SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

firenze- I agree, my morality was tossed out when I had the A.

But, I do not agree with anyone else who stated I am a bad person because of my A. I will not let 8 weeks of my 45+ years tarnish the person I KNOW I am. I work in an industry where I am surrounded by death everyday. I am someone the public relies on to get them through a terrible time of their lives. If I were not a good person, I wouldn't care about those people or the loss they just suffered.

I don't feel by reading text from a post on a website relays how remorseful I am. I DO love my H and I will be forever grateful to him for giving me the gift of R. If you could be part of our daily conversations, you would hear for yourself the commitment I have for us to succeed as a happily married couple.

[This message edited by Lovesorange at 2:17 PM, January 17th (Thursday)]

Good people dont have affairs. Period. Bad people do bad things. Period. There is no gray here. You are what you do. Your actions demonstrate the kind of person you are. Maybe it's time for a little look in the mirror.

Lovesorange, it's not a binary divide. You aren't a good or bad person, you're a flawed person. You're a person whose morals, whose loyalty, and whose will were weaker than you thought. It doesn't make you evil, but it does make you someone who was capable of doing something unforgivable.

Think of it like this: Let's say you lived a pretty normal life and never did anything particularly morally objectionable but one day you had a huge argument with your husband and later that night when he was sleeping, you took a kitchen knife and stabbed him a dozen times. Upon seeing him bleeding and dying, you started to realize what you'd done and called 911 and turned yourself into the authorities. Your husband survived, but with permanent health issues because of the trauma. He walks with a limp, he's got chronic pain, and he's got a collection of scars that will remind him of what happened every time he looks at himself.

Do you think that going before a judge and saying that you've been a decent person all your life and that you wish you'd never done it and that you'd do anything to make it up to him would make you deserving of getting off with a lighter sentence? Do you think you'd ever have the right to ask your husband to forgive you for trying to kill him? Do you think it would be acceptable to even want to forgive yourself for having done something so heinous? If you went to your husband in the hospital and told him you were sorry for what you'd done and that you loved him and wanted to live happily ever after with him, what do you think he'd say except "Where was that love when you were plunging a knife into my guts?"

Infidelity may not be a crime (though I really do wish it factored heavily into divorce settlements) but it's still a horrific trauma one person inflicts upon another in deliberate and premeditated fashion. It doesn't happen unless someone is sufficiently selfish and entitled and sufficiently uncaring of their spouse, and it doesn't matter what how they spent their lives up to that point because the damage it inflicts is no lesser for it.

I'm not saying you're a horrible person. I'm saying that you're not as righteous as you thought you were and the fact that you were able to throw away your vows and do such tremendous harm to your husband is irrefutable proof of that. However, your infidelity doesn't have to define you for the rest of your life either. By owning your own weakness, your own moral deficiencies, your own capacity for deception and cruelty, fully and without putting any of the blame on anyone else, you can begin to become the person you wanted to be - the person you thought you were.

[This message edited by firenze at 2:41 PM, January 17th (Thursday)]

I agree, my morality was tossed out when I had the A.

It wasn't tossed out. You didn't have it to begin with or you wouldn't have chosen to cheat to get your ego fed. You can still be sorry and regretful for what you did and still not face who you became. No one said you were a bitch and the fact that you state that and choose those words and your defensiveness about who you became speak more than anything we have brought up what you think about yourself but fight against to acknowledge and believe you were. Like I said. We are who we became. Do you think it matters to the people whose hearts we ripped out who we were for some odd years? No. The only thing that counts for is mercy and grace. You still were who you were when you were cheating and till you own it. Like I said. That doesn't define who you want to become. Till you do, you will always fight yourself. IMO all cheaters including myself were cruel selfish assholes and monsters. It doesn't bother me because I owned it. I chose to accept it. Sit with it. Admit it and become something more than that cheater. The process works. I also call BS on any WS that says they were a saint before the affair. We all had some deficit in our character and cheating was a manifest of that. Perhaps you always had to be right. Perhaps you did things to get attention and to be valued. Selfless acts were truly selfish. Perhaps you needed to be the center of attention everywhere you went. Cheating just doesn't happen in vacumn. You had character flaws before you chose to be cruel to someone you claim to love. A truly 100% remorseful person that has owned it and gotten it doesn't get defensive, doesn't justify, doesn't make excuses, and doesn't down play how much 8weeks of being cruel can damage. You can choose to hold on to your lie of who you were or you can own it. Only one path leads to real work and change.

