SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

To everyone basically saying the same things - I hear you. I am happy with my life. I love my wife. I am not looking to throw it away for a fleeting feeling of justice. However, I do get sick of hearing how "good I have it" from so many people, how other than her affair (that little thing from so long ago) my wife is great otherwise, and we have so much good in our life, and how could I even think of throwing it away? As if I ever wanted to confront that possibility.

Re: "Giving it away". I realize there is some sexism built in to this concept. But male or female, you would hope that your committed spouse/SO would at least "put up a fight" for their own ethics/dignity/love for you before just happily going home with someone else for sex. My wife met a co-worker and within three months giddily went home with him to fuck after a night dancing, without so much as a single protest, hesitation, or thought about me. The same woman who I had to court for months. That hurts. That feels like giving it away.

While our sex right now is great and has been great for a couple years, we have had plenty of dry spells in the past, some that have lasted for years. We have never been sex-less or a dead bedroom, but my wife has been much less enthusiastic in the past and I have spent plenty of night with my own company instead of hers. I don't think my wife is faking it now or have reason to believe it's just a love bomb or temporary, but what if it is? I don't want to place too much weight on our current sex life in my decision making.

Finally, I am not going to make any brash decisions around sex outside my M or act out on my feelings in the near future. I am just acknowledging they exist and working my way through the deeper meaning, if there is any.

My current feeling is that I'm tired of always being "the adult". My wife's nature has been to be impulsive and immature. Mine has always been to be rational and intentional, which means that any mistake or bad behavior on my part is much harder to forgive. I don't have built in excuses. I am the adult, the planner, and if I make a bad decision, it is amplified.

If I were to have sex outside my M, I would be painted as a monster because my actions would have thought behind them, whereas my wife's A only makes her immature, flawed, human. It drives me nuts. I think, life must be so much easier for people like her: impulsive, attractive people who are good at heart but still behave badly, easily forgiven because it's "in their nature" and they "didn't mean to hurt anybody". It's just incredibly unfair. The unfairness of the whole thing may just kill me.

That little thing that happened so long ago happened to me, too, CBM. My WW had a few ONS during and following dances and parties that she doesn't know, if she ever did, the names. The last one was before we were engaged but after we were talking seriously (she initiated the serious talk). I was a virgin, by choice, before my WW. I turned down obvious opportunities and in some ways I regret that. I found out about the pre-marriage stuff after the LTA DDay which were DDays 2 through 4.

My stance is that, even though it was years ago, it is brand new to you. It was a betrayal by someone you now have a great deal invested in. There are stories on SI about the betrayed boyfriend/girlfriend and they are devastated and they have yet to have invested so much.

I wish I had known before marriage what I know now. I may have made the same decision and married her. I loved her. I made the decision in a vacuum, though, without the knowledge I should have had to make such an important and life altering decision.

I, too, think you have a lot going for you and have a good potential for reconciliation. However, the decision is your. If it's a dealbreaker it's a dealbreaker. To me, though, R looks like a possibility. Do what is right for you.

I don't care how long ago it was. I don't care if things have been wonderful since. You have suffered a trauma. It will take time, time, time to heal. It takes investment in yourself to heal no matter what your path. It seems to me you have the basis to have support doing so with your WW. Still, your choice.

Thanks Steady. I appreciate your thoughts. It feels different to hear "what she did was awful, but I think R is still viable", rather than "she is great, you should R".

She IS great, but it also makes me feel insignificant to hear it that way.

I think, life must be so much easier for people like her: impulsive, attractive people who are good at heart but still behave badly, easily forgiven because it's "in their nature" and they "didn't mean to hurt anybody". It's just incredibly unfair. The unfairness of the whole thing may just kill me.

CantBeMe123

Boy do I understand this. My wife came out and told me that it’s much worse for me to call her a name during a fight than it is for her to call me a name.

