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Reconciliation :
Why I think not knowing "why" is crap

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rachelc ( member #30314) posted at 11:36 PM on Wednesday, October 2nd, 2013

Since you are calling him "a liar and an asshole", this tells me that he may feel a need to keep secrets for fear of being judged and/or making you upset.

I told my husband I had sex with two guys. I knew he'd be upset.

Integrity: telling the truth, letting go of the outcome.

posts: 7613   ·   registered: Dec. 6th, 2010   ·   location: Midwest
id 6508997
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wincing_at_light ( member #14393) posted at 12:28 AM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

I think the search for "why" is eminently more important than the destination of why.

Yes, "wanted to" is a significant component. It's a non-starter without the "wanted to". Where it goes from there -- where that "wanted to" comes from -- is going to be unique to the WS. Figuring that out is some important shit. I will disagree mildly with TG (which doesn't happen often), in that I think many BS's do seem to have a pretty good handle on some of the contextual why's that their WS will land on. I mean, I'd been around my wife's FOO and knew enough of her personal history at D-Day that putting those pieces together upon reflection wasn't exactly rocket science.

That said, accepting the facts of rocket science and accepting the emotional, self-applicable validity of rocket science are separated by a wide, wide gulf. I don't have to figure out how to emotionally own my entire childhood, cSAB, and subsequent relationship dynamics and reinterpret them in light of subsequent knowledge. They're just the facts of my wife's experience to me. They're not vital to me. They're not formative for me. They're just facts. I don't have any work to do to accept, inculcate, or reinterpret them.

That's where the work is.

By the same token, since that work isn't my work...and since I'm not the one who has to do any reinterpreting of my entire formative process to make sense of the A, the destination why's don't really matter. Could be FOO, could be cSAB, could be middle child syndrome, mid-life crisis, mental illness, whatever. Doesn't matter to me as a BS.

Does. Not. Matter.

Except this: if your goal is to reconcile and/or forgive, knowing the why's and trying to see how those lifetime of hurts made so brittle the soul of your spouse is also your window into empathy, into forgiveness, into acceptance and understanding. Understanding their struggle through the lens of their why's is the seed that grows again into love.

(Or, you know, if punishment is your thing, they're also WMD-class ordnance that has just been placed at your disposal. Your spouse's core why is abandonment issues? I don't think you need a manual to exploit that one. Every self-help book that exists for emerging from trauma also happens to be a tactical manual for exploiting statistically significant weakness patterns. Just depends on how you choose to read it.)

For so many BS's, the problem is that the A was a capstone event for us. It was a reality buster. It feels like the end of a quest for destruction -- a culminating event.

But it's not, and especially not in the case of LTA or serial infidelity. We're so busy trying to interpret everything through the lens of this one gamechanging event...and for the WS, it's just another skirmish in a long-standing war of attrition to come to terms with themselves, to heal some old pain, to cope with the struggles of life with the tools they have at their disposal. If it was a gamechanger for them, if it was a culminating event, that instant came when they crossed the threshold into the A, not on D-Day. The lens the BS is looking through is backwards, retroactive, reductive. It hasn't become something that was woven into the fabric of identity. For the BS, it's a full stop, not just another hesitant footstep along the road to somewhere else where the hurt might stop and the world might start making sense, where the emptiness might get filled and the loneliness quenched.

My wife always says that for every "why", you need to ask "why" again at least five more times to get to the underlying cause. I think she's onto something, and I'm thrilled for her (and for us) that she never stopped digging.

You can't beat the Axis if you get VD

posts: 7086   ·   registered: Apr. 27th, 2007   ·   location: Indiana
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SuperDuperWonderboy ( member #34716) posted at 12:36 AM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

I love you WAL.

(in a Menz way)

Nuff said.

[This message edited by wonderboy at 6:37 PM, October 2nd (Wednesday)]

My Friends call me Wonderboy--That's Mr. SuperduperWonderboy to you Tred.

posts: 1356   ·   registered: Feb. 2nd, 2012   ·   location: Everett
id 6509081
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mchercheur ( member #37735) posted at 2:41 AM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

During the weeks after Dday, my WH told me "it was the best sex he has ever had."

Of course, since then, he has said he didn't mean it.

But I think that is the real reason. And, he chose his own selfish desires over me & our family.

Me: BW; Him: WH --Had 10 mo. EA/ PA with COW; Dday 5/2011 Married 35 years/Together 36 years/4 kids together, and 1 grandbaby; OW 20 years younger than us/divorced no kids Trying to R; don't know what the final outcome will be

posts: 2687   ·   registered: Dec. 7th, 2012
id 6509240
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 topperoff22 (original poster member #40762) posted at 3:03 AM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

Topper

I call my Fws an asshole all the time.

