SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Earseyestongue isn't really new. It will say "new member" until a certain amount of posts are made.

Earseyestongue isn't really new. It will say "new member" until a certain amount of posts are made.

He may not be new, but his lack of post history and interest in my thread in interesting to me.

I’m only interested in your problems because you have posted them. I followed your thread for days before posting a reply. In truth, it was 66Charger’s initial post that made me realize your situation was atypical for a BS. You may feel better served by those who see your story as less nuanced than I do. Maybe the best course for you is to cut your losses and move on. Idk. All I know is from reading your words and hers is that it seems that you love each other. The lack of sex is a problem... maybe as large or even larger than her affair. I hope you can resolve both issues. With regard to my “interest in your problems” it extends only as far as my interest in seeing the best outcome for a fellow human being.

[This message edited by EarsEyesTongue at 7:36 PM, August 4th (Sunday)]

I am considering everything. Including that she deserves better. better then me.

Neanderthal,

Please shut that train of thought down. It is not true.

Playing the blame game in a situation where you have both hurt each other is a waste of time. It's like he said/she said.

Waste of time.

What I see here is two people who love each other, but who have lost their way.

You love - and loved - your wife from when you started going out with her back when you were at school together.

Your wife did the same.

Along the way, the two of you started to lose sight of one another as you experimented with stuff. Those experiments were not always successful. Sometimes you hurt each other.

Things went bad, from what I can see, because neither of you knew 100% what you wanted from your experiments. For example, your wife liked to be watched, but when you had sex with another woman, it caused her pain. The boundaries and the rules had not been fully worked out.

Then you entered a period of being wasted, and putting your wife down. I think you should examine why you put her down. What caused that? What resentments have you built up?

Then you came out of that and decided that you loved her, and thought she was great.

She got distracted by a serial cheating piece of sh*t with no respect for anyone, and she ended up having an affair with him.

Which brings us to the current situation, where the two of you are apart, both hurting, both wondering how the f*ck you ended up here.

My answer to that question is communication.

Think about it; the scumbag other man used a simple technique called mirroring to make your wife think he was some kind of soulmate. It is so basic and simple that it is almost painful, but it works on so many women that it ought to be illegal.

You find yourself a target. You get her to open up by asking questions. She likes a particular band? So do you. She hates insincerity, so do you. She loves the movie "The Wizard of Oz", so do you. You Google it, and you build up a store of things to say about it.

"Yeah, yeah, I always thought the red shoes were an allegory for..."

Instant soulmate.

But why was she so swept along when the scumbag started mirroring her? Is it possible that the two of you were not talking about stuff as much as you might have? And that that absence of one-to-one talking between you and your wife created an opportunity for the other man to pose as someone fascinated by everything that your wife said?

That is how these pieces of sh*t operate. They find a vulnerability and they exploit it.

And yet, something like that could be fixed easily by you and your wife making a conscious effort to get to know one another again.

You got together originally for a reason; you liked each other, and then you loved each other.

Somewhere along the way, you lost sight of one another.

Let's swing. Let's get high. Let's drink.

It is incredibly difficult to make that stuff work for two people. Particularly if your wife has a tendency to people please and say 'yes' to things that she may not have really been happy about.

And were you wrong to take her 'yes' as a sincere statement of her feelings about swinging? No. You had no idea that she may have been doing stuff that she would rather not have been doing.

Can you see how the honesty between you was compromised?

So when some exploitative POS came along and pretended that he was fascinated by your wife, she responded to it. Would she have responded if you had paid her the same attention? I think so. The trouble is, the two of you had already got out of emotional synch, and you both started operating as individuals when you were actually in a couple.

That is where problems can occur, and it provides an opening for a predatory turd to exploit.

So is it your fault, or her fault? Which one of you should be tarred and feathered?

Forget that sh*t. Seriously. It will produce nothing positive for either of you, or for your daughter, who is caught in the middle.

Of course you are in pain after the discovery of the affair. And that pain is fair and righteous. Your wife should not have embarked on the affair, started lying to you, or any of the other crap that she did. You know it, we know it, she knows it.