Why? Because I think before I say anything therefore I mean it. She just flies off the handle so it’s meaningless. That leads to there is no reason for her to apologize but I must apologize.

@Michigan,

I hope you called her on that bullshit post haste.

@Michigan,

I hope you called her on that bullshit post haste.

RubixCubed

I told her that her assessment of our personalities was correct. (i.e. I think and she’s emotional). But the result was that she got to call me names for free while I had to pay a price for calling her a name.

I said that it was unfair and she agreed after a pause. I said that she needed to start thinking and for every name she called me I got to call her one for free.

I had to deal with this with a girlfriend a few years ago.....

I flipped it on her....

Told her that I always stopped to think before I said or did something BECAUSE I loved her....

So conversely, she must not give two shits about me because she didn’t.....

She immediately got defensive and upset.....said I was accusing her of not loving me.....

I just replied.....

No, not saying you don’t care about me, but it certainly cannot be anything like my idea of love....so what you are asking me to do here to continue this relationship is live in an unbalanced situation where I care for, do for, and be there for a person who does much less for me in return.....

And I refused to live out of balance like that.

After that fight, she swore she would try to do better....

But it didn’t last, so I ended it.

Makes me wonder if people who are the ‘beneficiary’ of unbalanced relationships like this can ever truly stop being selfish enough to stop putting themselves and their wants first in the partnership?

I’m sure some do, and OP I certainly hope your W proves to be one of them.

But that unbalanced relationship is a bitter pill to swallow.....knowing you always put the impact of your decisions on them as a priority, and they simply won’t do the same.

Re: "Giving it away". I realize there is some sexism built in to this concept. But male or female, you would hope that your committed spouse/SO would at least "put up a fight" for their own ethics/dignity/love for you before just happily going home with someone else for sex. My wife met a co-worker and within three months giddily went home with him to fuck after a night dancing, without so much as a single protest, hesitation, or thought about me. The same woman who I had to court for months. That hurts. That feels like giving it away.

My wife had multiple ONS's in her single life, before we met. I had to court her for months. I had the same misgivings on that point that you do. The simple reality is that for a woman who is of normal or above attractiveness, having casual sex is super easy. Just go outside and she will be beleaguered by opportunities. In fact, many single women have to invest much of their energy rebuffing opportunities. This is relevant because if she finds herself in a time and place where she is in the mood for a casual fling, it's almost always readily available, with no effort. The dude she does it with, he's just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. A week earlier or later, it would have been some other dude. In your WW's case, she was in an emotional dark place that she didn't share with you. Her A was an escape from that dark place. She wasn't giving anything to him. She was taking from him. It was a fucked up thing to do, without question, but it was really quite cliche in terms of female affairs based on what we see here on SI, and there is the factor that she really was emotionally immature.

I don't think my wife is faking it now or have reason to believe it's just a love bomb or temporary, but what if it is? I don't want to place too much weight on our current sex life in my decision making.

I think this naked honesty that you're getting from her now is the real her. As discussed, she put her neck on the chopping block, with nothing to gain by doing so. The only logical explanation is that she is opening the darkest recesses of her heart to you. The side benefit of that is the greater degree of intimacy that you two now share. You know the worst of the worst about her.

If I were to have sex outside my M, I would be painted as a monster because my actions would have thought behind them, whereas my wife's A only makes her immature, flawed, human. It drives me nuts. I think, life must be so much easier for people like her: impulsive, attractive people who are good at heart but still behave badly, easily forgiven because it's "in their nature" and they "didn't mean to hurt anybody". It's just incredibly unfair. The unfairness of the whole thing may just kill me.

What your WW did was awful. I've never said otherwise. And I completely understand that this is still raw and painful for you given the recency of the disclosure. That's totally natural. But as said earlier, in these "found out years later" scenarios, the course of the marriage in the interim matters. The decision whether to R, or not, is informed in part by this. You have a better vision of what R looks like based on the recent years of the marriage. There is a thread on here by a BH who found out years later about his WW's LTA from early in their marriage. She has been transparent and remorseful, etc., but he is plagued by the fact that their marriage was tepid-to-cold for years prior to DDay, and if he does R, the R may just be reverting to that same unhappy grind.

