SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This is copied from an article in ‘Psychology today’ its written by a psychiatrist and from a good few years out as far as I can tell. It described my WHs affair to a tee! But what I found interesting was the way it describes the betrayed spouse, marriage and the APs. If you ever wonder if the affair was your ‘fault’ or the marriage’s ‘fault’ this is worth reading.

‘Romantic Infidelity

Surely the craziest and most destructive form of infidelity is the temporary insanity of falling in love. You do this, not when you meet somebody wonderful (wonderful people don't screw around with married people) but when you are going through a crisis in your own life, can't continue living your life, and aren't quite ready for suicide yet. An affair with someone grossly inappropriate—someone decades younger or older, someone dependent or dominating, someone with problems even bigger than your own—is so crazily stimulating that it's like a drug that can lift you out of your depression and enable you to feel things again. Of course, between moments of ecstasy, you are more depressed, increasingly alone and alienated in your life, and increasingly hooked on the affair partner. Ideal romance partners are damsels or "dumsels" in distress, people without a life but with a lot of problems, people with bad reality testing and little concern with understanding reality better.

Romantic affairs lead to a great many divorces, suicides, homicides, heart attacks, and strokes, but not to very many successful remarriages. No matter how many sacrifices you make to keep the love alive, no matter how many sacrifices your family and children make for this crazy relationship, it will gradually burn itself out when there is nothing more to sacrifice to it. Then you must face not only the wreckage of several lives, but the original depression from which the affair was an insane flight into escape.

People are most likely to get into these romantic affairs at the turning points of life: when their parents die or their children grow up; when they suffer health crises or are under pressure to give up an addiction; when they achieve an unexpected level of job success or job failure; or when their first child is born—any situation in which they must face a lot of reality and grow up. The better the marriage, the saner and more sensible the spouse, the more alienated the romantic is likely to feel. Romantic affairs happen in good marriages even more often than in bad ones.

Both genders seem equally capable of falling into the temporary insanity of romantic affairs, though women are more likely to reframe anything they do as having been done for love. Women in love are far more aware of what they are doing and what the dangers might be. Men in love can be extraordinarily incautious and willing to give up everything. Men in love lose their heads—at least for a while.’

Well, that certainly captures and describes my EX well.

Add to that, I believe that he may forever be incapable of seeing it. His family, his career and his work relationships...all gone.

I am NC, his adult children no longer have a relationship with him, he got fired from his job of 25 years and he may have recently been fired from another job AND the COW is still married. He didnt even get the girl.

He left everything for nothing.

Thank you for sharing this.

I'm standing up clapping like an old American Idol Judge yelling "YES! A THOUSAND TIMES THIS!"

I relate so damn much to this. Everything I've thought about and said to WH could be summed up word for word with that article.

Doesn't make it easier or less sucky. But it sums it all up quite succinctly.

Thank you for sharing this.

The writer of this (Frank Pittman) had the study of infidelity as a central theme throughout his career. He was absolutely clear on the utter destruction and stupidity of it. He wrote a book back in the nineties which apparently still has salient points today. So I ordered it tonight, be interested to see what else he has to say!

Omg. That’s is fascinatingly on point with what I rxperienced. It’s uncanny. I will have to look into the author more. Thank you.

Very interesting, Dragonfly. I think it's a possibility my WW's LTA might have started that way but then just kept going. She had no intention of mingling her family with his or leaving me for him after she got to know a little more about him. But she never quit either because it was good as a side piece.

I have read Frank Pitman's book and found it quite good although there were a few things with which I took exception.

This really describes my WW's A perfectly, especially in how inappropriate the AP was on any sort of 'reality' basis and in terms of the 'crisis' - stripped of its nuances my WW had a text book mid-life crisis.

I didn't find out until about 18 months after the one-year A was over and it did exactly as described, proved unsustainable and burnt itself out.

Romantic Infidelity

Surely the craziest and most destructive form of infidelity

I spend a lot of time on here talking about this and I could not agree more. I understand the desire to have an A. Or, more correctly, I understand the desire to sleep with other people while your married. That, IMHO, is a very normal part of being human and something that we all have to overcome to be part of a monogamous married couple. But of course the drive is there (to sleep with other people), if it wasn't, the human race would have died out a long time ago. Recognize it for what it is and control it. It's not an excuse for an A, but I understand the motivation and more importantly, there's not arguing with "results". And an A gets results in spades in the category of "sleeping with more people" or "more sex". It's one of the very few things that A's are actually "good at". So there's a very logical flow, I want X, an A offers X, therefore, I will have an A to get X. This is the logic flow that men I know who've had/are having A's seem to follow. You can hate what they are doing (I do), but you can't argue that they are getting what they describe as their goal from the A.

