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He told me that he had no expectation of sex when he invited her over for dinner, even after all the sexting. Sex was not his intention. He cooked. They ate. He sat down on the bed. She sat next to him. Next thing he knew, they were kissing and she was sucking his dick. Oh, my! How did that happen?

Ouch. This is exactly what my WH said, except she invited him round and made him dinner. Still ended up with her giving him a bj and him going back a week later with a box of condoms, which they used two a night, once every week, for the next six weeks or so. He said he let it go too far... N alternative to the it just happened excuse. It's truly pathetic. His excuse was that I wasn't happy with him being away so much. I wonder why.

Funny that all the while I was starved for attention because HE had chosen a job which took him away, , and could have acted on it if I so chose, I never fell into the arms of another. I really don't u understand that reasoning. Did he thing she would be happy with him being away 90% of the time too? Fucking ridiculous.

[This message edited by Justgetitoverwith at 6:52 PM, June 19th (Wednesday)]

You could have described me the same way Captain. In terms of being attention starved and not led by a strong man. I felt very alone. The difference is that I still turned men down flat with no hesitation because Of my own integrity and relationship with God and my view of M. My H on the other hand has the attention of several women. It was the opposite as I was cast aside. So, I don’t know how I feel about that. It was the same dynamic but I was the BS and he the cheater.

Zug is very honest ok here and I appreciate that. My H was similar. He never has enough praise and adoration. It didn’t matter how much he had. It was a deficit within himself

[This message edited by Jesusismyanchor at 1:55 AM, June 20th (Thursday)]

JIMA

I could have repeated what you said word for word. I had been ignored, starved emotionally and sexually for years and I dealt with his ED problems and I did not cheat. But he’s a Leo and he’s got to be the center of attention and everything has got to be about him.

I think it’s a character flaw in cheaters. I have to much integrity and worth value to stoop that low.

He never has enough praise and adoration. It didn’t matter how much he had. It was a deficit within himself

This!

I know that as a BS, we see the scars of infidelity everywhere. We can read it on faces and hear it in voices. But I think the "opportunities" are seen a little more clearly as well.

The truth. It is a “gift” of being a BS that you know things and see things you didn’t before, if you open to it.

I respectfully disagree with anyone that thinks it’s to be expected that a lonely spouse will be a wayward...that’s 100% blameshifting and is always unacceptable, period.

If you move off of loaded terms like expected and blame, it is just a cold, hard, fact that you take a group of women and subject them to a lot more loneliness, a greater percentage will have A’s. Not all of them. Some would have anyway, some would never, but there’s a bunch that wouldn’t otherwise.

I watched this for thirty years in the military, with units going on deployment, leaving spouses behind.

Marriages are never open or vulnerable to an affair.

The military learned that marriages are in fact vulnerable due to deployments, and has offered specific fix counseling to help couples understand the risks, and take actions to be on guard. The specwar community in particular, with its crazy optempo.

My point was about the people, not the marriage. People are vulnerable when they have crappy boundaries or when they respond in one way or another. Temptation is real and the way to combat that temptation (in regards to any activity that could be harmful) is to make a decision that leads away from the path of destruction.

I get what you are saying here and you put ownership where it belongs.

These following statements do not. They blameshift onto the spouse/marriages where the blame does not go. These statements suggest that if the spouse does not ignore the WS, then they will not be vulnerable (still BS) to choosing to hurt other people.

Not because they are weak and seeking it from outside their marriage, but because they are attention starved inside their marriage.

Uh. no. This blames the marriage.

Men, if you do not give the woman, you say you love, the attention, emotional connection, physical attention, and support she needs then don't be sooo surprised if she looks for it somewhere else.

Uh. no. She still had a choice and she didn't choose to cheat because of her spouse. She chose to cheat because she chose to stay in a shitty marriage thus lacking self respect. Still on her.

What I was suggesting was that a woman, who is ignored by her husband, stands more of a chance of looking for affection somewhere else than a woman who gets that attention from her husband.

