SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Your posts ring of minimization to me, Rocket.

While it may be of no benefit to stay in resentment and ill-feelings about your AP or your own self, the people that you each were while in the course of the affair should be what remains clear and strong in your head.

If I were a reformed heroin addict, should I be indifferent to my once readily accessible dealer? Was he, after all, just a simple man trying his best to make a living?

Our WSs here typically tend to be die-hards when it comes to owning your shit. But part of that involves not minimizing both the choice and impact of your behavior by any altruistic ideations - regardless of any substantial growth you have made in the aftermath.

I do think that is the point you are missing. His AP said, “I don’t care if my husband finds out at all. He means nothing to me. I care about losing my 17 year career I worked so hard for. (She and husband Married 12 years)

AP and my husband did not know each other. This woman was promoted. Both traveled to a meeting. Never spoke to each other My husband met her that day. Within 12 hours in a hotel room having sex.

I never denied my husband sex. Not one time. I was starved for affection.

Maybe you are a good person because you stopped things and told your wife. Maybe that is why you both are doing okay at a year out.

I’ve had to work like mad to get to the place I am at. I will give my husband credit. He truly has done so many things to change.

But this isn’t kissing a friend You have no idea of the things I heard. He had an affair and kept in contact with a woman who threatened to show up at my doorstep and beat me up if I threatened her career.

I never even called or emailed or texted this woman!’ It took me 9 months to summon the courage to tell her husband. I didn’t want to break his heart. The whole time sobbing. I am so sorry to put this pain on you.

Skins - You have no idea if I've changed or what my wife is feeling so just stop. Just because my situation is different from yours, doesn't mean it's wrong. Call me selfish...that's fine. It's true...I was very selfish to do what I did but I'm not going to accept a virtual person's view on whether or not I've changed. My wife and I are doing well and I'm sorry if that is hard for your to hear. So keep bashing me and others like me. But people screw up and make mistakes and they can be genuinely sorry. And I had a long friendship with my AP...so yes, I'm not a robot...I sometimes miss that friendship. That does NOT mean I want her or even want to talk to her. It's just a fleeting feeling that comes and goes. Much less frequently than it did before. Which is actually progress. But it seems you have the monopoly on what is right and wrong and how everyone who has an affair is a horrible person. I'm not going to change your mind.

Rocket80, after the shock of my WH's confession wore off, I actually expected him to have some some issues separating himself from his AP and encouraged him to talk to me about what he was feeling. His AP had put him through such hell the last year from her psychotic behavior and threats that he was relieved when I knew and he he could finally issue a NC, so he didn't have any feelings of missing her to deal with. I would say our situation is very different from most though.

Iwantmyglasses,

I really am so sorry for all you've been through. I do realize that my post has caused you pain and I'm sorry. I think I have realized that so many BS have been through so much more than what happened in my situation. What I did was still awful and I regret it everyday. But I'm so grateful to my wife for going through this with me and forgiving me. If she was in your situation, she would be gone. You are pretty amazing for trying to work through anything with your husband. Good luck to you and thank you for helping to open my eyes to all the pain out there.

truthsetmefree - not trying to minimize what I did. I just don't think hating my AP is helpful. Listen, no one can beat me up as much as I've beat myself up. But my wife finally came to me and said, STOP. That my beating myself up was not letting her or us move past it. I'm not saying I'm not still greatly ashamed but I try to keep it at bay as much as I can because it doesn't help. I choose not to bash my AP because I also find that unhelpful. The focus is not on her, it's either on me or my wife.

[This message edited by Rocket80 at 3:35 PM, March 28th (Wednesday)]

There are some on here (like me) whose WS had theirs with someone single. My wife's AP was not only single but knew she was married, knew we have 6 kids, spent time in my house nearly every day for 2 1/2 months. And for him to flirt with and try to start a relationship with her...yeah, he's a POS. He started the pursuit. He masterminded the lies (told her not to tell that it was him, then told her not to tell that it was physical). He is the ultimate POS.

