SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Yes, and it's hard to interpret unprotected sex in the family home -- especially when considering the attendant gaslighting -- planned on a certain day, etc. as anything other than an act of deep disrespect. That's not all it was, but that had to be part of it. Hard to conclude otherwise.

I agree on this point too mostly. I think in situations where there was a bit of an EA first, the WS has already dehumanized their spouse, minimized them and disregarded them. There is a lack of love and respect by the time that PA leg hits. This was the order of mine. Of course that's just one scenario type of affair, but I think it's one of the common ones.

You are just trying to mentally strengthen your stance on divorcing a person you still really love.

This is most certainly true, as I've noted elsewhere. I'm steeling myself for it, for sure. The hardest and shittiest part will be with my son. I think most BS's approaching divorce probably do this, especially if there has been a longer unwinding after DDAY. I need to feel confident in my decision. I mostly do, but I'd be lying and probably some kind of superhuman if I didn't have doubts. So I think there has to be a habitual reworking of some extent as to why one has come to this point.

On the sex thing, I have thought about this. If I've not been clear on this before, just to let you and others know I have been very upfront with her about this and have asked her several times if it is just muddying the waters for us to continue to be physically intimate as we're working toward an amicable divorce.

I have also been clear with her on my feelings regarding sex. Now, maybe she isn't listening to me and it's just going through one ear and out the other. But I have been consistent on this. So I think you'd be hard-pressed to categorize my behavior on that point as anything but radically honest and transparent.

I just want to say, I don't really care what you guys choose to do, you are both consenting adults. And, I had no doubt you have talked to her about your intentions and have been honest.

But, if we are being radically honest here, you know it's going in one ear and out the other.

And, If I was to really play devils advocate (and that's all it would be because I really don't feel all that strongly here) I would say you are still using her for gratification knowing that it contributes to a bond. In WS world we would say that's not a loving act, because love mean doing things in the others best interest above your own.

Do I think that's cruel like an affair? No. And, I do not mean this as an attack by any means. It was an easy parallel to make that we can ALL justify our own behavior and dismiss what we are doing has cruelty to it.

In reality, if you are upfront and honest that is probably as far as your responsibility goes in the situation, but let's not pretend to not know she is still trying to sway you to stay.

I will give you a different example. I attended my daughter's wedding recently. She was horrific and disrespectful to me the whole day until the wedding began. At one point I cut my foot open trying to help her and she would not provide me the dignity to stay in the room. She sent me out there in front of all the guests.

Was she being malicious? No, she just couldn't really process what any of it would mean to me because she was so emotionally overwhelmed herself.

Do I think that's what an affair is, no not really, but some of the actions after an affair can be that way.

I am not saying you should excuse it. I am merely just making observations on this sort of behavior.

[This message edited by hikingout at 12:50 PM, October 2nd (Friday)]

This is most certainly true, as I've noted elsewhere. I'm steeling myself for it, for sure. The hardest and shittiest part will be with my son. I think most BS's approaching divorce probably do this, especially if there has been a longer unwinding after DDAY. I need to feel confident in my decision. I mostly do, but I'd be lying and probably some kind of superhuman if I didn't have doubts. So I think there has to be a habitual reworking of some extent as to why one has come to this point

I know. And, I was not condemning you for it. I was just making observations about it. I have been divorced, hardening towards that other person enough to do what is right for you is a very difficult process. Again, most of what I was bridging is the things Sisoon said, I do think it's hard for you to take him in because he can entertain that compassion piece. Right now, as I already stated engaging in the compassion piece might be too dangerous for you.

I attended my daughter's wedding recently. She was horrific and disrespectful to me the whole day until the wedding began. At one point I cut my foot open trying to help her and she would not provide me the dignity to stay in the room. She sent me out there in front of all the guests.

Was she being malicious? No, she just couldn't really process what any of it would mean to me because she was so emotionally overwhelmed herself.

Honestly just looking at this from the outside, this seems like really shitty, entitled behavior by your daughter. I don't think I could chalk it up to "oh you're just overwhelmed." Did she ever even have the self awareness to apologize for her behavior?

