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So, can you please tell me in what ways your M is better now?

I’m of the same mind. Not trying to be dismissive at all just more worn out and saddened by the whole thing. Because what we had was pretty damn good before her A and my WW admits this. She’s mourning the marriage we had now which is a change from a few years ago.

I just can’t for the life of me wrap my head around the idea that taking a precious vase and shattering It intentionally on the floor into a thousand pieces and then gluing it back together would ever make that vase stronger or better.

[This message edited by Thumos at 2:33 PM, September 10th (Thursday)]

Not a man, not HT, but still feel it's critical to answer.

1. We throw no bullshit.

2. No one tolerates bullshit either.

3. We say what we mean and mean what we say.

4. He used to get what he wanted and ignore what I wanted. That does not happen anymore.

5. I used to hate him but go along with it because I'm a people pleaser. That does not happen.

6. He used to turn to external validation, and now he relies on himself.

7. We have seen each other at our worst but choose each other still.

8. I think his ability to accept criticism and not deflect, to reflect instead of recoil, is very sexy.

9. Now that he doesn't deflect, our conversations feel meaningful.

10. We have a shared commitment to the new M. We baby it and stop what we're doing if someone needs something.

11. We birthed this M, nurtured it from infancy--tiny conversations, big arguments, requests, seeing each other, trying harder, forgiving each other, IC, MC, books, more conversations.

12. We don't hide parts of ourselves anymore.

13. My H has been putting on weight lately, but his openness and honesty make him look better to me than when he was thinner. The ease with which he carries himself in his own skin, his comfort with who he is, makes me feel lighter in my own heart. It warms me.

14. We do not feel like a great romance anymore (we really weren't), but we do feel like a great partnership. I feel he will support me no matter what, that he values me as more than a sexy play thing. He hears me when I speak.

15. We're equals, very balanced. When one needs to step back, the other steps up.

16. We have been tested in ways other couples would be terrified to entertain, and we're standing side-by-side. People see our strength, and I feel their respect for us. Other couples look really unhappy to me now, now that we're looking so strong. I just notice our strength out in the world, by comparison.

17. I kind of laugh (in my mind) at new couples or those who haven't been tested yet and think, "They think this is love. Life has not challenged that idea yet. But we've already passed!"

18. When I pat his belly as he walks by or he pats my butt, I feel us saying, "I really know you, and I've watched you work so hard for us. You're mine and I'm proud. And grateful."

19. We're not proud of just surviving. We're proud of peeling back the layers and letting each other in. We've shared our shame and supported each other through it.

20. My H may go backwards at some point, but he is incapable of falling as low as he once did. He's learned too much, come too far. We're 10 years out from the trauma and two years into true R, so it took a ton of work. He will never go all the way back, even if there are slips.

21. I rely on our new M to deal honestly with rough times or slips. He wants to keep the new M, too.

22. All the arguments we used to have are diminished. With the honesty, the resentments have decreased. We deal with mistakes ("forgot to tell me or a lie?") in the immediate and talk it through. With the not deflecting, he owns errors and then I don't participate in the shaming.

23. We've broken patterns I've had in every R. Same for him.

24. We have genuine authenticity. We have the same ideas and actions in our public persona as we do in our private thoughts. I have read this is critical to feeling peace and happiness in life, sharing all your inner thoughts in your outer world. And feeling supported.

25. We both believe that people are not set or determined; people are created. We have created the people we wanted to be married to. Our old selves (almost) don't matter anymore. Those people are not these people.

I don't think everyone has mutual buy in to this process. Heck, we were over, done, the nails in the coffin of this M. I thought there was no way on this earth it could be fixed. But I was very wrong. He started changing, so I worked harder, too. We mirrored each other, watching and wondering. We were afraid. But slowly our confidence grew. I am not saying every R can go this way, but it's possible. Some can. And the M is vastly better, like night and day. Our M blowing up showed us that we had things to fix that we had not even realized were broken. Honestly, I feel that is often the case. It has been hell, but no, I would not want to go back to the old M. No way.