It was a stupid and destructive adventure from the very beginning. So it is no surprise that your wife is wondering how the hell she got drawn into it.

But here's the thing: despite the pain you are feeling, you are not 100% behind the idea of kicking your wife to the kerb and writing the marriage off. And your wife is living at her Dad's house, wishing she could press re-wind and not be facing the destruction of the marriage and family.

So the two of you share something quite significant: neither of you want the marriage to end, but one of you - you! - feels like there is no alternative.

That is not true. There is an alternative. It requires you and your wife to get to know each other again, and to make an active effort to ask each other how you are feeling.

Has your wife f*cked up by trying to control the narrative with lies and deleted texts? Yes, totally. She is not perfect, and I think she struggles with the need to be what people expect of her. Her reliance on lies suggests that she has no confidence in her truth, because she has no confidence in herself.

She needs to work on that in individual counseling. She lacks confidence, and seeks validation from others, including enjoying being watched during the swinging phase that you shared.

And for you, why would you want to be sharing your wife, or having sex with other women? Sure, these things can be exciting when they are kept as fantasies - Dear Penthouse Forum... - but when you tried to make them a reality, you ended up hurting your wife.

The whole point of being a couple is that both people try to adapt their behaviour in recognition of the other's feelings. It seems like you and your wife stopped doing that.

The solution is to start doing it again.

Wouldn't it be worth trying to do that before you pull the trigger and begin a divorce that neither of you really want?

But in your case, you have done what needed to be done. The chances of her reoffending are near zero. Not only does she know you will divorce Her, but she knows that any OM will likely face physical violence.

I have known of 2 WWs in this exact situation who cheated again and 1 who didn't. I did not observe particularly tumultuous relationships before DDay but one BH who D'd because his WS cheated again with the same OM he confronted did have a swinging/open situation involved in his past.

If the threat of D alone could stop a WS, we wouldn't see so many DDays 2+ here. Most BSes say that D is an option after DDay or make it known and a lot of WSes don't listen until a lawyer is seen or papers are filed. Though violent confrontations are rare with APs, I also haven't seen them make a big difference either in whether they cheat again IME.

Wouldn't it be worth trying to do that before you pull the trigger and begin a divorce that neither of you really want?

M1965, thank you for everything you wrote. I will definitely spend alot of time thinking about your words.

Although my wife had been gracious enough to keep me around years ago, i'm not sure I can accept her betrayal. I don't let things go, i don't see myself moving past it.

She is an educated intelligent woman. I cant give her as much leeway as you have. She wasn't a victim. She was a willing participant in an affair for 6 months. And during that 6 months i tried to communicate, and she still chose him.

Sorry N, I was traveling the last day or so, just getting caught up.

M1965 is one of the most respected posters here. He sees things many others don’t. While you know you and your wife better than anyone, but his insights are usually spot on. So yes, please re-read the thoughts he sent you.

I’m just catching up and I see that as expected, your wife’s effort on the timeline was lackluster and minimized. I and others told you that would happen.

That doesn’t mean she isn’t on a path to understand your pain. No, instead she’s struggling to learn the process toward healing. I think she’s open to it, but it’s not natural to be brutally honest with someone we love when the truth is we were the ones that harmed them.

I’m struggling to know if you have chosen to initiate D because she did just a poor job delivering her message or if it’s something else.

You’ve said “I don’t see myself forgiving her” and I That “two mentally broken people should stay together”.

I am confident you believe those things. Or at least are trying to convince yourself of them.

But in my opinion it’s way to early for you to know if those things are true to you or not. You’ve decided to take this full force without a safety net.

And it seems to me, in the limited information I have on you thru this thread, that working without a safety net perhaps describes a bit how you live life. I’m sure you’ll tell me I’m wrong.

Many have said that infidelity is a deal breaker. And perhaps that’s what you are saying. But there was a time that you admittedly wanted her to go past her marital vows in a structured environment. So this isn’t clear glass we are looking at this relationship with, instead it has a hazy film of nuance affecting its view.