But a "romantic A"? That's truly insane. Almost no A's are about love, I know, people will disagree, but the statistics, IMHO, bear witness that what I'm saying is true. Almost no A's go on to lasting marriage. And, at d-day, most AP's (who aren't insane with love) take quick and decisive measures that show that "love's got nothing to do with it". Looking for love in an A is like looking for a diet plan at a doughnut shop. That's not what most of the people are there for, they are there for tasty food that they know are empty calories, but enjoy eating anyway. If you're looking for anything but that, you're in the wrong store. And yet, there are a lot of people in that line who get to the counter and then throw a fit that there's no organic, 0 calorie, GMO free option. Well, look up, you're at Krispy Kreme, that's not what they do well (romance), but they have a ton of tasty things to eat that are all horrible for you (sex). And most of the other people in the line realize it, so why is it that you're suddenly surprised that this isn't a health food store?? It's so shocking to me that I still, years later, when I read stories of a "romantic A" still have trouble believing that the WS "thought they were in a health food store". I mean, come on, there are signs everywhere that tell you this "ain't health food!!". Sure, there's a 30 second commercial that comes on TV now and again that says "doughnuts are good for you" but everyone knows that's commercial is a farce. It's just hard for me to think that some people are so taken aback by the reality of an A. And, frankly, to complete the analogy, it's so hard for me to believe that I often feel lied to (both by my WW and by posters here). My WW saying "but I thought it was a health food store" with a smirk and a grin to justify to herself going in to buy what she really wanted under the cover of "oh, it was a mistake, I really wanted health food but wound up at Krispy Kreme). It's hard because I struggle to understand the level of "unreality" that a lot of WS's describe in their A; it feels like I'm the guy who doesn't get the joke. "Oh yeah, I'll tell him health food, wink, wink", kind of stuff.

This feeling is further compounded by sites like whisper where you see AP's confessing their "truth" that's a whole lot more believable to me than the truth my WW has given me. "I was bored and wanted to f**k someone new", a completely rational (if nearly impossibly self-centered and destructive) reason to enter an A. And often reported on sites like that. And that's the tip of the iceberg, they get far more graphic (and also, sadly, rational).

In summary, yes, I feel like people who are having a romantic A are bordering clinically delusional. I'm just not sure that everyone who reports a "romantic A" are, in fact, at all convinced that romance had anything at all to do with the reason they cheated. How many men would try to R from an A where the "reason" for the A given by the WW is "I just wanted to f**k someone new" or "He had a reputation for being great in bed"? That might explain why these answers are about unheard of here but rather common when you go the sites that are totally anonymous. I think that the likelyhood for a "reason" for an A is directly proportional to the likelyhood of the BS forgiving that particular type of A, at least in some cases. And I often wonder if I'm the butt of those jokes, is my wife on whisper saying "I convinced my H that my A was about love but really it was just the AP had a huge penis and it was so much better". Don't know. But it's hard not to wonder.

I can identify with the writings of the author. Thank you for sharing it. It does explain all the "crazy making" and fall out from the actions of those that are caught up in romantic infidelity and the quest for dopamine.

I’ve searched and read the entire article online. It’s worth reading if you didn’t do so yet. There are some forms of generalisation but on the whole it is a really good article.

And it doesn’t only describe my WH (and I’m sure many more) but it also describes his AP (single) who was a BW in her own marriage, told my WH after dday 1 that everybody abandons her and no man is willing to give up everything for her ( maybe try a single man) and once the affair was over proceeded to do her best to make me feel miserable and attack me.

There are women who, by nature romantics, don't quite want to escape their own life and die for love. Instead they'd rather have some guy wreck his life for them. These women have been so recently betrayed by unfaithful men that the wound is still raw and they are out for revenge. A woman who angrily pursues married men is a "spider woman"—she requires human sacrifice to restore her sense of power.

When she is sucking the blood from other people's marriages, she feels some relief from the pain of having her own marriage betrayed. She simply requires that a man love her enough to sacrifice his life for her. She may be particularly attracted to happy marriages, clearly envious of the woman whose husband is faithful and loving to her. Sometimes it isn't clear whether she wants to replace the happy wife or just make her miserable.

[This message edited by Luna10 at 6:30 AM, February 1st (Friday)]

Rideitout,

We often find ourselves at the opposite side of this equation because I have the same viewpoints as your wife.