I have been divorced, hardening towards that other person enough to do what is right for you is a very difficult process.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what my ex did. Of course, she could have had that guy before we married. She just didn't want to put up with the lack of a wedding or children.

It clearly wasn't personal. She would have done it to anyone. I'm anyone to her, great.

A lot of this is people going in different directions. People here who are trying to save their marriages, it sounds good to them that "nothing personal about the A" because they're trying to have love in the M.

Me, it does no good to hang onto anything good in the marriage. When the marriage ends because the WS leaves (me), or WS fails to do the work in R to save the marriage (Thumos), whatever mutual love or pretensions to mutual love are blown up and destroyed. So saying "nothing personal" just makes my ex more of a remorseless executioner.

Honestly just looking at this from the outside, this seems like really shitty, entitled behavior by your daughter. I don't think I could chalk it up to "oh you're just overwhelmed." Did she ever even have the self awareness to apologize for her behavior?

She is still on her honeymoon.

To put it in context, she had just had an extreme panic attack, had been in the restroom throwing up. I just think she could not deal with one more thing.

I say that because I have context of who she is as a person. She is typically very giving and caring and this was very much out of character. She had worked herself to death the week before the wedding, had no sleep the night before.

The truth is, she let it all build up over a period of time and put way too much emphasis on making everything perfect. As things went wrong and she had the massive panic attack, I feel she had nothing left to give.

Am I excusing it? No, not at all. When she gets back I will talk to her about how it made me feel. Am I still upset with her, yes. It's kind of like you said, it's chewing gum and walking at the same time. I can understand and have that compassion piece, and honestly I have to in order to perserve our relationship. I still have a right to feel the way I feel as well.

If I was no longer going to have a relationship with her (like a divorce), I probably would use each example to strengthen my resolve. Again, all just observations. I have the idea that you really like a lot of different perspectives, if not I wouldn't have tried to give you some alternative ones to look at. At the end of the day, I think you have really thought everything through and have to do what you have to do.

A lot of this is people going in different directions. People here who are trying to save their marriages, it sounds good to them that "nothing personal about the A" because they're trying to have love in the M.

Me, it does no good to hang onto anything good in the marriage. When the marriage ends because the WS leaves (me), or WS fails to do the work in R to save the marriage (Thumos), whatever mutual love or pretensions to mutual love are blown up and destroyed. So saying "nothing personal" just makes my ex more of a remorseless executioner.

YES! This is what I just posted actually. Why I have to find the compassion for my daughter in that situation. I completely understand what you are saying Striver, and I like how you said it better as it was more direct to the topic at hand.

maybe it's a feature of their internal software, rather than a bug

I think therein lies the dilemma for many (not all) BS. How does one troubleshoot? Hardware? software? operating system? or a "bug"? And maybe at the end of the day it's not that relevant... IOW, whether it's OS or bug, the effect is that it may just not work for the BS (or may not work for the person the BS becomes - new expectations and all - after dday).

As to the label of 'abuse'. Omar Minwalla's interviews on Helping Couples Heal (and I believe other places) may be enlightening. His perspective is that NOT calling it "what it is" does not do the WS any favors. Granted, his focus (but not limited) is folks with SA Dx - yet that includes compulsive porn, which for me personally does not rise to the same level as an IRL PA (not saying compulsive porn isn't problematic, etc - they are in the same species, but different animals.... with teeth [so to speak] of varying capability).

But I think when it comes to "abuse" and calling it what it "is", for me it comes down to compassion & empathy. In the 1st year+ after dday, I don't think I had the emotional bandwidth to find a lot of compassion for the road my WH was on. Some healing changed much of that, so I do feel able to speak with my WH about his behavior AND use the term "abuse" with compassion and empathy. In my sitch (and I suspect for a LOT of WS), the issue is my empathy doesn't register or matter to his internal systems - no matter how much empathy or compassion I show, it is "heard" by him as shame (which we all know is HIS issue to address, not mine).

