SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Welcome to General, Neanderthal. After blocking yourself from Wayward, you're running out of places to post.

Thanks. It's just as well. I'm in no position to give advice. I also don't feel comfortable commenting on threads as a BS. Even though I know the pain all to well, I don't want to trigger anyone else with my presence.

Today was a very roller coaster day. I think I'll go find a donut or twelve.

Happy new year brother

Just checking in Neanderthal, how are you doing? How were the holidays?

Neanderthal, Hope you're doing okay. I know you're feeling out of place and out of sorts posting right now but I hope you'll come back. I promise you are judging yourself worse than anyone else is. Whatever happened, you WERE betrayed.

Reviving this thread temporarily.

The last couple months have been very difficult for me. The separation has had a much different affect than I had expected or hoped for.

Separation is recommended on this forum as a way for a BS to take back some control and to build themselves back up without the WS. It also forces the WS to understand what they are losing, and hopefully start getting there shit together.

As a madhatter the dynamic has been a mixture of both. The only flawed person at home is me. I spent the last couple months tearing myself apart from the inside. I hated the person I saw in the mirror. I started to shut out everyone. My friends, family, worried Si members.

I see a selfish, immature, hypocrite.

Taking accountability for past actions isn't easy. I've been taking the easy way as a wayward for 6-8 years now. By rugsweeping, lies of omission, and abuse. I don't know if I have improved my many character flaws over the last 6 years, or if they are just dormant. Waiting for me to hurt someone else.

I have been trying to force myself to do the logical thing. Divorce and move on. And in time learn to love someone else. I have been pushing myself down that path. We have completely separated finances. Child support is figured out. Basically no contact unless involving our daughter. In my head, I already have the assets figured out as well. I was starting to look for apartments, so she could move back into the house.

I have completely shut out my heart. I wouldn't allow my heart to have a seat at the table of decision making. My reasoning was simple. My heart is broken, and it cant be trusted right now.

Back to being a hypocrite. Today I sat down and told my BS the last of my lies. I'm sure the SI elders aren't surprised. Waywards lie to protect ourselves. We are cowards. My wife asked me not to go into detail on here about what I admitted to. She's trying to protect me from internet strangers, at the detriment of herself. I couldn't stay completely silent. Mainly because my wife deserves to feel like a BS. She essentially just had her own DDay today.

I ask that you show her a little grace.

He who is without sin cast the first stone

A friend of mine shared with me an audio recording of a sermon his preacher recently gave. He is aware of my situation and thought it was relevant to me.

I am no longer a religious person. My father was a preacher and I shut religion out at a young age. But this particular message really struck me. this sermon helped push me to tell her everything. I cannot nor will I condemn my wife for her actions. That would mean I am condemning myself as well. That doesn't mean either of us should condone it though.

She deserved to know the real me. All my flaws and failures. I read her post regarding minimizing the terrible things that have happened to her through her life. I encouraged her to not minimize my last disclosure as well. Feel it, and figure out how to deal with it in a healthy way.

Something my IC has mentioned a few times. "You aren't capable of loving someone else, if you don't love yourself."

I certainly don't love myself, and that's something I really want to change.

I know this is all over the place, and i'm sorry if my posts trigger anyone.

Your being honest. Your progressing in the right direction. YOU are moving out of infidelity. YOU are moving into a more enlightened place.

Glad to hear from you.

N, it is good to hear from you. Your thread has been full of surprising twists and turns. In the big picture I see you starting to lead the examined life you have denied yourself for many years, possibly out of an admixture of guilt and shame.

Do you think it is within the realm of possibility that you may one day start dating your WW? As each of you figure out your inner demons, it may be that this path through personal Hell that each of you have shared for the past year or so could be the crucible through which new steel is forged.

Nice to see you back and to have the courage to tell everyone here. It’s better to get it all out there. As they say you cannot build a foundation on lies. It’s toxic to you to hold that in. You can start healing now. This may be the best way for you both. If you both work on yourselves who knows what will happen.

