SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Question for the group. How many of you think your WS would have eventually stopped cheating if they had not been caught? I vote a big no.

Of course there are those of you whose WS didn't stop in any case, and I apologize to leave you out. I guess the bigger picture is, will a cheater always have the urge to cheat? Does getting caught usually (or ever) cure them?

I dont know if they get over the urge to cheat or not. I wish I knew. Some affairs are because of the AP and other affairs would have been with anyone.

Different reasons for affairs.

Thinking about my experience, my husband got caught firstly with porn, then later phone sex then casual sex sites (for curiousity) then finally he went with a prostitute. Getting caught each time, made no difference to him. He just tried something else where he thought he wouldn't get caught. I am still doubting his explanation of another earlier occasion which I am thinking now was another prostitute but I honestly think he would have done it again if he didn't get caught. Are things different now? I'm not sure yet. Will he try something else? I hope not as he knows that there will be no next time with me. It will be over.

I know that my FWH would not have stopped until he got caught. He told me so. He was riding the slope to hell and gaining speed with every instant. Me catching him was the only way that he was going to have any brakes applied at all. That makes both of our stomachs heave now.

I would like to think he would have stopped. He says that he wanted to get caught and was certainly being brazing enough to get caught. He was of the opinion that it would just end a natural death and I wouldn't have to be hurt...obviously that didn't happen. I hate that he wasn't strong enough to end it on his own...or better yet not to have started it to begin with.

I don't think it would have stopped any time soon. I think he would have kept trying to have fun at my expense. He knew I wasn't going any where...or so he thought.

I think all affairs, like any relationship, eventually run their course. After all, how many years can the cheaters go on and on telling each other how great their love for each other is and how miserable their marriages are. At some point, to paraphrase my dear departed grandmother, it becomes time for them to either poop or get off the pot.

In some cases, a very small number, the two cheaters get together and live happily ever after. The large majority of the time the affair relationship eventually ends, even if the marriage ends also. Probably especially if the marriage ends also. The affair I think usually loses its luster when all the lying and sneaking around are taken out of it.

There's a movie named "Diner" made in 1982 (yeah, I'm old) and this quote from it reminds me kind of what I think the affair becomes when the marriage is over and it no longer is an affair:

Shrevie: when you're dating, everything is talking about sex. Where can we do it? Why can't we do it? Are you parents gonna be out so we can do it? Everything is always talkin about getting sex, and then planning the wedding, all the details. But then, when you get married... it's crazy, i dunno. You can get it whenever you want it. You wake up in the morning and she's there. You come home from work and she's there. So all that sex planning talk is over with. And so is the wedding planning talk cause you're already married. So... ya know I can come down here and we can bullshit the entire night away but I cannot hold a 5 minute conversation with Beth. I mean it's not her fault, I'm not blaming her, she's great... It's just, we got nothing to talk about... But it's good, it's good

I find there is something very teenager-ish, very puppy-love-ish, about affairs.

No. My husband would still love to be in a marriage where he gets to sleep with other women. Right. Not an option. So no he would never have stopped.

[This message edited by NoMorDeceit at 8:52 PM, July 22nd (Tuesday)]

In the first case, I don't think the OW would have stopped contact with my husband if he hadn't confessed to me and I hadn't forced NC. And since he has this issue with always having to be polite, he would have responded. She was in another country but went through every channel she could find to make contact including emailing me when he wouldn't respond. But I also believe he wanted to make the right choice and didn't know how to stop it other than to confess. It took a lot of explaining to get him to understand that in the process of trying not to hurt her feelings, he was hurting mine. Once he understood that he couldn't make us both happy, he understood he had to make a choice. Unfortunately, I accepted a lot of blame at that time and didn't knock him off the fence as early as I should have.

In the case of the second OW, he had already ended it and thought he got away free of repercussions. He had been in another state on TDY and it was just sex. My husband never had any intention of it being anything more and had no feelings for her other than, again, not wanting to hurt her feelings. Unfortunately for my husband, her husband didn't like the fact that he had gotten away with it and called me.

As for whether getting caught cures them- I don't think getting caught or confessing has as much to do with it as them doing the work to find out why they did it and shore up the boundaries they crossed. The first time, I accepted a lot of blame for his affair and he didn't do the work. I believe that's why the second time occurred. The second time, I was ready for divorce if I didn't get everything I needed to heal and he didn't do the work on himself. If there is a third time, I don't care what he does- I'm done.

WS would have eventually stopped cheating if they had not been caught?

Mine would have continued. He continued when he did get caught. Getting caught didn't derail him in the least. 't fact, when he got caught his response was, "well it worked all the other times I did it". Followed by, "i'm weak".