So I know this is an EXTREMELY unpopular question much less opinion, but try to be a tiny bit open to it.

Here's the potential thinking:

If one person is cheating in an otherwise happy M, then there is something wrong with the cheater.

How "solid" (close) and mutually satisying can this union possibly be?

And THIS is why I say that things are often broken that the couple had not even realized needed work.

I think that I do somewhat believe the above philosophy--on a sliding scale. If water seeks its own level, then the marital union cannot hide from being a part "of their partner's level." No throwing tomatoes, rocks, f-bombs, or website links at me. Don't shoot the messenger! I know some of you don't buy in, but I think you should consider that dysfunction cannot exist in a vacuum.

What's that joke?

Attraction is just my dysfunction being attracted to your dysfunction.

[This message edited by OwningItNow at 4:55 PM, September 9th (Wednesday)]

OIN a lot of that list seems like things you should have been able to reasonably expect to have before your H decided to drop a radioactive dirty bomb in your marriage.

The fact that you're getting these things now seems like cold comfort, at least from where I'm sitting. In fact, they do seem like cold comfort to me. I get a slight neuralgic chill when my WW does a lot of these things and I've described it before here on SI.

I know you feel otherwise, and I'm not saying it shouldn't work for you.

It just doesn't seem stronger or better than what I had before. And in my case, my WW admits that what we had was really good but that she turned away from it, contra to your formula.

[This message edited by Thumos at 8:55 PM, September 9th (Wednesday)]

Buck, like you I can’t understand how a marriage can be better after an affair. Here is the but. Just because I don’t understand it, it doesn’t negate the fact that there are too many examples here, of posters that I respect, that say their marriage is better. I believe them. I also know that they may look at me the same way. I have had plenty of people reach out to me who can’t understand how I could end a 30 year marriage, with an extremely remorseful WW, whose affair was measured in weeks. They felt after I showed my oats, that we could have called things square. It’s just not in my DNA. I just don’t see her the same way. Sucks, life would have been better for both of us if I could have.

I do think the chances of having a better marriage after the affair happens in more cases where the marriage was lacking prior to the affair. I’m sure there are cases where that’s not true either, but I think that makes a difference.

OIN, I agree with much of the things you post, but this smacks of blaming the victim

If one person is cheating in an otherwise happy M, then there is something wrong with the cheater.

But there is also something wrong in the M.

Because if one partner is broken and the other one--

Does not notice

Does not care

Does not want to face it

Does not have any clue

Does not have any complaints

How "solid" (close) and mutually satisying can this union possibly be?

My head wasn’t in the sand. I knew she had concerns about the empty nest. It was one of the reasons we decided on doing our renovation at that time. It was a great project for her to something she was passionate about. What I didn’t count on was her decision to have sex with the electrician. I also don’t think that had he not been in the picture this would have happened. It was 100% on her, but she did get played. How was I to anticipate that. How is a BS supposed to know that there spouse would get drunk and have an ONS. There are plenty of examples where they should have known the marriage was in trouble, but again, it’s not an absolute. Goes back to a WS cheating in an otherwise happy marriage.

There are plenty of other things a WS can to to seek happiness that doesn’t involve fucking someone else

but this smacks of blaming the victim

This is how I feel as well.

Had not one clue that anything was wrong until I read that one email and I wasnt even looking for anything suspicious. I had been looking for an email I sent to a person within our reptile hobby.

Until that moment, I had no reason to suspect he was sleeping with anyone but myself.

OIN a lot of that list seems like things you should have been able to reasonably expect to have before you H decided to drop a radioactive dirty bomb in your marriage.

I also agree with this. Everything on that list should have been part of the marriage to begin with.

