SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

If we could just call every WS "sugar lips" from now on here on SI, that would be just fine with me.

As far as I'm concerned he's as stand up dude of an AP as a BH could hope for.

Not saying a whole hell of a lot for his character, as far as resumes go.

And didn't she say the quiet part out loud already and admit that she might end up cheating on you again anyway?

And gave him a treatise on how empowering her infidelity was from a quasi-feminist bullshit perspective.

And gave him a treatise on how empowering her infidelity was from a quasi-feminist bullshit perspective.

I wouldn't call it a treatise. She later apologized for that lame excuse and has not brought it up again subsequently.

It's good to know she didn't write an actual pamphlet on it.

Others have written bestselling books on it!

Well I recall This0Is0Fine's WW telling one of her friends--who is/was also a WW herself--about how TIF was a lost puppy dog when it came to her emotional needs and how OM knew just what to say etc. TIF overheard her phone conversation.

This was in April I believe--months after WW's outburst about unfair it is that she as a woman gets punished for infidelity whereas men supposedly have gotten away with it for years...

So, yeah...

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 11:03 PM, October 21st (Wednesday)]

Well I recall This0Is0Fine's WW telling one of her friends--who is/was also a WW herself--about how TIF was a lost puppy dog when it came to her emotional needs and how OM knew just what to say etc.

Lost puppy is an accurate recollection of what she said. However, this turns out to be partially true of her motivation to seek comfort elsewhere, there was a deeper issue (which could be true or not). When MIL attempted suicide the second time, my wife found her in our home mid attempt (cutting). She ran and hid in the closet and called me. I rushed home and did first aid on MIL (bandaging neck, wrists, and ankles) until the paramedics arrived. She did survive that attempt.

When she wanted to talk about how she felt paralyzed and scared about this, I was a reminder of her inaction. She would visualize me doing the first aid covered in her mother's blood while she did nothing. This didn't give her much comfort. Me being emotionally cool and inarticulate as it came to comforting her over her mother's death was really just a small adder to this mental block in coming to me for support.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 11:58 PM, October 21st (Wednesday)]

I understand the real story paints you in a far more heroic light. You did all you could to stop MIL from suicide and you in fact did save her after her first attempt. No doubt there are deeper issues at play as to how your WW is really processing this.

My point of this is how your WW doesn't really seem to respect nor value you very much. She didn't seem to be telling her close friend the real story, that she was the one with the hard-to-deal-with emotional pain and the horrible coping strategies that led her towards turning to another man. Instead your WW painted you as the inept one, that you were like a lost puppy who couldn't handle her emotional needs so she turned to OM to save the day.

How you can settle for this is beyond me...

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 11:48 AM, October 22nd (Thursday)]

Is it possible to just suck it up and make it work functionally, even though you cannot fully reconcile due to the WS's actions?

Well, let's back up.

What do you mean by 'fully reconcile'?

Which of the characteristics of full reconciliation are missing?

Have you talked with your W about how to bring the missing elements into your M?

Where to do you want to get to?

Where are you now?

How can you get from where you are to where you want to be?

Well, let's back up.

What do you mean by 'fully reconcile'?

Which of the characteristics of full reconciliation are missing?

Have you talked with your W about how to bring the missing elements into your M?

Where to do you want to get to?

Where are you now?

How can you get from where you are to where you want to be?

To be in a place where I feel safe with my WW. This is the main thing that is missing. I am knowingly carrying forward a bunch of risk, and I do not feel safe. Comfortable yes, safe no. Where I would want to type fWW instead of WW. This is the main issue. The "lack of respect" or a sign that my feelings really matter to her in a way to change her behavior permanently for the better. She does set up "better" boundaries, but if we are using the windows and walls stuff, she basically has a barred window where a wall belongs. It's better than before, but she keeps looking out of it on occasion.

She has basically told me that her autonomy, job, etc. are things she doesn't want to lose and completely cut off. Basically she has told me she will not do what I have asked. Let's take the most recent example of her getting into the orbit of AP's friend.