Still married. Still putting blame on a marriage.

It is not a spouses job to make sure their spouse stays on the straight and narrow through giving them the perfect marriage. Not to mention there is no such thing. People who cheat and had shitty marriages already had the character to cheat because they stayed in a shitty marriage and didn't require a better situation to begin with. That boils down to self respect.

What I was suggesting was that a woman, who is ignored by her husband, stands more of a chance of looking for affection somewhere else than a woman who gets that attention from her husband.

Still married. Still putting blame on a marriage.

Leaving out arguments in blame (of course the cheater is responsible) it is also an easily verifiable statistical fact. You can see it every day. Captain Rogers saw it.

These following statements do not. They blameshift onto the spouse/marriages where the blame does not go. These statements suggest that if the spouse does not ignore the WS, then they will not be vulnerable (still BS) to choosing to hurt other people.

I know we (not specifically you and I, but lots of us) disagree on these points, but I can't hold myself out as "blameless" for what happened in my marriage. It's just a fact, in my eyes, that there are things that can make an A less likely, and things that can make an A more likely. Deployed for 6 months behind enemy lines while your wife is at home alone? Well, yes, that's much more likely to result in an affair than the husband who's home every night at 6 for dinner and to put the kids to bed. I'm not arguing it's "right", but it's reality. Travel a lot for work? Increases your chances. Drink too much? Too heavy? Don't pay attention to your H/W? All things that increase your chances. It leaves the other person more open to the possibility of having an A, right, wrong, otherwise, it just does. The best analogy I can think of, you take a broke person with no cash who's starving to death and put him in the middle of grocery store, well, that person has a MUCH higher chance than a randomly selected person of stealing something from that store. Yes, it's still their fault, and yes, they deserve to be punished, but, at the same time, saying that person is "as likely" to steal as the person walking through with a Gucci handbag holding their black card is simply burying your head in the sand.

Frankly, if there is "nothing you can do" to reduce the chances of cheating in your spouse, that feels horribly defeatist and "random walk" to me. Why not marry a rock star then? Or some who's cheated on their past 9 husbands? I mean, we can say "we all have an equal chance of it" but.. We really don't. Very attractive people have more opportunity. Women have vastly more offers. And so on. But if it's all just a random walk, there's no "good way" to protect yourself from infidelity. My wife is as likely to cheat today as she was the day she cheated. And I don't believe that. I think I've taken actions that make it less likely to happen again, things I've done to help improve our relationship (as she has). Things that help insulate me from an A. Perfect, no. Does it change the odds? I think it takes an active denial of reality to claim otherwise.

I often come back to the analogy of wearing a seatbelt when discussing this. Are seatbelt's going to stop all death in cars? No, not at all. But, does it stop a lot of them? Yes, it does. And to continue this analogy, before the A, I was tooling around at 50MPH with 4 bald tires and no seatbelt. I wasn't taking the care that I should have with my M. And I got into a terrible accident when some idiot drifted into my lane. The accident was CLEARLY not my fault. But the damage from that accident didn't need to be as severe as it was. If I had a seatbelt on, I wouldn't need years of reconstructive surgery. And if I'd had good tires, I probably could have stopped fast enough to prevent the accident entirely.

So, today, I make sure I have my 5 point harness on and brand new tires with all the safety features in my new car. Which is something that I should have done before, but I just thought "it won't be me" as I tooled around town. It shouldn't have been me. I'm a good driver, and I wasn't doing anything wrong. But the severity of those injuries, well.. While the accident wasn't my fault, I certainly did have control over that part of it.

