SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

t/j

What a truly painful story Weatherly. I'm very sorry you went through that but wanted to say thank you for sharing it.

end t/j

I've never really been into worthless demeaning relationships. I have self-esteem. I am worth being Numero Uno. My husband's affair relationship just looks stupid, pitiful, disrespectful, demeaning and ultimately he lost his integrity for a

piece of fugly. Do I want to go there?????

Now, I'd like the fairness of seeing him hurt the way he's hurt me but not at the price of my own integrity.

RA, Not worth it.

My WS's stupid affair, ask him: Really NOT worth it.

[This message edited by RightTrack at 12:46 AM, June 12th (Thursday)]

Here's the thing, you get married with the intention of staying faithful.

Marriage is NOT a counting game. Your spouse lit your M on fire and you got burned too. How can adding more fuel possibly help the fire die down?

We say "I want to, but I would never", myself included, but why. Why? How would that small bit of attention make you feel any better? I know it wouldn't me. And you know what else? What if you get caught in your own game? What if you like it and want to continue? What if that ego stroke is like a drug and you want more? What will that do to you or your family?

The one thing I can say and have shown myself and my family is that I have dignity and have lived my life with dignity.

DO NOT let someone elses poor choices take that away from you!

so your significant other threw a nuke on the marriage and blasted it all to hell. the pain, anger, loss of trust, etc is so intense. i know ... im a BS.

how would my tossing a nuke onto the ashes of my marriage improve the situation one bit? it only destroys it more. it only makes me just as guilty - i threw a nuke too. it only allows brings me DOWN.

whats the benefit?

the idea of a hallpass? its still adultry. go to the JFO forum. there are TONS of people there who are right now sitting on that forum trying to deal with a spouse engaged in an affair at this precise moment in time.

an honest question is ... why is it okay for you to have a hall pass but not the other spouse? they cheated. you get to commit infidelity? really? after D-Day isnt conventional wisdom here to have NC, transparency, honesty, remorse, etc? how is that possible with a "hall pass"? its adultry, damaging the other to get "even", and then saying "you had to do all of these things but i dont because i have the f'ing pass". its hypocrital to an extreme.

you want to cheat then at least dont be a hypocrite. go for a completely open marriage. but then, call me old fashioned, but a marriage is between two people. want to F around? get divorced. shack up together instead. make a deal you can screw anyone. but dont further degrade the concept of marriage. that only encourages others to view it as a temporary thing and that affairs are okay. they arent. ever.

btw, the ONLY places i have ever seen recommend or suggest "a hall pass" or "free pass" are articles posted on places like huffington post. those sites are generally speaking NO FRIEND of marriage; they regularly condone and encourage affairs which is what wound us all up in this predicament to start with. if their crap advice encourages what got us here, why would ANYONE consider more of their crap advice to be worth anything?

To our original poster: I've had the same fantasy, TL. Being in that "bubble" of an A sounds really appealing sometimes, doesn't it? No responsibilites, hot sex, ego stroking. Hell, yeah, sign me up! Then I realize I would have to lie and compartmentalize and trash my moral values in order to enjoy it, and I know I would never act on it.

My best revenge fantasy is actually divorce. Take his money, take his kids, kick him out of the family home and best of all, tell EVERYONE in our lives who thinks he is such a great family man what a POS he really is! Alas, reality kicks in there, too. There is no way to hurt him without also hurting myself.

So I guess revenge will have to wait.

TL,

If you are this angry and thinking about doing this at 2.5 years out, what have you done to heal yourself? As BS's there is work that we have to do, our WS's can't do that for us.

I just want to mention that, just because a BS is still angry years after the A, doesn't mean the BS hasn't tried to heal themselves. I'm almost 4 years out and still furious. Living with an unremorseful WS creates constant new hurts. It's impossible to heal in that environment. Now I know I chose that, and I'm in the process of changing that choice. But it just sometimes really hurts when you're being consistently emotionally abused by your spouse and other people imply that it's your fault because you haven't healed. I'm not saying there was any intention to blame the BS here, I'm just pointing out that it can feel that way when you're stuck in a bad situation.

