SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Olwen - I've pretty well read every post here and I bet you are extremely confused and have a huge headache.

I think like some have said, you need to take a step back and take a break.

Then - probably after you get your timeline - think long and hard about it and about what you can live with. It sounds like you love your WS very much and I think because of that, you can forgive him his infidelity. That is what you have to come to terms with. He cheated - no matter why, how etc., the truth is - he cheated.

Now, can you live with that? Can you still love him? Do you still want to make your marriage work? If the answers to these 3 questions are all YES, go for it. Stop writing and asking our opinions - we are definitely biased - we (almost) all have been lied to - tt'd and cheated on. Only you can really assess your situation because only you know deep down the truth....whether it is what your WS says or not. I do not think any of us can give you what you want - none of us can confirm what your WS is telling you. Decide on your course of action and do it. Don't keep trying to convince everyone else - if you believe it that NEEDS to be enough.

The most important question is: What do you want?

Other questions include:

1) Do you believe him? If this is the truth, it's pretty odd, but that doesn't make in untrue. You ask SI if we believe him, and we say either a) no, or b) it's very difficult to believe him - but we know less than you do.

It's your life, and you have to take your own risks. At some point everyone in chooses to believe his WS, even though we know we've been lied to terribly by the person we now choose to believe. That doesn't make sense - but we do it, and I think it works out decently more often than not.

2) Why not do a polygraph? It sounds like your big question is whether he's told the truth, and that's a yes/no question eminently suitable for a poly. It could do the trick for you.

The bottom line is it actually makes very little difference, he did it, he is a cheater like any other.

For me, the bottom line is: My husband says the cheating sex was bad. Either he is lying to me, or he is telling the truth. Whether I'm getting lies or the truth makes a huge difference. I can not R with a man who is lying to me.

Honey,I see you desperately trying to believe him. You have talked yourself into it. I get it. Most of us here do.

You do what you feel you need to do. If you feel you need to believe him,that's ok.

This was written to Olwen, not me, and I'm sure it was written out of caring. It sounded patronizing to me, though, and I wanted to respond in case someone else reading this thread has a WS like mine.

I actually did not want to believe that my H masturbated to get hard and continued to masturbate during sex so that he could stay hard. I did not want to believe that he disassociated from the situation so that he could have mechanical sex with a pitiful woman who he did not find attractive in any way. What kind of messed-up do you have to be to do that? A kind that I knew nothing about and didn't want to touch with a ten foot pole. A kind that can result from child abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect. A self-destructive compulsion combined with a confirmation

of worthlessness that scrambles rational thought and is quite frankly disturbing.

Messed-up people do messed up shit.

As far as him wanting it or not, I don’t know how he would have had sex if he didn’t want it. If a male truly does not want to have sex with a person, and is thinking that when the act is happening, then certain body parts don’t work – which makes sex impossible. He wanted it, on some level, or it wouldn’t have happened, period.

I’m really perplexed why it matters so much.

It matters so much because the truth matters. My H "wanted it on some level" but it was not a sexual level. OW was not arousing to him. I'm not going to go into the whole background, but women have sex when they don't feel desire, what makes people think men are so different?

then certain body parts don’t work – which makes sex impossible.

Actually, people can emotionally feel horrible and still have the signs of physical arousal. Something that is terribly confusing for the survivors of sexual abuse is that they did not want what was happening, did not feel desire, and yet their body responded by getting physically aroused. Please try to imagine what kind of mind-fuck that would be before you say that it is "impossible" for men to be hard unless they "want" to have sex.

Olwen, I find your husband's story credible and I accept that he's working to regain your faith.

I think it would help if you determined what you need him to do in order to restore some of your faith in him. If he can do that, go for a full reconciliation. I don't mean to sound crass, but if it fails, divorce is still possible then.

Yes, it means making yourself vulnerable. But I do get the feeling that you would like to reconcile. The gamble might be worth it.

Of course he should be told that if he's not come clean, it means the end of the marriage.

I just do not have time to read the whole thread right now, but I just wanted to say that I believe what he is saying could be the truth. I'm not saying it IS the truth because I have no idea but I can see it being true.

People here say all the time that so many waywards are "broken." Well, here is a man admitting to being broken and even taking it a step further and explaining how he is broken. That seems like a good start to me.

Watch him now and let him take the reins. If he is being honest, you will be able to tell that, probably right quick.

Good luck to you both. See if he follows up on that IC.

Good morning all,

Feel a bit embarrassed I said I was going to leave SI yesterday in my last post.

I was hurt by the comment someone made about my 'bipolar mind' accepting things and I felt I was being made to feel stupid for believing H.

I am not going to let that one personal comment stop me posting here or let people's differing views stop me posting. I have got too much help from SI and I know it comes from a well meaning place and people are speaking from their own experiences.

Thank you to all the people who spoke up to say his story is possible, it really helped.

We talked last night and I really feel I know what I am dealing with now.

I think I am going to pop back over to reconciliation and work on rebuilding our marriage now.

Hi Olwen, sorry to be so late to the game, but I feel this is more at home on this post. I hope you don't mind a wayward's information - if you do, please ignore this.

Once my husband finally knew the truth, 4 1/2 years ago, he kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Understandably: my story went from 'one kiss' to 'oral sex' - why wouldn't it progress to full sex? Of course he doubted. And it was afwul, even for me, from the outside. I wanted to stop the doubts, just so he could start processing, healing, feeling better. I can remember the urge I felt to tell him that I did have full sex, it was a very compelling thought, but I didn't do it. Looking at it now, I see that it wasn't a 'noble' truth, it was still selfish: I'd rather have my husband doubt me than leave me, and at least with the truth I still had a chance of him staying in the marriage. He's still here. He's not waiting for that particular shoe anymore, though he probably wouldn't be too surprised if some other shoe dropped out of nowhere .