I have seen you make this reference twice now:

This feeling is further compounded by sites like whisper where you see AP's confessing their "truth" that's a whole lot more believable to me than the truth my WW has given me. "I was bored and wanted to f**k someone new", a completely rational (if nearly impossibly self-centered and destructive) reason to enter an A. And often reported on sites like that. And that's the tip of the iceberg, they get far more graphic (and also, sadly, rational).

I am not familiar with the site, nor do I want to be. However, what I can most assuredly say here is the people on this site never "got it". And, I believe there are many people out there who cheat and will never get it and will likely offend again. I am squarely not in that category, and I can say that with a straight face and without a shadow of a doubt.

I think what you are not understanding is I didn't go to an A looking for love. I didn't go to an affair looking for sex either. And, you are correct the only thing that did happen without any doubt is the sex. No qualms with your argument there.

This sentence in the article was so true to me, that I cried when I read it. I read it over and over:

You do this, not when you meet somebody wonderful (wonderful people don't screw around with married people) but when you are going through a crisis in your own life, can't continue living your life, and aren't quite ready for suicide yet.

There is nothing truer that has ever been said. This was happening. I was having a personal crisis and I literally hated my life. I didn't know what to do about it. I just knew I could not live my life the way it had been going for a very long time. The affair started as first as a low key distraction. I was numb and it let me feel good again. Then, I grabbed onto it with both hands and closed my eyes to anything else. Part of the reason it was so hard to let go of the thoughts afterwards was because I couldn't bear to look at my life, my self. It was truly a low point that I can not even describe to you. I am not looking for sympathy here, obviously what it did to my husband was even worse.

You keep thinking we were looking for love. You know people who go out and look for sex. I believe that there are loads of people out there who cheat for sex. I would venture a guess that if you looked at a pie graph, a larger majority are male, but I believe some of them are female. Stop reading this site. These people are not anything like your wife. She is not motivated by sex and you know that at your core.

Everytime you say this:

I understand the desire to sleep with other people while your married. That, IMHO, is a very normal part of being human and something that we all have to overcome to be part of a monogamous married couple. But of course the drive is there (to sleep with other people)

I have a hard time relating to it. I know that is difficult to believe, after all I had an affair. But, this has never been a struggle for me. It became part of the affair, yes. But, I am not a person who ever ogled other men. I can say someone is attractive, by my mind wouldn't have gotten into having some sort of fantasy about it.

The affair in reality wasn't seeking love, it wasn't seeking sex. It was an escape from pain. I am clear as to the ways the pain came to be now. I know all the little tributaries that fed into that river I was drowning in. I know the warning signals now, I know how to manage it.

You like analogies so I will give you one:

People do not become an alcoholic the first time they drink. The ones who do are the ones who pick up the bottle to escape something. They learn they can drink and go to a place in their mind they can not without it. They minimize the dangers every time they pick up that bottle. For some period of time they succeed in self medicating with little repercussions but they keep going. The void is getting deeper and they keep upping the ante.

This to me is the epitome of what this kind of affair was like.

I think the hardest thing when it's a woman having the affair is that many men can not separate out how they view sex, or why they would cheat. I know I have said this a hundred times on here...I like sex. But, I could have sex anytime I wanted with my husband. And, I could have the best sexual experiences of my life with him and have. I think as a man you have not felt satiated by it, you are happy to have more. And, often that might be because your partner didn't give you as much as you want.

Do you think that was the case with your wife? No. You would have given her as much as she wanted. Same for me - my husband isn't any slouch and isn't going to turn down an invitation. So, there was no need for extra sex. I am not sure women have that evolutionary part of them that remains where we want to spread our seed or whatever it is you men think. So, it's not a hard leap to understand we often are very happy with monogamy.

Your wife was escaping pain. Maybe you will be able to get to a place with her if you begin to understand what that pain was, what caused it. I think this may help you to understand. I promise you I 100% do not have a reason to lie to you. There is no gain for me there.

Stop going to that site. I know there are lots of sites that are supportive of having affairs, I have been to one a few times. You quickly begin to understand that the reason that it exists and the reason people participate is because they want to feel better about what they are doing. They are likely narcissists, sex addicts, or people who have affairs and don't want to give up the highs. I don't think everyone who has an affair is like this, it doesn't sound like your wife is like this, so by going there all you are doing is feeding a belief that doesn't really exist in your relationship.

I am not familiar with the site, nor do I want to be. However, what I can most assuredly say here is the people on this site never "got it". And, I believe there are many people out there who cheat and will never get it and will likely offend again. I am squarely not in that category, and I can say that with a straight face and without a shadow of a doubt.