I call it like it i see it! to his face if he is bein one i tell him! nothing wrong with speaking the truth!

Just dont want to call names. KWIM?

Yes, I do know what you mean, of course....thanks.

BS - Me 36
WS - Him 35 (almost 36)
Child: son, 6; just learned one on way
DDAY - July 24, 2013 (thousands spent on ex girlfriend)
DDAY2 -Aug. 3, 2013 (proof he slept with her)
R is slow going after TT for 1 month

posts: 316   ·   registered: Sep. 23rd, 2013   ·   location: US
id 6509267
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 topperoff22 (original poster member #40762) posted at 3:08 AM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

Wincing at light....thank you..I want to read over what your wrote a couple more times because it was so well put. Thank you. THis has all given me a lot to think about and if I misunderstood anyone before and got a bit bent out of shape, I do apologize. I'm getting a little over zealous on this whole "I will stand up for myself" mantra I'm doing today.

BS - Me 36
WS - Him 35 (almost 36)
Child: son, 6; just learned one on way
DDAY - July 24, 2013 (thousands spent on ex girlfriend)
DDAY2 -Aug. 3, 2013 (proof he slept with her)
R is slow going after TT for 1 month

posts: 316   ·   registered: Sep. 23rd, 2013   ·   location: US
id 6509269
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RidingHealingRd ( member #33867) posted at 4:08 AM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

calling my husband a liar and an asshole is just my feelings at the moment. If you knew his history of lies, you'd get it

I totally "got it" the minute I read it. One thing that did not surprise me on Dday was that my WH was a liar...I realized over the course of 25 years of M that I had married a master bullshitter.

The A fallout shook him to his core. Fortunately, he has made a dedicated effort to change all bad behavior including lying. It is for this reason that I no longer call him a "liar and and asshole" ~ That shoe no longer fits.

ETA: I called him an liar and asshole (and much more I might add) for well over 1.5 years during R and we made it through. Nothing was going to silence me....nothing. As I told him, if you don't like it leave ~ he stayed.

[This message edited by RidingHealingRd at 10:13 PM, October 2nd (Wednesday)]

ME: 60 BS
HIM: 67 WH
Married: 35 years
D'Day: 10/29/10
in R 10 years and it's working but he is putting 200% into it (as he should) to make it right again.

The truth hurts, but I have never seen it cause the pain that lies do.

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wifehad5 ( Administrator #15162) posted at 1:23 PM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

Suposd2btheonly1,

The description of this forum is clear.No namecalling or venting. Please posf accordingly.

FBH - 52 FWW - 53 (BrokenRoad)2 kids 17 & 22The people you do your life with shape the life you live

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id 6509584
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StillGoing ( member #28571) posted at 1:39 PM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

I think there are two different Why questions being bundled together. Why an affair, why was your head in that place.

An affair really is black and white to me, and simplistic. Because she wanted to, she could, and that's that. That's a wrongful thought process and needs work and the details in it are part of the process of getting out, but I don't believe it's anything more than that at the core and saying "duh" is fine and all, but what gets lost here is for the vast majority of WS that whole "I was selfish" part never makes it out of their mouths.

Most WS - WS that don't post here - don't accept responsibility for their actions, blame their BS, the 'state of the marriage' or the latest antics of the cat. It's not that they are selfish and wanted to take this escape route, it's because they HAD to, or it was The Only Way To Hit Rock Bottom or My Wife Didn't Suck My Dick Enough or this or that.

As to why a WS head is in that place? How it got to be in the position to decide She Didn't Suck Enough Dick For Me makes an affair a rational response over, say, any other reason? That varies between heads. Poor coping mechanisms due to shitty parents, entitlement due to an idyllic childhood, nanobots infiltrating the frontal lobe, whatever. Those answers are always going to be marginally different because people are always marginally different.

"Because I wanted to" is something that tastes bad when you say it about something you know is wrong. Try it the next time you do something you know is wrong. It feels shameful, because it takes total and complete ownership of the action. From there you can strike out into why you wanted to take off all your clothes on the freeway and throw swedish fish at the vehicle behind you. I dunno maybe you hate Honda vehicles or something.

Tempus Fuckit.

- Ricky

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wincing_at_light ( member #14393) posted at 2:20 PM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

Abuse of Swedish Fish will not be tolerated.

