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I think at the first the shock of whatever you discovered, EA or PA or both, just brings you to your knees and leaves you without any ability to decide anything. The TT further keeps you in the situation because of the desperate need to know the truth about your life. Usually by then some months have passed and you are just hurting all the time. Your partner is (usually) comforting you when you are in tremendous despair thereby making themselves somewhat indespensible. I am sort of at that stage. I don’t see how this is not a dealbreaker but I am getting tremendous comfort from all the affection and attention and caring that I am receiving from him.

Although I don’t think he had any EAs because he paid for it, I believe he pretended it in his mind. When I busted him it was easy enough for him to simply stop whatever the current fling was because he had nothing invested (besides a ton of money).

I am really interested in this topic because I don’t know how I will feel in a year, two years and so forth. Right now I can’t sleep with him.

So, I guess it isn’t a dealbreaker yet because he is providing something I desperately need right now. I need to know I matter. I need him to show me how scared he is of losing this relationship. Sometimes I think it would be satisfying to leave just for revenge. Also, I think we stay because we have spent years building what we want and not looking around for alternatives. We were invested and we can’t turn it off easily. That takes time and energy that we just don’t have. We aren’t fickle like a cheater. We are attached and breaking that attachment is a painful thing to contemplate. We get stuck. I am stuck.

[This message edited by Maybehurtforever at 12:31 PM, December 16th (Monday)]

WH had an EA that became a PA. Is it a dealbreaker? I don't know right now. I've found myself many times thinking why - why did he have to cross that boundary into PA? If it was an EA I know I could get past it with time and remorse and work on his part. If it was just a PA - ONS for example - maybe I could because it wouldn't mean anything but sex. But this PA meant something, at least at the time. He had feelings for her and acted on them. He thought he loved her at the time. Can I get past that? I don't know. I'm waiting to see if he can do his part and show remorse, help me heal, take full responsibility for what he's done. If he can't do those things it really doesn't matter if I can get past it because I won't be with him if he can't. If he can't figure out how he could totally disregard his moral compass, strong character, integrity, etc to do this. Right now, it makes me sick to my stomach to just think of them together. I don't know if that will change if he changes.

The PA wasn’t the dealbreaker. It was the lies.

He isn’t that god in bed. You’d think the extra practice with other men’s wives would improve his performance, but no.

So, other than the STD. exposure, I don’t give a shit about him porking a skank.

A site I used to frequent, LoveShack, had boards for "Other Women" and people who had ongoing affairs. I didn't much like those people, but they seemed lucid enough. Not insane, not "foggy." What they wanted wasn't nice, but it was fairly clear what they wanted.

I too have read in that space. It is very enlightening to see what they really think, the pure unadulterated truth. Basically what they say and think before they have to go into CYA mode, and start all the cliche lines we see over and over.

I was never going to leave you.

I didn't REALLY love him

Please understand I have FOO issues.

etc etc.

IMO if most BH ever saw what was said (or more accurately what was thought) about them during the affair, many would find it a deal-breaker.

We have an example of this on this forum back in 2017: https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=614285&HL=61076

AmbivalentOne found everything his WW had said about him during her years long affair. Read it if you like but suffice it to say it was hateful, hurtful shit. She ripped him physically, his intelligence, as a provider, and every other way. Years later she gets busted and, as if coloring by numbers, sounded like every other remorseful WW we see here.

Its up to every BS to decide what they will and will not tolerate. For example when a WS break NC. Some BS will let it slide and redraw the line in the sand. Others kick them to the curb.

Thumos I hope you get some peace soon. You have suffered for too long.

[This message edited by ramius at 12:17 AM, December 17th (Tuesday)]

I am 2.5 years from DDay. My thoughts keep evolving over time. At first, right after DDay, I wanted to renew our wedding vows because I knew we were "out of contract", our vows were broken. As time went on and I kept reading that the marriage is over and you must build a "new marriage" I felt that I could fix the old marriage. I did not want a new one, I liked the old one. Now I see clearly that the old marriage is indeed dead. My wife ended it when she took her cloths off. For me the Physical Affair was too much. Thinking about everything that I have been thru, I knew it was a deal breaker the moment that I found out about the affair. That is why it hurt me so much. In the back of my mind I knew what I had lost and the magnitude of the situation. I can see it clearly now, but I could not see it then.