Now I say this not to antagonize, but instead to let you know where I am coming from, because my goal is for you both to make decisions that will affect each other and your child with the best possible information:

It’s my opinion that you cheated on your wife years ago.

Now the circumstances were different. But you broke her trust. And that hurt her. That hurt you too. And that hurt your marriage.

I have lots of thoughts about the whole open marriage thing, but I won’t cloud our perspective anymore than it already is.

N, to me cheating is like being a little bit pregnant. It’s all cheating. No matter what shape or form. You may think what she did was far worse, because you felt you had both moved past the issues of your history and were trying to communicate with her and she wouldn’t listen and she wanted to cheat. And I’d tell you all of that is true.

But were you truly listening to her and what she wanted back then? You even said she wasn’t happy with swinging. She definitely didn’t want you or her to touch anyone else. Anything in that vein she did for you. And then while she was trying to tell you that, you went past the few boundaries she had laid out for both of you and u had agreed to.

I see little difference. Except that she gave you a chance. And in the end she let you both rug sweep it all. Probably the worst choice that you guys could have made back then.

So right about now you are probably pretty pissed at me. You want me to shut the hell up and think I’m blaming the Betrayed.

No, honestly, she is to blame here. She has the bulk of it. She should have required you to not only overcome your alcohol issues in the past, but at the same time work on your marriage. To go thru IC and MC. To do emotional exercises together.

And instead of cheating when she couldn’t or wouldn’t make that happen, she should have told you that your marriage was falling apart if you both didn’t work on it and pay it the attention it deserved.

So from my view from 1000 ft, yes, I have to tell you, I agree with you, that I see two mentally broken people. But I also see two people that love each other. I see two people that if they were willing to put in the work could, possibly for the first time in their lives, build a healthy relationship with each other that could create a solid family experience for their daughter.

Am I going to be disappointed if That doesn’t happen? I gotta tell you, absolutely.

I can not deny this is your choice. But if I were in your shoes, I’d want a better life for me, my daughter, and yes my wife. And I’d not believe yet, without trying, that that meant a life apart.

I think you still love this woman. In fact I think you have said it.

Don’t in any way let her off the hook for what she has done. Make her do every last step she needs to in order to help you heal.

This may take years. It probably will. But I think you are up for it. And honestly I believe she is too.

So remind me, when do you start IC with a an Infidelity Specialist? Whether you agree with me or not, even if you still are Intent on D, that needs to happen. Sorry if you already told us when, I’m getting older and I forget.

I’m sure I’m gonna be called an R apologist or something. I have a thick skin, I’ve been here a while. And i’d be just as harsh on a BS who was letting a non-Remorseful WS walk all over them. But If I can take the risk of being verbally attacked here for a complete stranger, I’m hoping you can at least take a risk by reconsidering working on this with your WW and see where it goes. Even if you are concurrently working the D process.

I agree with M1965. I don’t think you two really have ever openly talked about your feelings during your marriage. I think you’d be surprised as to how, if you ever really did, it could really make for a positive experience and if continued could enhance your relationship.

Those are just my thoughts. I’m tired and it’s bedtime.

I wish you strength during this difficult time.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 5:20 AM, August 6th (Tuesday)]

Hi Neanderthal,

Although my wife had been gracious enough to keep me around years ago...

You know, I was wondering about the name you chose for yourself.

'Neanderthal'.

Interesting choice. Is that how you feel about yourself in comparison with your wife? That as a couple, there is some kind of 'Beauty and the Beast' vibe going on? That she is 'better' than you?

Is it possible that that vibe, over time, made you feel bad about yourself, and that your period of talking trash to your wife was anger about being cast as the caveman in the relationship. "You think you're so great? Ha! Let me tell you who you really are, little miss stuck up..."

And yet all that venting did not really make you feel better, did it? It very rarely does, and I say that as someone who has done some Olympic level venting in the past.

Very few couples are perfect mirrors of one another, and the few times I have encountered that in life, I wonder if the people involved would really have been happier to clone themselves so they could date themselves.