So, yes, I can imagine someone telling a 'worse' lie rather than the 'lesser' truth. Thing is, he does need to look at that as well. It may tie into the conflict avoidance/need to please/external validation that helped fuel the affair, but he needs to figure that out for himself. If he keeps telling 'any old story' just to conform to some external standard, you will not be exempt from that, and you will not feel (or be) safe. I hope he can go to a good IC soon, that would probably help a lot.

Good luck in Reconciliation.

~L.

slight t/j-

Sailorgirl...Im sorry you misunderstood. As you said,it was written from a place of caring, as are all of my posts here.

Did I want to believe MY HUSBAND sucked some OM's dick? Um..not even a little bit. But he did. A few months after dday,as my shock wore off, I was literally staring at myself in the mirror several times a day saying out loud," he did this...he REALLY did this."

So..I completely get not wanting to believe what our WS's really did. Im well aware that fucked up people do fucked up things. If you know my story, then you know I live with a man who did some pretty horrific things. And has worked very hard to be a different,better man.

I didn't mean to sound in any way patronizing.

-end t/j

Good morning olwen. Im glad you are feeling better. What are you going to do for yourself today?

Confused615 - I am determines to get round to some sewing today. I do large intricate cross stitch patterns and have been working on one for a few years. I haven't been making time for it lately so am looking forward to a couple of hours relaxation. I know your posts came from a caring place so don't worry about it.

Left too late - that was very helpful thank you. I can't believe I didn't recognise his conflict avoidance in the way his story kept changing. I think you're quite right and I will bring it up with him today as an example, thanks for pointing it out.

My biggest concern would be this letter and timeline. First, given all that you are saying about him doing everything to fix this, I would have liked to see him tell you this all in person. Not make you wait for a letter and timeline. Having said that, I do get that sometimes we BS want written timelines. Because then they can't wiggle out of that. So that part is good. But honestly, he's had more than enough time to get you this. When is it coming? I was be concerned about that. I mean, is they are documents if truth, they shouldn't take any time at all to write out. There needs to be no thought or thinking. Just that cold hard facts. Now, before he decides to change his mind about being 100% truthful. I think you said he was going to add his intersection on this as part of it. Great! But that can be a third document, which I agree could take more time. He should be allowed that time to get it right. But as for the timeline and letter---that needs to be now. Just saying what I would want and expect in your situation.

Take good care, ok?

Cantgetup - thank you, I have had the story since he confessed in june, he was very detailed. A few new things have cropped up though so he wanted to work through it by writing it down, also so I have it to refer to. Yes it has taken too long but we have been so up and down and on again off again.

I am getting it now and that's what matters. He was working on it til late last night.

related t/j:

Confused,

Thanks for answering, and I absolutely know you were coming from a place of helpfulness and understanding of betrayal.

I think my post was unclear. I didn't just mean that I didn't want to believe my that my H had an affair--of course I didn't, but I accepted it. I meant that I did not want to believe that the sexual contact was bad. I did not want to believe that he was messed up enough to have sex when he wasn't turned-on. To compulsively arouse himself physically even though he genuinely did not want to have sex.

It's not a relief to know that the sex was awful. It's not what I desperately want to believe. It's actually very disturbing and really sad that my sweet man would do something so gross, destructive, detached, and full of self-hatred.

It's very hard to accept, and it goes along with accepting that my H was damaged to the core by child abuse of all kinds.

edited to add: I'm not saying that I think this is exactly what happened with your, H, Olwen. Just that it is complicated. And it is possible for men to be aroused physically, but not emotionally or mentally. It is possible for sex to feel bad.

[This message edited by sailorgirl at 7:15 AM, November 19th (Tuesday)]

Thanks sailor girl - I knew just what you meant, it's hard to deal with either way isn't it

Yes, it is. I think you and your H can both be proud of how hard you are both working to build a true and shared understanding of what happened.

I still have days when I want it to be as simple as "He was hot for her, she was hot for him, so they had hot sex." But all three of those things are false.

I'm glad what I wrote helped you, olwen.

I am also glad you have chosen to discard the personal statement that was made, and stay on SI. Remember that for all the collective wisdom and experience on SI, your own personal journey is just that. Yours. Personal. You know what advice feels right; choose that to take away.

T/J -

Thanks, sailorgirl, for addressing that statement about body parts working. You did it with a lot of tact.

2) Why not do a polygraph? It sounds like your big question is whether he's told the truth, and that's a yes/no question eminently suitable for a poly. It could do the trick for you.

^This^

If your need to know whether he's telling the truth is so strong, a polygraph could set your mind at rest. If that's what it takes, find the $$$ and do it.

But......if the polygraph says he lied, what will be your next move?

Lostintoronto - thank you and yes I thought that too. Thanks sailor girl.

[This message edited by olwen at 8:40 AM, November 19th (Tuesday)]

lynnm- thanks for your reply,

I decided against a polygraph early on, 1) we can't afford it 2) they are not completely accurate.

Now - I feel I have enough of the truth to move on.

If it turned out he was madly in love or lust or whatever I have decided I would still stay after seeing the changes in him. It would be harder for me but yes I would stay so I am going to focus on that now.