My wife also sees him as a POS now. Did she at that time? No. She was infatuated with him. Said he was "only being a friend" at one point. Some "friend"...

Rocket, I don't think you get the depth of the betrayal and the hurt that you inflicted on your wife. Most waywards who "get it" no longer see their AP as "a good person who did a bad thing." Until you recognize this for what it is, you probably won't understand the pain felt by your BS and the truly nuclear amount of destruction you chose to cause.

The pain isn’t what it was. I am glad you brought this topic up. I do have compassion for “All my fault, Asocalledlife, Mrs Wallopped, daddy dom, Isle guy. I’ve learned so much from them.

I am here to learn. And to also reach out to people in the worst pain.

You can’t tell from the anger of this thread. My husband and I are doing well in reconciliation. The pain of the affair has lessened. Believe it or not. I didn’t want that husband. I would have gladly divorced him. My attorney wanted me to wait. My husband had just had a stroke six months before his affair. I cleaned the urine and vomit off his body. Even missing the attention I should have had in the marriage. I was happy in my life. I loved being a wife and a mother. I loved taking care of my family and my husband. He never scheduled a doctor’s appt for himself. He never went to the kids awards programs. I did everything. I didn’t have a partner. I just accepted and took the scraps. So I would have divorced. My attorney wanted me to wait till I could qualify for full alimony.

In the almost two years since DD my husband has surprised me. This man...I don’t want to divorce. He is different. And extremely involved. I am treated as a woman a wife should be.

CaptainRogers - with all due respect, I do get my wife's pain and the depth of what I did. We've sat through counseling while she was bawling and I held her and cried myself. We've been through a lot and I do know what I have done. We have a fantastic counselor who would absolutely disagree with you. I don't have to see my AP as a bad person. I can see her as flawed but she didn't force me to do what I did and vice versa. We own our own role. I own mine and she owns hers with her husband.

I'll say it again, not all affairs are created equal. While some are earth shattering, years in the making, long term horrible experiences, there are others that did not play out that way. Doesn't make them any less wrong, but I think the pain involved is less when a WS ends a brief emotional affair and comes clean and goes straight to marriage counseling and IC.

The focus is not on her, it's either on me or my wife.

But you stated this is your original post....

But the reason for my post today is that I see so many threads where the AP is portrayed as the ultimate POS

.

I don't wish to split hairs with you, Rocket. I know that posts can change and evolve as we discuss the issue (getting to maybe the issue beneath the issue).

I sincerely think you have some minimizations going on. I get the impression - and it is just my impression from out here in cyber world - that you are being triggered by some perspectives of APs. Because while you are a WS to your BS...you are also an AP. That requires you to see yourself beyond just the specifics of your situation.

Here's the thing. Yes...some of us BSs suffered infidelities that are much more encompassing than what you have described. Perhaps there are degress of to "POS"ty-ness in each cheater. But the thinking that allowed the initial shittyness is largely universal. In that case, would it be fair to say that you were simply a POS for a lesser time? Is that still offensive? It is stated in past tense, btw.

I'm trying to allow space for a larger intent of your post than what I am currently seeing. But I'm just not seeing it, either. I'm certainly open to the discussion.

ETA:

I'll say it again, not all affairs are created equal. While some are earth shattering, years in the making, long term horrible experiences, there are others that did not play out that way. Doesn't make them any less wrong, but I think the pain involved is less when a WS ends a brief emotional affair and comes clean and goes straight to marriage counseling and IC.

This is what I would call minimization. Yes, I'm (was) a cheater....but I'm not that bad a cheater.

Again...I'm trying to extend compassion and grace, Rocket. I can imagine this is earth-shattering in its own right...independent of the pain it has caused your BS.

[This message edited by truthsetmefree at 3:53 PM, March 28th (Wednesday)]

Rocket, I am a BH. My wife's multiple adulteries and lies and abandonments were not only devastating to me, but my grandfather I was the sole caretaker of died partly because of the thing.