OK, N ... you've betrayed yourself. You've betrayed your W. You've betrayed your kids. That's all awful stuff.

You're a human being, though, and you are redeemable, if you redeem yourself.

And even though you've betrayed, you're loving, lovable, and capable, so you have inside you, right now, all you need to learn to love yourself and others.

So I urge you to rejoin the human race. Come on in - the water's fine. Do the work you need to do to redeem yourself. There's going to be some pain, but there's going to be a lot of joy, too.

Even Scrooge redeemed himself.

Neanderthal,

Gently, now....

And in time learn to love someone else.

Learn to love yourself first. If you cannot love yourself first, then you will not be able to truly love someone else.

It's hard to accept that I can't hide or run from this pain. I believe that was why I was pushing so hard for divorce. Maybe if we didn't have a child, that could have worked. But we will be in each others lives, so running or hiding isn't an option.

The last 2 months I've felt like a fraud. I kept trying to convince myself that my wayward actions all happened a long time ago, so forget about it and move on. But that isn't fair to my wife. Especially with her past FOO issues, she needs to know that the things that have happened to her matter a great deal.

I do believe I am a better person that I was 6 years ago, but obviously I have a lot of work to do.

I need to come clean with my sister too. I have avoided talking to her because I feel so fake. She's very aware of my wife's infidelity, but knows nothing of mine. She's a good person, and I don't think she will shun me. But I worry about how it will affect our relationship.

Do you think it is within the realm of possibility that you may one day start dating your WW?

I honestly don't know. I am going to take things a little slower though. Believe it or not, part of me was hoping she wouldn't want me after my last disclosure. The burden of breaking up my family weighs heavily on me.

I plan on dialing back the NC. Maybe meet from time to time to talk. I do miss her.

RocketRaccoon, You are right. I need to be ok with me before getting close to someone else again.

I tried rejoining the human race yesterday at the gym. I attempted to do a spin class for the first time. That didn't go very well. About 15 minutes in I had to get up and leave. I was close to passing out. I sat on the floor for a long while trying to get stable again. When I left, I did the only logical thing I could think of. Stopping to eat fried chicken on my way home.

N, we live in a society rife with false equivalencies. I can't stand them. I hate what you are doing to yourself here. You've created a monster by applying a false equivalency to your marital infidelities.

Without knowing your latest disclosure to LD it looks to me like your infidelity is A) While swinging with another couple N, who is both drunk and high, momentarily did PIV with the swinger couples female which was against the prior agreement for the swinging encounters.

Your WW infidelity looks like B)While neither drunk nor high she developed a deep, loving EA which turned PA within weeks and led to plans and attempts to begin blending your family (minus you) with the APs family, and high risk public and career threatening sex acts, and massive amounts of deceit and lies against you, and more massive deceit and lies against you, and all along a complete disregard for your feelings and looming trauma from her first tingly feelings for her AP until her poly was literally in progess.

I don't understand how and why you keep emotionally pulverizing yourself over a false equivalency. A 7 second fuck up while chemically altered DOES NOT EQUAL the 7 month shit storm she unleashed on your marriage.

You need to forgive yourself. If you can accept that you are human then you can move on. You also could then find the strength to either forgive your wife, or move on.

There is no weakness in forgiveness. This is the main teaching of most of the worlds religions.

Your misery is palpable. Whether you divorce or reconcile, you will only find peace in forgiving yourself & her. You will always be in one another's lives.

T/J -

You've created a monster by applying a false equivalency to your marital infidelities.

WTF?

If my W had done what N has done, I'd qualify for SI membership as a BS, as does N's W. N qualifies as a WS. He also qualifies as a BS, so N and his W are madhatters.

One is or is not a BS. One is or is not a WS. I guess we could all come up with cases that have some fuzziness in them, but it's virtually always binary - BS/WS status is either on or off.

This is not an issue of false equivalence.

*****

N may have created a monster, but the monster is his self-flagellation. He can't heal while he's doing that, and I hope he starts focusing his energy on his own healing.