Your actions demonstrate the kind of person you are. Maybe it's time for a little look in the mirror.

I am not letting 8 weeks of stupid decisions reflect who you all think I was. For those 8 weeks of my 45+ years on this Earth, I WAS a horrible person for that time, I was an adulterer for that time, I WAS a liar, for that time....I am NOT any of those things now.

I started this thread because my IC (someone who is licensed in my state to hand out advice and guidance) told me in order for me to gain forgiveness from my H for the A, I needed to first forgive myself. The way most of you have pounced on me is like going back to grade school where I am the unpopular and "weird" kid who is getting bullied by the "cool" kids.

I am a flawed person...but I am also someone who will NEVER go back to being that mean hateful person I was a year ago. I am working diligently with my H and am committed to heal his wounds (the ones I caused), I am reading everything I can to aid in his healing, attending IC sessions to help me be a better person and to never go back to that nasty girl I was last year and I am very present for my H and our family in all of our activities.

Maybe what I am doing to achieve R, with my H didn't work for some of you...We are finding it is working for us.

Again,, I thank you all for your comments and advice.

I agree with Firenze.

The thing about change is we can’t do it without seeing what needs changing and why. I can identify with having cheated within a good marriage, and thinking it was a fluke, not accepting or seeing the parts that needed deep examination.

The things that led you to cheat are part of who you are. They are weaknesses and deficits that can be worked on. By acting as if it was a mistake or fluke you rob yourself of the rich experience of intentional personal growth. And without it there is no evidence to your husband that you are becoming safe for him. Why you had the affair is internal to you, not external based on others or circumstances. Dig there. What happened? Where is the faulty thinking? What is the reality that you need to realign your thinking with?

Denial helps no one.

Lovesorange, we aren't bullying the new, weird kid here. We have been where you are. Most of us WSs spent plenty of time being defensive, insisting that the time of our As don't define us as people. What I found was that reading the 2x4s thrown by veteran WS was actually supremely helpful. The vets advice here helped me move from recovery to working toward R with my BH, and I will be eternally thankful. But it was so hard to hear in the beginning. The A is now part of your story, and for that moment in time does define you. Saying that, it does not have to be who you are now or who you are going forward. Keep up with reading and IC, and absolutely stay present in your M and do all you can to work toward R with your BH. R is a loooong journey, fraught with difficult emotions and gains and missteps. Losing any defensiveness surrounding your A will ease some of the difficulties.

Was the OM married? What would his wife think of you? You help people through a terrible time in their life,yet traumatized your husband,and his wife,if there is a wife. And,if you have kids,or they have kids,you caused them harm.

You may have been a great person before the affair, and you might be one after. But during the affair? Not so much.

No one is bullying you. You're actually getting great advice. However, you think so highly of yourself, you're not really talking it to heart. And that's a shame. This is the best site for a wayward spouse to heal,better themselves, and truly learn how to reconcile with their BS. Hands down.

So the driving force is getting your husband to forgive you? And that is based off of of your therapist telling you to get it is to forgive yourself first?

You will find that there is quite a bit of polarized/dualistic thinking on SI, from BS and WS alike. If you can see past those posts I think you will find some really helpful information here - I know I have over the years.

I will say that I wholeheartedly DISAGREE with those posters who say you need to view yourself as a "bad person" in order to grow and transform.

