SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So I watched the video after reading this thread. I thought she was right about somethings, I didn’t hate it BUT if my WH had sent that I would be worrying. There is definitely an element of ‘woe is the WS’, it definitely feeds into the pity party that isn’t true remorse. If I was watching it as a WS I’d be thinking hooray, here’s my get out clause. And look whoopee we can create a better marriage, see I did us both a massive favour by f’ing that woman at work, that neighbour, the contractor. Aren’t I a good wayward?!

I am of the ilk that believes a WS has to be broken in some way to have an affair. And she spoke of them having a ‘void’ but it being that the marriage couldn’t provide all the poor wayward ‘needed’. I call absolute bull on that. In all the cases on here the betrayed was in the same marriage as the idiot who decided breaking their world and the world of their family was an ok price to pay for their ‘void filling’.

Bbygrl listen to the experienced SI members on here, you’ve had some advice from people who really know their stuff, these people have seen countless ‘unicorn remorseful spouses’ and they’re right to shout ‘be wary’. Im sorry to say it does sound as if you are rugsweeping. ETA there is a growing amount of evidence in neuro-science that once you start lying and deceiving you literally build pathways making both easier and switch off the empathic part of your brain. Your WH conducted his affair for a long time from what I can gather. Re-wiring his brain will take him a huge amount of work. Not just leaving his phone open or cuddling you when you’re blue. A cheaters brain does not return to healthy straight away. He has played a part for months to conduct his affair, be careful he’s not playing a new part now,

[This message edited by Dragonfly123 at 1:43 AM, February 23rd (Saturday)]

Some people get cancer, survive it, and go on to live lives that are more fulfilling. The experience makes some people value their days more, and seek different, more meaningful lives.

For others who get cancer, it’s not the case. Their lives were already very good/meaningful, and the brush with death takes away a security that had been taken for granted.’life never feels safe again.

EP is not wrong that some marriages improve after an affair. Many others never recover.

The point is, you don’t start smoking so that your life changes for the better.

Framing it that way makes no sense.

Not an EP fan. Nobody forces people to marry. If they plan to lie to the other to have an affair, they should not get married. Marriage is about monogamy, not about being monogamous until you don't want to be. If you can't be monogamous, then don't get married or get divorced.

My XWH also sent me a link to that video when we were trying to “R”. His therapist had sent it to him, I’m assuming because he was feeling so “bad about himself“. I watched it over and over and over again. It actually gave me hope at the time because if I could take some responsibility for what he did, I could fix it. He wasn’t a “bad guy“. This wasn’t a “character issue“. This was a “growth opportunity“ for him to become all he could be.

But he never stop lying, he never stop cheating. He still goes to the same IC. I recently asked him what it was he was working on. He said “just his guilt.” I said, “I wonder if you had tried to repair any of the damage you did, if you would feel less guilty.” He said “maybe?“.

I think his IC has replaced his AP as the person who tries to make him feel better about himself. He’s such a sad sausage. He’s not actually trying to become a better person or figure out why he did this. He’s just trying to figure out how to feel less guilty about it . Why? Maybe because he bought into EP’s BS.

Bbygrl I hope your WH is different, I hope he’s the unicorn. But just in case, guard your heart.

[This message edited by lettingo at 1:31 PM, February 23rd (Saturday)]

The bottom line is we love each other. It took something heinous to wake up our passion. We are getting pretty solid. Our MC says the revelations we have come to so far take some couples years to get to.

My timeline isn't the same as anybody else's. We are braced for a possible meltdown. I could lose my shit tomorrow. He could lose his shit tomorrow. And that's okay as long as we're honest about why we're upset.

Don't insinuate that our process isn't valid because it doesn't go by a book. We're outliers. We have never moved in orthodox fashion through any life event.

I appreciate your concern but I think we are doing great so far. Maybe that first huge fight we have down the line will be the tester. We may never have one of those. Who's to say? The future is unknown. I'm glad the love of my life still loves me no matter how hard we've pushed each other away. Healing us and making us solid is more important and powerful than our egos.

We all understand your urgency to make sense of his infidelity and to see some underlying purpose and promise.

Perhaps you truly have already dealt with the devastation that his cheating wrought.

But let me gently suggest that you do your best to pace yourself. Everyone here wants you to experience that happy outcome you desire but please remember, this is some powerfully damaging shit.