At the risk of drawing ire from the mods, that site is where you say things anon that you can't say anywhere else. And, of course, there's no verification of anything so all those "My AP is the best lover ever, I sleep with my H to keep him around and dream of my AP the whole time" messages could, 100% be posted by the male AP just trying to hurt the BH. No doubt some are. But, if I venture of out the "affair" section into other sections (like sex) I see a ton of "Whispers" that make me blush. Wow, yes, I thought/did that, and I'd NEVER tell anyone, but, hey, at least I'm not alone. I think the power of a site like that is that things you never thought anyone else thought/felt, well, there they are, plain as day. Those thoughts aren't that uncommon. So, when you see that (a confirmation in other whispers of deeply held things inside yourself), it lends a lot of credence to the idea that others who are using that site, well, they're not all lying. There has to be some truth to it, at least for some people.

And that's really the rub. Is my W (or you) in the "some people" category? I don't know, because if she was, she'd NEVER tell me. But, there are men out there (because I know them) who have said to me "That AP was the best sex/BJ/etc of my entire life". I sincerely doubt they are lying to me. But, to their BW, I know those words will NEVER be said. Ever. So there's at least some fraction of APs who feel this way, and, unfortunately, there's no good way to tell them apart. Is my wife fantasizing about the OM while we have sex? IDK. I think about him a lot when we have sex, I'll tell you that much (see, this site is a lot like Whisper in that respect, that's something I'd never say in public). Do I intellectually think she fantasizes about him? No, I don't. Do I know she doesn't? No, I don't. Are there some WS's who do fantasize about their AP's while with the BS's? Yes, there are, I know some personally. And that's the killer, because it does happen. Often, if my experience is to be believed, it's more common than not that the men I know continue to relive and fantasize about sex with their AP. I'd bet every dollar I have that my W's AP fantasizes about her. No question in my mind he does. So why wouldn't she do the same? And, as the same time, I'm pretty sure she doesn't. How's that for being all screwed up?

This was happening. I was having a personal crisis and I literally hated my life.

And this explains my wife well, at least as she tells it. But again, to the point above, there are at least some (probably a lot) of people who play this sob story (which can, and perhaps often is, true; just because it's a sob story doesn't mean it's fake) who are lying through their teeth. It's a great answer to "why", I was near death and just needed something to keep me going. Well, that sounds a whole lot better than "I just wanted to get my d**k wet" (sorry for the graphic terms, but that's up there with the "most common given answer" for why I've heard from men). Would they give that answer to their W's? I'm pretty sure that's a solid "NO!!". The answer they would give is "I felt unloved, I was just a wallet, I just didn't feel connected"... What's the truth? IDK. I really don't. But I can tell you, one sounds a whole lot more forgivable than the other.

I have a hard time relating to it. I know that is difficult to believe, after all I had an affair. But, this has never been a struggle for me. It became part of the affair, yes. But, I am not a person who ever ogled other men. I can say someone is attractive, by my mind wouldn't have gotten into having some sort of fantasy about it.

It becomes less difficult to believe the more I hear it repeated by so many WW's. And I do think that this is much more a male response than a female one, it's real easy for most men, IMHO, to think "man, it would be fun to sleep with her" and not go any further than that. Shoot, there are societies that don't allow women to show their faces because of this. I think that's a ridiculous response, yes, an attractive woman is going to trigger a reaction in men. But controlling that reaction is the goal, not never seeing a woman again. And limit interactions that can lead to sex, that's a reasonable (to me) response to this issue as well. But I think that this issue will very neatly break down on male/female lines. I read somewhere years ago that it takes a man about 1 second to figure out if he'd like to sleep with a woman or not and a woman about a year. That was a joke, but, like all good jokes, there's a significant element of truth in it. There's very little qualification necessary for a man to decide "Yes, I'd sleep with her" beyond her appearance. It's totally opposite for many women, character, personality, income, stability.. All those play a role in the "would I/wouldn't I" calculation.

People do not become an alcoholic the first time they drink. The ones who do are the ones who pick up the bottle to escape something. They learn they can drink and go to a place in their mind they can not without it. They minimize the dangers every time they pick up that bottle. For some period of time they succeed in self medicating with little repercussions but they keep going. The void is getting deeper and they keep upping the ante.

That's true, but I'll adjust it a bit. Yes, nobody picks up a drink thinking "I'm gonna be an alcoholic" because that's a negative outcome. That would be like getting into an A thinking "I'm gonna break my wife's life in half, get a D, lose half of everything I have, and wind up broke and alone". I'd venture that almost nobody does that either.

