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So what is it that you want, Regrette?

So..who needs it. Marriage? Certainly not me. I hate almost everything about it. But my kids need it.

So you are staying in your M strictly for the children? Kids are so much more intuitive than we give them credit for. You don't think they don't sense that your M is rocky? They may not understand it, but they know something is wrong.

In the meantime, you will be teaching them that it is alright to both disrespect and be disrespected when it comes to relationships. And the cycle can then continue.

Admittedly, our kids have been a driving force, especially in the early days. But it can't be the only one.

Dunno. Based on all your comments here I looked my H in the eye tonight and told him I'm sorry I have shown him zero compassion. And there it was. All the hurt. Funny that I had to come down from my attacking position (attacking from 'victim,') to see the hurt that was always there. I came at the marriage with my grenade launcher a'blazing, and, because I couldn't stop feeling powerless, I decided to just... Destroy...everything. I am such a destructive person. Not a bad person. But a highly destructive one. And when you're young thats duch a rocknroll cliche "ooh, im such a self-destructive person!" but in middle age its not funny or sexy. Because now Im not just self destructive. Im officially, now, destructive to others. An abuser. That, in a nutshell, is the "why" of my affair. Even if I felt justified, I didn't have to burn down the house.

[This message edited by Regrette at 8:46 PM, January 8th (Wednesday)]

Even if I felt justified, I didn't have to burn down the house.

Funny thing I said this to my therapist last night with my wife sitting by my side, silently thanking my therapist. You are on the right track to self awareness. The first step.

You have submitted that you felt that you were emotionally abused. I accept that because you said it was true. Make your decision carefully. Resentment is a hard thing to deal with and to simply shut down. It can come back again with a vengeance and the urge to "blow things up" again may come back with those feelings.

I know the guilt an affair can bring. The absolute self hatred for your actions can be overwhelming, if one has any sense of decency and self respect. In the time that follows, those recede and other feelings come into play. Don't rush the answers you are looking for. The behavior of your husband, if true to your words will be remembered by you at a later time, when the anger at your actions recedes and you will once again feel the same things you did when you felt justified to have an affair, if he doesn't change. He may not change. Are you ready for that? To handle that in a responsible way?

Sure you are sending a bad message to your kids, as is your husbands abuse of you. Kids are not stupid. What do you want for them?

You are right about becoming the abuser with your affair. Did you rewrite your marriage history to justify your affair? That is another question you may have, and a tough one to answer sometimes.

I posted originally, because a lot of the time the first response is for the wayward to help their spouse heal. I know from my abuse that is simply too simplistic of an answer. I don't honestly know the whole truth of your marriage. There may be blame shifting and rewriting, maybe not. However, if the abuse is real, only you can decide that, then you are not obligated to reconcile at all, especially if your abuser resists internal change and does not admit to the abuse. That of course is hard to realize after you have just thrown a bomb into the marriage and guilt and shame, and anger at yourself come into play. The need for redemption is very strong, and sometimes the final results are not thought through.

The simple fact is that there is no excuse for an affair or for abuse, be it emotional, verbal or physical. That is just my opinion, based on my knowledge of my wife's journey through my abuse and my own internal journey to stop it.

Strength.

I wanted to add a little something which I don't think I made clear in my other posts. Please do listen to some of the people giving advice on here, they know what they are talking about, I have been reading some of their stuff for years. A lot of wisdom in it and it is the result of a lot of soul searching. You need to do the same soul searching to find your answers.

I may differ a great deal from some folks on here with my ideas about abuse. I would never say it is all right to have an affair as the result of being the victim of it, but it is a right to be done with a marriage. However, I guess I have a different perspective on it because I have sat with men in a class designed for abusive men. I learned it can from subtle to explosive, but it is always abuse and is never excused because of "what she did" or "how she behaved" kind of like a BS having a revenge affair.

It can be anything from stonewalling (not sharing, not talking in a marriage) to beating the shit out of your wife every night. The results vary too. I beat my wifes esteem so low, she would wake up each morning crying, realizing that she had to get up for another day. I have lived with the results and they are ugly and knowing that I caused that is almost unbearable. One doesn't need three bails of shit beat out of them everyday to be the victim of abuse.