Most couples are different, and those differences do not mean one is better than the other. We all have our good and bad points. Hell, many times it is the difference to us that makes us attracted to a romantic partner.

Unfortunately, I sense that the perception of difference between you and your wife grew into something toxic in your relationship, and damaged it by affecting the way you communicated with each other.

Do you think that the idea that you were not good enough existed more in your mind than it did in your wife's mind? Sometimes we make a rod for our own backs, and beat ourselves with them.

However, it is possible that your wife may have made cutting remarks or been sh*tty towards you in ways that confirmed your perception that you were the caveman and she was the professor.

You made a remark earlier in your thread about how when you stopped drinking, your wife commented that she liked you better when you were drinking.

Wow. That was a truly stupid and hurtful thing to say. So if she has has a habit of saying that kind of thing, it is something she has to clean up, because it causes more damage than people realise.

She is an educated intelligent woman.

How smart do you think she feels now? She may be intelligent, but she clearly has issues, or the current train wreck would not have happened.

Your wife's issues and weaknesses allowed her to be played like a complete chump by a serial cheat who has no respect for women. He has probably peddled the same brand of exploitative snake oil to every woman who responds to it.

That does not absolve her of her participation, but her actions display all the hallmarks of someone who switched off common sense and boundaries because all she focused on was her next hit of the drug her affair partner was feeding her.

The drug analogy is often made in relation to affairs, and I think it helps when we try to understand the stupid, destructive, hurtful things that people can do when they become hooked on the drug of the affair. And why so often they will do extremely self-destructive things.

For the sake of the fool's gold of a drug hit, people can wind up as a crack ho or someone who robs other people to pay for their hit. Or they go from living in a house to living in a dumpster behind Wal-Mart.

In your wife's case, her addiction to the 'hit' the affair gave her has led to her living with her Dad, damaging her job, having to make numerous humiliating confessions (including those that will come out in today's meeting with her principal), and facing possible divorce and the loss of the family home.

How smart is that?

The point is, her intelligence was not a factor in her affair. Her emotional addiction to the hogwash that her affair partner was feeding her was what led her to this point. And that is what she needs to be working on now.

Hell, you fired several distress flares, but as they lit the sky above her, she looked at the ground, because all she was focused on was her next hit. She was not thinking rationally. She was barely thinking at all.

If she had been thinking, she would have pulled her supposedly smart head out of her behind when you made it clear that you knew something was going on. Instead, she blindly kept pushing things to the point where you snapped and busted the affair.

Her doing that was not the product of an intelligent thought process. It was the product of a troubled person in emotional freefall, deliberately blinding themselves to the brick wall they were driving towards at a hundred and twenty miles an hour.

The fact is, she was a lot more f*cked up than she realised, as people can be when they allow an addiction to do their thinking for them.

I imagine that she is going to spend several weeks unpacking all of the stupid and self-destructive things she did, including the pain that she caused you, and the way she ignored it.

Well, she is not ignoring it now. People are telling her, and she is reading and processing it. And I guarantee that she does not feel intelligent or good.

There is, of course, a huge amount of pain and disappointment to be dealt with, but I believe that you can get a handle on that as you talk things through with friends, and you have an active dialogue in the forum here.

...i'm not sure I can accept her betrayal. I don't let things go, i don't see myself moving past it.

I am pretty black and white in my thinking. It has taken me a long time to get my head around dealing with shades of grey, and incorporating them into my thinking and decision making. However, it has happened, to a degree.

Where once I did my thinking and decision making based on a set of very black and white principles, and only those principles, I now factor in how I feel, and give that equal value in my decision making.

That means that if applying a simple black and white yes/no principle will not lead to something positive for me, I accept that it might not be the 'right' answer for me.

That does not mean that the affair may not be a deal-breaker for you. It may be. What I am saying is that it does not have to be, and that perhaps the principles that make you feel like it has to be a deal-breaker may not lead to something positive for you, or your wife, or your daughter.