I appreciate the input oldwounds and OIN. I appear to be stuck at the making myself vulnerable spot. I relate to a lot of the items on your list OIN and, for some reason, that makes me sad. I think it might be that you never once mention love or passion. In fact, you say the opposite and mention partnership. That's what I feel my M has devolved into. I feel we've lost some of the good stuff. I just feel like I'm settling and that sucks.

I seem to have worked through most of the issues or whatever the hell you call them from her betrayal; however, there is a bit of disgust I just can't seem to shake. I'm disgusted that she would risk our relationship, our children's well being\future, and all the other stuff that goes along with a marriage, to be a sidechick for some married scumbag. She is full of shame, regret and remorse now. She's humiliated by her actions. I see it in her face. I can hear it in her voice. I can feel her shame. I've put her through hell too and she's stayed with me. I also know she would give anything to go back to before.

OIN, I have asked myself your question a million times. My WW responded to some life stresses by cheating. She had poor boundaries and let a coworker get too close. She enjoyed the attention and flirtations from another man and assigned deeper meaning to them versus what they actually were. She crossed line after line. She eventually ended the A before being found out and got a new job. AP exposed her for spite. Most of the A happened during lunch hours or for a few minutes after work. This happened before cell phones were so common so no texts or after hour calls. We still had sex, did family stuff on the weekends, holidays, etc. There really wasn't anything noteworthy that would indicate what was going on. How is any of that my fault? How could I see any of that coming? Her justification for the A was I worked too much and spent too much time at school. I was going to grad school at the time. I suppose my dysfunction was trusting a shitty person and expecting her to stick to her vows.

The flip side of that question is: "Who is this person really"? And then the rabbit hole question: "Do I love that person"?

Because if one partner is broken and the other one--

Does not notice

Does not care

Does not want to face it

Does not have any clue

Does not have any complaints

How "solid" (close) and mutually satisying can this union possibly be?

Those are reasons to see a marriage counselor or a divorce lawyer, not reasons to cheat. Nothing a BS can say (or do) can MAKE a person reject their own values system. So IMHO, when they cheat, that's where the problem is.. weak and permeable values.

OIN, I thought I had an incredibly solid relationship and then marriage. When I noticed him withdrawing and seeming down after the first year of marriage, I was alarmed and worried about him. I tried talking to him and got "I'm just depressed". I tried to help him in any way I could. I was incredibly supportive. Yes, the marriage was a fucked up fraud, but that wasn't something I could have known. He was very very good at playing a role until he didn't have the motivation to do so anymore. Some of us were with very fake people and beat ourselves up over how we didn't see it before that mask dropped. It isn't fair to put that on the BS. We were dealing with people who have lived their entire lives doing this shit and we never even realized it was something anyone could pull off for years on end. I thought I knew this man completely. There weren't very many things I can look back on with experience and call huge red flags. When someone is initiating a con job on you (even if they don't fully realize it themselves), it's not fair to blame the mark.

[This message edited by DevastatedDee at 6:04 PM, September 9th (Wednesday)]

I wouldn’t want to threadjack this thread overmuch, But hell, I suppose this is all, at least tangentially, kind of on topic.

Buck, I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything, a question was asked and I gave my truth as I see it. If that truth doesn’t match your experience? Well that’s all good great and fine. You do you boo. We all have our own experiences and view points and I’m cool with you having one that differs from mine. As evidence of just how cool with that I am, I would offer the fact that I have chosen not to resort to ad hominem statements like accusing people with whom I might disagree of being “delusional”. I imagine you didn’t intend that statement as an insult, but I thought you might appreciate knowing that it could certainly be received that way so that you could maybe clarify.

Thumos, I can certainly empathize with feeling worn out and saddened by this whole thing. And I understand how it might be hard to get your head around. Fuck man, 7 years ago I would have been the one writing your post myself. The most common adjective people used to use about me when they PM’d me back then was “angry”, closely followed by “hostile”.

But time sure can be a Revelator can’t it?

But let me get back to the question at hand:

So, can you please tell me in what ways your M is better now?