There are some people who are going to cheat no matter what. Sex 8 times a day with every kink you can imagine, still seeing prostitutes. Husband does the dishes, validates you non-stop, is supportive, brings home great money, still sleeping with gardener. There are cases like this, I've read about them here. Those aren't mine. I know I could have done better. It only takes about 10 seconds to look back on my pre-A marriage and think "wow, that was a stupid thing to say/do" and "that probably really pushed her away/hurt her". If I'd not done those things, would she have still had an A? I don't know. But I do know, at the margins, it matters. If there's a spectrum of cheaters from "will cheat every chance they get" to "will only cheat if their husband is in a coma and will never wake up and need someone to comfort them" which I believe there is then the question becomes, am I married to someone who's in the first category or the 2nd. My WW is closer to the 2nd. Most of my male friends are closer to the first. But thinking that "nothing I do matters" just.. Well, it doesn't work for me.

Leaving out arguments in blame (of course the cheater is responsible) it is also an easily verifiable statistical fact. You can see it every day. Captain Rogers saw it.

Of course it is (both easily verifiable and also a statistical fact). Our actions matter, BS or not. Teat your spouse like s**t, well, guess what? It increases the likely hood of both an A and D. Treat them great, decreases both. Away for work 6 months at a time? Same story. We can not want this to be the case, but, if our actions don't matter, well, that's about the saddest thing I've ever heard. "Just pray on it" would be my advice if we really can't impact the outcome at all, but I DO NOT feel that my M, or really any M, falls into this category at all. There are a lot of things we can do to make it better, and, for some people, that will be enough to keep them from cheating. I'll never get on board with this "blameless" BS (even though it would be nice for me to believe that personally) or, more correctly, the "totally powerless BS". Bulls**t. I shouldn't have been subject to this, and I certainly didn't deserve it, but I did have the power to change it (pre-A). And I have the power to change it today (and feel that I have) post-A.

[This message edited by Rideitout at 10:36 AM, June 20th (Thursday)]

I agree with RIO on this. A BH, who thinks he was a great husband and their M was perfect, probably wasn’t. Same goes for the BW, who thought she was an awesome wife, probably wasn’t. Would self improvement, having more conversations, doing more chores, having more and better sex have been the game changer? We’ll never know. In some cases, it might have. Hell, in some cases, all it would have taken was a meaningful conversation or two. In other cases, nothing could have been done to head off the A. I’m not blame-shifting here, just pointing out that everyone has a role to play in a relationship, both pre and post affair.

Everyone has a role in the relationship, that is true. What isn't true is that anyone other than oneself is responsible for the choices you make. Sure, my FWH was vulnerable to have an affair because he had poor coping skills, was unhappy, needed constant external validation, felt I didn't love him, and we had other issues in our marriage.

We did the quizzes in the book "Not Just Friends" by Dr. Shirley Glass. The quiz about who was "vulnerable" to have an affair. Guess who scored the higher score? Me. Yet, I didn't have an affair. And, I didn't have an affair because I had better coping skills and boundaries. I also don't need constant external validation from random people and have good self esteem. Which bugged the shit out of FWH. Whilst he was having his affair (of course, unbeknownst to me) he would look at me and say, with a sneer voi "You really think you are something, don't you?" And, I would either actually verbalize it or respond in my head "Yes, I do. I am something and I like who I am."

Puhleeze, oftentimes so called "attention starved" spouses are starved because of their own behaviours. And, I was attention starved. Now, my husband would fuck me every day and twice or three times if I wanted him to. But, that isn't the attention I craved. He didn't give me the attention I craved. What came first, the chicken or the egg? I didn't give my FWH the attention he craved because, first of all, there wasn't enough attention in the world I could give him that would satisfy his hole in himself and second, because he wasn't attentive to me I had no fucks to give about what he wanted or needed. (Which was to be fucked at least once a day, two or three times would be even better.) I mean, I am not going to fuck a man who totally ignores me otherwise. Sorry.

It doesn't matter if you are the loneliest married person on earth, you still are responsible for your choice. I think of a famous man. A POW during the Viet Nam war/conflict. I bet his wife was lonely. But, hey, lets have an affair. (I don't think she did, I am just using him as an example of a husband not giving attention to his wife.) So, the attention starved wife being preyed upon by some predator is a reality. And, those attention starved wives can be vulnerable. However, it is up to them to keep a close check on their boundaries and to actively change their situations so they aren't in a lonely marriage. That doesn't mean going out and hugging strange men and possibly hoping it would lead to more.

