SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I remember one of the strongest emotions I felt just after dday was embarrassment and shame that my wife cheated on me. As a man it is probably the most humiliating thing in the world to have an adulterous wife. She made me a cuckholdand my self esteem plummeted.

In the last couple years my wife and I have worked very hard at reconciliation but we have lost touch with friends. It's been very difficult as all of you can relate.

Tonight my wife reconnected with a female friend who we haven't seen in a couple years or more. The friend reached out and wondered if she (the friend) had done anything wrong. My wife told her friend why we've been reclusive. (She admitted to having an affair). She told me when she got home that she told her friend.

Out of nowhere I feel extreme shame again. I'm once again embarrassed to have been cheated on. It worries me that I will never shake these feelings. Im realizing that a large part of me died on dday and there is a lot of work still to do.

I know the shame is something my wife owns, but I can't help but feel it as my own. It is a heavy weight to carry.

Time heals all wounds but I wish it didn't take so damn long. I am about 8 years out so it is mostly a dull ache when it pops into my head. Intellectually we can realize that it was something inflicted on us through no fault of our own but it takes a long time for that to sink in viscerally.

Almost 2 years out from DD and a friend of ours is dealing with infidelity and my WS was trying to help with advice what to do as a WS I was not comfortable with this, but I am kinda torn cause WS said it made him feel good to be able to give advice on steps to help R, however I am not ready I am still so ashamed it sent me into triggers ville I had a dream he cheated again that night and that my whole family found out and wanted me to leave WS. So I guess my point is your feelings seem normal even though we did nothing wrong but cheating I think makes you feel insecure and it's embarrassing, but we all know here the strength it takes to R or D and I think we can all respect that. At the end of the day I think we need to realize our journey is ours, but if it is an issue for you speak to your W and tell her your not ready to share this part of your story.

Thissux......i so get the embarrassments and feelings of shame and humiliation. For me it is the most difficult aspect of my personal healing to resolve. In the beginning when i was reeling from the shock of my FWW telling me our M was over and she had met someone else......and hitting me over and over with her justifications about how bad i and the M was....it hits you straight in the core of your self. Its a very personal attack on a mans pride and self esteem. I cant make my W happy when OM can, im such a failure, im not good enough......oh the rumination and shame is terrible and pervasive. I didnt know at this time about her two ONS which added humiliation to the mix later on. I didnt expose the AP she was leaving me for to anybody but my family and only a couple weeks before she left, but my FWW had told her sister and her 'school run friends' all knew....so it was not a secret. Now i face the humiliation of being perceived socially as a man who couldnt satisfy his W by those people who know about the A but have no experience with infidelity. I also struggle with feeling ashamed of trying R, of being perceived as a doormat, a weak man whose cheating W can f#ck who she wants and muggings here will take her back. These feelings exist but i refuse to let them feed on my insecurity and gain power. I know through logical reason that i am not weak, a doormat or to blame in any way for my W brokeness and dysfunction. I am proud, intelligent, compassionate and strong. I love my W and know it takes immense determination, resolve and courage to R in the face of what feels to me at least like a very public, very humiliating tearing down and flogging. I try to listen to my advice that i give my W....do not give any value to the opinions and judgements of people who do not understand the true impact of infidelity....and if the gossips in the playground want to snigger behind my back, then let them.....ill be yesterdays news in a short while. I KNOW 100% that i am a true and loving husband who is 'all man' and myself and the M were not terrible by any stretch of the imagination. The hardest part of the shame and humiliation for me now is the very public knowledge that my FWW has been a wayward.....that she can be obtained and gotten to.....that anyone can f#ck her if they toss enough compliments her way. This is of course a manifestation of my fears......but fears based on real past history.....and one that will be hard to erase. I understand what you are feeling mate.....and it sucks

[This message edited by Marcus513 at 3:23 AM, September 8th (Thursday)]

. As a man it is probably the most humiliating thing in the world to have an adulterous wife.

It is the same if you are a man or a woman.

We get to feel less-than, not good enough, old, ugly, stupid, used . . . .

The tremendous hurt is there weather male or female.

Man. I haven't been here in ages. I can really see why. It's a shitty pain, one you can feel but just can't touch. That initial shock is a mother. Hope all is doing better.

As a man, and being biased, I often felt it was worse for a man being betrayed. Because if a man cheats on a woman, society tends to think it's because "Men are dogs", "Men have biological urges", blah blah blah. It's like you can be the most fabulous woman in the world and men will still cheat. But if a woman cheats on a man, society goes with the idea that women don't usually cheat so the man must have been doing something REALLY wrong to "drive her into the arms of someone else". I'm sure that's not accurate of reality but that's how it feels a lot of the time.