I think you have a thought process which is going on in your head. An example is seeing his "time stamp" as abusive. My wife who is in R with me, real R had a similar thought process the other day that mirrors this, if it is in fact how you are you thinking. She triggered when I came home and offered to help in anyway to help her get into another career, because I know she is unhappy with her present situation. I am recovering and working hard at ending every form of abuse and have been pretty successful. She immediately thought it was just another way I wanted control in her life. We ended up at my therapists office to discuss it. I had meant what I said, of course it was a KISA issue and another story altogether, but abuse, no. That is how abuse works, it poisons everything in a relationship, even things that are not abusive. You may see everything he does as abusive, because it has been conditioned into you by abuse. It makes clarity very difficult. Only you can make the decision on how you view his actions, from your experiences.

From your posts I get the feeling you may simply be done with your marriage, and beat down emotionally by the abuse you refer to. You may not have the clarity to work on the marriage, simply because that has been damaged permanently. I added my voice to help give you clarity in a situation where you have damaged your relationship severely by your affair. That of course is fraught with danger, because people do lie sometimes, rewrite their own histories and waywards always look for excuses, just like abusers. It is hard to tell by reading blocks of writing and not hearing both sides of a story. Only you know the real truth and only you can choose to be honest with yourself.

I don't believe anyone has the right to say what is abusive and not abusive in your relationship. I know some couples that say "fuck you" to each other every day and mean it. They don't feel it is abusive. I do and my wife does. It would have my wife or myself feeling the pit of dispair in a relationship like that. The part of the conversation that had someone say

Well, everything is abuse nowadays, isn't it?

Indicates that people all believe differently about what constitutes abuse. That of course is simply us human beings with our own issues to deal with.

What I am trying to say is that I am in the corner that you don't need to help your husband heal from this at all. You can initiate divorce immediately, without needing an excuse other than you are simply done. I also believe that if you are to help him heal, HE has as much work to do right now as you do, and you have every right to demand it. For me it much like a "madhatters" situation. I simply believe that abuse, emotional, verbal or physical abuse is as bad as an affair with the capability to cause as much and even more damage. That abusers don't get an "out" like a wayward doesn't get an out. It is impossible to R with someone whom belittles you, disregards you, hits you or tries to control you. It won't work. He won't respond to you "reaching out" to him, he will use it against you. He has work to do on himself.

Now here is the kicker and the thing you need to figure out. Could it be the other way around and you subtly abused him for years and are your thinking allows you to justify it? That is not an accusation, simply a question that should be examined, but it falls more in line with what some of the others have said, I think. If your answer is no, then it is no.

I wanted to clarify, because I respect many people who have contributed to your post and I respect their views. Hopefully they respect mine as well, because I know mine are a bit off script, that is because this is very real to me (abuse). If you are rewriting your history as a coping device, then I hope you will follow their advice and use it to help yourself and your marriage. That can be difficult I know, I have twisted myself into knots trying to wrestle dignity out of abuse and betrayal of my spouse.

I read this post and some other posts you have made and the abuse seemed real to me. I have seen the same type of man, sat next to him and heard his justifications. I wanted to offer a bit of understanding, stopping short of justifying your affair (I can't say that enough ) It is far from uncommon behavior in men because of our upbringing and socializing.

You also must think about your children. Sure you are sending the wrong message by not working at your marriage and becoming two people who exist without respect for each other "for the kids". You also must consider, if your husband is indeed abusive, what type of message does that give your kids. For boys it is a learned behavior and it will effect his relationships in life. For girls the same thing. That must be considered as well. Staying together "for the kids" never works in the long run. They watch everything your husband and you do to learn about life, relationships, everything. They are smart and more aware than a lot of us give them credit for.

I sincerely hope you find the right answers to your situation. It is a tough road being a wayward.

I SO appreciate your words and the kindness in you that has taken the time to write this. I am only going to say this one last time: I did not rewrite my history to justify my A, as much as that is the accepted party line here and in other affair- recovery programs, which are VERY particular in their disease-model view of the cheater-as-addict and betrayed-as-victim. There are other views of affairs, even within the rigorously researched psychoanalytic community, that view them as a natural process in an imbalanced SYSTEM of RELATIONSHIP.

I am very angry and resentful of the skepticism, actually, because in my childhood, my beatings were erased with exactly this tactic. Despite my journaling about them (at age 8!) and having talks with myself to "always remember this," the predominant conversation in the house was "we love each other-you only hurt the ones you love," "please try not to set your mother off--she is a nervous woman and you have to know how to deal with that.," These messages came from my Father, who was very loving and supportive but failed to stand up to my mom when I needed it most. So basically he chose p**sy over me, which might partially explain why i stole another woman's man--i wanted to be chosen.