ETA: I looked at our old books and scores. We actually scored both very low on the individual vulnerability. Both scored as "safe" partners. But, this was at least 10 months post d-day, so FWH learned in that time. Where we both scored very differently is how we viewed our marriage relationship. He viewed/scored it as slightly "choppy". I viewed/scored as very "rough seas". Dr. Glass was using the sea/ocean as measuring guide. I was the one less happy with our relationship than he was or had been. But, he had the LTA.

[This message edited by SisterMilkshake at 5:44 PM, June 20th (Thursday)]

I don't think anyone promises to be a great husband or a perfect wife. Or even to be above average. Statistically, most of us are mediocre people in mediocre relationships. It might be all unicorns and rainbows for a while, but then you throw in kids, aging parents, a job loss, managing a brother's cycling through rehab centres, a child in a car accident, a best friend's death, etc. You know, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. And one or both partners have to cope. Some choose good coping mechanisms and some choose poor ones.

I know that some people on here are not going to settle for mediocre, and that's great. But it takes two people to make a relationship work, and there is only so much one person can do to prop up the relationship if the other person isn't pulling their weight. Plus, it's easy to pull your weight and some of the other person's weight until something slides off the rails with kids, parents, and the rest of the responsbilities of adulthood. Then, you no longer have capacity to be 80% of the relationship and the dead weight goes off to find some strange.

I watched this for thirty years in the military, with units going on deployment, leaving spouses behind

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BS. I spent 21 years in the military and the only women having affairs were the needy, weak-minded whores. Being a military spouse AND military (we were dual military), I got to socialize with the wives when I was in the rear. I could pretty much nail it which ones were going to cheat. I only had 2 that I called friends that cheated. Hindsight, wasn't surprised. They were both needy and weaker minded. The first one had lots of self esteem issues and the second one was pretty selfish after some reflection too. I can honestly say that, except for the 2 I mentioned, none of the military spouses I hung out with, and fellow servicewomen I willingly choose to hang out with, ever cheated. We found things to keep ourselves entertained with and stayed busy and productive while the husbands were away.

Some women are shady as fuck. They put on a front that they're all sweet and innocent. I'm guessing the ones you think wouldn't otherwise have cheated conned you into thinking they were the in decent ones.

ETA, I consciously choose to weed out the ones that seemed shady or weak minded. This is why about 95% of my circle weren't cheaters. Birds of a feather and such. I may not have been 100% but I was pretty close. My friends now are still cheaterless.

[This message edited by StillLivin at 5:10 PM, June 20th (Thursday)]

I know that some people on here are not going to settle for mediocre, and that's great. But it takes two people to make a relationship work, and there is only so much one person can do to prop up the relationship if the other person isn't pulling their weight. Plus, it's easy to pull your weight and some of the other person's weight until something slides off the rails with kids, parents, and the rest of the responsbilities of adulthood. Then, you no longer have capacity to be 80% of the relationship and the dead weight goes off to find some strange.

I believe the above. I think RIO in particular believes something different.

RIO perhaps believes that his WW demonstrated high value by cheating on him. He mentions that various comments he made might have pushed his WW away. But we know that sex is very important to RIO, and sex from WW pre-A was quite vanilla and unsatisfactory to him. Yet he did not cheat on his WW, whereas he apparently "pushed" his WW into an A by poorly timed words. One can only conclude that RIO believes that his WW deserved to cheat, he did not despite having his own disappointments, therefore his WW is the prize in the relationship.

I am just following the thought process down the path, no criticism intended. RIO I think wants to keep his love, his admiration of his WW, and this is his way to do it.

The problem with all of this is that it never evens out. Objectively, in such a relationship it's the best to be the WS and as such the prize. So why not up your game to the point where you are the prize, and you are the one who gets to step out? That time never comes for the BS, instead they rugsweep and supplicate themselves to the WS so they can keep their original admiration of the WS intact. And they hope WS doesn't cheat again. Who would you like to be in such a relationship?

