...do you think that Infidelity is the ultimate betrayal? The ultimate trauma? Is there nothing worse and nothing else rivals it? As you know I haven't told yet either. I am inclined to put Infidelity in the same bucket as other major life trauma and call them simply huge, major life trauma. Is infidelity worse than cancer or other terminal illness? Death of a child or a spouse?
For what it is worth, while it would be folly to define any one thing as "the ultimate trauma", can we agree that infidelity is major life event? I personally subscribe to the belief that all pain (and all trauma) is valid and equal. However infidelity is one of those trauma's that just seems to try so very hard to go above and beyond in terms of tragedy. For example, when we lose someone we love, such as a parent or a child, the loss is not usually associated with a personal attack or betrayal. Your loved one likely didn't die as a result of them rejecting you. Their death does not usually represent a betrayal of your relationship. Perhaps their death might be due to a lack of love for themselves (e.g. death by drug overdose, suicide) but again, this is not a personal attack on you. A physical injury or illness may land you in the hospital or even cause the loss of a limb or life. Cancer doesn't lie and gas-light you first however. Physical injuries don't promise to love you or have your back. These things do not take away your personal choice. If someone dies, you might care, you might not care, you might want to die yourself, or you might be bursting at the seams to get the inheritance. But you get to feel whatever it is you feel based on the truth of the situation.
For example, having cancer is an awful and traumatic event all on its own. How you respond to that event is your choice. You may want to try every option available to save your life. You may want to simply go through your bucket list with your loved ones before you pass. But suppose your doctor lies to you? What if he doesn't tell you that you have cancer, even though he knows? What if having that knowledge took away choices that could have saved your life? What if it took away your choices to die in the way that makes sense to you? Took away your ability to wrap up your debts and say goodbye to loved ones? Why does he get the right to make that decision for you, even if he truly believes that not knowing is what is best for you? Why is that his call? It is not. Sure, you'd get to live in ignorance of the fact that you have cancer. Do you think that's his call to make?
Infidelity on the other hand IS a betrayal. It involves lies and deceit and gas-lighting. It involves personal relationships, and being stabbed in the back by someone who is supposed to have your back. It is someone putting themselves and their own needs above everyone else's needs. It is them protecting their own ass at the cost of your own.
Imagine this. Let's say you have a son (I'm not sure if you do, but work with me here). Through the magic of SI, you and I become good best friends, inseparable, like two peas in a pod. We are together all the time, do everything together, share our innermost secrets and dreams and ideas. No one could be closer. - One day, you come home to find your son missing. You call the police, the hospitals, setup a reward... nothing. I am by your side every step of the way. I help comb the woods near your home. I call you 20 times a day to see how you are. You cry on my shoulder. We both suffer at this personal loss. And your son is gone for years, with no contact, no leads. We talk about him every day. You miss him more than life. I tell you how much I care, about him, about you. You tell me, "Thank God for you, I'd have never been able to survive this without your support".
Now, imagine that I admitted that I was the one who kidnapped him. I was the one who lied to you. I was the one who pretended to be your friend the whole time. I was the one who walked around with you looking for him, the whole time knowing you would never find him because he was in my basement. You cried on my shoulder. You lauded my support and friendship through this tragedy. All of the pain and loss and sorrow you suffered, and the person responsible for ALL OF IT was right next to you, acting like your best friend all along. Seriously, it's all okay now, because I feel badly about it.
Now, imagine that instead, I decided to NOT tell you. Because it would hurt you to know that I wasn't who I claimed to be. I'm not worried about ME of course, I'm changed, I'm a new man, right? I feel remorse for what I did. I'm becoming a better person. And you, you lucky person you, you still get to be my best friend, the one you trust, the one you love, the one you rely on.
When a wayward decides to not tell their spouse what they did, they continue to lie. They continue to make decisions for someone else that they themselves hurt and betrayed, and they do so to their own benefit. Like the doctor that didn't tell you have cancer, because it's what HE thinks is best for YOU, not telling your spouse what you did removes their choice from them. Will that knowledge only hurt your spouse? Maybe. But it is amazing how the WS gets to make all these choices for everyone else. They get to decide that it was okay to have an affair. And then they get to decide that it's okay not to tell. And they get to decide that their spouse gets to go own loving them, trusting them, believing in them and sleeping with them, while they continue to lie to them for a lifetime.
This notion that the WS is relegated to an incomplete life (pseudo slave??) if they are not fully told all the details of the A I feel is not an absolute black and white topic.
I did not tell. I added to my wife's suffering by making her find out on her own, by reading things I wrote to the AP that no spouse should ever have to see. But if she had not found out, then who would the slave be? Not me. She would be. A slave to me, to my whims, my lies, my needs and my abuse of her. I'd get to abuse her and she would get to be my slave. Seems black and white to me.
As someone whose wife knows however, who went through D-day and all the pain and all the recovery for the past year and a half, I can tell you that I don't feel like a slave at all. I feel free. I feel that our relationship is stronger, more honest, more authentic. I can tell her anything now, and she can tell me anything. We survived this together, and it was HER CHOICE to stay, as long as I keep doing the work, and as long as it continues to be a partnership that compliments both our lives. I put her first, not because I'm her slave, because it is the right thing to do, and because it is what someone with dignity and self-respect does when they have hurt someone they love. Trust me when I tell you, she sacrifices for me all the time. In fact, she has suffered more and sacrificed more than I ever will, and much of that was for my benefit. I may not deserve it, but she does it because she sees me putting in the work and earning her love and respect back.
I'm going to go ahead and point out the elephant in the room however, the wayward elephant. These topics, these questions... are all prime examples of wayward thinking, just desperate attempts to deflect attention from the wayward and seek approval instead. It is cowardly and selfish behavior at its core. That is not a personal attack on anyone, I speak from experience because I did the same exact things! Is the WS relegated to a life of being slave? Are you kidding me? Are we suggesting anyone should feel sorry for the poor WS? How unfair that they cheated, lied, betrayed, and OMG they have to face consequences for the actions??!! How unfair! Puh-lease... Is a murderer relegated to a life of prison just because he killed someone? YES.
Do you see what is being asked here? "Is it REALLY that awful? Isn't it UNFAIR to the WS to be a slave?" These are questions meant to deflect blame from the WS, meant to seek out sympathy for the WS, attempts to say, "Pet me and tell me I'm good boy", attempts to put the WS into what they think is a "good light" by pretending that feeling badly about what they did makes it all okay. They think it is somehow noble for them to continue the most abusive behavior they have ever shown and yet label it as being kind and considerate to their spouse! It is all part and parcel of the same damn lies and justifications they told themselves in the first place so they could consider the affair okay. Selfish, selfish, selfish, and still trying to make it all go away, and not face the real consequences.
It is NOT OKAY. It will NEVER BE OKAY. By not telling your spouse, you are STILL LYING and STILL making decisions for your spouse and STILL controlling the outcomes, and as a special added bonus, the only consequences the WS need face is the guilt. That's it. You don't have to face your wife's pain. You don't have to see the disappointment and lack of trust in your kids faces. You don't have to face being kicked out and divorced. You don't have to face years and years of roller-coaster emotions, your spouse having mind-movies and unable to touch you because they can't look at you without seeing the AP, hearing them wish they had a revenge affair, having them panic every time they don't know where you are, and the constant triggers that send them into tears and knowing that all of these things are due to your selfishness and cowardice and cold-heartedness. No, you just get the guilt. Today and every day, the lie continues, and as long as the lie continues, the WS continues to be an abuser, the BS the abused. There is nothing okay about being a liar. Period.