You can't beat the Axis if you get VD

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tired girl ( member #28053) posted at 2:26 PM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

WAL,

I will stand by my statement if the particular BS is going to go with the "WS is just selfish and wanted to." If that is as far as the BS is willing to look with their WS then they don't have a good grasp on what is going on in their WS. Of course if their WS is doing no work at all to get to what was going on with them and fix it, well then maybe they are just selfish and there is nothing more to it.

Me 47 Him 47 Hardlessons
DS 27,25,23
D Day's becoming less important as time moves on.
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Eleanor Roosevelt
My bad for trying to locate remorse on your morality map. OITNB

posts: 7444   ·   registered: Mar. 26th, 2010   ·   location: Inside my head
id 6509646
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Dreamland ( member #40488) posted at 2:50 PM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

Ok so my question... If we are married 18 yrs and he hadn't cheat before..

My question is WHY NOW.. What happen that you suddenly gave yourself permission to cheat. He didn't tell he was married up front. He doesn't wear a wedding ring and they talked on the bus home everyday for months. You are telling me that his wife and child never came up... He suddenly had big boundary issues...

But why now. What triggered it and how could he throw away his morals.. For what.

I was the one unhappy asking him that we were drifting and he would tell me we have a great marriage. And then I find out you are cheating.

He's mental!!!! And now I am fucked up for ever. We talked about D last night. He said well if I am gone you won't think of the A anymore.

I said FU. I will think about you betraying me for the rest of my life. Asshole..

Me-BS 50 Him-WH 47, DD17
Together since 1993, Married 19 yrs
DDay 3/12,4/12,7/12 EA-PA OW - 25 single husband chasing bastard whore

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id 6509670
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SisterMilkshake ( member #30024) posted at 2:52 PM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

WAL and SG thanks so much for your post. I agree about the journey to "why" is the important part. Who can judge the "why" being right or wrong?

It isn't like FWH just said "I wanted to and I was selfish" on d-day. It was a process. He did start out blaming the marriage. He has done some very deep introspection. Asking the "why's" of himself.

This is a process that has taken over 3 years to get to a place where we are comfortable in his "why's" and more importantly what he is doing to change all the behaviours and thought processes that allowed him to believe that he was the king of his world and everyone else were merely the peons satisfying his needs.

eta: I like to throw fish-squirrels at passing Hummers and Suburbans, SG, when I get naked alongside the highway.

[This message edited by SisterMilkshake at 8:55 AM, October 3rd (Thursday)]

BW (me) & FWH both over half a century; married several decades; children
d-day 3/10; LTA (7 years?)

"Oh, why do my actions have consequences?" ~ Homer Simpson
"She knew my one weakness: That I'm weak." ~ Homer Simpson

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sisoon ( Moderator #31240) posted at 2:59 PM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

I call my Fws an asshole all the time.

I call it like it i see it! to his face if he is bein one i tell him! nothing wrong with speaking the truth!

Just dont want to call names. KWIM?

Huh? How is calling someone an asshole not calling names? And how is it useful in R?

If you call me a name, I'll probably get angry and react.

If you tell me you're angry at me for what I did, I listen and probably will think about making amends.

If you want to R, I strongly recommend you say things like, 'I'm furious that you ....' instead of 'You SOB! You did...!'

Calling someone a name is only an indirect expression of feeling. A name is a thought. A feeling is sad, mad, scared, or glad.

and for the WS, (the A i)s just another skirmish in a long-standing war of attrition to come to terms with themselves, to heal some

old pain, to cope with the struggles of life with the tools they have at their disposal.

That about wraps up my thinking, but I never could find the words until reading this post. Thanks (again), w_a_l.

fBH (me) - on d-day: 66, Married 43, together 45, same sex apDDay - 12/22/2010Recover'd and R'edYou don't have to like your boundaries. You just have to set and enforce them.

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wert ( member #34478) posted at 3:00 PM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

Except this: if your goal is to reconcile and/or forgive, knowing the why's and trying to see how those lifetime of hurts made so brittle the soul of your spouse is also your window into empathy, into forgiveness, into acceptance and understanding. Understanding their struggle through the lens of their why's is the seed that grows again into love.

Nice. Should be in the BS R handbook.

Of course if their WS is doing no work at all to get to what was going on with them and fix it, well then maybe they are just selfish and there is nothing more to it.

True for the M or for the R, but for the WS that selfishness is not simple and not the only problem. It is the tip of the berg.

I used to ask my W what her why was/is. I stopped. I just needed to make sure I was good first. I really need to pick that up again and so does she.

People always want to fix this shit all at once, but in reality it takes a lifetime to build the patterns of coping and behavior and I think it follows that the changes will take an equal amount of time (or more) to work them out of your system as well. That sustained effort is the journey to self. We are all on it.