But, there are a lot of people (I was one of them) who would go to a bar and pick up a drink thinking "I'm gonna drink until I can't stand". They fully intend to get blind drunk, and have walked in the bar in pursuit of that goal. There is another group of people who go the bar and think "I'm gonna have one drink with my buddy and go home". Some subset of both groups (many more in the first) wind up blind drunk at the end of the night. How do you tell the groups apart? If both people got pulled over by the cops for DUI at the end of the night, both people would give the same story "I just came out with my friends, I had too much to drink, it was a mistake, I never drink this much" (and anything else they can think of to minimize the damage). One of those people is telling the truth, the other is spinning a complete lie. And the cops can't tell them apart, so they treat all as "drunks" and move on. When lying is near assured, and with a person of proven poor decision making ability, you just have to assume the worst. Sometimes you're wrong and you do lock up a soccer mom who would NEVER again drive drunk if you gave her a ride home and slap on the wrist and you send her life into a downward spiral that it never recovers from. Other times your right and you lock up a menace to society, someone who'd be driving drunk the next night and the night after until they killed someone. But there's almost no way to tell group 1 from group 2. And that, Hiking, in a lot of ways, is the problem that I feel I (and a lot of others) face. Looping it all the way back to the beginning, imagine if I'm the cop that let someone go and login to Whisper and see story after story about "I drink and drive all the time but give the cops a sob story and they keep letting me go. Drinking and driving is so much fun, YOLO!!". That's basically what lots of WS's say there and, of course, puts the same thought as the cop into my (and many other BS's I suspect) mind. Do I have the "one time offender" who's deeply remorseful or do I have the drunk who's laughing at me as she drives away that I was so stupid to believe her sob story. Compounded with knowing a lot of "sob story" drunks personally, it's a question that I'm not sure I'll ever answer fully.

[This message edited by Rideitout at 9:51 AM, February 1st (Friday)]

Rideitout -

It never ceases to amaze me that you talk all around what I am saying I say that lightly, it's fine, but I sometimes wonder if you intentionally try and dodge what I am telling you.

What you are saying about the alcohol thing doesn't have anything to do with what I am saying (the part when you are talking about going into a bar to drink until you can't stand). I don't even know how to recover my point from what you are saying. For most people alcoholism comes from a deep need to self medicate. Everyone has gone to a bar and said I am going to get drunk.

My point is the people who actually become alcholics truly are trying to medicate a deep pain. And they become that way gradually by numbing themselves over and over and over again. Most alcholics are people who are completely different people when they drink. Someone introverted is extraverted and the life of the party, someone who seems calm shows they have a lot of hidden rage.

What I am saying is that the dependence on it is equal to the amount of pain that they are trying to medicate. The affair for me was like that. I have been a pretty conservative wife, mother, and business woman. I have monogamous tendencies. In the affair, I acted like a whore, I played a different role, I was almost the opposite of myself.

I have read enough from you that I have come to the following conclusions of your wife:

1. She acted very out of character for her.

2. She had a husband very willing to do whatever she needed sexually and in greater quantities than she needed.

3. She was unhappy about something (you've said exit affair lots of times - exit to me means she was escaping something)

4. She is not motivated sexually.

5. She is way smarter than what she was demonstrating in the affair.

6. She tends to say a lot of the same things as I say. And, whether you know don't know if what I say is true, I believe that I am as honest on here as I can be.

7. She has stayed and tried to make amends, and seems remorseful.

So, let's get to some conclusions:

1. She wasn't really looking for more sex, she may have enjoyed the sex (I have never said I did not), BUT someone remorseful is not looking back with longing. I do not fantasize about the AP either, thinking about being with him makes me cringe. I do not think he was a good person. I do believe we used each other. There is nothing fond or happy or sexy about it.

2. She wasn't looking for love. She was looking for pain relief. She has independently told you this. She found something that worked, and now she looks back and thinks she had to have been insane. I hear it all over your posts, I am familiar with it because it's my life. Yet you keep coming here trying to make sense as to why someone would look for love in an affair. We don't. We look for relief, we hang onto the good feelings and because we have been numb for so long we grab onto it and label it as love. We ignore anything that doesn't fit in that narrative because we protect the escape as closely as we can.

I am not trying to talk you out of your pain, or try and get you to acceptance faster than you are ready to go there....but I do want to give you some things to think about and maybe talk with her about. Understanding our spouses internal world is keys to the kingdom. Also, if my husband ever finds his way to a site I am hoping it's not one like whispers that will feed his fears - I hope it's one that will help him to understand just how little my affair had to do with anything he did or didn't do, how well he made love to me, or anything else. And, probably his reactions might look like yours I don't know. I truly think he doesn't think it was about sex, that part of the puzzle just doesn't fit with what he knows. But, I wish he knew how on earth I confused the whole love thing in the mix.

