SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Just wanted to hear what were the reasons for why from others,long term affairs too..

The usual bullshit....

1. He was unhappy and didn't think I cared - he never once told me he was unhappy and I'm not a freaking mind reader.

2. There were issues in the marriage and he didn't know how to talk about them - well having an affair sure as hell ain't the way to deal with them.

3. She made him feel "special" - easy for her - she was single - no kids - they worked together and was there everyday making it all about him and how wonderful he was.

4. The kids would understand because they just want him to be happy - this fantasy blew up quickly when both kids refused to talk to him after Dday hit.

The list goes on - but honestly they were all pretty much the cliche why's you here from most cheaters.

Fundamentally it was because I wanted to. I was in a very bad place and the attention felt good. I hadn’t managed my life well, was exhausted, deeply unhappy, and all that went ignored. I numbed myself in being busy for so long and was deeply in denial. I built up resentment and turned it to entitlement. I wasn’t being introspective at all. Numbing and avoiding can allow you to become callous to yourself and others. I ignored my realities and pretended to myself that I was a younger, sexier, more interesting, more vibrant, cooler person. The AP was willing to go along with it and would reflect back what I wanted to feel and see, and was using me for the same sorts of things but I was so deeply enmeshed I believed all of it.

Why’s to me are internal to us. Anything where we are blaming others or external things are excuses and justifications.

I think how’s are as important or maybe more important to why’s. What are the things that made us comfortable in that behavior? What are the stories that we told ourselves? Are those stories true or can they be dispelled? For me none of them were true and often I think that’s the case. This is why in IC we go over FOO and other background information. We have to understand some of the origins of the things that made us comfortable in those decisions. I grew up in chaos for example, and in its absence was uncomfortable. I can see now that I have created it in many ways my entire life when things could have been quieter. I was comfortable in the chaos the affair was causing. There is a lot to track down in understanding yourself. I could write paragraphs and paragraphs on it.

But good why’s are internal. Good how’s allow is to identify what made us comfortable. I think the why’s are the easier shorter part. The how’s can go on for a long time. I still work hard in my how’s.

The whys have been changing. First it was the typical “we were disconnected” BS. Then it went to low self esteem, thrill seeking, living out a high school fantasy. Then it was finally an admission of I wanted to, now to figure out how he was able to be ok with it.

1 - we were "disconnected," AP "flattered him"

2 - likes to "take risks," it's just who he is, an amazing daredevil

3 - after he started IC, it was that he resented his cheating mother for his parents' divorce and transferred that onto me, not sure how cheating himself made that better

4 - after he joined a church, it was that he put money and success before God and his family (in that order), although again, I'm not sure how cheating with a co-worker and jeapordizing his career equals pursuing success

... And then I stopped asking, because I realized we were just "untangling the skein of his f'd-up-ness." It's just that he wanted to and felt entitled to have what he wanted.

After finally talking some of it through i got some answers from my WS

1. She felt she missed out on sleeping around as i was her first and only.

2. She didn't think it would upset me that much as it was only sex.

3. She felt stifled as a mum and wife and wanted more.. Wanted things for herself

4. She felt entitled to.. Her body her choices.

5. She thought if she didnt keep it up he would leave her for someone who would.

6. She honestly thought i would never find out.

The four of us were best friends through high school. The four of us had a double wedding.

Her whys were:

She never loved me

Always loved him

He loves her

After the divorce they moved in together and two weeks later found him in bed with the wife of another friend.

She found out she threw everything away for a fantasy that wasn't true.

I felt flattered (I flattered her frequently);

He made me feel special;

I felt excited in his presence;

I was in a bubble.

I later discovered that it was so easy for her (my wayward wife) to cheat last year because she was 'infatuated' with him (AP) when they worked together back in 2010, a few months before we were engaged.

He was numbed out (on psych meds) and just wanted to see if he was capable of feeling something. He got endorphins out of being with the OW. I never gave him compliments or stroked his ego and she was “in awe” of him. He could pretend to be a different person with her, told her he had a job he applied for but never got, that he was wealthy and invested in the stock market when in reality he was working with a law firm to negotiate debt payoff plans, etc. He felt powerful trying to seduce her into falling in love with him. Pretty sick.

All of the above... same old, same old except WH is a Narcissist.

I get to cop the blame for him even farting in bed.

Damn right. It’s was my cooking that created that awful stench.

And it sounds crude, but I wouldn’t do Anal, so he found OW who did on first encounter.

That’s about the most believable reasons of Why.

1) Fell in love with their coworker, immediately wanted to have sex with them, and did

3) Couldn't care less about their spouse, their marriage, or full-time access to their children

For me, it was how my FOO issues changed my whole way of thinking about myself. I usually use the example of how my internal operating system’s default setting is that I am bad and worthless. Through therapy I have learned that I am subject to toxic shame, and my thought processes are polarized thinking and filtering. (Polarized thinking is that I view everything with no middle area. If I’m not 100% good or perfect than I’m horrible. And filtering is all about discounting anything positive and only accepting negative statements). So I became an outward perfectionist while inside I always felt like a failure. I was like this my whole life and anything negative just fed into what I already knew about myself. That I was a failure and unworthy of being loved. Anyway, that combined with a few things happening in my life put me in a somewhat depressive state where I was starving for validation, but it also couldn’t come from my husband, because of my thinking.