So, I agree with Minwalla, et al in that it does not behoove anyone to use flowery (or minimizing) language to describe what amounts to -IMHO- abuse... AND I think it's imperative that the "hard" (but accurate) language be presented with compassion & empathy. This isn't only WRT infidelity, but in life generally. What parent hasn't already had to struggle with this when our kids do something shitty? Do we scream at them for bullying another kid (thus perpetrating the cycle)? Or do we try to come to them with love while also NOT minimizing the impacts of their behavior?

Intentions

In my late teens and through college, I emotionally mistreated 2 women. I did not intend to hurt them in any way. In retrospect, I should have known I would hurt either of them. For example, I dated one girl pretty seriously, but without long term commitment, while wanting to be with W2b. I don't think that meets the definition of cheating, but I'm not proud of myself.

Intentions & Reactions

And, it speaks nothing about what the BS's boundary or reaction should be. That's a completely different topic.

Exactly.

As I read this and similar threads, I can't help believing that many people connect the WS's level of intention with the level of pain a BS is entitled to feel.

IMO, there's virtually no connection between the intentions and the responses.

My W wanted me never to find out about her A - if I didn't know, how could it hurt me? But it didn't matter what her intentions were, however. She still betrayed me, she still betrayed herself. The consequences were beyond awful.

Sometimes an SI member talks about degrees of infidelity. Is a kiss less painful than fucking a football team after every game? Is an EA less painful than a PA? Is a(n) ONS less painful than an LTA? Are uncountable sex acts worse than one?

In some ways, maybe. In other ways, probably not.

In any case, I don't think I could have felt worse any longer than I did even if my W's intention had been to hurt me.

Of course, we can't do a randomized experiment on the effect of the WS's intentions on the BS, but we do know that many WSes say they never intended to hurt their BSes, and we do know that BSes who hear that still hurt a lot.

Abuse

I have analogous thoughts about the use of 'abuse.' It's not that thinking one has been abused will make a BS take on a permanent role of Victim in a life-long Drama Triangle. Rather, if you will, thinking about being abused puts one onto a slippery slope.

I don't doubt that infidelity meets many definitions of 'abuse.' I just think it gives too much power to the WS.

Also, I think BSes are better off not thinking about the WS and instead focusing on their own healing.

So what if my W abused me? My goal and my problem was to deal with the effects on me of what she did. My goal and my problem was to resolve my grief, anger, fear, and shame and decide what to do, no matter what term you use for what she did.

Adultery

My W's A doesn't appear to meet Illinois's definition of 'adultery,' although the law I found is very hard for me to parse. Connecticut's law is much clearer, and my W's A would have been adulterous in Connecticut. But we live in Illinois.

W's A does meet the definition of adultery for the only religious law that I recognize for myself.

If the terminology used has any reasonable connection with the pain I'm entitled to feel, then I'd have to conclude I'm not entitled to feel pain over what my W did.

Fuck that. I feel what I feel.

Which brings us back to hikingout's point, which I quoted above.

Me, it does no good to hang onto anything good in the marriage. When the marriage ends because the WS leaves (me), or WS fails to do the work in R to save the marriage (Thumos), whatever mutual love or pretensions to mutual love are blown up and destroyed. So saying "nothing personal" just makes my ex more of a remorseless executioner.

Striver, I do think I will hang on to good things in the marriage, even after we're divorced. One thing we're all aware of is how WS's rewrite the history of the marriage.

I'm simply not interested in doing that or in participating in a reciprocal phenomenon from my side of the equation.

At least a part of achieving forgiveness for me (and I admit this is still a work in progress) has been to NOT tarnish the good memories of what I know was a good marriage with good times and contentment.

It makes me sad to think of it and doesn't change trajectory on divorce, but there's no reason for me to shy away from the truth about the good that was in our marriage prior to the A and DDAY.

lying about the good in my marriage was my WW's problem, not mine.