If your wife were to have sex outside of the marriage now, she would be even worse of a monster than you would, knowing how much it would hurt you. She would not be impulsive and attractive. She would be thoughtless, shallow, and cruel.

However, I do get sick of hearing how "good I have it" from so many people

The fact that so many people are saying the same thing should tell you something. Everybody who tells you this is speaking from the perspective of his own personal and anecdotal experience. The fact that you are getting the same message from a wide range of folks, with a wide range of anecdotal experience, reinforces that it is probably true.

Dyokemm - Man, do I feel you. My wife has improved in leaps and bounds in this area, but what you say hits close to home. For a long time, our fights have tended to follow the same script:

Her: Say something hurtful to me without thinking

Me: Get feelings hurt

Her: "I didn't mean to hurt you", thinks her intention is all that matters, not my feelings

Me: Explain in detail why my feelings are hurt, "lecture" her, seek to feel understood

Her: Empty apology, more defensiveness/explanations

Me: Feel like she doesn't even want to understand me, withdraw, brood for 24-48 hours, question why my wife can hurt me so easily without much remorse

Makes me wonder if people who are the ‘beneficiary’ of unbalanced relationships like this can ever truly stop being selfish enough to stop putting themselves and their wants first in the partnership?

I used to feel this way a lot when we would have the same fight described above over and over. I think that my wife confessing to her A and airing out all of her dirty laundry has been a huge step for her in owning her selfishness and balancing out our relationship. She no longer gets to say hurtful things or be defensive for no good reason. She knows I will call her on it now, and she genuinely wants to get better too. She still has an instinctual reaction say things without thinking and be defensive, but she is showing me that she really wants to change.

I think her selfishness was a byproduct of wanting to ignore the ugly sides of her self, to be able to be judged only on intention and not for how her words/actions affected others. Life is easier that way, right? I think it's how she justified hiding her affair - it wasn't "about me", her intention wasn't to hurt me, so she could forgive herself, tuck it away, and pretend it never happened.

BFTG - Thanks for your follow-up. Some very helpful stuff in there.

You said "What your WW did was awful. I've never said otherwise." I didn't mean to

accuse you of saying that, but it feels implied when you say things like "...you have a very good thing. Don’t fuck it up."

No one in my life has said specifically to me "what your wife did wasn't awful", but I get a lot of things like "it was so long ago", "she was so young", "you have such a good thing going", etc. To me, it feels the same as saying "what she did wasn't that awful". That I need to let the A go and the burden is on me not to "fuck up the good thing" we have. It feels shitty.

Without her affair and the fallout of the past three months, I would never have had these thoughts. I would never question our marriage. I thought our love, our marriage, our sex, everything, was special. I wanted to be the guy in the bar bragging to his buddy about how good our sex is, how great our marriage is, how much we get each other, how I feel like I married my best friend even all these years later. That's been blown up and I'm trying to put it back together, to accept and maybe forgive, while dealing with my own shit, my feelings of inadequacy and unfairness and everything else.

CantBeMe,

I am glad to hear that she is making real efforts to change and truly hope it is lasting.

As I said in my post, my ex gf’s did try to change....and it lasted, but only for a short time.

Eventually she felt safe again in the relationship....because, duh, I didn’t change who I am and continued to be thoughtful and caring towards her......and once she felt the relationship had returned to normal, SHE returned to normal.

At that point, I realized she really had zero interest in changing....because that would require that she change something inside herself.....and she would never be able to change FOR me, only temporarily alter her behavior to placate me and restore calm in the relationship.

I had to end it because I was not going to keep going through that situation endlessly in the relationship.

