SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Follow the river,

My first reply was when I had only read the accusatory section of your reply.

I have since read your post in its entirety and will read your post as I am sure I will gain insight.

Another frightening revelation is that I might be stalling reconciliation BECAUSE I really want revenge and if I’m too far into reconciliation and my husband keeps fighting so hard and doing the work and I forgive him I won’t be able to follow through with it.

Now how’s that for honesty?

It would be cruel of me to continue down that path and I am aware of it. So how could my husband have not thought about the destruction to all 3 parties.

Mickie, I really see you wrestling with this question a lot, and I think this is very normal considering what your husband put you through. I think your current questioning is continuing this but in a manner different than what we’re used to seeing here, an interesting and ultimately hazardous manner...

I will say that I really feel like my ego needs to even the score and not evening the score is going to haunt me.

My only thought on this is to ask if Mickie needs to even the score or if Mickie’s EGO needs to even the score. If it’s just the ego (which I believe) then you simply acknowledge that you as a whole person do not need this. Your ego’s screaming for this impulse buy as a way to reassert normalcy: Like most impulse buys it’s not likely to work.

Think through what the want vs need calculus really looks like. Think through what the outcome of evening the score is- Is it actual resolution? Is it going to reinstate the assumptions of trust and equal footing with the man who betrayed you? Is it going to place you on a better path to acceptance and peace?

I am also realizing how hurtful it is to pursue someone with the sole intention for them to patch a hole.

You acknowledged this early on in this thread, but continue to exert a lot of mental gymnastics as to what scenario would make using someone less harmful- If I may remind you, the using is universally injurious, not the least of which is to YOU. It’s impossible to understand, and you’re desperately trying, but IMO this is a perspective best left to your imagination. Recovering and healing is a long, exhausting, and eminently UNFAIR experience for the betrayed, and I can only imagine the urgency to make it stop. Reasoning through it is better than acting, so please when you’re reading try and find all those spots where you overtly state that this has made you feel like shit.

None of us can exactly understand how your mind is taking you places. The MHs here have offered some perspective. You have had A LOT of dialogue with WS here, which is unique and I hope helpful in building perspective- But we are eager to see you make it through this without regret and harm to self and others, which is why we’re suggesting abandoning this line of action.

JBWD

Thanks for your insight. You are right. I need to keep my ego in check.

I’m working my way through my pain and hoping for some insight.

I might be stalling reconciliation BECAUSE I really want revenge

Mickie500,

Like I said earlier, you are posting in the Wayward forum from the perspective of a BS, with a stop sign no less, looking for insight about you wanting to have an RA. I’m not talking about rules or anything. I just want to know why? You say you want insight. What insight are you looking for? Are you looking for WS’s who are here working on themselves to say that doing something Wayward is understandable and okay? That because you have a need not to accept a “shit sandwich” and to “balance the scales” that we should say it’s fine, no problem? I don’t know a single WS on this site who would.

It’s not your talking about wanting to cheat on your WS (but you don’t think your a WS/MH) that is very off putting on a Wayward forum, but that you are rationalizing it to us and almost looking for permission on a Wayward forum that is. As if Ego Kibbles = not okay but RA = okay. That’s nonsense. You have your answer. It’s never okay. Period. All of us who admit to being a WS had a “reason.” It doesn’t matter what the reason was. None of them make it okay. The fact that you have a “need” because your WH cheated on you does not make it okay. It doesn’t legitimize it. Nothing does.

Now, I’m sure there are BS’s who will tell you to go for it. Balance the scales, what’s good for the goose, he broke the rules so the M is over, blah blah blah. But here on the Wayward forum? Nope.

If revenge is all you can think about, then D your WH and go have sex with whomever you want to. If you want to talk through your pain as a BS, that’s important, I just think you’ll get more help from other BS’s. But trying to push the concept of an RA on the Wayward forum to people who actually committed infidelity and are trying to be their authentic selves and be better people, I just don’t get what you’re doing or why you’re doing it.

Mickie, I have no doubt that what you’re saying is 100% of what you’re feeling. What I think wayward can be for is to examine those feelings and their source, see if they’re benefiting you, and how to challenge or change their patterns.

That said, I agree with FTR and MrsWalloped.

Look, you can try to justify your actions and choices all you want. That doesn’t change the fact that your values and decisions are internal to you. Pain is not an excuse. It’s a hard lesson.

Why do you value your marriage, other people, external factors, more than YOU? Your husband cheats - why do you want to hurt him back? What is in YOU that says it’s ok to try to lash out at people? What is in YOU that says your feelings are more important than anyone else’s, to the point of destruction? I think you’re in survival mode. I get it. BTDT. Why does your survival depend on how other people see you?

I had so much of my self esteem wrapped up in externalities so maybe I’m projecting. Big ego covering up broken insides. Everything sounded accusatory to me, too. It was when I started asking myself, who do I want to be, that my defenses started to lower. It takes practice and I’m still learning. I remind myself every day that I get to choose my response.

Have you read about the Karpman drama triangle? I think it could help you. I believe posting in wayward is a tool to figure out your actions, not your husband’s. That’s his work, not yours. I remember that felt really unfair to me. So unfair! What about his crap??? Well, his crap is not the problem. I had to figure out my own: who I was, what I did, why I did it, why I tolerated things opposite of my values, and why I resented and sought punishment or vengeance for the people that “violated” those things. Drama triangle. It helped.

I’m so sorry for your pain, Mickie. Strength to you.

Mickie,

I hope you are doing better. I know it's normal not to have clarity in the situation you are in. As I said in another post, the internal chaos you have is evident.

I think one of the biggest reason not to have any affair, no matter how you label it is the damage you cause yourself. I think some of the chaos we are witnessing is a result of that damage you have done to yourself just in the small actions that you have done so far. It's as BSR said, you are trying to heal yourself with toxic behavior.

An affair doesn't make you feel better. People who have an affair find that they do it to fill a void, to make themselves feel better. What ends up happening is the pain afterwards is so much exponentially bigger.

I think that you feel you have higher moral justifications than the rest of us, it shows in your defensiveness that you have shown some in this thread. This is your cognitive dissonance at play. You need to own the parts of yourself that need healed. An affair is not going to heal you, only building back your relationship with yourself and your self worth is going to do that. It's hard work, but I think you should maybe try to go to IC and work through it. Have you considered doing that?