My dickhead was never truly sorry , he was sorry he got caught.

Some WS can and do change , some NEVER will .

words mean nothing .....their actions will tell you all you need to know.

words mean nothing .....their actions will tell you all you need to know.

My fWW never stopped. For the last couple of years, I don't think she actually had an AP but she cheated in her mind continuously.

Does getting caught usually (or ever) cure them?

No. The only "cure" is "doing the work". If the cheater WANTS to change, he/she can.

Many want to remain as they are, however.

My WH claims he wanted the A to end but I don't buy it. Maybe in his head he wants to think he would have stopped on his own. It took OW husband to find out about the A to have it come to a screeching halt. Had he not been caught I'm 99.9 % sure he'd still be at it.

Mine would surely have continued. Spiriling ever downward, more and more out of control, hooking up with strangers, same sex partners, who knows? He knows it. He is oddly grateful to me for having forced the issue and "saved" him.

Only fWW knows the answer for sure but this is what she told me.

"After a while I felt trapped. I didn't know what to do. He put so much pressure on me wanting to meet at a motel more often. Insisting we go for a drink after work." And so on.

I said to her he put pressure on you why didn't you just say NO! You didn't owe him anything just walk away. And then her answer was.

"When I would make excuses not to meet him or not answer his phone calls he would say I feel like you are pulling away from me." and then here is the kicker she said "I didn't want to disappoint him." WTF!

FWW is a people pleaser. So she wanted him to still like her. And even though she said after a while that she didn't want to have sex with him anymore she did to make him happy.

I kind of believe most of what she said. She told me she never thought she would get caught. And she did not know if she could have ended the affair even though she said she wanted to.

She was terrified that I caught her and thought that when she got home her stuff would be in the driveway and if that was the case she would have been able to end it on her own. But she would have ended our marriage of 20 years too.

So I can not really answer that question. The affair stopped as soon as I confronted her.

She went back to work and told him 10yearsafter know about us do not contact me or speak to me or come by my office ever and turned around and walked away.

No way.

After years, good times with the OM, really bad times, criminal threats to my WS from him, him moving 1000 miles away ..her tempororailily ending it a number of times but each time going back to the OM when I did not know.

Once caught...not admitting anything and in denial...I only got the truth when WW faced with divorse....she would have never stopped. At one point she suggested she keep going and we stay together(irrational panic faced with the loss of OM)

I am just hoping she stays as stong as she has been so far and it remains stopped since the NC.

You have to remember for some WSs this is a very strong addiction. Like any other addiction the cycle must be broken before it can be stopped. Catching them, having data, getting full and honest disclosure, and in my case willingness to get divorsed was what initially broke the cycle.

New life can not begin until we stop the old one.

[This message edited by Hopefuldad468 at 10:28 AM, August 16th (Saturday)]

Question for the group. How many of you think your WS would have eventually stopped cheating if they had not been caught? I vote a big no.

I don't have to think about it. I know my xww didn't stop. Sometimes getting caught just means they have to work harder at hiding it. For others it can mean the compartmentalization that allowed them to disassociate their A from the rest of their life has been shattered. Others drop the mask and turn cold, mean and malicious towards their BS.

Getting caught just means they got caught.

How many of you think your WS would have eventually stopped cheating if they had not been caught?

Well, eventually is a long time. My wife had no intentions on stopping is all I know. I think at the minimum she would of carried on with meeting men on Ashley Madison and having her LTA with the primary AP.

My ww 1st ons in ICT 2011.

Started sexting guys (eventually about 12 guys) shortly after.

July 2012 ww starts ea. Becomes pa in Aug 2012. Continues to early may 2013.

Dec 2012 ww has 2nd ons.

April 2013 stops setting.

May 2013 ends lta.

June 2013 d-day 1 spontaneous confession but with massive lying (admits to an ea).

Jan 2014 d-day 2 admits a pa. Several more d-day soon after due to TT.

She stopped it all before I even knew it had happened.

No. He would have stopped for a while, white-knuckled it, gone to therapy (a theme in our marriage; I did not know that IC was a learning ground for new manipulation techniques and a place where resentments were created, built, and fermented). He would have "been good"---his term ("You're mad about this, but most of the time, I've been good")--then, he would have succumbed. Because, after all, he'd been so good, and I'd been so mean, and he deserved to.

He is emotionally arrested somewhere around kindergarten.

Nope. If I hadn't discovered the last affair--which was his most involved (being something other than paid sex, an Adult Friend Finders hookup, or a bar-fueled one night stand--he would have had another. And another. And another. All the while weaving a complex mental tapestry that made it all right in his mind.(And really, he does think it's all right.)