I’ve read her books, actually twice, because the first time I was so livid, I assumed that I must have missed something. She (IMO) completely glosses over the trauma of the betrayal and talks too much about the “next marriage “. After the second read, I was firmly in the “no way, no how”. She does have some nuggets of wisdom in her podcasts, like “where did you learn to live on crumbs”, which has stayed with me, but for the most part, I feel her attitude is along the lines, it is done, let’s move on.

I didn’t hear/read anything that addresses the trauma to the betrayed partner and the injury to the relationship.

We're outliers. We have never moved in orthodox fashion through any life event.

I truly mean no offense, but it's better not to think like this.

The "life event" you are facing could hardly be more typical. Your H behaved like a typical cheater, did all the typical things. You had (or are having) a phase of closeness and bonding, which is typical.

That it was "typical" was something I resented at the time I went through it. I couldn't believe he had turned our lives into this cheap, poorly written soap opera. He did all the things cheaters do, he made all the same mistakes. I did all the things betrayed spouses do, had all the same thoughts, had all the dramatic feelings.

It's painful, but in the end better, to give up this narrative of being different. Let yourself feel the pain in all its messiness, listen to people who have been there, it's an extremely well-trodden path, and it's there for a reason. There's no benefit to being different. If you think you are different, you will think your H is different, and you will not require what you should require of him in order to prevent this from happening again.

Sure, some people get cancer, recover, and have a new perspective on life. However, whole lot of people get cancer and die.

The only thing I agree with is the ending. “Your marriage is over.” Whether you want to remarry the cheater is a great question. In my case, I would never remarry my WW. She has proven to my satisfaction she is never going to change.

I'm a little more Esther Perel-y than most here on SI.

My husband described her succinctly: she's an idealist.

Another SI poster said that she makes interesting observations but dysfunctional conclusions. She doesn't end up in a healthy place with her conclusions.

I'm somewhere in between on that re: Perel's observations vs. her conclusions. I find her to be a realist in terms of observations and an idealist in terms of conclusions and solutions.

I have read both of her books, listened to her TED talks (I think there are two?) and listened to her podcasts, "Where Shall We Begin?" on Audible.

I do not think she is blaming of nor unsympathetic toward the betrayed spouse.

I do think she has a tendency to look for problems in the relationship that lead to infidelity. Does she do this to the exclusion of looking for problems in the WS? I don't know. I don't have a large enough sampling of her clinical work.

Cheating is a character issue and an unhealthy response to problems in the marriage. No one is to blame for infidelity except for the person that commits it. I am of the belief, however, that marriages can be unhealthy and can incubate and exacerbate character issues- problems in the marriage may not be the "cause" of infidelity but the marriage can sure act as a hot house for growing those problems.

One of her premises that resonates with me (I hope I am attributing this to Perel correctly) is that people are individuals, with individual tastes, interests, proclivities. Trying to eradicate individuality, all independence and free will, and all things/activities/interests/preferences on which the couple does not agree will suffocate the marriage. I agree with Perel here.

Hence the answer to one spouse wanting sexual variety when the other spouse does not may be to open the marriage, or the occasional swinging, or similar. (She used this example in one of her books.)

This is, IMHO, is but one example where Perel's idealism drives what I consider to be unrealistic conclusions. The answer to serial cheating is swinging?

a. Swinging must be mutually desired and mutually agreed upon, not forced in an attempt to keep a WS at home. Swinging is a highly demanding dynamic to put on a healthy couple, never mind a couple struggling with trust issues and damage. Yeah, add swinging to infidelity, see how that works out for ya.

b. This kind of glib interpretation of infidelity as being solely about more sex, or sexual variety, makes me give Perel the side eye. Personally I think infidelity is far more about control, power, ego, "you're not the boss of me" attitudes. Guaran-damn-tee you that a serial cheater is just as likely to cheat (have outside sex without the partner's consent, outside of their agreed upon parameters) in an open marriage as they are to cheat in a traditional marriage.

In fact, I've seen it happen.

I will say that I agree with Perel on this point: people are who they are, they like what they like. You won't "marriage vow" anyone out of preferences and proclivities. If you want to stay married, try to find some mutually acceptable way to satisfy, accommodate desires, preferences, interests, etc. You'll never "law and order" those ideations away.