I find that people who have affairs are largely emotionally underdeveloped and attention seeking is part of that , emotionally they are still children and need to grow up or they will never have a fulfilling relationship . It seems that society is become more emotionally immature and that's why there is more infidelity than ever before .

We've been in the military for 17(?) years now. My H is active duty. I did not cheat. He did. I do think that part of what made him vulnerable to that was all his deployments. Each time, he detached himself from his family a little bit more. Every time he came home, it was a little harder for him to reintegrate. He missed and craved the excitement and adrenaline rush of being in a combat zone.

I, being the attention starved wife, took him to counseling. Talked to his chaplain. Asks his friends who deployed with him to talk to him. I knew something was off and it had to do with whatever happened during one particular deployment. I tried desperately to get him to open up. He refused. He cheated. So, yeah, he set himself up for that. It had nothing to do with anything that I did or did not do.

have never heard this expression before. How classy. How romantic. Who could possibly resist?

Right? I assume it was a reference to them meeting at a crossfit gym.

RIO perhaps believes that his WW demonstrated high value by cheating on him. He mentions that various comments he made might have pushed his WW away. But we know that sex is very important to RIO, and sex from WW pre-A was quite vanilla and unsatisfactory to him. Yet he did not cheat on his WW, whereas he apparently "pushed" his WW into an A by poorly timed words. One can only conclude that RIO believes that his WW deserved to cheat, he did not despite having his own disappointments, therefore his WW is the prize in the relationship.

I don't feel that my WW cheating was a "high value" statement. She's a woman, finding a new sex partner in no way confers status to women, in fact, right or wrong, it takes away status from women in most cultures (and provides it to men; men who have a lot of women are studs, women with a lot of men are another word that begins with "s" in the eyes of many).

I also don't feel like I "pushed" her into anything. "Could have prevented an accident" isn't the same thing as "caused an accident" (the driving analogy, affairs aren't accidents, didn't want to imply otherwise).

Deserved to cheat? Absolutely not. While it's pretty easy to do a little mental judo and wind up at "RIO you deserve to cheat", I most certainly do NOT feel that way about my WW. Again, to the earlier analogy, it's not about her being pushed into something or deserving something, it's about me not practicing the standard of care that I should have for something that's important to me (my M).

Forgot to say that, in all that time in the military, although I've heard plenty of stories, I have only known one spouse who cheated (other than my fch, of course). That was a crazy, horrible shitstorm. I ended being an emergency foster parent to 4 kids while waiting for their father to get shipped home early from deployment. The mother is now in prison for a very long time.

The military learned that marriages are in fact vulnerable due to deployments, and has offered specific fix counseling to help

I think the military learned the wrong lesson. I think those Ms are vulnerable during deployment because the people in the Ms are vulnerable. Too many military members get married and have babies too young, too quickly for all the wrong reasons. Too many people look to marry military members for all the wrong reasons. That's why there is so much cheating in the military.

Ask yourselves why you've never cheated.

Does the answer have more to do with yourself or your spouse?

I've never cheated on my wife and I've had opportunities. That has more to do with me than with her. All this chatter about the state of a marriage or the "increased chances" is a crock of shit.

Yep, Unhinged, the reasons I never took advantage of the opportunities I had wasn't because of WH,(although he was a subtext in that I loved him) it was because I knew I would have a problem with myself. I have always kind of liked myself. Not saying I don't have faults and don't need improvement. However, I have certain standards for myself and would be betraying myself first off. I don't know how people can live with themselves when they betray themselves.

Ask yourselves why you've never cheated.

Does the answer have more to do with yourself or your spouse?

Exactly! I have never cheated on anyone because just the thought disgusted me. I could not fathom having sex with one person and then coming home to another and possibly having sex with him. I don't think I'd even be able to lay next to my H in bed after doing something like that.