I can certainly try. But it’s going to be complicated by the fact that “better” is pretty fucking subjective. Wether something is better or not kind of depends on what you value. And what I valued in my relationship preA is in many ways different than what I value in my relationship now.

Sure, if we had tried to put that broken vase back together exactly like it was before it’s probably was not going to be better than it was... unless you are talking about the Japanese art of Kintsugi of course (how’s that for an obscure pedantic reference! 10 points!). But that’s not what we did.

What we did was take the broken pieces and made something entirely new and different.

And to be clear, our marriage wasn’t “bad” to begin with. Anyone who knew us would have told you we were a great couple. People literally told us that we were an example of what they wished they could find in a relationship (here is an interesting bit of trivia: people used to say similar stuff about OM and his wife.. including WOES and me before we got married. Fun stuff)

I used think that we communicated well, we used to brag that we never ran out of things to talk about. But our communication broke down over time. We were still talking sure, but we both had a whole lot of dysfunctional shit going on in our heads that we weren’t talking about. I think that both of us were afraid to talk with the other about our own fears, doubts and insecurities because we were both afraid that it might damage the image that we hoped the other had of us. Or, even worse, that the other might actually agree and thereby validate that all the awful things that we secretly thought about ourselves were true.

That shit changed after dday. If there is one positive about dday it’s that it’s like slamming your hand down on the reset button. Infidelity is like the Microsoft blue screen of death of relationships: there is no choice but to reboot. For me there wasn’t any more fear that her opinion of me might be damaged or that she might validate all my worst fears about myself... her A had pretty much done that shit already, message received loud and clear. There is a clarity and a courage that can come over you when the worst has already happened.

In the immortal words of Tracy Chapman, “Startin from zero got nothing to lose.” After dday, we got real, it took some time but we were finally able to talk about our deepest darkest shit. The insecurities and doubts we both had. There really wasn’t anything to lose because we both knew that it was either get real or it was all over anyway. That shit is liberating as hell and I think we understand each other better now than we ever did before. And I believe that as a result of that baring of our deepest darkest shit we have been able to actually truly believe and accept that we both really do love each other for who we really are deep down, warts and all.

I value that a whole fuck of a lot.

We never used to really fight either. I was proud of that, I valued that. But the reason we weren’t fighting wasn’t that everything was so ecstatically perfect. We both had things that we were dissatisfied about. But she never addressed hers because she internalized all of her issues with me as some kind of referendum about her, as a reflection of the distain she secretly believed I had for her. Dragging that shit out into the light would be to risk discovering that those fears were actually true. And she couldn’t bring herself to face that, so she held them in and silently and slowly they built into resentments.

I had issues with the relationship as well. But over time I stopped raising them because when I did she would drop into a shame spiral and cry. At which point I would invariably (in my perceived role as the strong male paladin protector of the delicate sensitive emotional woman )back right off and reassure her. Wash rinse and repeat. And nothing ever got resolved.

That dynamic changed after dday. I came to realize that it was never my job to protect her from feeling badly at the expense of my own happiness. I put that shit onto myself out of some misconstrued idea of what a man and a husband was supposed to be. It’s bullshit, and it’s self destructive and frankly it’s ultimately destructive to the relationship as well. If hearing how I feel was gonna make her cry? Well you go on and cry away but we are pressing on with the fucking discussion. After all, she had demonstrated that she wasn’t such a delicate sensitive emotional woman anyway. She didn’t need me fucking protecting her from my brutish male demands,. Her A had clearly demonstrated that she had fucking teeth and claws and a willingness to use them. From now on it was kid gloves off and big kid pants on. No more coddling. We fight sometimes now and we fight like fucking equals.

And I value that. I value that I can interact with my wife as an equal adult and I’m frankly embarrassed that I ever looked at it any other way.