From my mother, the Glamorous but flailing, bipolar, abusive hysteric, came this message:"it didn't happen that way, how dare you accuse me, you are remembering wrong, you are jealous of me and are trying to make me look bad."

So I know a little something about the "subjectivity debate" and I'm not going there. I am not a schizophrenic with delusional thoughts. I know what I know, my experience is mine, and it is real. Real as real gets. And I actually think there's something abusive in the skepticism. As I said before: Everybody hates a victim.

Now, are there degrees? Absolutely. When my H's dad brags publicly about never noticing the color of his wife's eyes-- ever--in 42 years, and he passes it off as humor, and I see a dark cloud blanket her face, do I recognize that some WOULDN'T call that abusive? Absolutely. But when I imagine her average day peppered with such statements, alongside THE ABSENCE OF LOVING ONES, then I am CONVINCED we have an abuse situation here. And no one will ever tell me differently. And all the other daughter-in-laws see it and agree so it ain't just me. THAT is my H's "normal."

So..to answer the question: No. I absolutely don't want to R if that doesn't change.

Also I am of the opinion that if you withhold sex from your spouse that's your prerogative for a spell, ESP if you are low libido. You can't be something you're not. However to persist in sexual withholding...and DURING sex to expect the other to do much of the work...that is control. And to further EXPECT someone to never get those needs met elsewhere. As in: you own them but you don't want them? Well ...as far as I'm concerned that is a straight-up hostage situation right there.

You are right to remind me that I will be tossed around on a wave pattern of remorse-and-resentment. And that I shouldn't make decisions based on the feelings of the moment. You are also right to remind me that I'm an abuser as well. I know I am. And that is what created this dynamic I'm in today.

I don't automatically take a Wayward's word on how they view their M or their BS to be reality (maybe it's their reality but it's not necessary the reality). And I think that way because I was a Wayward. I know I thought of myself as a victim, in my M and to the whole world in general. I was hard-done-by. But really I wasn't. I thought I was neglected by my BW when I was the one doing the neglecting. I was a passive aggressive asshole but thought I was a Good Guy. Any problem with our M or my behavior that my BW voiced, I ignored, shot down or minimized and told her she was imagining things. Plus I was a porn addict and hid that from her. Now I consider how I behaved as abusive. Back then I didn't and I blamed my M for my A. It took me a while of self-examination after D'Day to see my part in any of that.

My sister is also a Wayward and she blames everyone for her A but herself. She's never owned anything. I know my sister pretty well. We are close in age and we have the same FOO. And it bothers me a lot now to see how our personalities were so similar growing up. We were both extremely selfish, entitled and self-absorbed and I can see she is still those things.

Several years after her A and her M ended (not because her XBS didn't want to R, but because she didn't), she says she had Battered Spouse Syndrome and that's why she had an A. I realize I don't know what goes on in someone else's M and call me cold-hearted but I doubt her claim. She never showed signs of abuse before, during or after her M. It doesn't line up with the way her A played out or reflected in how her M ended. She told the family that was because she met her soul mate, not anything about her H or his treatment of her other than they grew apart. Her XBS let her stay living in the family home till she could find a place for her and her AP to move into while leaving her kids behind. But her AP threw her under the bus and decided to stay with his family at the last minute which sure made her mad. She did see herself as THE victim in that situation - not her APBS, or his kids, not her XBS or her own kids - just her. I'm not saying her XBS was a saint but there are 2 sides to every story.

I'm skeptical of her claim primarily because she doesn't state it except to link it as the direct reason for her A. I think she says it to justify to herself and the new guy in her life as a 'good' reason why she had an A. She's not changed one thing about herself and she thinks everything worked out for the best even though the whole thing f*cked up her kids. Before being a Wayward myself, I would have taken her claim at face value and thought my XBIL must have been a dick and the A was his fault. Really, I don't care what happened in their marriage, except that she's busy trying to convince people of something instead of looking at herself and her own actions in any way. That bugs me.

The reason I don't give my sister the benefit of the doubt now is not because "everybody hates a victim" and you can think my skepticism is abuse if you want. I'm not disclaiming your allegations of abuse just pointing out that I think our own experiences play a part in how we see things. IMO with everything I've learned and gone through I think it would be irresponsible to accept what a Wayward or anyone for that matter says about their spouse or their M at face value with only side of the story. A lot of A's start that way.