Many of people who get past affairs would have once sworn with complete confidence that if some woman ever cheated on them they would kick that bitch's ass to the kerb and burn her clothes on the front lawn. Then they actually face infidelity, and they react completely differently. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Another thing I have found is that when I let my anger do the driving, I never end up where I want I want to be. Anger has a very poor sense of navigation, and no idea of where it is going. It just slams its foot on the accelerator and doesn't give a sh*t.

I know that because there were times when I let anger be my chauffeur, and the son of a bitch drove me straight into a tree and off a cliff. So now when anger holds the car door open, winks, and says, "Let's go for a ride", I say, "No, I'll walk and think instead".

We don't always have to satisfy our anger, do we? Sometimes it is better to ride the anger out, and then make a game-plan for how to achieve the best result for ourselves that we can.

Creating that game-plan needs time and a cool head, but I am sure that a way forward for you can be put together.

What I think might have potential for you would be to live apart from your wife for a few weeks while you both work on yourselves. You need to let the worst of the anger abate, and your wife needs to think about the situation she created, and whether she can fix the issues that led to the train wreck. That will take reading, counseling, and thinking. That is where her intelligence can kick in.

I think that both of you should make a list of what you need, and then see if the other feels like they can provide it. Personally, I think there is a good chance that you can, if you make the effort. The key to it is knowing what needs to be done, and that can only come from communicating.

And communicating is something that your wife needs to work on. I think she is starting to wake up to that now, because her communications have been terrible, and that has made things worse for both of you.

She has the opportunity now to really work on herself and identify the issues and grey areas in her persona that she filled with the drug of the affair. She needs to discover her why's, and work on them.

What anyone can see is that there is no way she is going to want to continue without making changes to herself. As much as she let you down, she also let herself down.

There is a lot more that can be said, but it can be done in stages. What I hope is that through discussions here, and with your friends, a good plan can be created that will produce the best outcome for you.

Sending strength and good wishes to you. We know what you are going through.

PS - many thanks for your kind words, stevesn. It is very rare that anyone ever accuses me of respectability!

[This message edited by M1965 at 7:37 AM, August 5th (Monday)]

m1965 and stevesn seem quite insightful to me.

And I see some parallels to my own story. We had a breakdown in communication which created an opening for a predator. Learning to reconcile has required us to learn to communicate. And now things are better than ever.

Neanderthal, it feels to me like your marriage could be worth saving.

If you want to.

I'm not sure you need to rush to judgment.

working without a safety net perhaps describes a bit how you live life. I’m sure you’ll tell me I’m wrong.

I don't believe this to be the case. I don't make many rash decisions.

But there was a time that you admittedly wanted her to go past her marital vows in a structured environment

To be clear. At the time I counldnt have cared less what she did with someone else(in the context of swinging anyways). I was about what I selfishly wanted.

It’s my opinion that you cheated on your wife years ago

I have never thought of what I did as cheating.....Until now. Its clear that I am a cheater. I cheated on my wife years ago in that swinger room.

So remind me, when do you start IC with a an Infidelity Specialist?

Tomorrow, but shes a MC first. So i'll probably have to find another counselor. Since this one is already scheduled, I plan on going.

'Neanderthal'.

Interesting choice. Is that how you feel about yourself in comparison with your wife? That as a couple, there is some kind of 'Beauty and the Beast' vibe going on? That she is 'better' than you?

I chose my name because I don't consider myself very evolved in what our society says I should be. I don't consider myself to be a beast in our relationship. But I have always felt she was better then me.

As far as talking trash to her. Honestly I don't remember being verbally abusive to her very often. Although that may not be the case. I've had many concussions through the years, and my memory is terrible. I know I told her I wasn't in love with her, and that I wasn't attracted to her anymore. Those are horrible things to say. This also all happened during the worse part of my drinking and the swinging crap. Not after, I don't believe I ever said those things afterwards. Not that it matters.

Do you think that the idea that you were not good enough existed more in your mind than it did in your wife's mind?

This is possible. I am my own worst critic.