I used to think we had a pretty good sex life to. But to be honest it wasn’t everything I wished it could be. It was varied and good but I always had to initiate things. The insecurities and body image issues that she was busy not telling me about made her too afraid of rejection to initiate anything on her own. And sexual advances on my part were the salves that eased that pain. Of course the problem with that is I had my own fucking insecurities and image issues that I was busily not telling her about. Which were only magnified by the fact that she never initiated. And round and round we go.

After dday I wasn’t willing to continue that cycle. We had a lot of hard conversations about that shit in marriage counseling. We both worked on it. We actually made a challenge to see how many days in a row we could manage to have sex at least once a day. We made it 76 days before we broke our streak. In the 10 years since we have never gone more than 3 days without having sex, rarely more than 2. And frankly she initiates way more often than me, because she recognizes that it is a love language to me. We made our sex life a top priority in our lives and in our marriage.

I value that a lot.

There are some things of value that we have lost to be sure. For an example:

I will never again be the last person my wife had a first kiss with. That may sound sappy and sentimental but that shit hurts...a lot.

I valued that. But I value those other things I talked about even more.

There is so much more I could talk about, so much more I could elaborate on and try to convey to you.... but this has gotten long enough as it is. Suffice it to say that of course my marriage is worse in some ways than it was before. But in so many more ways it is infinitely better. So on the balance I can comfortably say that yes my marriage is better.

And I’m not trying to convince you Buck, you go ahead and live your truth, I’ll live mine. And no, I am not trying to convince myself either. I’ve had a lot of time to ponder on this stuff, I like to say that I’ve got an advanced degree in my wife’s infidelity and our reconciliation.

I’m pretty comfortable that I know where my head is at.

HT

OIN,

We cross posted (cause I take so damn long to arrange my thoughts) but I just wanted to strongly agree with this:

We have seen each other at our worst but choose each other still

Man the choose part of that is soooo on the money. I think that one of the big things people struggle with is this idea that they don’t have a choice. That they are staying in the relationship because of money, or kids or take your pick.

And those are all valid reasons to try and make it work....

But at some point you have to accept that it is your choice. Whatever the reason, it’s your choice and you make it of your own free will. Anything less risks being trapped in a cycle of victimhood that can leave you unable to heal.

Sure, if we had tried to put that broken vase back together exactly like it was before it’s probably was not going to be better than it was... unless you are talking about the Japanese art of Kintsugi of course (how’s that for an obscure pedantic reference! 10 points!). But that’s not what we did.

What we did was take the broken pieces and made something entirely new and different.

But even if you stuff gold dust in the cracks there are two things we know about the broken and repaired vessel:

1. It can never again serve as the superior vessel it was originally designed to be.

2. It will always be missing actual molecular material from the shattering.

the gold dust then merely seems like fool’s gold. You can take it out and admire it, but there’s no denying it was shattered and is now literally “less than” the thing that it was designed to be.

Metaphors are great, but limiting. Both the positive and negative aspect of the broken vase have limits to me when comparing it to real life.

But even if you stuff gold dust in the cracks there are two things we know about the broken and repaired vessel:

1. It can never again serve as the superior vessel it was originally designed to be.

2. It will always be missing actual molecular material from the shattering.

The original design didn't ever serve as the intended vessel. There were flaws -- both detected and un-detected -- that led to the break.

And I really like the second part, except for the psychics aspect:

The same amount of matter exists before and after the change—none is created or destroyed. This concept is called the Law of Conservation of Mass.

In the relationship sense, I think this can apply as well, especially to HT's point -- the rebuild is something different altogether. Maybe it's not a vase anymore, but a beat up bowl, or something.

Thus, the limits of analogies and metaphors.

the gold dust then merely seems like fool’s gold. You can take it out and admire it, but there’s no denying it was shattered and is now literally “less than” the thing that it was designed to be.

I do think the relationship, in some ways is less than -- I think that is a truth that shouldn't be ignored.

But in my case (as listed in my previous posts in this thread), so many other aspects of our relationship are better.

