, years later he admitted that of course he was lying. Of course he was. And when not outright lying about facts then describing feelings and perceptions in as unemotional and gross a way as possible.

I could describe the great sex FWH and I had the other night and make it sound gross if I just unemotionally listed off the body parts and chose to highlight the moment the heavy steam from the shower made me lightheaded and I had to breathe in front of the open window for a second. I could say that "during sex I felt sick and had to leave and stick my head out the window to get away from him" as if that was the most important thing that happened during body part rubbing. And God forbid if FWH and I ever divorce and I no longer love him so much and I look back on that night, maybe that's all I'll remember is that moment. When in fact, at this moment, it was a funny interlude in a much larger marital experience for us.

My point is that even within one person, looking back at the same moment and deciding how you feel about it at two different emotional times in your life might make you tell the story in very different ways. Nowadays my FWH can afford to tell me that the sex wasn't bad with FOW because looking back he's still ashamed of it. The shame that comes from not being a good man colors that experience. Will he delightedly think about the good sex with her when he's bored? Maybe, but I doubt it because it's attached to the feelings of being less of a man in the real sense of the word. However I'm not going to presume to know that for a fact because again, it is so subjective.

An argument could be made around what matters the most--how they felt then vs how they feel now.

As an analogy, imagine someone who does drugs at a rave a few times, has fun, then goes on to become an addict and destroys their life. Would they look back and say, yeah but those raves were sure great! I doubt it. The consequences would likely color the memories.

My H acknowledges that having sex with someone new was diverting and "more good than bad" initially, an ego boost, etc. But even before Dday it had gone sour and toxic and he had regretted it for years (but due to his compulsions, threats, conflict avoidance etc was not man enough to end it cleanly). Now he looks back and can only feel revulsion and shame. He knows how insignificant and meaningless it was for all the damage it caused. And for mediocre sex with a person he didn't care about? No ego boost in the world is worth that.

So he can't summon up anything positive at all about the A and frankly that's good with me. If he had good memories it would bother me a lot. Since his thinking at the time was wayward and disordered and he has changed so much, the way he feels about it now matters a lot more, IMHO.