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Oh, of course he knew, black & white, that having the affair was wrong, TO - but how did he JUSTIFY it to himself? What mental gymnastics did he perform to allow himself to go there?

Right there, Jana, it is justifications. Are justifications the "why'? No, justifications are justifications, not the "whys". FWH had a mile long list of his justifications.

And here's the thing - if your spouse is acting like crap, it makes it easy to justify your own bad behavior. I fell into that for a long time. He made it REALLY easy for me to do that, bless him. I remember telling TG that it was, in a way, a lot easier on me when my husband was acting like a turd, because then I could just blame everything on him. When he started acting like a good husband, that's when I had to start looking at my own warts, and oh, that's not so fun. And I think that starts to pertain to another ongoing conversation in another forum. It can devolve into a never-ending cycle of shit-tastic behavior that's not so funny.

[This message edited by JanaGreen at 10:23 AM, October 3rd (Thursday)]

You lost me, Jana. Maybe we are talking about two different things.

I was just running back here to say that in NOOOO way shape or form am I trying to say a WS should be able to blame their bad behavior on a BS.

I'm sorry, I'm posting and running between tasks at work and I am not explaining well. I just meant - it works both ways. I did some really unhealthy things and I justified them by blaming my WS - because he was acting very horribly, I felt justified in also acting horribly. And that's not ok either.

Basically it all boils down to - what's right is right and it's not relative.

Sorry, can't help myself...

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:

Yeah, but then you say

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

Man, that's awful close to the old hippy song that goes something like

There ain’t no good guys. There ain’t no bad guys. There’s just you and me and we may disagree.

Hippies were notorious for sobbing in corners over love flowers and shit…. Ah, well, maybe it's just coincidence. Or maybe the singer is just trying to seduce some girl.

*************************

But, you know, they're just stories: the mythology of me. It's not ambrosia dripping from the lips of Olympian gods.

So true, and

I just want to be able to come back to this thread. I don't have anything to add at this time.

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

wal, I don't think you have to worry about any of us going there

Oops, double posted.

[This message edited by sudra at 2:18 AM, October 4th (Friday)]

"I truly, truly and strongly believe that a person has an affair because S/HE is broken, not because the marriage is broken."

I believe the WS is always at fault for making the decision, but there are many M's that are broken. Some that should not be repaired.

I don't think I said anything different, really. A marriage can be bad or good and someone could cheat. I think the cheater does so for his or her own reasons that are internal, not because the marriage is bad. It may be bad, but lots of people in bad marriages don't cheat. People in good marriages cheat, too.

It's about the cheater, not the marriage.

That's why the "why" is so important to discover. You can't affair proof your marriage so your partner won't cheat. You can only control whether you cheat. It's nice when a cheater discovers the why and will share with the spouse to give some security that it won't happen again.

My husband, I believe, really has no idea why he cheated. Twice. I believe he truly believes it's wrong, and he's taken steps to tighten up his nearly non-existent boundaries but I don't really feel safe that he won't cheat again.

In fact, I think there's a good chance that somewhere down the road, he will cheat again. He'll need to fill that hole inside that he can't seem to fill himself, and I can't fill it for him either. Someone will come along and he'll begin the justifications again - our marriage is crap, Sudra is crap, she doesn't love me like I deserve, new OW treats me the way I deserve, new OW is the love of my life, etc. And he'll be gone. And I'll be back again someday.

So yea, I totally agree. The why is extremely important.

[This message edited by sudra at 11:40 AM, October 3rd (Thursday)]

What a great thread... WAL, this is pure gold:

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.

I've discussed my W's "whys" a few times, as she slowly discovered them, but I can't claim I've ever really fully understood them, or put all the pieces together. I suspect I was just too hurt at the time to rationally think and accept them. It's very difficult for a BS, early-on, to accept any "why", because we're expecting to hear some reason that will make it totally "OK".

Like: "I had 10 guns to my head, and they were going to shoot me unless I fucked your best friend! What choice did I have?!?!"

It's all too easy to reject every reason muttered, especially after hearing months of blaming the BS and/or marriage. I have fallen into the "because she wanted too" or "because she's selfish" mindset many, many times.

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.

Although WAL is intellectually vastly superior to me I will risk disagreeing.

For me and possibly for me only. I dont really care what the WHY is for WW LTA.