I agree that being cheated on carries the same humiliation and embarrassment regardless of gender. For me as a woman, I imagined I was viewed as a failure of a wife who couldn't keep her husband satisfied or make him happy so that I forced him to stray. And being a woman who was forced into the role of caretaker, being seen as a complete failure in my ability to take care of my husband robbed me of my identity as a woman and of my pride in all of the hard work that actually I put into taking care of him.

So even though I am only a woman, I can relate to the shame and humiliation that you are going through.

Wow, this brings back a huge trigger for me. We didn't tell anyone about the affair, but almost everyone who was working on the house renovation knew what was going on. I made myself scarce after d day, but if I was around felt like every laugh I heard was laughing at me. Every look from them was one of either pity or contempt that I couldn't satisfy my wife. I know that wasn't always the case, but that was playing in my head at a thousand decibels.

Probably was just as bad for my wife. I made her go to the GC to have the sub who was banging her fired. He didn't even ask why, he just said I understand. She actually asked me if I thought everyone knew. I told her hell yes. It was her favorite (aside from AP) who told me what was going on. She pleaded with me to have someone else take over helping us finish the project but we were only a couple of weeks away from completion. I told her you made this mess, you clean it up. Had to be bad for her to interact with these guys everyday after that. At least the shame to a point was shared.

Of course I had none of the fun.

I, too, feel shame. We are a year out, he's completely remorseful, we did the counseling, figured out the "whys" and are a better couple than we EVER were. But I still feel shame.

Shame that people know that I never intended on knowing. People judge. I know people see my staying as me being weak -not strong enough to kick him out. I know people think that I couldn't keep him happy, so he strayed. That hurts.

I know the other BS thinks (as do I) that had I been able to keep my H happy, the A wouldn't have happened.

Yeah, shame. It's hard to deal with sometimes

As a man, and being biased, I often felt it was worse for a man being betrayed. Because if a man cheats on a woman, society tends to think it's because "Men are dogs", "Men have biological urges", blah blah blah. It's like you can be the most fabulous woman in the world and men will still cheat. But if a woman cheats on a man, society goes with the idea that women don't usually cheat so the man must have been doing something REALLY wrong to "drive her into the arms of someone else". I'm sure that's not accurate of reality but that's how it feels a lot of the time.

I personally don't feel shamed! I put MY urges on hold because of my commitment to the marriage. He was never an affectionate husband except for when he would cuddle with me at night. We even got to the point of not sleeping together but neither did his parents. So for him to take the plunge into the fountain of youth was so out of character. He deserves to be shamed but most of his male friends dismiss the affair.

My partner cheated and I never felt so humiliated, embarrassed and ashamed in my entire life. I couldn't tell anybody, that our special partnership is not what it seems. We have reversed roles, I'm the breadwinner and work as a freelancer with good income and he is kind of stay at home husband. Except we have no kids, so he can do whatever he likes. I had my career and he had his passion and hobbies (extreme sports). I thought we were lucky, because he was confident enough, to live like that and not have issues with his masculinity and my success. OK, so far so good. But then he cheated. He made me feel cheap, because all of a sudden I found myself in situation, where I saw myself forced to compete with a much younger and prettier woman. Nobody knows, everybody still thinks, we are this modern couple, and I am to ashamed to tell. We are still together, but I often wonder, if he chose me because he is financially better off with me not because he loves me. So, yes, shame is my middle name.

I did and still do feel a lot of shame, although I know deep down in my head that I did nothing to be shameful about. I don't think it is gender specific at all, I know both husbands and wives on the BS side and we all feel it.

One thing that helped me was to recognize that my shame at being cheated on is nothing compared to his shame for doing this. Now, this only works with a completely remorseful spouse of course.

We went to Retrouvaille last year and decided to write our introduction for further healing as they suggest and boy is it healing! But anyway, we decided to present our introduction at our next CORE meeting. I was full of anxiety, how were they going to react to my pain, how were they going to judge me, all of these people will know what he did...all of those crazy-making thoughts. And then about 10 minutes before we went up, I looked over at my WH who was in a panic of his own and I recognized that his shame for doing what he did to me was so much worse than my shame. And so we did what our ICs and Brene Brown say to do about shame, we gave it words and said it out loud. And you know what, no one looked down on us, no one judged, they cried along with us, they came up to both of us after and told us how brave we were for sharing, they supported and loved us in ways that only other broken people can. It was amazing for both of us.

I am not saying that there is still no shame, it is still there...but when I get down into it, I try to remember his shame for being the one who caused my pain, his shame for doing something so horrendous that caused me to have PTSD...and his hard work to overcome that shame...and that helps.

Thank you all for your comments.

So you feel shame for your wife's actions. The shame stems from what other people think. Actually, they stem from what you think other people may think, unless you actually know what they think. Your thinking here is being driven by what you think society thinks.

