SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I don't think it's naive to expect that your spouse wouldn't cheat. Isn't that one reason we married them. Isn't that why people get married? Monogamous relationship?

^^^^^ agree with this. I wasn't naive at all. Shouldn't it be an expectation that when we marry our spouse will keep it in their pants? I don't think anyone, before infidelity, ever goes into a relationship thinking "hmmm I wonder when my SO will cheat"... I had been cheated on before. I knew the red flags. I had NO clue until I discovered an email he sent while innocently going through our business email for one I had received and wanted to connect with that person about further business. Had I not seen that email I never would have suspected he was cheating.

Also, she despised my ex for cheating on me and for how much he hurt me. She considered him a scumbag for his treatment of me. We had an agreement that we were exclusive and that there would never be anyone else for either of us. She forgot to tell me she'd changed her mind about that.

I have this theory that men are pretty much trained to conceal to their SO their desire for other women.

If we see a pretty girl while we're out and about, it's like pulling teeth getting him to admit that she's pretty, even though I'm the one saying it! LOL

So if we're generalising how would women prefer men to behave if they see a pretty girl?

I believed in my wife and never thought she would go that route. I didn't think the person I married was capable of the lying and deceiving to the extent that was necessary to lead the life she did. And I projected, I think, my values on to her.

The thing is, even as I look back now on what all she did, and then came home to me with a smile and telling me she loved me every day....I have no comprehension of how she did it and not have a nervous breakdown. I couldn't pull that off even once, let alone for years. I just flat-out misjudged her.

I guess I thought he was ready to settle down and be a faithful married man and because I wouldn't cheat so he wouldn't either. Also he was more religious than me, seemed to have deep faith and despised cheating behavior. This was how he displayed himself to me.

But I should have really been watching what he was really like. If he saw a woman out and about he would often make crude remarks about sex with her. Often his first thought/comment about something is too often sexual in nature. His stories of past conquests. I think at first I was too blind too see his true nature.

I thought he would never cheat because we talked about how we would never disrespect each other by cheating. We would end the relationship before doing that. Yeah right. I guess to one of us, this was just "talk". I meant it..

Because he was painfully shy, particularly towards women, when we met. His family teased him they would have to arrange his marriage just to get him in a relationship. We are both very religious (practicing) Muslims and adultery is right up there with polytheism in our religion, which is the highest sin and punishable by death. Because he came across as a very compassionate, considerate person when met and turned into (still symptomatic) an unrecognizable alien to me. Now he appears almost completely remorseless and sometimes even cruel.

I think because I thought we were so happy. I truly believed we had a "special" relationship that most could only aspire to. It was, and still is, a complete mystery as to how I could be so absolutely blind. Looking back, I STILL can't find any clues that would/could have tipped me off. If not for an anonymous email, I'd still be oblivious.

3) I admit I was blind to his true self. I see that now. He always looked at other women and compared them to me. He would come home and tell me all the women who "checked him out" that day. His behavior was always there-I read an article that once addressed this-that many betrayed spouses ask " who are you?" when in reality, their spouses always exhibited their behavior but that that behavior didn't impact the betrayed's life -until it does.

Yes. I have to look long and hard at why I accepted this from him.

I accepted him looking at pretty women and telling me about it, because I believed it was just in the nature of men to do that, and he was being 'honest.'

I accepted him looking at porn, because I believed it was in the nature of men to look at porn. I also felt inadequate sexually, because I didn't want to have sex sometimes. I came to believe I was simply frigid. I was damaged in some way, because I believed other women would want sex a lot more than I did.

I believed he was entitled to look at porn, however bad it made me feel, because I didn't satisfy him sexually.

I accepted him renewing a friendship with his ex-girlfriend because he said he wasn't attracted to her anymore.

I accepted him going out without me, drinking and hanging out with women I didn't know. Because he deserved a break from family pressures, and I was a cool, laid back partner.

I accepted so much disrespect, and I told myself I was being cool, not the jealous possessive kind of wife.

Why did I do that? Why did I accept all of these things that made me feel so unwanted and inferior? Why didn't I see the fucking obvious that was right under my nose? He flirted and picked up on women all the time before we were together. He had a crazy number of one night stands. But I thought that was all behind him, a part of his past. How stupid of me.

Well, for most of our marriage, I didn't. He was open about the fact that he found monogamy challenging. So I guess I always knew there was a risk, but blocked it out.

A few years before his A, though, my sister's husband left her for another woman. That was devastating for her, and for her young children (who are around the same age as ours). THAT's when I started assuming he wouldn't cheat, because he saw what it did to her and her children, and was very compassionate towards them. I thought that having seen what infidelity does, he couldn't do it to me. And he told me that. And then he did it anyway.

I assumed that he would not cheat for a few reasons.

He was so adamant and judgmental about cheaters. He would talk about others at work that were cheating and how disgusting their behavior was.

He would challenge my behavior. Once I went with a male co-worker to pick up coffee at a drive thru while we took a break from a project we were working on. I was truly shocked by his reaction to it. It never crossed my mind that it was inappropriate. Probably because cheating never entered my mind. I heard about it for months! "how would his wife feel? How can you be so unfeeling? How can you not see how inappropriate this is?"

Then there were so many other times that he would accuse me of doing things that were inappropriate, flirtatious. I began to feel like a walking signal for infidelity. I became so overly conscious of every thing I did or said. I remember thinking, once he really knows me, over time, he will see that I can be trusted. He has been hurt, he needs proof over time.

Which leads to the sad story about how he was cheated on and how it affected him.

That was a lie. He was the one that cheated in that relationship also.

I think in my case I just never knew about projection and manipulation. The thought of proclaiming to be so against something, pretending to have high moral standards, when in fact it was the opposite just never occurred to me.