SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

in life there will always be someone that will be

better than you.

we cannot all be pro athletes.

everyone does not get the lead role.

everyone does not get to be a victoria secret model

or gets to marry one.

good chance we will not be our wives best sex

partner. though we will be the one that they love

the most for that is why they married you.

we can live a good life not being able to hit

60 homeruns in a season.

we can have a good marriage even if sex with the

AP was better. Remember the WS agreed to have sex

with the AP without knowing how good the affair

sex was going to be beforehand.

Old truck- you are right we choose it without knowing what it will be like. But I am really interested in why you believe that it has to be the best sex of our life?

Maybe the most expensive sex of my life I would agree there - sonto you the high price means that it was the best?

I respect your opinion but I am not sure I understand it. There are plenty of APs that are not at all attentive or particularly interested in anything but their own needs. Just interested why it’s always the best sex? I definitely know that wasn’t my experience but I know there is a perception that we can never say any different and that we just don’t admit it.

I think that hits the nail on the head for me....both APs are selfish and have their own agenda. Rarely are they looking for the same outcome. You may use the others desired outcome to achieve your own. E.g give sex and race it up to gain love and intimacy. Or give love and intimacy to get the hot sex. I just dont think it can be the "best" love or sex or experience when theres false acts and deception on both sides. When you start selling yourself short on some level even if you dont realise or understand that at the time I think it affects the reality of the experience. But projecting what you think the affair should be you deny this and reinforce what you expect from it. It doesnt mean it doesnt make you feel good or doesnt physically feel good. It must on some level or you just wouldn't bother. But doesnt mean it doesnt take some rewriting in your head to be more worthwhile in order to justify it.

Human instinct is pretty strong. Just as it can be fickle. When the ww is oohing and ahhing to please him on some.level hes probably aware of this but chooses to ignore it. Perhaps if hes that empty and superficial that's still amazing to him but hopefully if there's more substance he has better experiences to realise it lacked something genuine. And when wh's are saying I love you and making her believe it's more she has that nagging but she chooses to ignore it. Hes the first to say he doesnt love her and shes the first to say the sex wasnt great...how can two absolute mismatched perceptions of the same event be "amazing"?

I projected what I thought an affair had to be. But the reality and evidence of what I found fell incredibly short of this. I think we all have a "fantasy" of what affairs should and will be. I think that's probably the main reason it turns out not to be the best or amazing. How can a chalked up fantasy live up to the idealised fantasy?

If your WW was having amazing sex chances are she had an amazing bond and love too. Both equally invested in both. I think that's actually quite rare given the selfish self serving nature of affairs. I conceed I'm sure theres real love and amazing sex in some scenarios but I dont think they are the rule. I think they are more perceived and projected or expected rather than the reality.

When I'm done having sex with my current wife I know in my heart she just had the best 30 seconds of her life.

I don't believe that the apple pie eating analogy is similar to having affair sex because the reappraisal of eating the apple pie due to high consequences is not the same as a wayward gaining remorse. I think the main misunderstanding here is that remorse causes the wayward to have a completely different point of view on themselves, their affair and even their own lives. It is a deep down spiritual alteration of themselves. In religious terms it is a deep contrition over their sins and the desire to change. That desire to change is called repentance in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The contrition causes the wayward to see how deeply they hurt their spouse and children and repentance causes them to want to make amends for their actions. After the contrition has set into their souls they can no longer see sex with their AP as anything good because it deeply hurt their spouse and children. It also hurt themselves. They sold out their own integrity for a relationship based on fantasy and lies. In many cases they caused enormous damage to their own lives.

After a wayward becomes remorseful they see nothing good in their affair.

CA,

Did I read correctly that WW and OM still work for the same company?

What I question is the sincerity of a spouse who renounces her past because she fears losing her comfortable future.

Obedience created from fear is not the same as romantic love for her spouse.

HikingOut,

I don't think OldTruck said A sex is always better. Just that it could be better.

In some A's where the WW is going all out with the AP, doing things they will not do with the BH, it certainly seems like the sex must be better. At least the WW values the A sex more highly than sex with the BH, for whatever reason.

Unfortunately, WWs may marry men they don't love the best for ulterior motives. As I have found out.

Hikingout: I appreciate your sensitivity to the issue at hand and to my feelings in particular. And, no, I did not receive what you were sharing as dismissive. I think what you post is very insightful and has been a big help for me.