Just so, how much of their thinking about you would itself be driven by what society thinks? "Well, society says blah, blah, blah so therefore I am compelled to think X-Y-Z about that situation."

If you feel shame for your wife's actions, how much of an impact in a positive way was it to be married to your wife prior? How much pride did you feel? If you felt pride, what was the specific accomplishment you were proud of? Good taste? Being attractive? Did society's (friends, family, etc.) opinion make a difference in choosing your wife as a spouse? How much of the decision was your own in the first place? Why did you pick her? Trophy wife?

What would happen if you told someone, very matter-of-factly, "My wife cheated on me." Would the Earth open up and swallow you?

I completely get the shame thing. We moved away, and I have almost no interaction with anyone that ever knew, and it is fine with me. But I also know that when you shine a light on the whole thing, it is all invented bullshit. An invention that we create inside us. It's worth following that crap down, and looking inside and asking why we do so. What are we protecting with that feeling of shame?

Something to ponder...

Yup. Big issue.

I keep it under control by remembering that I made a choice to R. I didn't have to do it. That applies to you, too.

As I say, it doesn't solve the issue, but it does keep it under control for me.

That, and knowing I shouldn't feel shame at all....

[This message edited by sisoon at 12:51 PM, September 8th (Thursday)]

Outside of my IC and a couple of OBS, I have not told anyone about my FWW's affairs. I don't think I have anyone in my life who would support my decision to R. Some days I question myself over the decision. I wonder if I am just too scared to really send her on her way or Am I too weak to break it off. I haven't told anyone about the affairs because of the shame I feel and not because I am trying to protect my FWW. The A has wrecked my confidence and made me question almost everything that has happened in the last twenty years and everything I hold dear.

[This message edited by Moonlife14 at 8:36 AM, September 9th (Friday)]

Made me cry to read this thread.

Why do we feel this way when we didn't do anything wrong?

I feel like my WH gets to be the stud who scored with the hot chick at work, and I'm the frigid, boring broken down wife who wasn't good enough. And I was too stupid to see them carrying their affair on right under my nose. It is very humiliating.

The A has completely shattered my self esteem and I feel like it aged me 100 years.

I haven't told many people, but I do feel the shame from the ones I have told...I think they can tell I'm broken now and not fun anymore and they judge me for not being able to just get over it. Maybe it is just my projection on them. I haven't told others because I don't want them to feel that way about me.

I have a very different take on this than most folks do I suppose. I too know the shame. It's paralyzing and socially suffocating at times.

I am typically a fairly open and (used to be) light hearted guy. Not anymore. From a biblical standpoint, my wife's body is as much my body as it is her own...And vice versa. When Christians marry, one of the scriptures often read is that she becomes "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh" (Gen 2:23&24).

This is so extremely true for me that I would honestly MUCH RATHER be publicly exposed myself for all to see than to have her exposed for any man to see and lust after. There are a number of verses that condemn another family member for seeing or having sex with a married woman because this constitutes "uncovering/seeing the husband's nakedness." If that principle was true in ancient times, what would have changed it for us today?

I'm a very modest man as far as how I dress and how comfortable I am with tight or skimpy threads. But I'd sooner flash myself at a major sporting event than have another man see my wife's body exposed like they did. Consequently, telling someone about her shameful actions is worse for me in some ways than confessing my own.

If my son or daughter went all Miley Cyrus on me, I'd be ashamed to publicize that fact as well. Our spouses are joined at the hip and the heart with us. I wouldn't want my organs exposed either, and the closeness and personal nature of the marriage relationship is more like the vital organs of a spouse than like an external thing like a prosthetic, or a co worker or just a friend, in my opinion, at least. I believe it's even deeper and more integrated/interwoven into our psyche than our children are. Not that we necessarily love our spouses more than we love our children, but that they are more intertwined with our hearts because of the position they are in as "one" with us.

Parents may grieve over the foolish choices their sons and daughters may make, but it doesn't often seem to me that those choices have the destructive power to the parents as those same choices made by a spouse have to destroy or build up the other spouse.

Another aspect in this I believe is the issue of choice or control. People have sexual encounters all the time. Often it is a source of confidence building and even boasting. But when that choice is made in direct violation of one's will or choice, it's called rape, sexual abuse, or molestation. And just the implication of so doing is considered harassment and/or stalking.

People who are victimized in this way are never proud of the fact or the act--even if they had absolutely NO CHOICE in the matter and even may have literally fought against it. I believe adultery is more like a kind of psychological/emotional rape than people are generally willing to admit. In ancient times, it was often a crime punishable by death. I'm not advocating manslaughter, but it's serious business to some entire cultures and nations and religions historically speaking. So it makes sense to feel ashamed, even if it doesn't seem to make sense to our logic center.