"I am a bad person" = Shame

"I did a bad thing" = Guilt

(Source: Brene Brown, "The Gifts of Imperfection")

My husband and I have both betrayed each other in the past - I betrayed him on two separate occasions in 1998 and he betrayed me in 2001 and 2014 - and what we have learned during the course of the past 4+ years, is that shame does NOT lead to healing. In fact, it is shame that led us to hide our true selves from others. It led us to defensiveness. It led us to hide from ourselves - to deny the totality of our experience and block out the negative parts of ourselves and the things that we didn't want to face. It led to self-pity and blocked our capacity for empathy.

What we have learned through our individual healing, and in the process of our healing as a couple, is that true, meaningful personal growth and transformation requires vulnerability, humility, honesty, emotional intelligence and competency, self-awareness.

We learned early on that we couldn't develop those skills with shame in the driver's seat, so the first step we took was to address the roots of our shame and become more vulnerable and authentic.

Part of addressing the shame also involved learning to develop self-compassion. It was through self-compassion that we were each able to look at our whole selves - the good, the bad and everything in between, and not drown in shame or wallow in self-pity. It allowed us to get completely honest with ourselves and with each other - we were each able to become completely accountable for the things we had done during the course of our lives that had harmed others. No blaming other people or situations, no minimizing, no sugar-coating - 100% ownership. And it was the development of accountability that allowed us to really see and feel the pain we had caused others - how our actions impacted them. It increased our feelings of empathy and remorse - enabling us to validate the pain of those we had harmed and apologize to them in a meaningful way, without mention or expectation of forgiveness.

Which brings me to this:

I started this thread because my IC (someone who is licensed in my state to hand out advice and guidance) told me in order for me to gain forgiveness from my H for the A, I needed to first forgive myself.

Why do you feel it is important for you to gain forgiveness from your H? What feelings inside yourself do you think or hope will be alleviated by being forgiven? What if your H chooses to stay with you but cannot or will not forgive you? What if you forgive yourself, but he doesn't forgive you?

There is more I was going to touch on but I will save those for another response and leave you to ponder on these questions for now.

[This message edited by onlytime at 6:34 PM, January 17th (Thursday)]

It is very hard to find acceptance when we make bad choices.

For years I drank. Sometimes I knew I was not being a good mother, but I did it anyway. When I finally found sobriety I had a lot of guilt. Slowly I accepted I am a flawed, struggling person and that I can now only live with full honesty and responsibility.

I’m the BS. I feel my WH is also a good, loyal person. Unfortunately he got caught up in bad behaviour and, while short lived, made choices that changed his character. He has lost the respect of his family. That causes him huge remorse and guilt.

My advice to him is to honestly work on understanding what inside him allows him to act so selfishly. To hurt his own children. He never even considered how terribly this would end up. I’m sad for him, but also for the loss of what we had. It was worth so much more than illicit sex.

Let go of the label and work on understanding where you are lacking. It has nothing to do with your marriage. It’s in you to discover and then you can make sure it never happens again.

I hope you find some peace.

Not being a fan of Brene Brown in the least and disagree with her. Shame and guilt are very important. There is nothing wrong with them as long as the person feeling it doesn't run from it or let it incapacitate them. They are both things that moral people should feel and should flag to them that actions that are wrong are wrong and should be stopped.shame and guilt aren't punishments. They are indicators. Your shame and guilt clue you in that something is fucked up.

LO,

You wrote, Barregirl, Thank you for your response. I am having a difficult time classifying myself as a cheater...I know that's what I did, but I do not feel that's what I am.

Not excusing you but.

If you were a serial cheater then that would be who you are

Most likely you are a situational cheater and in that case it is what you did. I also suspect that the OM in your case is a serial cheater which means he is an expert.

What has your BH done about the OM?

LO,

We are all also vulnerable to that certain someone who has the key that fits our lock, many of us don't allow them to try the key.

However under certain life circumstances often the death of a loved one, loss of a friend, etc our defenses fail. Unfortunately serial cheaters wait for and can detect that moment.

Again I am in no way saying what you did is ok, and the hell your H is feeling is immense.

