SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am a married woman who had an affair with a married man. Had he been single, I wouldn't have helped hurt his wife and children - but the damage to my husband and children would have been the same. He was the other man. If it hadn't been him, it would have been some other guy, at some other time, and the damage would still have been done. That's on me.

As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, I own my actions, not his. He was my tool in this betrayal. I also own my role as a tool in the betrayal of his wife.

The tools of an affair are indispensible to the betrayal, but they are not the problem that needs to be solved. Without the other man/woman, this affair wouldn't have happened, but there are plenty of others to use in betrayal.

In order to heal and help heal, the wayward spouse needs to learn how to use an entirely different toolkit. Change is key, and I do believe it's possible.

~L.

It could be argued that he had a responsibility to be a decent human being and, thereby, not engage in an affair with a married woman. But that, to me, is different than saying he had an equal share of responsibility for me upholding the marriage vows that I freely made with my XH.

Well, I actually agree with this, but I don't see too many wording this to say they have an equal share in the responsibility to the marriage vows. I have forgiven my H and despise the OW, and do blame her for whoring after my H right after his mother and DD died. Does this seem contradictory to what I just said? I don't think so.

Because my H is remorseful and has done everything humanly possible to show me he can be a good H to me. I reserve the right to forgive my H even if he did something that was against our marriage vows.

And the whore has nothing to do with my marriage, especially at this point in my life. I should be completely indifferent according to some. But I'm not really completley indifferent to people that I consider horrible human beings. She is not the only person who has done something terrible that has impacted me or my family or friends in negative ways. I reserve the right to despise people that I consider horrible people including that filthy whore and it does not matter if she had any "responsibility" toward my M, or not.

I tend to think that most people who were "preyed upon" are full of shoot and giving the BS what they want to hear.

For me, this would defintely depend on what else I knew about the situation, other than what my spouse told me.

In fact my H never once made himself out to be a victim of the whore and if he had, I believe that would have angred me. I did my own investigation to try to put the pieces together. It became clear to me that she purposesly whored after after him, and did it when he was at his lowest points ever in life. And she tried to rent an apartment from me under false pretenses, before I knew about the A. Even if this was not my own marriage that was impacted, I would hate everything about that trailer trash piece of low life garbage.

[This message edited by Bobbi_sue at 4:15 AM, September 30th (Monday)]

I really struggle to wrap my head around this mindset.

I honestly would like to gain some sort of understanding of it, but have failed to do so after 4 years.

And I think.... I just figured out what bothers me about me about i the idea that just because the AP is a "variable" or that they are not the source of my hurt as much as my FWH. That they owed me nothing, that I should be indifferent.

It doesn't answer the question for anyone else...it just sorted out and pinpointed the source of my current frustration, surrounding this topic.

Since when do the inflictors of a wound decide how to divvy up, who is responsible to whom for which part of the damage?

They are all part of the whole flood... that swept into my life. They were not individual raindrops, but all a part of the whole that came together as one. The reasons, the why's don't matter. The damage is the same.

The raindrops do not get to decide that because they did not hit my house directly, that they were not a part of the flood that swept away my home.

That flood created more that only ONE problem.

The damage left behind is now mine to clean up, so I must be the one to decide how I divvy up the responsibility, so that I might be able build my house back up better, and reinforce any areas of weakness. This is such an individual process that the problem comes in when other people begin to tell us how and what our problem should or should not be. I know what the problem is for me. And yes, MOWs are the key component in it. My basic trust in the sisterhood of female friendship has been undermined, just as the trust within my M was undermined by my FWH.

I am not operating on the premise that the A caused one problem...it caused many. And they all must be dealt with one at a time.

And that has been the crux of that argument for me.

I can put this sucker to rest now, as I know I can't change minds, nor do I seek to do so.

Thanks for this topic at just the right time.

That was really like the lifting of a veil for me!

Sorry for the length of that response, anyone who bothered reading my response at all, thanks for taking the time.

Since when do the inflictors of a wound decide how to divvy up, who is responsible to whom for which part of the damage?

I'm sorry, refuz2bavictim, I didn't mean to tell you (or anyone) what your problems are. I should have been more clear.

Of course the affair person playes a part in the betrayal, in the flood that swept ayay your home. And of course (sadly) it's up to you to decide what you need to build up your house and your life. I sincerely hope you don't need anything from any affair person to do do that.

~L.

Lefttoolate,

I don't think you were telling me what my problems are, that's for me to do. I think that becomes the/my perception when I see that argument. The whole AP being some unknown variable as though she was insignificant, yet I am cleaning up some of the mess she/they left me.

I feel quite good about pinpointing the source of my irritation, which I accept as being entirely self generated. I probably left off two key words before that quote..."I feel" So please forgive my lack of clarity!

Anyway your post did help me pinpoint it, and not in a negative way, at least for me, so thank you for that! I'm in a decent place. And when something my stirs up discomfort within me, I like to find out what about my own thoughts causes that.

I was doing some thinking aloud. Trying to understand why I have failed to wrap my head around that thought, which many people share.

I'm still rebuilding my house room by room and the female friendship part couldn't really be dealt with in the early stages. Triage.

I need to understand my role. Does that make sense? I need to understand my part in the dynamic with these women, so that I don't repeat the same pattern in the future. That requires me to examine the past, find the areas that caused me to overlook some major issues.

Peace to you!

ALL of the women with whom my WS has had affairs knew that he was married. One of them thought that he was going to go off into the wide blue yonder with her. She was SO 'hurt' when he decided that actually she wasn't the one for him and that the woman he was married to was.

One of the others, with whom he had a twelve year affair, wanted to have children with him and [to some extent] manipulated him so that indeed, she did! Of course he was as guilty as her. He knew that unprotected sex leads to pregnancy but in his 'fog of love' he couldn't possibly believe that she could 'lie' to him! Unbelievable. As I said to him: 'You lie. You've lied to me all these years. She's lying. She's been lying to her husband all these years. Why wouldn't she lie to you?'

The men who have affairs are guilty, likewise the women. Anyone who oversteps the boundaries and starts any kind of intimate relationship other than with the partner that they have sworn their loyalty to is guilty.

As one of the other parties have said here on this thread, you sound like an OW yourself and doth protest too much. I have no sympathy whatsoever for ANY OWs and, as far as I am concerned, ALL of the women who have infiltrated my marriage can rot in hell... [That doesn't mean that I forgive my WS. He's working very hard and, to that end, I have to give him some credence but he's on a very short lead...]

Safeguard, since you have been on the site it appears you've choosen to ignore your thread and those that took the time to reply.

We will lock this up but in the future please have the courtesy to close out your own thread.