End T/J

[This message edited by sisoon at 10:56 AM, January 13th (Monday)]

Greatwideopen, I appreciate your stance on this. Are our infidelities apples to oranges in comparison? Yes, but they are still both fruit. Had I come here as a wayward before my wife's affair. I doubt you would be so forgiving of me. Regardless of the degree, infidelity is never ok. I need to correct me. If not for my current marriage, than for whatever future relationships I may have.

Someone in a PM asked how I'd feel if my daughter was ever in the situation I put my wife in years ago. I would be fucking furious. It was an eye opening message that I took to heart. Why didn't I value my wife, like I would my daughter? That's a very uncomfortable question I need to work on.

Forgiveness is such a strange thing. I'm likely to forgive my wife way before I ever forgive myself. How could I forgive myself knowing it was still a secret?

I have plenty to work on, and No I'm not letting my wife off the hook so to speak. I may never be able to look past what she's done.

Between N and LD there is probably more than 2000 posts (theirs and responses) on both sides and the whole thing is a mess with both N and LD not being forthcoming with the community.

How can anybody even begin to presume anything based on all the omissions and lies told on both sides?

As I see it the whole thing is f'd up and no amount of SI support will help unless one or both are honest and open. Who knows now if anything is the truth.

I would say that there has been growth on both their parts. But it just seems that there is something not right in the whole thing.

Maybe these two need to do a joint post with an agreed set of truths and lies so that they can actually sort this out.

Between N and LD there is probably more than 2000 posts (theirs and responses) on both sides and the whole thing is a mess with both N and LD not being forthcoming with the community.

How can anybody even begin to presume anything based on all the omissions and lies told on both sides?

As I see it the whole thing is f'd up and no amount of SI support will help unless one or both are honest and open. Who knows now if anything is the truth.

I would say that there has been growth on both their parts. But it just seems that there is something not right in the whole thing.

Maybe these two need to do a joint post with an agreed set of truths and lies so that they can actually sort this out.

Yes, its a fucked up situation. What do you need to know?

I cheated on my wife 6 years ago (rugswept).

My wife cheated on me last year.

We are currently separated.

She wants to stay together.

I'm in limbo.

Between the two of us, we can probably check off every FOO issue imaginable.

Although not in a direct path. I'd venture to guess my wife and I have shared more truths than most other people on this site. Or maybe I'm just in disbelief of all the perfect cookie cutter infidelity stories I read on here.

We both have used SI as a way to journal. I suppose I am still doing that now.

What more do we need to know?

As someone who has supported both of you, I'd like

To hear about your cheating.

It's kind of hard to advise, or support, when we are all blind,and don't know what we are dealing with.

Was it a ons? An affair? Did she know OW? Was there NC after the affair? How long Did it last? Was it the woman you were with when swinging? Etc,etc.

Basically, we would like to know the basics.

Of course, if you both have only been using this site as a journal, then I suppose you don't need to give those answers. But we can't help unless we know what we are dealing with. We can give basic advice. But, you need real help, and real help requires you being honest.

Your wife just found out she is a BS. We can not help her deal with that, unless one of you is open about what happened. You deserved our time and support. So does she.

[This message edited by HellFire at 11:58 AM, January 13th (Monday)]

Here's what you are missing.

A couple strip club visits she wasn't aware when my ship pulled into port (12+ years ago).

I sexted a girl we had fooled around with during swinging time for a very short time. (NC for over 7 maybe 8 years now).

I joined Ashley Madison back around the time swinging started. Once I saw it was a pay to play kind of site, I logged off and never went back. (Also 8 years ago or longer)

This shows how selfish I really was/am. I was looking to be and was unfaithful to my wife. I just used swinging to do it.

And the big one. While away on a work trip. I was asked to go home with a woman at a bar. I agreed, she then remembered I said I was married. She said it wouldn't be a good idea. I agreed and I went back to my hotel alone. Had she said yes, I don't know what would have happened. I can only assume the logical outcome. That I would have slept with her.