I guess in my own way I was agreeing with what you said. AP1 flirted with my WW in month 12 of our marriage, and in month 13 they were having sex. Fast forward to today (married 30 years), and this joker is still in our M. Though he has recently been rejecting my WW’s advances, she is still advancing as of just a couple of months ago. Thinking of the 29 year long LTA, he has gotten to know my wife (and she him) and they have become familiar with what each other likes sexually, and can please each other, just like a man and wife. Perhaps my point is that this level of intimacy and familiarity can apply to both the AP and spouse. I think he became very comfortable and familiar with my WW over the years, but for men I can see the lapse of the emotional bonding. I think that to many men my WW became a trophy. They were in it for the bragging rights, not because they were in love with her.

I very much see your point and agree with you that in a meet-up or short term A, the spouse had the “house advantage” due to longevity. My WW had several hook-ups and STA’s and I can see there was no emotional bonding there, per se. I think my wife was also in the A’s for the trophy hunting, as well. Maybe she needed to prove to herself she still “had it”, I don’t know. But when you rack up a high count of suitors, I can’t believe you’re in this game for the emotional attachment.

Grace:

I'm going to step in here to say that I'm still just so fucked up over all of this...

... and yet I still realize that we, Husband and I, are still parsing out how much of it was about sex, and actually, how much of it was about other things, but sex was simply the language of the moment.

And yet sex was the sacred contract that was not to be broken.

And the two of us had unresolved, unknown to even ourselves nor to each other (apparently) understandings of that contract when shit went down.

Sex is a conversation.

When the conversation involves uninvited guests, it goes severely off the rails.

Sorry, way into my own head tonight. =/

survrus

My WW does not work at the same company as AP anymore. She offered to quit immediately. I told her I did not care what she did because I was divorcing her when the kids were out of high school. She started looking for a new job immediately after Dday and found a comparable position about six month later.

[This message edited by CreateAccount197 at 12:37 AM, October 1st (Tuesday)]

I don't have the writing skills or the time to write that book.

Don't worry, we all got to read the books that our WS's gave us...

FWIW, when Masters and Johnson did their extensive sex studies, they found that long term partners in committed relationships reported the highest degree of sexual satisfaction. Even higher than highly experienced and skilled partners who were not in committed relationships.

I firmly believe that if both the BS and the WS do their homework (and God helps them) they will go throught a major personality-inteligence growth one by forgiving (and learning what matters most) and the other repenting (wich grows empathy and afinity with truth, after so long lying to themselves and thw BS). So yes, the marriage will be way better then before. The thing is ocidental world lost all sense of common values and people are becoming more dumb by day, those 2 factors makes this kind of grow way harder tham it should be.

And yet sex was the sacred contract that was not to be broken.

This is one of the things I think about often; particularly when we have threads like this and people say things like "your focused on the wrong thing" (in reference to examining the sexual stuff in an affair). Sex was the thing that broke "the contract". Yes, EA's are a thing, and they hurt terribly I'm sure, but if we go back to "for cause" divorce, AFAIK, an EA wouldn't meet the criteria. Sex is IT, it's really the only thing that separates a marriage from a very close personal friendship. It's the only thing I explicitly promised NOT as a married man. Female friends? Fine (well, not for me, but most people would consider that just fine). A confidant who's female? OK. A little flirting.. Usually OK. "I love yous"? Yes, also OK, I say that to family members (both sexes), and have said it to male friends since being married. It's really sex that is "the thing" in an affair, and, IMHO, it deserves the focus that it gets.

people are becoming more dumb by day

They're not becoming dumber (IMHO, although I can see why you think that!). They are becoming less empathetic, our sense of community is being torn apart and people today are much less "connected" than they were in the past. It's laughably easy to live in a "bubble" today surrounded by only people who are just like you, and who will echo your viewpoints and parrot your statements. Our need for human "connection" has been supplanted/replaced in lots of areas by technology, where before we'd call or go visit, today we "Like" on Facebook and call it "done". Deep/personal relationships have fallen by the wayside in favor of hundreds/thousands of superficial relationships. And you can see that in the dating/sexual marketplace today; we've gone from courtship carefully overseen by parents to people hopping on Tinder and sending "DTF?" to a few random people in the hopes of a totally anonymous hookup. I see countless articles about how technology and our society today is leading to "more connection" and I always laugh at a joke I heard once about Mark Z "More connected says the guy who's probably never met his neighbors, has no idea who lived 2 doors down from him in college and spends his life making sure he's not anywhere where "random" people could actually approach him". Yeah, more connected indeed.