I haven't completely decided to divorce. I could I? That's to hypocritical. I am just as responsible or more for her affair. The guilt I feel is almost unbearable. I am a cheater, I broke my wifes heart and now she broke mine.

Now I wait.....

wait to see if i'm carrying an STD for life.

wait to see if my wife realizes shes probably better off without me.

wait to see if I have anything left to give.

I am an adulterer. The worst kind of people.

Although I am responsible, I cant help the feeling of betrayal. It hurts so much.

Stevesn and M1965 are 2 of the most respected members here. Those are some of the most insightful and well-thought out posts I've seen in my several years here.

Neanderthal, you've got a lot of strangers here who want the best for you. I have no idea if that means D or R in the long run but I hope you'll read and then re-read what they wrote and spend considerable time thinking things through. There's no need to decide today (or tomorrow) the path you're going to take. This situation is always complicated and requires time and care.

Your writings strike me (and I'm sure all of us) as a good, decent guy. Don't be so hard on yourself brother.

Ponus,

Thank you for your kind words. I try to do my best for people, and I hope that sometimes what I write helps.

I think you are exactly right that Neanderthal is being too hard on himself.

Neanderthal, you are by far the harshest judge of yourself in the world. Nobody here would be making an effort for you if you were a bad guy. Maybe you aren't perfect, but so what? Nobody is.

What I am certain of is that you are not the bad guy you think you are.

wait to see if my wife realizes shes probably better off without me.

Honestly, that is you projecting the bad feelings you have about yourself onto your wife, and thinking she will feel as you do.

She does not feel that. She wants to be with you, but you sent her away. That is fine, if that is what you need right now, but please do not think that she believes you are a lost cause. She does not.

If she really did think that, she could have used the affair and its discovery as a perfect excuse to say goodbye to you.

She is not doing that. She is doing the opposite to that. She is broken up about the prospect of you saying goodbye to her.

Why do you think that is? It is definitely not because she thinks you are as bad as you think you are.

And none of us think that either.

As Ponus18 so wisely says: don't be so hard on yourself, brother.

Why do you think that is? It is definitely not because she thinks you are as bad as you think you are.

Because if I'm the bad guy, its not her fault.

If I'm the bad guy, I can still believe in her.

If I'm the bad guy, she can still be my saving grace.

If I'm the bad guy, I wont hate her.

[This message edited by Neanderthal at 10:48 AM, August 5th (Monday)]

No, no, no. That way lies life-long torture. And she really would lose respect for you.

You really do need IC just for yourself. Only you can save YOU, no matter what happens to your marriage.

Because if I'm the bad guy, its not her fault.

If I'm the bad guy, I can still believe in her.

If I'm the bad guy, she can still be my saving grace.

If I'm the bad guy, I wont hate her.

There are a lot of different paths a BS can take in dealing with the pain and devastation of betrayal and lots of them are valid choices. But of all those different paths, I think a BS choosing to shoulder the burden of blame themselves is probably the single most destructive way to go. And not just for the BS in question, but for their WS as well.

Brother, you have got to find a way to keep your issues problems and failures seperate from hers. This shit is more than complicated enough all on its own without pulling out the scales and chalk boards and calculators to weigh, mark and tally up all of both of your various fuckups and failures. That shit is a viscous fucking cycle of “you did this but I did this but you did that” on and on ad infinitum. It goes nowhere. All it serves to do is give all parties involved the chance to excuse and minimize there own behavior.

Not saying that you haven’t done anything wrong in your marriage. Of fucking course you have. But the pressing immediate emergency issue at this moment is her recent infidelity. That is the gushing fucking mortal wound that has your family bleeding out as we speak. Deal with that. Stabilize that. Focus on that.

And then, once the patient is stabilized, then you will have the room and the luxury of time to work on everything else. Seriously brother. You are all over the place. I get it I have been there. But understand that there are a million little branching lines and tributaries that brought you from the day you and your wife met and the place you are now. You cannot possibly hold all of it in your head at one time. Your natural inclination is going to be to grab onto something simple and just follow that: like she’s just an evil bitch, or I wasn’t a good husband or OM was some kind of Svengali hypnotist that clouded my wife’s mind. That’s the simplest most straight forward path, and who knows maybe one of those is correct. Or maybe none of them are, or all of them....