I think I have a pretty good understanding of what the different forms of abuse looks like now too. In the relationship prior to ours, my BW was beaten repeatedly. Her live-in boyfriend threatened to kill her and described in detail how he would get away with it. I heard all the stories, but being young and immature and not having experience with that myself, I didn't really understand what living in a situation like that does to a person. How victims carry those scars with them. I convinced her to date me. I thought, that's all over with and life is good now and I'm a great BF and a great H and that's all that matters. Worse yet, I swore I would never abuse her. I wouldn't be THAT GUY and I never laid a hand on her, but I abused her just the same. With my behavior prior to my A, during my A and for a long time after too. My betrayal affected her more deeply and hurt a lot more than those beating ever did. It's still hard for me to accept that.

You walk into a M with personal issues/baggage and even if you leave the M you take all your issues with you. I think that's what people were trying to say and they were met with defensiveness and sarcasm and this thread deteriorated from there.

Not everyone is going to see things the way you do and they are not going to want to. You ask for feedback, you get what you get. Take what you need and leave the rest.

Hope things work out for you and your family.

First of all, my joking/sarcasm was largely for levity's sake. Things are pretty grim around here (meaning my life, not these boards) and I was just blowing of some steam. Are you experiencing that as abusive? See how abuse can be a subtle thing? It's all about respect and nuance. I guess I was being disrespectful to people trying to help. I'm sorry.

I think I said some kind things to kind people and defended my way of seeing things and I don't think that's a deterioration. It's just not in line with the ideology. i know a lot about how that can very quickly become unpopular--I've been on many of these sites before. I know I'm not alone in my opinion that some of these tenets are great and some are questionable. They're INVENTIONS too, you know?

I took a lot of personal responsibility, you're just not seeing it b/c I have to agree with the whole thing, kit-n-kaboodle, or I'm no good. First off, I ended my A after the first act of intercourse DUE TO GUILT. How many here have done that? xMM pursued me like I was the last woman on earth and I resisted and shut down the A despite still being attracted to him. Got myself in IC RIGHT OFF THE BAT, from the very first "I think I like you" text exchange. I confessed without evidence or getting caught...how is that not personal responsibility? I admitted I have been abusive to my husband. But he has 100% been abusive to me and I was complaining of it long before the affair.

I'm not really down with all the disapproval. Surely I can be healed without swallowing everything whole.

"I don't take what a Wayward says at face value..I am a wayward" That's great that you're working the program but I think too much self-loathing doesn't exactly ring true to me either. I once heard a quote that one form of narcissism is thinking " I'm the biggest piece of sh*t at the center of the universe,"--and I'm not sure too much chest beating really solves the problem.

I do not approve of cheating. Once you cheat that AUTOMATICALLY makes you an a*hole. But it doesn't historically make you one. It doesn't always mean that you have to break down your entire self (damaged, diseased, ridiculous) and build it up to be more like the shiny character of the pure-n-true BS. I just think that is very very skewed. Lots of good people have affairs. People with a huge sense of responsibility and goodness.

People have A's because they are unhappy and looking for some sugar. Often they find cyanide. But they go there because they are unhappy.They can be unhappy in their marriages or unhappy in themselves or a combination of both. Or even a combination of societal pressures to maintain a certain self-image plus the pre-existing unhappiness. Whatever the case, to make the blanket statement that it is NEVER the BS that drives their partner away, and it's ALWAYS the case a WS is a deluded individual misplacing blame, is simply NOT TRUE. There is ZERO evidence of that. Plenty of anecdotal stuff, but it's all interpretive. Through an ideological lens.

What of A's that end with two AP's together? And they announce to friends and family they were unhappy in their marriages but have found happiness together and have committed to it? Are these two " Waywards", then, ALSO inventing their unhappy marriages? Are these two Waywards still in a fog?

What of A's that end with two AP's together? And they announce to friends and family they were unhappy in their marriages but have found happiness together and have committed to it? Are these two " Waywards", then, ALSO inventing their unhappy marriages? Are these two Waywards still in a fog?

Yep, the are very foggy. Let me draw a picture of what you just asked about and how ludicrous it sounds to me.

Firstly you both married other people and made those same commitments of love to them. Your feelings changed towards your husband, and for whatever reason you have not handled your marriage with dignity and respect, even if that meant to give your husband and children the dignity of you standing up and saying I have had enough and extracting yourself from the marriage with honor, taking everyone else who is affected by that (children, family) into account and doing the right thing.

You are not even in a real relationship with the AP. You two haven't had to deal with real life, everyday boredom and unpleasantness which everyone feels within their marriages from time to time. The popular saying here is it is all unicorns farting rainbows, it ain't real.