Husband and I, are still parsing out how much of it was about sex

Honestly, and I might get a smack for this, but I think it's pretty safe to make two "in general" assumptions when you're dealing with a lying WS who's motives you're trying to discern. If a male WS tells you "It was about sex", my general thought is "believe him". And if a female WS tells you "It wasn't about sex", again, general though, "believe her". And, in both cases, you're going to have evidence that points the other way. My WW said "it wasn't about sex" and yet, "sex" was basically the only thing they did together. Evidence says "it was about sex" and yet, after many years, I've come to believe her version of the story. And same thing for a WH, millions of TXT messages, "I looovvveeee you's" to the AP, plans to leave the marriage.. All seem to indicate "not about sex" but.. In a lot of cases, all of that is just "window dressing" to get to the sex. NOT all the time, I want to make that clear, men do have affairs and fall in love and there are some women who have affairs "just for sex". But, as a relatively safe "WTF was my WS thinking" I think it's safe to start from those as the "most likely" answers and fill in evidence around that to validate that as a hypothesis.

I don't think OldTruck said A sex is always better. Just that it could be better.

In some A's where the WW is going all out with the AP, doing things they will not do with the BH, it certainly seems like the sex must be better. At least the WW values the A sex more highly than sex with the BH, for whatever reason.

Ahh, the seed of doubt. And, honestly, this is exactly the problem that drives these types of discussions, "it COULD BE" better. It would be a completely false statement to say "Affair sex is never amazing/much better than sex with the BS". 100% false, I can bet my life on it. Especially when, as you point out later, A sex often involves lots of "kink", sometimes kink that's not done at all in the marriage, plus the added excitement and danger.. I feel 100% sure that there are at least some people who's "best sex ever" was with their AP. Not ever AP sucks in bed, in fact, some are probably very gifted (because of experience) in bed. There are plenty of stories out there about married women having their first orgasms with AP's, just like there are plenty of stories out there about married men getting their first BJ/anal sex/etc with an AP. Nobody's gonna convince me that those experiences wouldn't be "amazing" for the WS in those instances. It's usually not that black/white though, and that's what leads to this discussion, because it's really "not clear" if the A sex was better or not. It's a gray area. Better for some, less good for others, and awful for another group. Just like there's a male AP out there with a 6 pack, perfect sized penis, stamina for days with heavenly oral skills, there's also a male AP out there with ED, premature ejaculation, micropenis and a real desire to see how quickly he can get his clothes off and back on. Which did your H/W have? IDK. Nobody really knows. And that's the fundamental problem here. Nearly every WS claims "it wasn't that great" and some of them are lying. Because of that, it becomes difficult to trust anything in this particular area, lots of lying and tons of incentive to continue lying.

Thanks for your post CA197. I think when you are with a remorseful spouse that your experience is probably the norm. No matter what they experienced or thought DURING the affair, is not how they see the affai,r or the sex that went with it, afterwards. Much like the marriage we saw pre-A looks different to us with the clarity of the A.

I had a similar experience with my WH. On DDay1, he was regretful. But he still saw her as a "friend". About 6 weeks later, the affair fog lifted and he started seeing her fake facade and her manipulations and felt extremely dumb for having gotten involved with her. Now obviously, I did not know about the sex until DDay 2 of TT. I know he enjoyed the excitement (after all, he had only been with me), but I also know that the excitement even in the moment was also tinged with insecurity (as he had been with me). One of the first things I asked was, was it good. He said it was exciting but that she never had an orgasm. (Which didn't shock me since they had sex 3 drunken nights in a hotel and once in a car - not a ton of time to get to know someone well.) However, I believe him when he says he has no pleasant memories associated with her or the affair (including the sex). It makes him feel gross and disgusting when he thinks of it. He doesn't even say her name anymore, just calls her his AP. The fact that he allowed himself to lose his morals and integrity are enough to cloud any "good" memories of that new and exciting sex.