If you can't accommodate the other person's preferences, etc., just split up, IMHO.

Anyway, I find it perfectly acceptable to me to take what is useful from Esther Perel and leave the rest.

P.S. Perel has never once impressed me as a WW. If anything, I've wondered if she was a BW herself.

[This message edited by marriageredux959 at 11:16 PM, February 23rd (Saturday)]

My only experience listening to Perel is this Ted Talk. I listened to it about 3 or 4 weeks after DDay, and I just listened to it now, almost 6 months later (holy shit has it really been that long!? it feels like yesterday...). Each time I've been in a completely different emotional state, facing completely different life circumstances.

The first time I saw this, I felt the same way as everyone saying she comes from a sort of "cheater apologist" place. I wanted to know why my wife cheated on me, and with whom, and for how long, and why she didn't want to work things out; I didn't want to hear somebody intellectualize my wife's emotional journey to "find herself". Plus, I can't lie, the reconciliation talk made me nauseous back then because I wasn't given that opportunity--I used to envy people stuck in shitty limbo just because they didn't yet have to accept that their spouse was gone forever. I didn't get repulsed by Perel, but the talk definitely didn't sit well with me. When you're that early in the process, you want to be reminded that your cheating spouse is a piece of shit. They certainly made YOU feel like a lowly piece of shit and it's hard to shift some of that back onto them when you're still in love to some degree and your self esteem's lying somewhere out back with two holes in its head.

This time though? I wasn't bothered. I get it now. She focuses explicitly on the cheater and their mental machinations leading them to cheat and doesn't mention anything about the betrayed. She points out that affairs are the most natural thing for human beings to do and always have been. She doesn't make any moral judgments on cheater behavior. That air of "cheater apologist" feels more like scientific detachment, like someone watching person A stab person B but focusing more on person A's motivations rather than on person B's resulting agony. I can see why this didn't fully jive with me back then. This time, I didn't find any issues with what she said. It's not her job to morally judge cheaters, that's on the betrayed spouse. If someone wants to keep sharing a home with the person who devastated them so severely, that's on them. It's Perel's job to facilitate some kind of happy outcome, I guess.

Plus Perel's right that lots of people cheat. Fucking BOAT LOADS of people cheat, as I've learned in the aftermath both in online support groups and in my outside life. It's kind of insane how many people cheat. And that's just the people who admit it! I'd bet the farm that there's a significant number of secret mad hatters who come to these support groups or even just walk among us. How many people who complain about their cheating exes were themselves cheaters but they just got away with it? I've discovered two such people who were fucked up by their cheating spouse but who eventually admitted to me, "Well, I cheated a long time ago, but..." and proceeded to justify why their own cheating behavior wasn't as bad. I wonder how many of us betrayed will now become cheaters since our view on the sanctity of marriage has been irrevocably destroyed?

I listened to it and when she explained how the WS was seeking something they were lacking, I could see that in my XWH. But the difference between him and me is I looked to him and wanted us to fix that emptiness together. So while I got what she was saying, I don't agree that it's a valid way of solving one's problems when the solution affects more than just ourselves.

But when she said the BS isn't always the one who's been the victim of the marriage, I decided her talks aren't for me. While I admit that my marriage was suffering, I will always hold to the belief that the spouses should work together to figure out if it can be fixed. I will never subscribe to the notion that not giving 2 weeks notice is a moral and ethical way to do it.

AND, the biggest thing she doesn't address, at least in this talk, is how the WS is drawing away from the BS, having fun while the BS is home, sad and lonely. And then when the BS isn't all cheerful when the WS walks back in the door, the WS decides the BS is boring and no fun anymore and is killing the passion and the love and that can go on for weeks or months and by the time the BS figures out what's going on, the WS has little feeling left for the BS.

Nope, I can't buy into her logic at all.

[This message edited by josiep at 5:27 PM, February 27th (Wednesday)]

So if it’s not about the BS then why does almost every CS blame the BS?

As in - you didn’t seem to love me anymore or you didn’t support me or “we” haven’t been happy for a long time.

Well all that was news to me.

And if I am being dumped by my H for the OW - I fail to see how it’s not about me.

I didn’t make my H cheat - he did that on his own. But he certainly factored ME into having an Affair. I think possibly with serial cheaters it is different - but not in my case.