Perfect evidence of something I have always believed though....

People cannot change FOR others, not even people they truly love and care about......

Changes must be made for one’s self if they are to be lasting.....

A lesson I was first taught by an uncle who was a recovered alcoholic.....this is what he told me in a conversation in my early 20’s.....

He tried for years to quit for his wife and kids.....always failed.

Wasn’t until he decided to quit for himself that he was able to make it last.

So.....I hope as much as your W wants to change for you and her M, I truly hope that she most wants to change for HERSELF so that she can be a better person.

I hope that last part makes sense.

I hope as much as your W wants to change for you and her M, I truly hope that she most wants to change for HERSELF so that she can be a better person.

I hope that last part makes sense.

Makes perfect sense. I believe that she does.

CBM, for whatever it's worth, I don't think you have it "good". I think you've been given a pretty raw deal in many ways. You have a wife who was unfaithful to you when you were in a committed relationship with her and who kept this world-altering fact a secret from you so she could get what she wanted. Now you're trapped in a reality you probably wouldn't have chosen for yourself if you'd known this fact that she had no right to keep from you and you're dealing with an incredible amount of pain and resentment. It's completely unfair in every way. She got to devalue you, she got to be the one who cared less and thought less and gave less and still got exactly what she wanted and now you're paying the price for her selfishness. I wouldn't dream of telling you you have it good. Good is having a faithful, loving woman who has far too much care and respect for her man to ever do the sorts of things our wives have done to us.

However, I think that what a lot of people here are saying is that when it comes to having an unfaithful wife, you're better placed for successful reconciliation than most of us. You're still in a shitty situation, it's just not quite as shitty. That doesn't mean that what your wife did can't be a dealbreaker for you either. It just means that you've got a better chance of making things work and having a good life with her if that's what you want.

My hope for you is that your wife continues to grow and in time becomes the one who values you more, cares more, thinks more, and gives more.

Without her affair and the fallout of the past three months, I would never have had these thoughts. I would never question our marriage. I thought our love, our marriage, our sex, everything, was special. I wanted to be the guy in the bar bragging to his buddy about how good our sex is, how great our marriage is, how much we get each other, how I feel like I married my best friend even all these years later. That's been blown up and I'm trying to put it back together, to accept and maybe forgive, while dealing with my own shit, my feelings of inadequacy and unfairness and everything else.

It's hard to get through a life without fucking up. Some get through life without fucking up in a huge way. It is often the case that major fuck ups occur in our early 20's, when we have adult bodies but adolescent perspectives and minds. I have a buddy who is a super nice guy, bright, hard working, likeable, generous, kind. When he was around 21, in college, he was driving home drunk and hit and killed a pedestrian, a woman who was a wife and mother. You'd never know it now, but he paid a lot of penance for that and still feels a debt for it like 35+ years later.

Your WW fucked up, and she compounded it by keeping it secret all these years. In the meantime, from your posts, it sounds like she has matured to be a better person and, more important, a better wife to you. This last step of coming clean to you was another step in that same direction.

You legitimately have trauma. She legitimately has an obligation to help you heal that trauma. You should not expect it to be healed in a year. Maybe two years, or three, but not a year. Your feelings of injustice and thoughts of revenge or escape and such, that is completely normal. I think most who have posted on your WW's page have told her that she will need to be patient and persistent for years to help you heal.

Sorry if I was harsh earlier this morning. The dog woke me very early (on a Saturday) by licking my mouth. I had a dream that my wife was kissing me, but the kisses tasted like rotting steak. Then I awoke to a dog's tongue in my mouth. She needed to go out. It is bitter cold today. Putting the dog out involves putting salve on her feet, affixing her invisible fence collar, putting on her little sweater. You have to come fully out of sleep for that. While waiting, I made my post. Was feeling more than a little salty at the time.

It appears that your WW is a good candidate for

recovery.

Though your D day is too recent for you to see this.