As for "married" sex and how it compares? I think it can be better or it can be worse. I will be honest when I say that pre-A, my husband (who I had been with for 20 years at the time of his A) was NOT my best sex partner up to that point. It was a college boyfriend. That boyfriend and I weren't madly in love, but dated for 3 years and really had a great friendship. He had no inhibitions and was constantly asking me if what he was doing worked, etc. It was great sex not because I loved him so much, but because he had no shame associated with sex and was attentive. But even with him the first time wasn't great - it probably took a few months before we got into a good groove. I have also had one night stands. Not a single one was good IME. I think for women, orgasm takes a little bit more, and if your partner isn't looking out for you, it's not going to be so great. Men can get off, but really if there's no connection you are just porn with skin for them too. They might say the sex was "great" because you are hot and they got off - but it's not really "great" in terms of having any magical, deeply soul-satisfying component. We've all had orgasms that felt good, but were just to scratch an itch and forgotten the moment they were done.

My WH on the other hand had very little sexual experience. I was his first partner. He was not aggressive or confident. He grew up in a house where sex was shameful and not discussed. We had sex, and it was okay, but neither of us were comfortable being truly vulnerable. THEN, after the A, (and I thought there was no sex), we went through hysterical bonding. Then we started connecting emotionally. Truly, we will both say that the sex we had for those 2 years in between DDays was the best either of us has ever had. It was. Because we were vulnerable, honest and open. That emotional connection combined with a desire to really know your partner's body, is something special. Too bad he was lying about sleeping with his AP, because that has all come to a halt.

As an aside, I think the WSes who have pleasant memories of their affair are the ones Esther Perel seems to have in mind in her book. To have good memories of an affair means that you haven't actually reached remorse. Just regret. To truly feel remorse, you have to wish the A had never happened and you see the damage you wrought both to your spouse/family AND your own integrity. And something that causes that much pain cannot and SHOULD not have any positive associations. The WS should dislike both their AP AND themselves at the time of the A. Neither was a good person.

I am sorry if I misunderstood OldTruck. Maybe he is talking more about the possibility is always there and maybe just accept the worst because you will never know. I could understand that.

Striver, I think you are right - we bring our own experiences to the table, and it's hard to always keep that front of mind. In our situation, financially either of us would be fine, I make slightly more money than H but it's comparable. We don't have the kids at home. The only thing that is really left for reasons for us to be together is because we are choosing to be. And, that's not the masses here on SI it doesn't seem like.

I very much see your point and agree with you that in a meet-up or short term A, the spouse had the “house advantage” due to longevity. My WW had several hook-ups and STA’s and I can see there was no emotional bonding there, per se. I think my wife was also in the A’s for the trophy hunting, as well. Maybe she needed to prove to herself she still “had it”, I don’t know. But when you rack up a high count of suitors, I can’t believe you’re in this game for the emotional attachment.

Beachwalker - yes, you said this more succinctly than I did. But, in my situation H has far more the "house advantage" but I know this may only cover a percentage of situations here. I am glad I was not being insensitive. And, yes, I agree I could see how in a LTA there is the possibility that the AP has learned the advantage and is possibly experiencing greater intimacy investment on top- especially when you think that often the AP knows about the BS but not the other way around. I can definitely appreciate what you are saying.

Cheaters start affairs because they are selfish, self-centered people with no integrity who think they can get away with it and it makes them feel high for a while.

I'm just curious here ... do you still see your W as 'selfish, self-centered ... with no integrity'?

I think the main problem with this is as a man (I'm a Mad Hatter) my affair sex (with her oldest sister, I did it for revenge and no I'm not a nice guy) was EXCEPTIONAL!!! To be honest the sex I had with my wife was mostly "Meh" it was GREAT to me BECAUSE of the amount of love I had for my wife.

To give an example, my first wife's nipples were apparently not connected to anything sexually, her sister on the other hand had boobgasms! Hell I didn't even know that was possible! Yes I had a lot of other ladies before I got married so I was at a loss trying to figure out HOW to sexually please my ex.

After the divorce I found out that the ex HAD NEVER BEEN IN LOVE WITH ME!!! She married me to "get out of the house and away from her mom"!

She had only expected to be married to me "for a year or so" and then planned to get a divorce.

We were together for 6 years married for 8(last two I was 1500 miles away), she already had 2 children with me and WAS PREGNANT with the 3rd when she started cheating! She swears that my son was mine but since she never told me anything about WHEN it actually started, I am left not knowing whether or no my son was really mine.

I will NEVER know! (way before DNA was available) As he died at 9 (5'2" flaming ORANGE hair! (never understood calling orange hair red. Her sister (while being somebody I had already detested) was like plugging into an epileptic hooker!