I say some of that because remember, there was a point in time in our early days we had an open relationship. I was the one who wanted it closed, and as the topic has come up from time to time (though not in years and years now), I didn't want to open it. I still love being monogamous with him. I know, that really makes no sense whatsoever, but at the end of the day it's just true.

And, deep down the reason you kind of know that she doesn't fantasize about the AP is because she doesn't. Sex doesn't rate for her the same way it rates for you. I have seen you say countless times that it didn't make her life better it made it worse. I agree with that statement wholeheartedly because I live it. And, I know that you don't go back and look at the thing that made it worse and treasure it in any way. I can't be more truthful to you than that.

ETA - the part at the end about which spouse do you have....yes, I get that there is maybe no way to restore trust once it's broken. However, it does at least sound like you have come to some sort of understanding as you do seem to know she's not fantasizing about him.

[This message edited by hikingout at 10:15 AM, February 1st (Friday)]

I think many WW would be content with or prefer an EA but upped it to a PA in order to keep the contact going. They are addicted to the contact, not the sex. If they wanted sex, they could get that at home. Most men won't hang around without sex, that's what they are in it for. Otherwise, why risk it all?

I agree, people in As are either in great pain or they have turned off their feelings. Either way, it's an awful place to be. When the A ends, the feelings come crashing down. They have to lie to themselves to relieve the guilt or they turn off the ability to care about it. It's a desperate situation.

I dont think most people want to hurt or torture someone with their infidelity, they are addicted to the rush of feelings or feel a desperate need to feel wanted. They need love and support and their actions make it less likely that their spouse gives it to them after everything is revealed.

RIO, Sorry for the t/j, but I had to make an observation regarding whisper. It is primarily used by teens and people in their 20's. Half of the confessions on there about cheating are from people who put their books in lockers. Remember that there are no controls to be on the lookout for trolls and liars. Most of the "confessions" are fake and posted by catfishes. Most posters are looking for either random hookups, drug connections, or attention. Personally, I would not trust the veracity of a single post. End t/j.

1. She wasn't really looking for more sex, she may have enjoyed the sex (I have never said I did not), BUT someone remorseful is not looking back with longing. I do not fantasize about the AP either, thinking about being with him makes me cringe. I do not think he was a good person. I do believe we used each other. There is nothing fond or happy about it.

I don't disagree with you. And I have close to 0 doubt that you're telling the truth, you have little/no reason to lie to me. But, making it personal for a second, I would suspect your husband has less confidence than I do (if this bothers him, it may not) in your truthfulness. Why? Because you have tremendous incentive to lie to him and almost none to me. Because of the value that you put on your relationship with him, you're invested in protecting it. Now, of course, the right way to protect it isn't by building it on a foundation of lies, that I completely agree with. But, for at least some WS's, the "truth" is just unacceptable. Could a WH really tell his wife "I loved her so much more deeply than I ever did you" or a WW turn to her H and say "He was the best lover I've ever had" and expect to R? IMHO, no, they cannot, even if it's true, the truth is just completely unacceptable, so a lie must be said. I do NOT think you're lying. In fact, I don't think most WW's are lying (I have my doubts about WH's but that's because I hear the "whispers" from them), but SOME are. And that's the problem. When you know that someone has every incentive to lie and none to tell the truth, well.. That means you're probably going to be lied to a lot.

2. She wasn't looking for love. She was looking for pain relief. She has independently told you this. She found something that worked, and now she looks back and thinks she had to have been insane. I hear it all over your posts, I am familiar with it because it's my life. Yet you keep coming here trying to make sense as to why someone would look for love in an affair. We don't. We look for relief, we hang onto the good feelings and because we have been numb for so long we grab onto it and label it as love. We ignore anything that doesn't fit in that narrative because we protect the escape as closely as we can.

I agree, certainly for you and my WW. But she thought it was love. And that's the part where the analogies start to flow like water for me because that makes no sense. If I told you I drank because I wanted to blackout and forget the war, well.. You might not think that's a good idea (it's not), but it would make sense to you. If I told you I drank because I wanted to get 6 pack abs.. Well, you'd probably look at me a little funny.. In almost no cases are drinking and 6 pack abs in any way related, much like love and A's have very little relation. So, yes, I do think that she was after pain relief (drinking), but the decided that her drinking was likely to indicate a set of 6 pack abs (love) was on the way.

I truly think he doesn't think it was about sex, that part of the puzzle just doesn't fit with what he knows. But, I wish he knew how on earth I confused the whole love thing in the mix.