I have the idea that you really like a lot of different perspectives, if not I wouldn't have tried to give you some alternative ones to look at. At the end of the day, I think you have really thought everything through and have to do what you have to do.

You're right about this and I'm always trying to test myself and others (not always successful with myself, admittedly). I've spent a lot of time on this, practically to the point where it's absorbed the past four years of my life. And in the real world, I'm also bouncing these conversations and concerns off multiple close friends who are good listeners.

As I read this and similar threads, I can't help believing that many people connect the WS's level of intention with the level of pain a BS is entitled to feel.

I do think this a great point, Sisoon.

On the other hand intentionality is important in another sense. For instance, if you're strolling along and are hit by a driver, intentionality will not matter to the extent of your injuries, rehabilitation, recovery and so on. However intentionality will make a big difference in other ways. If the driver intentionally drove up off the sidewalk to hit you, it's attempted murder. If the driver was fiddling with their smart phone, it's negligence. They didn't mean to hit you, but they made a deliberate decision to neglect their responsibility to keep their eyes on the road. If they had an aneurysm and went unconscious and hit you, that would be completely different from the previous two examples.

As the victim of this incident you would want to know. It would matter to you a great deal whether the driver intended to try to kill you or experienced a health crisis that made it a terrible accident.

So the quality of what happened to you certainly would change based on the intention.

[This message edited by Thumos at 2:05 PM, October 2nd (Friday)]

Abuse?

I think the terms one uses affects one's thinking and behavior, and I think it's relatively easy to abuse 'abuse.'

Sisoon, you are free to call it anything you want just as I am. But I'd like you to know that what constitutes as abuse is generally considered by experts as a pattern of behavior meant to keep power and control over another whether intentional by the person perpetrating it or not. Notice how that definition does not include things like cruelty because cruelty is subjective and difficult to measure.

It's clear to see the shift in power and control a WS needs to take in order to carry out infidelity. A WS automatically controls intimate information by hiding it from a BS. Information that forever changes the power dynamic of a relationship once revealed. Even if a WS does not intend to hurt a BS, that doesn't mean infidelity is no longer abusive because again, abuse isn't necessarily about cruelty and pain. Pain is a side effect of abuse. Abuse is about power and control and you can't have infidelity without a change in power and control as initiated by the WS. And we probably don't consider a WS who cheats, gets caught or confesses, and reforms as abusive because it's not a pattern of behavior. Nor the BS who lashes out in pain due to being cheated on who did not have a history of hurtful behavior. Abuse has a definition meant to cut out some of the subjectivity created by casual use that you mention and there is a wealth of books, websites, lists, quizzes, videos, TEDtalks, and podcasts available to you if you have any confusion when it comes to the proper identification of abuse. Some of the best ones have already been named in this thread.

The more energy a person puts into thinking in terms of abuse, the less energy is likely to be available for healing, IMO.

Calling infidelity 'abuse' mixes the focus up. The WS has one set of problems to solve. The BS has another set of problems. Healing requires focus on oneself. When 'abuse' is in the picture, the picture is about the effect of one person's actions on another, and that takes the focus away from the work that's needed for healing.

I was not able to heal from even one trauma in my life without identifying it, analyzing it, and processing it. There are still little things popping up for me that I can only now move on from because I acknowledge and understand them in ways that I was unable to when they happened. Healing would never had come to me if I minimized every trauma by not focusing on it and trust me, I have tried all of the positive minded new age crap aimed at doing exactly that. Meditation is a normal part of my daily routine going on almost two decades now. It helped but it didn't heal me. It was more like bandaging a wound until I could get to a doctor and put off any deep healing until I could confront that pain. If you're able to just pass right by identifying the cause of the wounds and understanding how they got there to focus on feeling better, good for you, but it's not what was helpful for me and I suspect there are other BSes present who aren't able to heal that way either.

I think part of the reason why cheating is so traumatic us that there are so many contradictory messages:the cheated on spouse should leave, no questions asked. The betrayed person should leave, but should try and make the marriage work if the cheater is remorseful. The betrayed spouse should stay and only leave if the cheater is remorseful.