My thoughts are less complex:

What are you going to do about it. You must earn the right to forgive yourself. This will not be a tip-toe process.

What are you going to do about it. You must earn the right to forgive yourself. This will not be a tip-toe process.

This is dead on. We can all point to bad actions in our past. I've had my share, that's for sure. But what makes me a bad or a good person isn't the fact that I did bad (we all do bad, at some point, sadly), it what I did to make up for that bad. How did I earn the right to forgive myself? And it wasn't by sitting around wallowing in my own shame, that does nothing for the victim of my (or your) bad actions. If you want to forgive yourself, make yourself forgivable. Be a better person, the person your spouse would be lucky to have met years ago. That's how you reach forgiveness, by trying your hardest to make amends for the bad that you've done. You may never get the person you hurt to forgive you, but, if you've really done all you can, at that point, you can (and will) forgive yourself.

Shame, in a lot of cases, is the indicator or motivator that "I could do more/should do more". If you are truly doing all you can, that shame turns into pride; pride in what you are doing to try to right the wrongs that you did before.

There was a thread very recently that discussed the "good vs. bad" person. But LO, here's my take on that label:

I don't get to judge myself as a "good" person. I try to do good in society and life, but who am I to decide that I'm a good person? It is what others perceive us as, based on our actions. If they think that I'm good, then so be it; if they think I'm bad, I would like to (1) know why they believe such, (2) be introspective to see if their beliefs have warrant, and (3) make changes in my behavoirs/actions if necessary.

Bottom line---don't get hung up on the labels. But if several people are telling you the same thing.....from a site that was created for healing.....it's worth some extra reflection. Letting your defenses down is not always a bad thing.

B.S. here.

I don't think you're a bad person. I think you are a human being. An imperfect, foolish, selfish, silly, stubborn, emotional, and sometimes entitled human being like all of us are. Each and every one of us has done something selfish and shitty to other people.

You did something selfish and shitty to your husband, and you probably did it from a place of entitlement. Your husband wasn't doing this or that for you, or he wasn't doing enough, so you had the right to go out and get it from someone else. That someone happened to be a man you were physically and emotionally attracted to, who told you exactly what you wanted to hear, and so you lowered your boundaries and gave yourself permission to enter into an extramarital affair with him.

This doesn't make you a bad or evil person. But it does provide your husband every reason in the world to never trust you again. At this point he owes you nothing. When you and your husband were first dating and falling in love, he gave you his trust as a gift. Now? If you want even a part of that trust back, you are going to have to spend the next five to ten years earning it back and proving to him every day that he made the right choice in staying married to you.

Are you up for that challenge? Are you strong enough? Because if you are not, please do him a favor and stop wasting his time.

you're grieving.

the stages of grief will roll through you as you heal. its part of the process. thats why the anger.

Temptation is never more dangerous than when it comes disguised as relief. so watch for that

Forgiveness isn't a one time thing. It's a daily thing. You've made the decision. So reject any thought otherwise. What feels true isn't true. When the anger comes just say, out loud, "I choose to forgive myself"

you may have to do it a lot. Reject the anger. Denial, Despair and depression plus their buddy bargaining will also pop in for visits. it's normal. Breathe. Name the colors in the room. Snap the rubber band on your wrist. Choose and act on your choices, no matter how you feel. do it afraid.

Art helps. Write, draw, sing, play an instrument. Whatever.

<3

just reading the others posts.

theres two kinds of sorrow. one is toxic. Shame. it leads to death and self-hatred. Theres remorse, and it leads to transformation. These grow from healing and forgiveness and real love. Love heals.

you probably don't know how to love. it's a verb. study love. I read everything I could on the topic. it really helped.

don't get bound by shame. Seek forgiveness. walk in it. no one can earn or deserve it, thats ridiculous.

the only way to earn it would be to kill yourself. and even then it wouldnt be enough. snort. no. it's a gift.

It's kindness that leads to real change. love that heals.

study love. actual love.