The old adage does come into play here - we are all works in progress. Because we are the "digging" is never really done.

Take care...

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tired girl ( member #28053) posted at 3:11 PM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

The old adage does come into play here - we are all works in progress. Because we are the "digging" is never really done.

So true.

Me 47 Him 47 Hardlessons
DS 27,25,23
D Day's becoming less important as time moves on.
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Eleanor Roosevelt
My bad for trying to locate remorse on your morality map. OITNB

posts: 7444   ·   registered: Mar. 26th, 2010   ·   location: Inside my head
id 6509697
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JanaGreen ( member #29341) posted at 3:13 PM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

I'm so so busy at work, and there is so much gold in this thread that I'm going to have to come back and read it later.

But this:

Except this: if your goal is to reconcile and/or forgive, knowing the why's and trying to see how those lifetime of hurts made so brittle the soul of your spouse is also your window into empathy, into forgiveness, into acceptance and understanding. Understanding their struggle through the lens of their why's is the seed that grows again into love.

Yes, yes, yes.

Only if your spouse is also willing to do that digging/understanding. If they're not, trying to figure out their "whys" on your own will just make you insane.

And TG is SO right. It's not simple. If I really thought the only reason my H did what he did was because he was selfish, I'd be crazy to be with him still. There's so much more to what happened, and to him, than that.

It would have been much simpler to accept that he was just selfish and walk away (and if he hadn't woken up it would have been the right choice) but I would have missed out on what we have now. The window into empathy that WAL mentioned has allowed me to not only forgive him but to regain respect and love. If I didn't know where he was coming from, any forgiveness I would have been able to muster would have been false and shallow. And every interaction we had would be bitter around the edges.

Also bear in mind that it takes a long time to have the kind of emotional distance required to get that empathy - you've got to bind up your wounds first.

posts: 9505   ·   registered: Aug. 17th, 2010   ·   location: Southeast US
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wincing_at_light ( member #14393) posted at 3:59 PM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

And before anyone gets all touchy-feely and thinks I'm sobbing in a corner over here about the beauty of love flowers and shit:

I simultaneously believe that the BS is free to reject any and every why their WS comes up with. You get to decide for yourself if that reason is sufficient and worth investing in empathy.

That's not a commentary on whether a given WHY is right, wrong, worthy of partial credit, or being reviewed by an examiner who will never be satisfied because all they really want to do is punish.

It just is.

You're allowed to think your WS's why is fucking stupid. And then you're allowed to keep working with them or dismiss them as a mouth-breather unworthy of your time. They're allowed to complain that you dismiss their big WHY because you're just a pissing dickhole.

You know what a WHY is? It's a story. It's a story we tell ourselves about what our lives mean and where the various plot elements we're living arose from.

There aren't any right answers. There aren't any wrong ones. There are only answers that we can agree on or not.

If you can agree enough to make shit work, then you can stay married pretty happily. Otherwise, you're going to be miserable or divorced.

But, you know, they're just stories: the mythology of me. It's not ambrosia dripping from the lips of Olympian gods. It's not Diogenes with his fucking lantern, stabbing light into the darkness.

Just stories...and I'm pretty sure that at the end of it all, nobody has it "right" (whatever that means).

Not right or wrong. Just whatever story you can live with and rectify with your decision to go or stay.

You can't beat the Axis if you get VD

posts: 7086   ·   registered: Apr. 27th, 2007   ·   location: Indiana
id 6509768
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TICKED OFF ( member #8291) posted at 4:08 PM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

Ok, let's for shits and giggles say that my WS really didn't know why he had an a or what made him have an a with our neighbor (his best friend's wife) ....let's just pretend here.

HOWEVER, if that is the truth of the matter then shouldn't my h have KNOWN that having an a WAS JUST PLAIN WRONG???? My h knew right from wrong he just chose to ignore it. So the bottom line is, even if he really doesn't know why he did this, I am positive that he knew he shouldn't have.

posts: 2809   ·   registered: Sep. 22nd, 2005
id 6509779
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tired girl ( member #28053) posted at 4:11 PM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

For me personally, I haven't been as concerned with HL's why's, and I don't know that he was really concerned with mine, we were more concerned with the HOW are you going to make yourself safe so you don't do that again? I think the why is wrapped up in that, peripherally, but for me, the HOW was way more important.

Me 47 Him 47 Hardlessons
DS 27,25,23
D Day's becoming less important as time moves on.
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Eleanor Roosevelt
My bad for trying to locate remorse on your morality map. OITNB

posts: 7444   ·   registered: Mar. 26th, 2010   ·   location: Inside my head
id 6509784
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