My story is so incredibly horrible that it shocks me even to this day 22 years after we REALLY reconciled (instead of the false, first R attempt).

That being said, perhaps you should follow MY posts for awhile. I often post to waywards and in the waywards forum, not because I'm a rugsweeping flower-child minded hippie wannbe living in denial...but because people can change. They can change for the better and/or for the worse.

And my wife (and I) am living proof of BOTH.

Additionally, I think that it is well worth noting and investigating that the founders of SI themselves went thru this shit, too, and the most openly celebrated and seemingly active poster of the two of THEM was Deeply Scared...NOT her BH Mangled Heart (no offense, MH).

She and others in the top brass of SI were waywards themselves and I only hear THEM bashing idiocy no matter WHICH side of the adultery fence it happens to come from.

On the other hand, I do see and read an INCREDIBLE degree of support pouring out from not only them to other REMORSEFUL waywards, but also I hear and see it coming to remorseful WS's from MANY other BS's (like myself) as well!

If the shoe fits, however, sometimes that's all that a WS hears or sees, it seems to me. Maybe I'm wrong there, but I find your report to be very contrary to my own experience here. I've seem unremorseful waywards get their asses handed to them by BOTH sides, but again, I've seen the truly remorseful ones become virtual celebrities and/or mods, guides, and admins (I think) on here too.

A friend of mine has this proverb that he often cites that says something like this: if you throw a brick into a pack of dogs the one that yells the loudest is the one that stole your bacon (guiltiest)--or somesuch. I don't know if that "shoe" there fits YOU or not, but I DO know that my own fWW WIFE was one of the most evil-choice-choosing people that I knew at one time. And she took EVERYTHING that I or anyone else said like it was all personal and malicious and evil condemnation.

I think it was her own conscience putting a megaphone up to her ears screaming their words into her guilty heart, personally, but she was just too angry, and mad-at-the-world (and ME, particularly) including her parents and HERSELF to take her fingers out of her EARS long and far out enough to actually LISTEN to what was being SAID until she had to reach out for help.

If you were showing the signs, fruit, words, and tone of what people on SI see as a fully remorseful FORMER wayward in terms of your mindset and speech and attitude(s) so forth, then I feel fairly certain that you'd be hearing a different tune coming thru.

There's 65,000 members on here over the course of almost 20 years of dealing and seeing THIS SHIT over and over and over and over again. My guess is that with all that experience and books and people and results and LOADS of testimony and sharing, that they actually DO know a thing or two about the signs and "wonders" of foggy/wayward thinking, acting, and feeling and what works and what doesn't with such folks.

That doesn't account for johnny-come-lately noobs who post indiscriminately who don't have a clue about what they're talking about experience-wise, but it DOES apply at least SOMEWHAT to those who've been there and done that and come out of the other side of all of this wiser and better with the results to show for it.

truthsetsmefree - hmm, I have to admit that you have made me think about the part where I am also an AP and probably do feel attacked when I see posts about them. I really hadn't considered that until now. I still have some learning to do and I never meant to give the impression that I don't. I do think my post got away from me for sure but coming back to the original comment, I believe you are right.

Some member threads to follow for another sampling of the recent "help" that's offered to waywards would be:

Walloped and his wife Mrs. Walloped

ASoCalledLife

DaddyDom

Evolving Soul (Guide)

...just to name a few.

just type any of those names into the "Search Profiles" box of your profile page and I think you will find that you findings are only subjectively true and not universally so where wayward-bashing are concerned.

That response makes me feel happy for you, Rocket.

Let me add this now, too...and this perspective is largely influenced by my own experience.

I think it's very easy for remorseful WSs to be overcome and overwhelmed by the pain of their BSs on dday and the subsequent potential loss of their marriage. Shame hits and they immediately go into "fix it" mode - restitution would likely be the best word. That's good. It serves a purpose.