Your views will change over time and you will "settle in".

I agree with Buck

[This message edited by Jimmy1962 at 9:29 AM, December 17th (Tuesday)]

For me it was a deal breaker until it wasn't. I had never considered what would become of my kids living part time under the roof and rules of another man. I hadn't considered not seeing them on a daily basis. Of course I'd really never considered that my wife would do any of the things that she did to us in the first place so it was until I found out it wasn't.

Luckily for me my fww has been a model citizen because I know that I couldn't tolerate anything less. It's the hardest work I've ever had to do with all of the images that I have burned in my head. I was one of the unfortunate ones to have seen pictures and what not.

Had we not had small children together, there is nothing that would've kept me from leaving the marriage. I loved my wife then and I still do love her but things will never be the same again no matter all of the good times we've had since DDAY. I chose to embrace the suck.

Had we not had small children together, there is nothing that would've kept me from leaving the marriage. I loved my wife then and I still do love her but things will never be the same again no matter all of the good times we've had since DDAY. I chose to embrace the suck.

This isn't exactly encouraging. I'm three years out and feel much the same way, except I don't want to embrace the suck.

To me it's not about the action, it's about the lies.

I'm not sure where I stand on the concept of EAs because I find it a fundamentally confusing issue. Look how many people here say the only difference between their marriage and friendship is sex. If that's your belief, how can a non-physical affair actually BE an affair rather than a close friendship?

I don't see anything wrong with emotionally intimate friendships. I would have a problem with my partner hiding an intimate connection deliberately, though.

Again, since we're open, I'd have no issues with whatever physical connections my partners have as long as they let me know it's happening and if we need to renegotiate our current safer sex agreements.

What would be the issue is lying, period. I am not sure I could forgive deliberate lies because especially in the kinds of activities we engage in, trust is paramount. I would not be willing to do BDSM or poly relationships with anyone I feel like I can't trust.

Thumos, I'm curious to know if you and your WW have developed any slang or naming conventions when referring to the AP. He is a man who insinuated himself into your life and actively and aggressively pursued sex with your wife, in your home, while a accepting your hospitality. He did this while himself being married to the mother of his young son, who is your sons friend. His current wife is a woman who cheated on her husband and left hom for the AP.

By every measure, the AP is an utter piece of shit and he ought to be openly referred to as such in your conversations.

As Unhinged already mentioned in the thread, it's always a dealbreaker.

Always.

I think infidelity completely destroys any relationship.

For me, I had to decide whether or not I could rebuild a relationship out of that destruction.

It took two years of two people working on themselves and showing levels of understanding we never showed each other before to make something new.

The deal was broken, so we started over.

Thumos,

3 years out and I very much still had the feelings that you're having. I'm 6 years away from it all and things most certainly have become better. It still sucks but the further down the road I've gotten, the further away it gets from me. Of course I still think about what happened but not as often. I don't dwell on the OM anymore. The plan I had for my life certainly did not include this but life does go on and gets better if you allow it to.

In the end though it's all up to what you want and how you feel. There were so many times where I wanted to call it quits but my kids brought me the strength to stay. My fww has also done the work and has been nothing but remorseful which has helped tremendously.

Over the last 17 years I have always said the PA was a deal breaker. That I wouldn't be like our parents and all that other stuff that goes with it..

Then his A hit me in the face like a shovel and I went into a hole and didn't know how to pull my self out of. and in some aspects I'm still in that hole a year later. Repeatedly I get hit with that shovel every morning when I wake up.

Why didn't I leave after Dday? I thought about it. Sometimes I still think about it. But he begged me to stay and give him another chance. But this will be his one and only chance. He says he will be making it up to me for the rest of lives. It's been a year since Dday. I don't cry as often. We laugh more. We don't fight as we did before. Things are better.