To live honestly you need to extract yourself from your marriage. Take time off a relationship and find out your motivations that allowed this kind of dishonesty. Find out why your "picker" is broken, which it obviously is because your husband whom you made these commitments to has turned into someone you don't even like anymore. How do you think that will be different to your AP when times get tough, and they will. The sex can dry up. He can lose interest and go off with someone else, which is likely because you both are dishonest right now. That is the only way for you to find another relationship that is not doomed to failure.

Right now it is indisputable, you are both liars. How can two people who formed a relationship which began with deceit hope for it to last for them. You are both unhappy and found someone who it willing to lie and hurt someone else for their won pleasure. Th AP has hurt you husband and children as much as you have hurt his wife.

If you are willing to stand with this man and announce your love to the world, does that mean you are willing to do what in the other thread you dind't want to do about informing the BW? I don't get you here if that is the case. If you did this you will have fallout and a hurdle to get over right from the beginning of your wonderful romance with your AP. I'm betting he may even throw you under the bus in a minute once his BW finds out the facts. So much for your "love" affair.

These are all the reasons, that for me sound so utterly ridiculous about your statement.

I never, ever thought my relationship with AP was real and I find people who thought so about their affairs, for the most part, silly. I felt desperate, addictive need, it felt like a sickness and I sought IC immediately upon entering the A. Something most people on here, I'm sure, did not do. I only had sex with him ONE time. I should not have to lose EVERYTHING for it, so YES, I am doing a bit of rugsweeping.

Get a grip y'all. I've been cheated on while deeply in love. I cried and screamed for 1 or two days and I was done. I obsessed about the OW, and over time let it go. Realized I don't own my SO's d*ck and if he's just not that into me, we have other problems.

There are two kinds of love. Romantic love and companionate love. Sorry, you don't always get both in a marriage. Sh*t happens. A's have been around since the dawn of time. They probably predate M as we know it.Marriage between soul mates is a 20th century idea, starting about mid-century. Good luck trying to get that to happen in your marriages. Most marriages are just two people getting needs met, as imperfectly as possible and vows are great but they don't have to be written in blood.

I simply posed the question of 2 Waywards in a 2nd M as a question of logic. It simply cannot be true that ALL WS reinvent bad marriages. I see plenty of unilaterally crappy marriages. Where one person is a MONSTER and the other person is awesome. Now, did the " awesome" person MAKE the other a monster? Sure. Absolutely. A relationship is like osmosis--the give and take is CONSTANT and the state it reaches is EXACTLY the result of both parties acting-and-reacting.

And I am of the opinion that many A's happen because BOTH parties create that environment in the relationship. Plenty of health professionals believe that too, it's just these internet sites that place the blame solely on the Wayward. Dunno why I came here to do battle with that, but it doesn't make me a wholly deluded person without faculties.

I get what you're saying, all of you. I just don't AGREE with ALL of it, and it's not because my psychopathy is greater than yours, it's just healthy skepticism.

The Fog gets created because lies create the fog. Like the fog created by criminals in the act of a crime (they won't get caught, they deserve it, etc.) I never had any doubt that what I was doing was a crime against my BH. I turned myself in.

Please try not to focus too hard on my healthy skepticism. It should not induce this much ire; unless you are in a cult mindset, and that explains the white hot rage I am getting here.

[This message edited by Regrette at 10:01 AM, January 10th (Friday)]

It should not induce this much ire; unless you are in a cult mindset, and that explains the white hot rage I am getting here.

You are encountering this ire because you are producing it. Your demeanor is prickly to say the least and we are all humans after all. You don't want the ire, don't produce it and treat kindness with kindness.

This site has helped a lot of people, because that help comes from firsthand knowledge of the members. They know what they are doing because it works!

Do you think your thoughts about marriage and infidelity are unique? Your "ideas" are the same crap we hear from most foggy waywards, myself included once upon a time.

Here are only a few sites found by a quick google search, not SI, that show that we all share a common view of infidelity, marriage and relationships. Read them and discover why your statement about waywards finding the love of their lives in an affair is bunk. They will simply show your question of "logic" is anything but.

http://affairadvice.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/do-affairs-end-up-in-successful-relationships-13/

http://www.emotionalaffair.org/when-affair-partners-marry-9-reasons-why-they-might-fail/

I'll bet you will just shake your fist at the rest of the world and simply alienate everyone else, because you can't be honest with yourself. You don't want honesty, you just want to be right and when someone points that out you rail against them. Not a way to influence people and make friends.

I only had sex with him ONE time.