I read your profile story, TL, and it does seem like you're also dealing with an unremorseful WH. You seem to be physically separated, but not emotionally separated. Perhaps that emotional separation is the thing you need to work on? I know the more I detached emotionally from my WH, the less I cared about any kind of revenge.

I agree with Tred about the word "revenge". It is just an affair or even a "hall pass."

This is what I don't understand about wanting to have your own affair. If you love your spouse, why in the world would you want to intentionally hurt them? I would feel that most who are obsessed with wanting their own affair would do themselves (and their WS) a real favor and do some work on yourselves to see if you truly love your spouse or if their affair was a dealbreaker for you.

I cannot fathom wanting my FWH to endure the pain and consequences that I have endured from the effects of his affair. Because I deeply, truly love him. I love him so much that my selfish needs are secondary to ensuring that he feels and knows how much I love him. That his happiness and well being is my priority. As mine are his.

If you aren't doing it to hurt the WS, intentionally, you are doing it for other very selfish reason's. Wayward thinking.

The problem with a revenge affair is it would not have the same effect (well with my WW it wouldn't)

Waywards must expect this to happen, where as we never expected it.

Great post SM. Opposite of you, I didn't truly love my wayward anymore, so I didn't care what he would have thought if I had quickly had sex with someone else. Honestly, I think he would feel better about himself now if I had. But I never really wanted to anyway. The "emotional" part of sex is what I miss. Not the physical part..

If I can use an analogy, the wayward jumped in a big pile of mud by having an affair. So now you're standing there and wondering what to do with that filthy asswipe who just got your shoes dirty.

What are you going to do next?

For me, I got my hands a bit dirty trying to get him out of the mud, but he liked the mud, so I left him there and went to get myself cleaned up.

Another choice would be to jump in the mud with him to see how it feels. Now, both of you have to get out of the mud and get cleaned up.

I guess the lucky ones have waywards who pick themselves up and clean themselves off...

The unlucky ones are the BS's who keep trying to pull a wayward out of the mud, but the wayward just sits there and keeps letting you get dirty, maybe even throws a bunch of mud on you..

Personally, my ex had no remorse, so I'm quite proud of myself for getting away ASAP and getting my hands cleaned up.

Maybe I want casual, NSA sex, but I don't want to be promising monogamy or trying to be monogamous with someone else while I'm doing it.. That's being a wayward, and I hope I NEVER have that kind of wayward thinking where I think I could get away with that or justify it to myself..

Maybe you are done tigris. Maybe you just want to hurt him on the way out. But maybe you want him back. Maybe you just WISH he would be freakin' remorseful and what you need right now, and it's pissing you off that he's NOT doing everything he needs to be to deserve you. But RA's only cause more problems in R and D. People get PSYCHO over this stuff.

I just urge you to try to keep yourself as clean as possible. If he keeps throwing dirt around, just leave, then you can do whatever you want..

Thank you all so very much for weighing in.

There is such a treasure of insight, experience, and common sense on this thread - this silly little cry-baby rant of mine caused quite a stir.

So much of this brought me to tears. There's so much pain here. My heart aches for all who suffer betrayal at the hands of those they trusted the most. Betrayal is a unique and exquisite pain, and I don't believe a person can really appreciate its depth and breadth unless they've experienced it firsthand.

I hope the wisdom contained herein helps more people than just me realize that burning desire to even the score is normal (if not altogether healthy), but that ultimately there simply will never BE justice.

The best I guess we as BSs can hope for is for our betrayers to support us while we carry this punishingly heavy baggage their selfish choices demanded we shoulder, and hope that their consistent, unflinching support as we try to heal and regain our trust in them, ourselves and humanity eventually makes the stinking load feel less heavy.

I wish we all had THAT kind of WS. It sounds like they are quite rare...

William - well said.