So the A sex for me was amazing! Now for me to switch experiences makes it impossible for me to think that for my ex it was ANY different! She did admit that she had done a lot of things that I had wanted with her but she was NEVER willing. (to cut in here it WAS an exit affair and she did kick me out to have more access to her "lover" while she was pregnant!)

Now with the ex she had already destroyed my career "I couldn't leave you while you were strong" just to start.

JMO YMMV

[This message edited by Candyman66 at 10:10 PM, October 1st (Tuesday)]

I until each of us has both -- affair sex and married sex -- a LOT of this thread is theoretical.

As I've agreed with before, the theoretical NSA sex is a great fantasy, but it's almost always more complex than that.

But I can't live on theory, I've only really got reality to work with.

And the reality for a person who is working on rebuilding a marriage is to focus on who is in front of me now. Today.

My wife had an LTA. After some months of TT, she gave me what I asked for, the unvarnished truth. How do I know? I didn't have texts, or photos or email or any 'real' evidence other than her confession. When she realized I needed ALL of my stolen time accounted for, she told me about the whole horror show. The details were beyond brutal.

In that LTA, the story ran the entire spectrum from intense fun to what I only can describe as assault and then she was dropped like a rock when AP had accomplished his 'to do' list.

Why on earth would I ever worry about competing with that?

That's what we're doing here, right? Comparing. Worried about what we may have missed?

Even if when the A started all happy and full of limerence and some of those early encounters were glorious -- none of it had anything to do with me.

AP got the most broken version of my wife of all time. Congrats on that. Also, congrats on parking lot sex with a pregnant married woman, the cold stairwell, the basement floor and bending her over a toilet for whatever joy you got there AP Dude. You were both Champs.

It kind of makes the reconciliation from all that a bit of a miracle.

A miracle we both appreciate now. That I gave grace and she owned all of her choices makes this a comeback neither of us thought was possible. Two vastly imperfect souls holding on through sickness and health.

I think that's why the married sex now is so off the charts amazing.

We dropped the pretense, the games, the bullshit, the masks, and traded it in for honesty (finally) and have a physical and spiritual connection that crushes anything I've actually experienced in life thus far.

Any path but infidelity would have been better, but sometimes burning it back to the foundation is the only way to completely rebuild.

[This message edited by Oldwounds at 10:23 AM, October 1st (Tuesday)]

I think the main problem with this is as a man (I'm a Mad Hatter) my affair sex (with her oldest sister, I did it for revenge and no I'm not a nice guy) was EXCEPTIONAL!!! To be honest the sex I had with my wife was mostly "Meh" it was GREAT to me BECAUSE of the amount of love I had for my wife.

Thank you for making me think, if nothing else, I'm not crazy. I've never heard A sex as anything but "exceptional" from the WH's that I know. Yes, as others pointed out, they might be lying, and they might be trying to justify their (poor) decision making. I have a feeling though, like a lot of things, this comes down to "different experiences" for different AP's, and, in this instance, likely highly related to gender. New sex, without an A, and without being my sister in law, is almost without exception, pretty darn wonderful for me (or was in the past). I have no reason to believe that A sex would be anything different, if anything, probably "more".

I know people don't like to think this way, but there are "rational cheats" out there; especially, IMHO, serial cheats. They are chasing something that's "real" and valuable to them, and that they are probably going to get from an affair. I can't believe that the cheats I know would go through all the trouble/turmoil and cost to have an A for mediocre sex, I just can't. Now, is that sex spectacular for their AP (female)? I doubt it very much. But for them? I think we over analyze this sometimes and turn it into "FOO" or "personality disorder" or some other diagnosis when a simpler explanation might do. "New p**sy is a potent motivator". Couple that with a lack of regard for the people you hurt, and, volia, there you have it, all the makings of an affair.

bending her over a toilet for whatever joy you got there AP Dude. You were both Champs.

Ahh, yes, your classic "romantic" affair. Nothing says "love" like being bent over with your hair in toilet water. And, no, I'm not making fun of you, my WW did pretty much the same thing, and claimed it was "love". I think we might need to define terms! ;)

[This message edited by Rideitout at 10:30 AM, October 1st (Tuesday)]

Sisson

I no longer see my wife negatively at all. She is an awesome wife in every way. I attribute her awesomeness to her remorse ( contrition and repentance ) and working a program in Alcoholics Anonymous ( making amends).

[This message edited by CreateAccount197 at 11:54 AM, October 1st (Tuesday)]