But most likely it’s all way more nuanced and complicated than any of that. That’s why this shit takes 2-5 years to heal from. Cause it’s fucking complicated.

So for now. Try and focus on some simple key shit for the time being:

1.What happened?

2.What do I want to see happen going forward?

3.What things need to happen to make #2 a reality?

4.Are the things in #3 achievable? If not go back to #2 and try again.

Keep it simple for now. When you have figured out the answers to these questions you will know where you are trying to get to. Then you can take the time necessary to figure out all the fucking nuance and interconnected threads you want.

Most importantly though, stop blaming yourself for fucks sake. Your wife is a grown ass woman. She’s an adult she makes her own decisions and she has to own them.

Best of luck to you both,

HT

Swinging in general carries requirements. A certain level of detachment. A lack of jealousy or a couple well equipped to handle it, rock solid ground rules,wide open communication and An insane level of trust. In general this was a poorly thought out alcahol fueled sexual outlet. You got caught up in the moment , lost control and f'd it up big time. You were basically newbies and I suspect too some extent you were preyed apon by the experienced couple, however you broke the rules and the trust, even if it was right in front of her. I absolutely agree that this was wrong and potentially damaging on many levels because of the breach of agreed limitations and trust. I disagree however that it's cheating. Cheating requires deception. Yes, you played with fire, yes you got burned. Lesson learned. Have you taken ownership of this? Did you own it or did you blame alcahol? Did you apologize? Did you deal with it or rug sweep it?

You were alcaholic and verbally abusive. She was your whipping boy. The question is why. There are a thousand ways to deal with stress. What made that ok? Did you get help? Did you apologize..profusely? Do I see this as a reason to cheat, no. But it's certainly grounds for divorce. If you didn't apologize, you need to. And get help on figuring out the why and improving your coping skills. This is to clear your own conscience and to be a better man, not to justify her actions.

You are attempting to justify her actions by pulling the dirt out of your past. ALL marriages have fubars, all of us are imperfect, all of us screw up. I understand that in taking on blame it diverts part of the responsibility to you and makes it easier for you to cope. But that same action makes it impossible for her to accept the full blame for her actions and fix the root of the problem. Take full responsibility for what is yours and fix it. This is your responsibility as a man and a husband. Allow her to take full responsibility for what is hers and fix it.

You are now in a place of extraordinary stress and emotional trauma. How will you choose to deal with it? I didn't ask how you will deal with her, I'm asking how you will deal with this stress and trauma? The longer you sit in it the worse it gets. Screaming won't help more than a minute at a time(ask me how i know...) berating her, calling her names etc... all venting is temporary. You have to cope. The real secret here is you liking you. Improve you. Like the guy in the mirror. Talk nicely to him. Watch him improve. Work out. Lots of water, NO alcahol, its a depressant and the last thing you need. Journal. Its a form of venting but positive. Walk or run. Its liberating, its quiet time with thoughts, its also exercise and has a good impact on your brain. Focus on you. Your needs, what you eat... sort out what needs to be done as you free and improve you. You. This is about you.

Now say it with me. "I did not cause my spouse to cheat on me."

It's not your fault they cheated.

If you take her blame away from her she can't fix it. R or D. You need her to be the best mom she can be. In order to do that she has to fix her.

In order for you to be the best dad and man you can be you have to allow her to take what is hers and you have to deal with what is yours. Don't strip her of her blame and expect her to heal.

Just a note...

I think that your pain is causing you to meander down a rabbit trail of self incrimination Neanderthal. We could all point to failures in our lives and allow those thoughts to convict us of contributing to or even causing our spouse's affairs, but those rabbit trails aren't helpful and aren't true.