This captures it for me extremely well. No, I really don't think that's what it was for my W. No, I don't think she fantasizes about him. But I have no idea how she "confused the whole love thing in the mix". It offends my rational mind to think that's the "real answer" and I struggle with it (as you well know) daily. And that struggle isn't made easier by her actions during the A (wasn't about sex, but, take that out, and they barely were ever in the same room together), whipsers (which prove that some WW are very much about the sex, enjoy much more than with their H's, and then laugh about it with their friends), or the WH's that I know (where it is very much about the sex and who often continue to discuss and reminisce on that sex long after the A ends). It's hard to set logic aside for me (as you probably know!), and applying Occam's Razor to my W's A leads to a very straightforward conclusion. I do believe that conclusion is wrong, but it's very hard to overcome the "evidence" that points elsewhere. The thing that helps a ton is when people like you come on and really explore what you did and why and show that the reductive approach simply doesn't work in all A's, even though it's entirely correct in others.

Looping it all back, "Romantic Infidelity" is, in most cases, an oxymoron. There's almost nothing romantic about an A either during or most certainly after. And it makes me so sad that many people fall into a trap of their own making by not taking a reductive approach to the "why" question. Why is this guy (who knows I'm married, and, most certainly so if he's also married) pursing me? Well.. What's the simplest possible explanation? Here's a clue, it's got nothing to do with his long suffering wife, his lack of emotional connection to the world, his missed love options, or any of the other stories that WS's love to tell each other and themselves. But, reversing that, when a woman agrees to an A, the same technique fails. It's just more complicated, and that complication, at least to me, doesn't make a lot of sense. Perhaps because, as I continue to learn, precisely because it does not make sense.

I think many WW would be content with or prefer an EA but upped it to a PA in order to keep the contact going. They are addicted to the contact, not the sex. If they wanted sex, they could get that at home. Most men won't hang around without sex, that's what they are in it for. Otherwise, why risk it all?

I think your spot on correct. However, spin it around for a minute. If you know your AP won't hang around without sex (which is almost certain to be true), what is the value of the "EA" (in quotes because what value do emotions faked for sex have)? I've often suggested on other sites to WW's who are struggling with "does the AP love me/want to marry me" that there's a very simple test to apply. "No/no more sex until you leave your BW". The truth will be revealed shortly in nearly all A's, IMHO, so long as the male AP believe you really mean it.

So yes, I agree, as a man, why risk it all for someone to tell me I'm great (an EA)? But, for a woman, wouldn't the same apply?

I hate the nomenclature. I think downward spiral infidelity Is a better description but this also hits every point of my husband’s affair.

Partner not as good as spouse check

Wayward in crisis knew he was an alcoholic and couldn’t stop check

Nothing wrong with the marriage besides the wayward’s issues check

The saner and more adjusted the spouse the more alienated the wayward. As his alcoholism got worse, I almost felt like I was superhuman in terms of pulling off giving my kids stability (now I know that was not going to be sustainable and eventually I would have collapsed under the pressure but at that point I would say I was powering through on adrenaline) double check

And honestly this is sort of helpful since a great deal of my pain is his choice in affair partner being so drastically different than who I am as a person making me feel like I must be lacking so much that this person seemed like a good alternative. Based on this description from 25 years ago, this clearly is a subset of infidelity that exists. I somehow feel less alone.

I don't disagree with you. And I have close to 0 doubt that you're telling the truth, you have little/no reason to lie to me. But, making it personal for a second, I would suspect your husband has less confidence than I do (if this bothers him, it may not) in your truthfulness. Why? Because you have tremendous incentive to lie to him and almost none to me. Because of the value that you put on your relationship with him, you're invested in protecting it. Now, of course, the right way to protect it isn't by building it on a foundation of lies, that I completely agree with. But, for at least some WS's, the "truth" is just unacceptable.

Yes, it's not lost on me why it would be harder for you to believe your wife, or my husband to believe me. The trust is broken and we've done something that our husband never saw coming. We became people they didn't know. So, yes....some of what I said in these posts is because lately you have mentioned "your wife and posters here". I get that it's hard to know what's true and what isn't, but it seems we agree on more than we don't.

The sticking point for my husband was and is the belief I loved the person. And, I can tell you I 90% believed it at the time. Some things didn't add up for me, but I could not come to a different conclusion.

As I have learned more about what happens, and a lot of what this article illustrates is that it was a good feeling that was sparked in a whole lot of bad. I wasn't suicidal, BUT I was in enough pain that if I had a smidge of idealizations of that - it is what WOULD have happened. So, imagine for a moment a pain that deep, and then a spark of good feelings enters. I honed in on that. Wanted to replicate it. After a while, you've made the pain worse because just like alcohol it's not healthy or good -so the clinging is stronger until it seems like that particular thing is the best thing in your life, the only thing that makes you happy. You are willing to ignore any evidence of the contrary because you really are that desperate. Affairs are addictive for that reason. You will justify every single thing if you can just continue to feel it. You will ignore a whole lot. And, the interactions feel like the only source of dopamine to be found.