How could that not add to the trauma of the cheating? There is no clear societal path.

And there is the additional trauma of the cheater lying about it.

So I think it is the confusion of the societal messages that add to the trauma.

I also think that people are different: for some people cheating is the most traumatic recent in their life. For others, a rape or the death of a child is more traumatic. Now, why is is one more trsumatic for some and for others, the pther is more traumatic? It is interesting.

Finally. Someone posted on the thread about physical abuse. And then someone else posted about how one can choose to stsy woth a remorseful cheater.

Here is what is interesting. It does make sense to work on a relationship with someone who cheated and then worls to make themselves a better person. Yet how is it that in other contexts we wpuld view thst as nonsense? Like, a man is a great husband for 30 years and then punches his wife in the face once. Is immediately sorry and goes into therapy. We would still warn the abuse survivor to stsy away. Or if someone stole money, same thing.

The messages are contradictory, which I thinks adds to the mindfucm of cheating.

I also think that cheating is extra traumatic because there is the lying plus the cheating itself. And often there is gaslighting which is super traumatic.

This is a fascinating thread. I've particularly enjoyed the parsing of the word "abuse." Having said that, I also think there's a danger in over intellectualising the word "abuse." At the end of the day, what Thumos is speaking to is that it feels like abuse. My understanding of Sisoon's issue with that is the implied victimization of that term. In a very real sense, no matter what our WS's intentions were, we are victims of someone else's decision making. How we handle that going forward is up to us. We can continue to remain victims or we can find ways out of that hole. My understanding of the entire ethos of SI is to "get out of infidelity" which is getting the BS out of victimization, however that journey ends.

In my own person experience, I'm quite sure there was at once a "fuck you BHUK" and a "I never want her to find out about this" aspect to my Ex's A. Both things are possible. And the absolute devastation in the wake of Dday couldn't have been predicted. Hell, even I couldn't have known the trauma of that experience much less my Ex who was well and truly mired in delusion at that point. Having said that, my Ex continued to have contact with the OW despite an explicit boundary set after Dday, lied to me about that knowing full well how that would feel to me and when I discovered that I ended the M. That was irrefutably abusive. There was no getting around that.

I am a little confused as to why being a victim is a negative. I have had a couple experiences where I think anyone would agree I was a victim, CSA, a mugging, being cheated on. I know of no other way to describe being on the recieving end of those.

Yet, I have been successful enough, good job, good athletic career, great kids as and friends etc.

So, pray tell, why is admitting I was victimized so bad. I do not whine about it. I got therapy and have done alright. Yet, there is no doubt in my mind that I was victimized through no fault of my own.

Given the prevalence of actual abusive situations lately on SI -- where we've seen real WW's physically abusing BH's and possibly trying to set them up for fake DV charges themselves, I just thought of a few things.

FWIW, I don't think any of us would tell these BH's who are the middle of a cyclone with a BPD WW, "hey you need to focus on yourself more. The more you think about her, you're just hampering your own healing. Don't think about her explosive temper and that she attacked you in front of the kids and the cops were called. Focus more on you. Quit being so bitter and resentful and stop wallowing in your victimhood."

I wonder if this -- and WH's are physically and verbally abusive to their BW's -- deserves a special section or making a thread sticky? Just a thought for the mods here. Maybe this thread is a great start and it apparently couldn't be more timely.

[This message edited by Thumos at 4:46 PM, October 2nd (Friday)]

I am a little confused as to why being a victim is a negative.

Same it's like there is a stigma attached. I have been victimized many times in my life, but I am both a victim of circumstances I had no control over and I have survived those circumstances.

In reality, if you are upfront and honest that is probably as far as your responsibility goes in the situation, but let's not pretend to not know she is still trying to sway you to stay.

I agree that's what's happening. Oddly enough, as we're having this convo here on this thread, it turns out I shut this down two nights ago by telling her the issue was deeply fraught for me and I wanted to take a break. Given my high drive, we will see how long this lasts. I've never been a fan of celibacy.