WW deliberately chose to have a LTA. LTA meaning it was no mistake because she went back and back and back to OM over many years. From my view she chose that because that is what she wanted to do and basically said to herself *screw the consequences*.

What matters to me is HER finding out the WHY. It matters to me that she discover this and work on herself and make changes so she does not make that choice again. If she were to tell me of her WHYS I would listen and perhaps feel some empathy. But more likely I would not understand her WHYS. She would be speaking a language I could never understand.

It is not my job to press her to discover her WHY. I feel this is so because it is not my job to *fix* her. Just as it is not her job to *fix* or heal me.

we were more concerned with the HOW are you going to make yourself safe so you don't do that again?

Agree...agree...agree. What kind of things did you discuss to make you feel more secure about this. My H tells me "I absolutely know that nothing like this will ever happen again" That is about as much as it has been discussed. We have had many conversations about boundaries and I know that his habits at work have changed drastically ( not chit chatting with any woman). Just wondering what else you have done to work on this. Thanks

[This message edited by struggling3 at 1:23 PM, October 3rd (Thursday)]

"Jana"......I don't think my h ever justified his a with our neighbor because (as most WS's IMO) he never thought he would get caught and have to justify it to himself or anyone else for that matter.

The justification only came to light when he realized I was going to kick his ass to the curb. Prior to getting caught I believe my h was so high and mighty that he truly thought it was his right to do whatever the hell he wanted.

So basically his justification was simply that there was a willing partner and HE COULD. His justification was ow telling him that they were meant for each other.

Thanks folks I need this. I haven't asked about the whys in a while, but a failure to come up with ones that I can integrate into my understanding of WH and our M is a dealbreaker for me. In other words, if it goes no further than the M or shrew like BW (that's me folks) is to blame, I am out. I have said this to WH and to IC.

Go WAL with the narrative history and its role here. Many WS have created a narrative history that explains the A during and prior to the A that needs to shift after d day through fog clearing and self examination. After waywards figure out their whys, then the partners (wayward and betrayed) can spend some time together on the narrative of their M or partnership. On integrating the A into the narrative history of their lives together.

Lots of good thinking here. Thanks again.

[This message edited by OnAnIsland at 1:11 AM, October 4th (Friday)]

"OnAnIsland".....that is true only if the WS is truly remorseful and totally honest with themselves and the BS as to what took place. Unless the WS is open and honest then there can't ever be a true R.

well i think we all make too much of a big deal about the why

could be quite possible that it's because:

he was selfish and thus didn't care about your feelings and didn't take the time to really think about what effect it would have on you. He also needed external validation because of a predisposing event leading to perpetuating factors. Perhaps like most infidelity there was not enough protecting factors, or perhaps simply didn't value them because of the predisposing event.

that's the clinical method of it.

If you take the generalised stereotyped way of how psychologists break it down you would realise that the main problem is we all have predisposing events that can lead to infidelity. We just have better strategies in handling them.

this 'why' business personally is not my cup of tea. Very rarely there will be a 'why' that will actually depict 'why' and you can go "well that circumstance is never going to repeat", but generally this is not the case and the why is just that they were selfish even though their predisposing event was awful etc, doesn't matter they still were selfish and they still didn't care

hi there...all waywards know why. and it is simple....they wanted to do it, liked it, and wanted to keep doing it as long as they didnt get caught. most waywards only come clean about the truth or end the a after they get busted. i spent so much time trying to understand the why. and after a while, i realized that the whys were only another excuse...another way to rugsweep.

bottom line, my h cheated because he did exactly what he wanted to do. he was cold, calculating, and it was deliberate, and repeated. it is a major character flaw.

the only hope in saving a m is for the BS to put on some serious bitch boots, and set some firm boundaries. and it is up to the wayward to get some help to work on why he is such an asshole. nothing we can do about that..it is all on him.

"sri624".......You are exactly right. I am STILL working on R 9 years later because of the very thing you stated. H was very remorseful only after he was caught. Of course he wanted to stay and R. I allowed it and worked on it to the best of my ability to which I am still working on it.

The biggest problem is, he never has nor ever will give me any reasons as to why which has made me totally believe (as you stated) that there really was NEVER a why. The why is just another excuse at best in a long line of excuses. This is why R will never work out for me, or at least a truthful and honest R.

I decided that my sarcasm was best not shared.

[This message edited by sunnyrain at 11:55 AM, October 5th (Saturday)]