I like that the article talks compares it to temporary insanity. I have come close to using those words before...but don't because at the same time I know that these were all decisions. It makes it sound like a mistake, or takes responsibility from the person who executes them. It also eliminates the need to look within yourself and figure out how things became that way. I know mine inside and out now. But, when I look back at how much illogical bullshit went on, I am at a loss to tell you how those things came to be. It takes a very narrow focus, a lot of denial, a lot of projection and seeing what you want to see. That's the only reason the insanity thing resonates to me, I look at that period of my life and sometimes actually wonder if I had a mental breakdown of some sort. Again, I don't blame or justify, and I have spent time tracking down everything...but literally it was batshit crazy.

The AP was completely inappropriate for me - much older, and many other things that I won't sit and name. I would have been changing his depends and looking at nursing homes in a couple of years let's put it that way. So this article resonates on so many levels it's just not even funny. I remember seeing the first shirtless pic that he sent me and asking myself if it was the keeper of the crypt? But at the same time, kept with the mantra that I was attracted to him? Seriously, I could tell you a lot of these types of things and they literally make no sense.

My husband knows all this, and I think like you he still tries to sift through it and it's so hard to make sense of things that make no sense.

[This message edited by hikingout at 11:26 AM, February 1st (Friday)]

Hey RIO & HO,

Your posts are definitely some of my favorites on SI. I appreciate the thought and candor you both bring to the discussions here. The two of you also reflect my internal dichotomy as it relates to the infidelity I have experienced as a BS. Thank you for sharing.

HO, I can relate to your descriptions of the wayward mindset. My wife's infidelities were motivated entirely by a desire to feel that she was attractive and desired. That was her escape from an early age. Thanks FOO! Her EAs were entirely romantic in her own mind. The fact that she had one-sided EAs that consisted of fantasizing about men in a romantic way helps me understand this dynamic. She wasn't looking for romance per se, she was looking for romance as an indication that she was attractive and desired. It was truly pathological. She was incapable of mature love because she couldn't get past her own desperate need to feel desired. I believe that in many cases this is the "romance" that wayward spouses find themselves wrapped up in.

I understand this intellectually, but the little voice inside of me asks, "wasn't her marrying you just another manifestation of this pathological behavior?" If she was broken before we met, why would I ever believe there was anything special about her choosing to marry me? Her criteria for love/romance was how it made her feel. Who am I but the person that was available when it was time to get married? I think this is what haunts me the most.

RIO, I understand your thoughts about the imbecility of looking for romance in an extra-marital affair. It is completely foreign thinking to me as well. But the truth may be that your wife was like my wife (throughout her life) & HO (during her affair). They weren't looking for love/romance, they were looking for attention that was proof they were desirable. My love and attention was never good enough because she already had me. I was supposed to love her, so there were no ego-kibbles to be found there. It is entirely selfish. Not in a rational way, but in a pathological way.

Sex is just part of the equation. First of all, it's a natural progression for mature people in a romantic relationship. If you are already a person who needs outside validation as a measure of your self-worth, and that validation comes from being desired by a potential sex partner, you are setting yourself up for a sexual encounter. I'm certain that there are those who seek validation and out of a sense of loyalty refuse to take that final step, but I'm not sure how common that is. My wife didn't have physical sex with anyone else, but she would have. She did jump into sex chatting quickly, however. It was "exciting" and "fun." It is also very erotic, which we humans seem to be hardwired to enjoy.

I agree with Pittman's quote in the original post that romantic infidelity is a kind of insanity. How temporary that insanity is varies. My wife's began in adolescence. It seems Hikingout's was a one-time episode. Hikingout was able to identify her pathological behavior rather quickly, whereas it took my wife years to come to terms with hers.

I think we BSs put a lot of effort into understanding all of this logically at a granular level. We can come to understand the big picture stuff like I have described above, but the day-to-day actions of an affair seem to be driven by the insanity Pittman is referring to. We can witness a mentally unbalanced person on the street talking to themselves or shouting at passersby and understand they are not mentally healthy. We don't think about why are they on this street, why are they saying that particular thing, why did they wear those shoes, etc. We understand they are not operating by any logic we recognize.

This "insanity" does not excuse the infidelity if they were capable of understanding right and wrong, which my wife and HO obviously were. It just helps me to understand that I cannot understand at a logical level all aspects of affair behavior.