But to genuinely change, they must look at the "shitty" behavior that allowed the affair to ever progress in the first place. All cheating takes deception and a lack of empathy for the betrayed spouse. What allowed you to step into this long before your BS ever knew? What allowed you to continue for the length of time you did? This is the shittyness that you need to look square in the eye. Not with a clucking tongue of shame...or alternatively an altruistic rush of forgiveness (which is where I think your confliction with AP now lies). I'm glad you are in IC...but I would also urge you to make sure you have an IC that can and will walk you into the shame itself. Without that, any forgiveness is inauthentic - if only because you haven't truly allowed yourself to feel and fully experience the injury.

You can learn from this and "affair-proof" your marriage. That's good. But you've also the chance now to actually become a better, more authentically altruistic person. Not just for your BS, or your marriage - but for you.

Good luck on your path!

truthsetsmefree - Thank you for the help and insight. I do think my IC is good...we've walked through shame and some of the processes you talked about. But more work is needed because while I know what I did doesn't align with my values, I still did it and while I'm truly remorseful, part of me just wants to bury the whole thing. And my wife forgives me, which is great. But something is missing or I guess I wouldn't be so sensitive about the AP comments. Maybe I just feel like a jerk and I have to work past that. I do hate how I hurt my wife and I'll live with that for the rest of my life. I'll work on it and bring this conversation up during my next IC appointment. Thanks again.

And again, I'm sorry if I posted in the wrong place and cause pain for others. And I have learned that some of my wording should change.

Interactions such as these help me to restore my faith in humanity. I'm very glad you shared today.

In the end, we're all just trying to heal.

...I think the pain involved is less when a WS ends a brief emotional affair and comes clean and goes straight to marriage counseling and IC.

Rocket, you are completely minimizing. My wife's affair lasted 2 weeks. Was emotional at every level and included make out sessions that did not end in any other physical contact. No touching. No oral sex. No full intercourse.

And yet, it ripped my heart out. So when I say that you are still defending your AP as a good person who made a bad choice, you are doing your wife a grave disservice.

^^ this.

I don’t actively hate my WS’s AP. But when I think of her I certainly don’t wish her well. In fact, I hope karma gets her. That is when I think of her, which isn’t often. This works for me.

There is a wide chasm between actively hating and wishing someone well. You are lumping a lot of stuff together.

Rocket80,

You make some good points. Many people have posted about the harsh 2 × 4s or negativity or hateful comments, not just you. Many BS have been banned from the wayward forum for just this reason. Other members get upset about what is said to the new folks hurting in Just Found Out, treating them badly for making mistakes or not taking SI advice. Some comments can be pretty ugly.

Posters often end up with reputations. "He always says this," or "Of course you'll hear that from her." Whereas other posters are moving through stages, feeling more hateful one year but not as much the next. Plus, you can't always tell how new someone is to this pain when they are posting, so their emotions may just be really raw.

Many posters who are in a better place now--whether divorced or reconciled--don't visit the site much anymore. They would most likely make more level-headed rather than explosive comments if they were here. If people are visiting and posting here, they are typically still working through their feelings, painful feelings.

You're not going to change people's attitudes. If they want to carry the burden of their hate, there is nothing you can do. Just focus on you and your BS and continue your work there. If something upsets you, step back. Many emotions are running high and many members have a lot of work and healing to do. Not sure there is any way to rush them through their hate if they still feel it. We have to remember where everyone is coming from and let it go. I do usually just hope they are getting help working through it--somewhere.

Your ideas and attitudes seem fairly sound, but it's only been a year. Keep doing the work and focusing on you two.

Best wishes.

What do you think about your AP's husband? Have you apologized to him for destroying his family? Did that thought ever even cross your self-absorbed mind?

You've completely minimized your affair and never got over your AP because your wife gave you a second chance too soon. If your wife had filed for D the day after she found out I bet you would have cut your AP off immediately and wouldn't have these residual feelings still.

Maybe your affair wasn't as bad as many other affairs including the shit I went through but you still obviously don't get it. You're a broken person who hasn't changed, just rug-swept because your wife has allowed it.