October to January is 3 months. Recovery is a two to

five year job.

You were lied to for many years. You will get past

this in time.

I am sorry that you find yourself in this situation and time has not been your friend. To her and many others this is ancient history and you should just get over it and move on with life. However, this is all new to you, as if it just happened on the day she confessed. Additionally, each occurrence of trickle truth or down right lie, is just like she is cheating all over again and keeps you in turmoil.

The fact is you can use whatever term you want ie, forgive, accept, move on, etc, but you will never forget what happened. Some people can forgive and move on immediately, while others never do. You have to decide where you are with all this. If you are never going to be able to get over this, then there is no sense torturing yourselves and move on with life. Perhaps you may want to set an unofficial marker of 6 months and then access where you are with this problem.

My wife's nature has been to be impulsive and immature. Mine has always been to be rational and intentional, which means that any mistake or bad behavior on my part is much harder to forgive. I don't have built in excuses. I am the adult, the planner, and if I make a bad decision, it is amplified.

If I were to have sex outside my M, I would be painted as a monster because my actions would have thought behind them, whereas my wife's A only makes her immature, flawed, human. It drives me nuts. I think, life must be so much easier for people like her: impulsive, attractive people who are good at heart but still behave badly, easily forgiven because it's "in their nature" and they "didn't mean to hurt anybody". It's just incredibly unfair. The unfairness of the whole thing may just kill me.

You see this all the time. Cheaters as a group, tend to self select for immaturity. Thus they are usually not held to the same standard as would a more thinking person, such as yourself.

WS are allowed to be "broken" and to "make bad decisions." To have the all so elusive “unmet emotional need.” To have FOO issues and past experiences that have affected their view of reality, and thus their behavior.

BS...not so much. They are not afforded these luxuries. They are supposed to be understanding. To exhibit self control. To think about every action they take and its impact.

In short they are expected, by some, to be the exact opposite of a WS at all times.

And God help them if they do not. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will shift the animosity off of a WS and onto a BS, faster than a revenge affair. Or even a revenge flirt.

After all, the BS must act better right? They know the pain of an affair. And should know what harm will come of it. The WS, conveniently, (or due to various “reasons”) does not have this innate ability to control their behavior. Or so it would seem to some.

It’s the curse of the rational thinker. We ask why, why, why? And the answers we get are less than satisfying.

I sincerely hope you rectify the imbalance in your marriage. It seems to me that this imbalance was part of her giving herself permission and feeling entitled to betray you.

I cannot recollect whether she had one of her minor affairs after you were married but she certainly seems to have always felt that she had the upper hand in your relationship. The very fact that the OM, who she had told about her betrayal of you, was invited to the wedding (not to mention the Christmas cards) speaks volumes of her wayward mindset throughout your entire relationship.

This is hopefully changing from what you have written and it needs to.

However, you cannot ever address the imbalance in your marriage caused by her affair. NEVER. You having a revenge affair will certainly not do that and don't believe for one moment it will. It will just lead to another nail in its coffin. So please stop trying to convince yourself otherwise.

From what I have read in her thread your wife seems to be making great efforts to be truly remorseful, so don't change that dynamic please, even if she gives you permission to have a RA.

[This message edited by SorrowfulMoon at 7:50 PM, January 26th (Saturday)]

Just to clarify one thing - I don't want a revenge affair. What I have proposed is sex with an escort or other "paid professional", with zero emotional attachment. I just want to experience the sex and get it out of my system, in large part so that I am not tempted to actually have an affair. I don't expect this to balance out our marriage, or do anything magical other than to give me something I want, something I have deprived myself of in order to honor our commitment to each other, which she threw out the window 12 years ago.

My hope is that it shows me that sex with someone else isn't anything I am "missing out on", and that what I have with my wife is miles better, and I can live happily ever after with her without the nagging desire for what I can't have .

Flawed thinking. Adding another sex partner only

adds more problems