The truth is that your spouse had full knowledge of everything you've noted as your faults. You weren't sneaking around behind her back and lying to her while you were engaged in faulty behaviors. She knew what, how, and when everything happened.

On the other hand, she chose to sneak around behind your and your child's backs with another woman's husband. She was fully enjoying what she was doing and I am willing to bet that even if you'd never transgressed, she'd have chosen to have an affair anyway. Her actions had nothing whatsoever to do with your and her past marital failings.

Don't allow your emotions to control your head. Stick with the basic facts. She cheated and lied and is still lying about the extent of the affair. That's all there is to it. No further information or history can or should be pointed to as a cause.

This is 100% on her no matter how you slice and dice it. This had nothing to do with you and everything to do with her. She had choices all along and she could have stopped it at any time. She chose against you and your child every time, over and over again. Hundreds of choices and the full knowledge of the destruction she was enacting upon her family. 100% her; 0% you.

She is the perpetrator here. History doesn't change that. Keep your head in control of your emotions as much as possible and avoid rabbit trails because they all lead into briar patches. Remind yourself of the basic facts. That's where the issue and fault lies.

And remember that you have been working to improve yourself for years now. You worked to make yourself a better person for yourself and your family. Don't forget or minimize what you've accomplished. You, like all of us, aren't perfect and we never will be, but we're all pushing toward a better future and improving ourselves and thereby the lives of those around us more and more every day. Take care of yourself. You do and always have had value. It's especially important during this trial to keep this at the forefront of your thinking.

Know also that your WW is not better than you. She's proved it with her destructive actions. You are the prize now. You bring the most value. You are the most stable now. You have the control over your future. Don't let this trial stop you from improving yourself. You're important and deserving of a good life, and you have the capability to make it happen.

[This message edited by Dismayed2012 at 1:13 PM, August 5th (Monday)]

right about now you are probably pretty pissed at me. You want me to shut the hell up and think I’m blaming the Betrayed.

No, honestly, she is to blame here. She has the bulk of it. She should have required you to not only overcome your alcohol issues in the past, but at the same time work on your marriage. To go thru IC and MC. To do emotional exercises together.

And instead of cheating when she couldn’t or wouldn’t make that happen, she should have told you that your marriage was falling apart if you both didn’t work on it and pay it the attention it deserved.

I said that in my post to you N. You are not to blame for her affair. That is on her.

Would I say there are things you did poorly in your M, yes I would.

But your wife having an affair should not be the ramifications from anything you have done.

But I will say that both of you have had great difficulties in understanding how relationships and marriages should work and what it means to Love, Honor and Cherish.

Those are three words I have thought about greatly. You might want to think about them as well.

If you are doing all three correctly, it makes for a pretty good relationship and the thing is, your partner, thru doing those things, will ensure that you find happiness, as you will for her.

Yes we are each responsible for ourselves, but to me, the reason to be in a M is to find those things in a joint and shared way.

So N, if you are trying to give her a way out by blaming yourself because you think she deserves better, that may be considered noble, but in the end, it’s misguided.

She doesn’t want that. I believe she wants you as much as you want her. There’s a reason you came together.

And she’s trying to show it by learning how to repair and rebuild. It’s gonna take a while.

At some point, I’m hoping you both decide that yes, you each hurt each other, but you care about each other to learn how to relate to each other in a healthy way. And that you are both willing to do the work to get there.

Right now I dont feel you are willing. And I can’t yet figure out why.

I don’t think it’s because the cheating is a deal breaker to you. I think it’s something else. Maybe your IC will help you figure it out. But I’m hoping we can help you with it as well.

Because if there’s a chance you can come out of this with a stronger relationship than you’ve ever had before, I think it’s work risking the potential for failure to try and make it happen.

Just my thoughts.....

I have never thought of what I did as cheating.....Until now. Its clear that I am a cheater. I cheated on my wife years ago in that swinger room.

I couldn’t disagree with this more, I believe a great disservice has been done to you by putting that in your head. JMO

As I intended.

[This message edited by 66charger at 11:26 PM, August 5th (Monday)]