Props aside, I've thought about it. I've fantasized about sex with another guy for the first time ever, because maybe if I weren't with my WH I would not have actions driven by fear or anger. Sometimes I allow myself a few minutes to think about a RA, on ONS, and eventually know that everyone has bad thoughts now and again, especially when we're hurting. What makes us good people is not acting on them. Tigris - don't act on it. I think based on several of the responses here, the truth would be that you'd just hurt yourself more, heaping that on the hurt of what he did. Two wrongs don't make it right.

Do you want to hurt him? Do you want to hurt yourself? Do you love him? Do you love yourself?

Cheating hurts BOTH parties.

You cannot cheat without hurting yourself, you just can't do it, not possible. If you don't believe that, by all means cheat and find out the hard way.

My wife's affair hurt me worse than I've ever been hurt by anyone before or since, but I know after 4 years of MC that it did far more damage to her. I love my wife, do not want to hurt her, don't want to hurt myself, don't want to go down that road.

Every week I work around, but not with, a woman who is very attractive and very friendly, who I know without a doubt is "ready to go" if I just open the door to an affair, this is not unusual in my line of work. I won't say it will never happen, but I know for sure that it won't happen as long as I am unbroken. That is why I worked so hard to heal, still work to not forget, to understand what I am feeling, and to recognize "wayward thinking" for what it is, even if it's me doing the thinking.

Broken people do broken things.

Work to heal yourself. Don't stop. Put one foot in front of the other and keep on going, day in and day out.

[This message edited by standinghere at 3:42 AM, June 20th (Friday)]

I have to add - there is a spectrum of BS out there having RA that ranges from "shit, what did I do" to "well, what did you think would happen?" I'm guessing my husband leans more towards the former but even that little bit he is taking himself off the hook. I've posted on here numerous times about the crap he's said and how he justifies what he did and how he is reluctant to do everything to make me heal, which in my mind is still punishing me.

I ASSUME he feels badly but not "I need to fix myself" badly, and not even because he hurt me, but because he is no longer a good person. IT has been so difficult to stay because of this. I think a topic for next MC.

So, yeah, they lose their dignity, but some of them don't even realize it. They justify that they still have it because ya know, things were out of their control.....

Things will never be even, will they? He got away with years of selfishness and deceit and now he gets to still have a faithful, honest person standing by his side.

I hate this life he chose for me.

This is exactly how i feel. (((( ****))))

feeling foolish....I agree completely!

Things will never be even, will they? He got away with years of selfishness and deceit and now he gets to still have a faithful, honest person standing by his side.

The inequity just takes my breath away sometimes...

I hate this life he chose for me.

This is exactly how i feel. (((( ****))))

Yup. 5 years out, R'd, and it is absolutely the truth.

A revenge affair won't solve the problem though. Believe me better to remain the righteous one, the faithful one, the one with integrity..trust me...in 5 years it feels like a much better place to be. You don't want to wallow in the filth and brokeness that is the man/woman who set out to hurt and destroy the person who loves them. You don't want to be that kind of person. You just don't.

((((hugs))))

My XWBF gave me the "Free Pass" when I found out on my first DD. Told me he didnt care what i did and with whom.

He just said it to take the pressure off his own guilt. Over the next few years, he continued to question if I had used the free pass and when I told him no that I still plan to use it some day.

Well after DD # 210 I left him and have been away from him for over a year now. We talk as friends on the phone once in a while due to mutual business endeavors, and he asked me to tell him the truth...did i ever use the free pass?

I just laughed at him and said NO WAY! He said he was glad, because if I had, he would have left me before I left him. Apparently in his mind its a OK if guys do it, but not with the women they are with. He couldnt have lived with having a cheating GF, yet I was supposed to turn a blind eye to his cheating..

I am still healing and have yet to be with someone else. Hold your head up and dont let them drag you down to their unhappy disfunctional level.

Well, I thought about having a revenge affair (one night stand) just so my husband understood how I felt. I even found the perfect guy, my sister's friend. He's single and doesn't believe in being in a relationships. I even told my husband about it. He cried and told me to use protection. He warned me that I would hate myself afterwards because he knows from experience. I told my sister about it and she talked me out of it. She is right, I'm not like that, never have been. My husband is the only man I have ever been with. I understand what you are feeling but make sure you really think it through. Good luck.