Those improvements arrived at a price I never expected to pay -- the pain, the innocence lost, etc., but our marriage was never quite what we wanted it to be before betrayal either.

The original design didn't ever serve as the intended vessel. There were flaws -- both detected and un-detected -- that led to the break.

No, the shattering was intentional. I guess I could concede part of your point in saying that adulterer took a look at the vase and said "I don't like this vase or its design" and then picked it up and flung it on the floor.

As for the physics, yes of course the molecular material is around somewhere. But not in the reconstructed vase with all the gold dust packed in the cracks like whipped cream on shit.

In the relationship sense, I think this can apply as well, especially to HT's point -- the rebuild is something different altogether. Maybe it's not a vase anymore, but a beat up bowl, or something.

Precisely why I say it's not stronger or better.

[This message edited by Thumos at 10:51 AM, September 10th (Thursday)]

but this smacks of blaming the victim

I agree too. I was with my dying father in another state off and on for months when the A began. I knew something was wrong, my whole body knew something was wrong but when I would ask, he would tell me there was nothing wrong.

Real classy guy and AP, huh? Taking advantage of my being away with my Dad..

HT, I appreciate you taking the time to respond. I meant no offense when tossing the word delusional out in my post. I haven't been here at SI that long, I don't "know" everyone and their story. I do think some folks here are not entirely honest with themselves and their situation, and I personally feel that's all of us at some point or anther in this journey. It damn sure was me for way too long. And how I view any situation is from my perspective, which means jack shit. You are not one of those dishonest (or delusional ) folks IMO. I'm not pushing any agenda or viewpoint here; I'm really fucking tired of carrying this burden. I'm ready to set it down and move on, one way or another. It seems others have managed to put that particular rock down and move forward and I sort of want to vet them in a way to make sure I can relate to their point of view. I get how that can seem abrasive and I will be more careful about how I word things.

And I damn sure have zero doubts that my way of dealing with betrayal is not the way to go. I focused on punishing and trying to eek out some sort of justice for what my WW did and that's a fool's errand if there ever was one. I wasted a bunch of years and added heaps, and I mean heaps, of pain to the situation. Not only for my wife, but for me. I feel like a complete fucking idiot that got caught up in some sort of rage fueled tornado that wreaked a shitload of havoc in my life and now I'm looking over the devastation wondering WTF have I done. And I know all of this extra shit I'm dealing with was by my own fucking choices, trust me, it sucks to see yourself as a vindictive, cruel asshole. My wife did the worst thing possible to a vindictive asshole, she listened to me, made sure she understood, and then she forgave me. That's a mindfuck too.

I guess I'm starting to diverge a bit further off topic here. I don't think there's a "right" way to handle infidelity. What's right for one may not be for another. Like you said HT, how one views this mess is entirely subjective. I am just here for the discussion (and maybe to serve as a cautionary tale or bad example). I hope to learn something from people here, especially guys like you and oldwounds. I understand and can clearly see the divorce path. I've spent years thinking that was my route. A lot of time has passed and I have changed, my wife has changed too, and I want to try to see the R path. I find it very helpful to hear from those that have taken that path.

For my marriage pre-dday neither my WH or myself ever were comfortable with ourselves enough to let the other completely in and be real and authentic. Yeah, we said some vows, but my WH just was doing what was expected. I really meant them, but he still didn’t know everything about me and I certainly didn’t know everything about him - his vulnerabilities, FOO issues, why he was so defensive, etc. We appeared to be a perfect couple. I did my best to be a perfect wife - but it was all a facade.

When dday hit, every single facade was shattered. After years of being together, I finally learned about his messed up FOO. He learned about the depths of mine. It was a couple of years after dday (and reading an SI thread I believe) that I told him how many people I slept with because I was done trying to be some perfect image of a wife. I never lied about the number, I just never told. He now knows all of my flaws, weaknesses, insecurities and I know his. Either one of us could have walked away (and God knows how many times through this process we have both felt like it), but we are both still choosing to be here. I have examined my options time and again and I could be happy and fine with someone else. I believe in my heart that my kids will be ok if I were to divorce. We have discussed divorce and are choosing not to.

