I kept asking myself, "Why now? You threw me away before, so what's changed?"
Yeap, I asked the same. I even asked her that question she has no answer. In my case, she contemplated an exit, she wasn't happy even before the affair and I'm the same person or even worse, at lease the old me didn't look at her as a damaged good. if she can give a convincing answer to this question I would forgive everything on the spot.
She'll need to sit with that in IC for awhile, but even then, many WS have trouble articulating the answer to that question. IME, the WS has been dissatisfied for quite awhile before they act out. There's some angst going on. The fun and excitement of life has dissipated. And yes, they can sit there for years, utterly conflict avoidant, viewing problems as unsolvable, and instead blaming us wholesale for not being enough rather than looking inward to themselves. They withdraw from connection with us all the while bitterly blaming us for lack of connection.
The cheating patches over all that angst. One would think that it would be uncomfortable for the cheater to live this dual life, that they would want one life or the other. But at that point, they're getting relief from agitation which caused the cheating, so their daily life is full. They still have their real life but they've patched it up with an additional source of external validation and excitement. There's no reason for them to give anything up. They have all they want at that point.
Still, many will engage the "future-faking" fantasy, like trying on new clothes. They talk about it, act like it's real, and it brings a bit more excitement to their encounters. Cheaters in romantic affairs do experience limerence. They think they're in love. But it's NOT real and we see very clearly how shallow the limerence is when DDay occurs and the cheater's real life is threatened. Some, but not all, of cheaters will see this too. Suddenly, there's nothing more important to them than losing the life they had with us. And yes, we come part and parcel with all the trappings of that life, but don't sell yourself short... NO ONE can replace YOU.
Within a month of DDay, my WH could no longer identify with the person he was while he was cheating. He couldn't think of the reasons why he did it and he couldn't imagine a life without me in it. And yes, like everyone else, I'm a package deal. He was about to lose everything; the respect of his children and extended family, half his worldly goods, half his retirement, and ME. I am irreplaceable, even though if you went by his actions and by his future-faking, it would seem that I am not. But I've been with him since he was a teenager. I know more about him than his own mother. I've been there in good times and in bad. I remember dogs we've lost and places we knew and all his inside jokes. I am the ROCK upon which he's built his life.
The problem after an intimate betrayal is that it hurts us at the ego. How could they forget us? How did they not think of us? We were right there in their face every day. How could they not SEE us? Our ego is destroyed. But the reality is that for some WS, they are so caught up in patching over their midlife angst, that they never conceive the fact that they can actually lose us. We have always been there. We will always be there. They're not stupid. They KNOW the potential cost. But it's like cancer... something that happens to other people, not to them.
And then suddenly, it does happen to them. And some, like my WH, snap back to reality like a rubberband that's been overstretched, with no idea what they were thinking and how they had got it all so twisted up. By now though, our egos are flattened. We can't believe that WE are important enough to cause that kind of instant change. Within a month of DDay, all my WH could think about was making things right and somehow keeping me from leaving him.
Of course, I had an absolute right to say, "too little, too late". And I wouldn't have been a bad person for not wanting him back. It doesn't matter what the WS wants at that point. It only matters what WE want. When the chips were down though, I did still want him. That's me, not necessarily you. I'm just trying to give you some info on what R looks like. In order to get past the injury, I had to address my flattened ego. I had to accept, and I mean truly ACCEPT, that his actions were about him and not about me. I had to realize that I really am important, not just as a package deal, but as an irreplaceable person in my WH's life. I had to value ME, and when I did, I could understand why he was so freaked out at the prospect of losing me. I have been his partner in life for more than 30 years. His imagination might have carried him off for awhile, but I AM HIS REALITY. It's the difference between watching a TV horror movie about world-ending earthquakes and actually being IN a really bad earthquake. Suddenly, his world was caving in. I am that world.
It's hard to come back from a flattened ego. It's hard to look at yourself, separate from the things you bring to the marriage, and realize that you have REAL VALUE. But the problem isn't what SHE sees in you, the problem is what YOU see in you. You're not Mr. Perfect, but YOU are irreplaceable. No one else can be you. It's okay for you to climb down off your own back and realize that the reason your WW wants to fight for you is that you are WORTH fighting for.
The ego can be a fragile thing. But she's not the one who can build it back up because she's not the one who destroyed it. We do that to ourselves when we're confronted by the actions of others which appear to spurn us. We turn that hurt in on ourselves and blast our own self-worth to bits. You didn't MAKE her cheat and you couldn't have stopped it. She did it for her own reasons which had nothing to do with you and everything to do with the angst and agitation with which she viewed her life. But nothing anyone else says or does can determine our self-worth. They keyword there is "self". WE determine our own value. Once you really understand that your WW's cheating wasn't about you, you can stop tearing yourself down and begin to see how truly valuable and irreplaceable you are.