Perhaps where you live marriage vows say something different to mine. Mine said "forsaking all others" not "forsaking all others (unless I am really unhappy, obviously") . this is blame shifting. You betrayed your spouse. I understand you may have been unhappy, but that's what communication, counselling or divorce are for. you seem to want people here to say "oh yeah that's fair enough" when you explain why you had an affair. That will not happen. The WSs here have all spouted the same lines you are doing now, which is WHY you are feeling the frustration and anger from some of them. they see themselves, or their prior selves in you, and are desperate to help you understand the truth of it. Some of that is also your own defensiveness. you really don't want to hear what they are saying because if they are right then your justifications fall apart. Remember no-one here actually has a problem with you. as long as you are here, we will try to help you.

I should not have to lose EVERYTHING for it

Why not?. You broke a solemn vow and contract. you made that vow in front of witnesses. You SHOULD lose everything. Divorce is the normal and correct response to infidelity. We made a set of vows which we then broke. Broken families are the natural and predictable outcomes of infidelity. Some of us have BSs that somehow look past what we are now and see what we COULD be, and even fewer of us have BSs that are able to put the agony behind them, or at least process and look at us with genuine love again. But frankly they are the unusual ones. the NORMAL outcome is to lose everything.

Get a grip y'all. I've been cheated on while deeply in love. I cried and screamed for 1 or two days and I was done.

Does this mean we should be taking advice from you on how to process emotions and deal with relationship issues, because they don't seem to be working out to well for you right now. the flip side of what you are saying is that some people sink into a depression from which they never emerge. Some people take their own lives. Study after study show that marriage betrayal is amongst the most painful life event you can experience. I find it interesting that you are able to put it in a box and forget about it after two days. That was handy, because now you are usin gthe contents of that box as rationalisations for your own behaviour. Does this really seem healthy to you, or likely to make you happy in the long run?

One final point, I wanted to pick up on something else you said

People have A's because they are unhappy and looking for some sugar.

People cry because they are unhappy. They eat chocolate. They watch sad movies. They read a book. They become introverted.

People have affairs because they are broken. Maybe they are unhappy, but not always. We see plenty of people on here who basically say "what the fuck happened, what did I just do to my life?". What they do have in common is that they made poor, selfish, thoughtless decisions to fill a hole in themselves without a thought for the pain it would cause others. They, we, put ourselves before other people. It sickens me to write this, but we not only put our own needsand desires before those of other people, we did it at the EXPENSE of other people. I didn't even consider my poor husband. It was all me, me, me. If we are REALLY honest, then we take a long hard look at our lives and ask how often have we done that. Those of us who don't like the answer to that question have work to do.

Your posts come across as very entitled. If you are not getting sex you feel you are entitled to get it elsewhere. If you are not happy you are entitled to get it elsewhere. This is, of course, completely true, but healthy people end the marriage they are in first.

[This message edited by OktoberMest at 6:44 PM, January 10th (Friday)]

Get a grip y'all. I've been cheated on while deeply in love. I cried and screamed for 1 or two days and I was done. I obsessed about the OW, and over time let it go. Realized I don't own my SO's d*ck and if he's just not that into me, we have other problems.

^^^This bears looking at more closely. When I looked at my reaction to being cheated on in my first M it was eye opening stuff. I had never in my life allowed anyone close enough to me to fully experience intimacy and love. Working on that now with my BH and it's a whole new world.

When I think about the level of vulnerability it takes for me to let my BH in and have the closeness we are experiencing and then I think of being betrayed it is terrifying. I would not get over it in a few days, weeks, or months.

That's what I did to my BH….

I've been cheated on while deeply in love. I cried and screamed for 1 or two days and I was done.

Well, if that's what it took to get over a betrayal then you should be completely at peace with your husband's request for a divorce, as today is the 10th and he filed for divorce on the 7th. You said this was an unforgivable act on his part and that you were in total despair, but with the passage of three days what once seemed unforgivable must now seem like yesterday's news.

Only my guess is you are still reeling from your BS filing for divorce. And maybe you can use those feelings to build a bridge between the feelings you have and the feelings experienced by others who feel similarly abandoned and betrayed, such as your own BS after your affair.

Regrette? Are you still around? I hope you're still reading and will continue to post. Many waywards have come in here not liking much in the replies they were getting. The good advice is that anything that gets an emotional response from you, especially anger or the urge to turn away from it, needs to be looked at very closely by you. Go against your instinct and really sit with it and examine it. What could it hurt?