But good why’s are internal. Good how’s allow is to identify what made us comfortable. I think the why’s are the easier shorter part. The how’s can go on for a long time. I still work hard in my how’s.

I think this point is so true. There’s a point where our whys have to meet the action we are taking and the whys can be very powerful, but the how’s should have stopped us. And they didn’t. The whys are important because you need to address them and understand them so you can learn to deal with them, but if they’re not connected to the how’s then it won’t be nearly as helpful or useful.

Ultimately?

Depression and quarter life crisis. Had young kids both of us working long hours, and barely keeping our heads above water financially, and knowing that wasn't going to change any time soon led to depression, and the depression led to thinking of D, and that led to seeing an attorney, and that attorney nutbag liked bagging men who were in that situation.

He fell for it, because she was extremely wealthy (mommy and daddy were millionaires) and he saw a fantasy way out.

Typical mid life crisis affair. He was sooooo unhappy. And turning 50 was miserable for him. He blamed me for his unhappiness. He blamed me for his career not meeting his expectations (b/c I never supported him in his big corporate career and stifled him).

I heard ILYBNILWY. So typical.

It was my fault. His unhappiness. His failures. His frustrations.

Thankful he’s changed.

None of the above...he admits he must have wanted to at the start but remembers almost nothing.- he tried hypnotherapy but it didn't help him remember anything. All he remembers is dread and fear. He says he hated being with her and avoided her at work whenever possible.

His why's therefore are because she was mentally unstable, he thought she would burn our house down with us in it. He hoped she'd be run over by a bus and in the meantime spent weekends and nights away with her for 10 years. He was badly bullied as a child and his therapists put it down to using the same coping mechanisms ie. do nothing, tell no-one and hope it goes away.

She was unpleasant and manipulative when I found out but not violent. He now admits much of ìt was in his head but that the threat seemed real then. Yep, he f**ked another woman to protect his family.

I've screamed at him, I've calling picked apart his story but it has never wavered over the 4 years since DDay. He still can't talk about her without starting to shake.

It sounds insane and everyone I tell looks at me in pity that I should even contemplate believing an unbelievable story. The fear that it is all lies will probably always be there.

The reason my ex decided to leave was because I was "BORING". Why was I boring? Because I did not like to fight with my wife. I would fight anybody else just not with my wife. Silly me I thought that was how it was supposed to be.

My ex grew up with 10 brothers and sisters, an alcoholic dad and a mom that lived to fight.

She also told me that she "only married me to get out of the house and away from mom" and that she NEVER LOVED me. A secondary reason was I lost my ATC career (due to loss of confidence because she was cheating) so I was no longer "a strong man".

She destroyed my career because "she couldn't leave me when I was strong".

JMO YMMV

In my google news feed it had an article about different kind of affairs. Emotional, casual (just sex), exit, and post crisis. I guess my wifes was a combination of the casual and crisis. She wasn’t post crisis exactly but my second daughter leaving for college sent her into a period of self doubt about her worth. She was so tied up to being a mom that she described it as being let go of her job after 19 years with no skills to go forward with.

Combine that with being pre menopausal and she just went off the rails. We actually explored medical reasons as it felt like a manic episode. The whole thing was just so unlike her.

I do think that had her AP not been so aggressive in pursuing her, that she could have found other outlets to get back her confidence. He just knew what buttons to push. He actually bragged to the other workers that he was able to get these women of her age to do things with him that they didn’t do for their husbands. It wasn’t his first rodeo with this kind of thing. There were no real emotional ties. It was slam bam sex with him.

She probably didn’t stand a chance. It was a classic mid life crisis that could have been solved if she had made better choices like volunteering for charities instead of banging the electrician.

Hi waitedwaytoolong.

It was a classic mid life crisis that could have been solved if she had made better choices like volunteering for charities instead of banging the electrician.

Funny not funny you mentioned volunteering for charities. I was volunteering at three different ones when I had my A and the AP was from one of them. So, yeah. It doesn’t matter how she occupied her time. It’s about the choices she made and the ones she didn’t when faced with them. That’s it.

1) It was a Fantasy and not real

2) She boosted his Ego

3) Knight in Shining Armor syndrome

4) Sexting was exciting as he never did anything like that before.

5) Kept it going because he didn't know how to get out of it, fear of blackmail from talking too much about our personal life and sent way too many pictures and videos of himself in compromising ways that now could be all over the WWW.

Per my WH:

Not enough sex

He didn't get enough attention

Quarter life crisis

He spent so much time wooing her that by the time he came home he had none left for me and was always in a bad mood. We know now it was because his guilt for having an affair would usually kick in once he told her goodbye for the day and came home to me and the kids. He'd take that guilt out on us. So the no sex/not enough attention cycle would start. I'd try and talk to him but he obviously couldn't be honest about why he was in a bad mood.