That is a miracle with how strongly I felt cheating was a dealbreaker. I hate everything about it and I hate how he made me look like an idiot to the COW. But I am not about to let the damn COW take another minute from my life - she’s taken enough of my time. That affair wasn’t about her or about me. It was about my WH and his flaws and poor communication and coping skills. I can see that and see that exactly how the whole thing went down. I wish it didn’t happen, but I can’t change it, so why dwell on it now, 4 years later, 5 years from the affair? I would much rather live my life with my family and be happy.

That’s my take on it. I don’t think it’s delusional. I think it’s pragmatic. Your thoughts control your feelings. I choose to think positive and not dwell on things that are out of my control.

I wonder if its more of the male perspective why we lose/are unable to regain 'total' feelings for our waywards throughout R, because of the loss of our manliness to another man, feelings of inadequacies etc.

Those thoughts come from one's self-talk. In most cases, this particular self-talk is made from lies.

Because if one partner is broken and the other one--

Does not notice

Does not care

Does not want to face it

Does not have any clue

Does not have any complaints

How "solid" (close) and mutually satisying can this union possibly be?

Attraction is just my dysfunction being attracted to your dysfunction.

OIN, I think you're discounting the fact that the WS may have hidden their dysfunction and discontents. I know my W did.

And I always knew I picked my W because our neuroses were so compatible.

It can never again serve as the superior vessel it was originally designed to be.

It will always be missing actual molecular material from the shattering.

there’s no denying it was shattered and is now literally “less than” the thing that it was designed to be.

I suggest the M you thought you were designing was based on wishful thinking. Of course reality is 'less than' what one wishes.

Or do you think there's some ideal M that we all should strive for? IMO, that's perhaps even worse than wishful thinking, since it dooms us to keep working to achieve perfection, which is impossible to achieve. Ms are relationships between real people, with all of our imperfections. I can't back that up with 'scientific' peer-reviewed research, but it's a fact nonetheless.

At the same time, reality can be more than one wishes. From the start of our relationship, I got deep satisfaction from elements that I didn't value until I experienced them; and yet some things I desired before my W & I got together turned out to be no big deals.

What's more, we can and do bring more to relationships and life in general as we live through time and gain experience.

No, the shattering was intentional.

Well, my W's actions were intentional, but she had no intention of hurting me or our M. Some WSes really do want to hurt their BSes, but most do not, IMO (based on my reading here and elsewhere).

she had no intention of hurting me or our M.

I just can't give any WS credit like that.

Anyone with merely an average IQ can reason thru that when they take the risk of stepping into an adulterous relationship they are putting their marriage and family in harm's way.

I believe we do far too much excuse making for WS's here pretending they aren't rational beings and that body snatchers have taken away their capacity to think straight at any level.

I don't believe this is true.

By definition then, any act of infidelity is an intentional act of putting the marriage and/or family at risk of implosion (or shattering as the vase metaphor would have it). This intentional act would then countenance hurting their spouse. They know if their spouse finds out they will be hurt.

I agree with Thumos. "Didn't mean to hurt the BS" is an exceedingly low bar. As an add on, in my time here the number of WS that are forgetful of what went on with the AP is significant. WS are people who are doing everything to segment and kill feelings of empathy so that they can go have the A. Then they are super remorseful... when the M is all they have left.

Speaking as a divorced guy, the claims that "there's no bullshit between us any more"; frankly you can get that with a new person. You can get fantastic sex with a new person too.

The more impactful issues are "death of a dream" type stuff. My ex quit on the marriage, and she had a Plan B all lined up. So my marriage is over. Why should I do all the hard work in IC, whatever, to fix something that didn't break my marriage? That is the crap that lingers post marriage for me. The things specific to people, intimacy, etc., can be found elsewhere.