Me: "I don't like that you are being friendly with AP's friend"

Her: "Well he's a coworker and having a hard time coming out because of his conservative background and I'm one of his few liberal friends"

"Ok, sure, but it puts you one step closer to AP and that hurts and makes me anxious"

"I'm sorry but it's important to me"

"Well, ultimately I can't control your actions. You can do whatever you want."

"No I can't."

"Sure you can."

"Right, but then there will be consequences."

"Yes. I don't like this friendship, and it's not doing much to make me not feel like an idiot." (This is a call back to a request that she make me not feel like and idiot with her words and actions).

"You're not an idiot. This is a completely different friendship."

"Look, I've tried setting hard boundaries, and it didn't work. I can't say I will or won't divorce you over it, but I don't like. I can rationally understand where you are coming from, but it hurts. You need to know that."

"OK, I promise there is nothing to worry about and I will not have secret conversations with AP's friend or AP. OK?"

"Fine, but I don't like it."

I would like for her to have the same level of caution about this shit as me. To recognize that innocuous actions led to the EA in the first place, and that my anxiety is something worth decreasing through her actions, not something that should be increasing.

I do not want to say what she can and can't do. I want her to do it without me asking or threatening. The path there likely doesn't exist. The last time I was talked out of divorce, it was expressly mentioned that it doesn't seem like we have a sustainable path to stay married, that we are just going to take it day by day.

If one day, I decide well and permanently that I do want D, then I will. If one day one of the two of us wakes up: her deciding that my feelings are important enough for her to alter her behavior, or me deciding that really her actions (which are not an A) don't bother me anymore then we can make it last.

It's less than the shadow of a plan. It's explicitly not a plan with no clear path to success. More of an armistice than a recommitment.

Where I want to be is literally a fantasy as unrealistic as "going back to how things were before the A". It doesn't exist.

Respectfully This0Is0Fine,

YOUR WIFE IS WALKING ALL OVER YOU.

You try setting some terms and then when your wife pushes back with "I can't stop doing this it is too important to me" you CAVE. Basically it is on you to accept that you are maybe Top 5 in her priorities but not quite Top 3. Didn't she admit so outright herself in fact?

If you stay in this marriage this will be the rest of your life. If she doesn't leave you first that is.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 1:39 PM, October 22nd (Thursday)]

YOUR WIFE IS WALKING ALL OVER YOU.

Yes, I have consistently caved like a little bitch. There is no contention about that. I will continue to cave like a little bitch until I've had too much. I just don't know what that is.

I told my therapist, "I think I've invented a new version of baseball with a minimum of five strikes."

I will continue to cave like a little bitch until I've had too much. I just don't know what that is.

Time will tell you when that is. Maybe things will improve maybe they won't but you will know when you are DONE. I hope you are seeing an IC through this.

Lost puppy is an accurate recollection of what she said. However, this turns out to be partially true of her motivation to seek comfort elsewhere, there was a deeper issue (which could be true or not). When MIL attempted suicide the second time, my wife found her in our home mid attempt (cutting). She ran and hid in the closet and called me. I rushed home and did first aid on MIL (bandaging neck, wrists, and ankles) until the paramedics arrived. She did survive that attempt.

When she wanted to talk about how she felt paralyzed and scared about this, I was a reminder of her inaction. She would visualize me doing the first aid covered in her mother's blood while she did nothing. This didn't give her much comfort. Me being emotionally cool and inarticulate as it came to comforting her over her mother's death was really just a small adder to this mental block in coming to me for support.

For many women, if their husband saved their mother's life - as you clearly did - he would be a hero, not a 'lost puppy'.

It says a lot about your wife's thought processes that your reward for saving the life of a woman she claimed to love was to cheat on you.

The question is, when you are dealing with someone who thinks in such a screwed-up, self-centered way, how are you ever going to get a 'win' out of any given situation?

The problem is that you are playing by two completely different sets of rules. Your wife is comfortable being surrounded by cheaters; you are not.

Your wife feels it is fine to build relationships with other men after having an affair in which she did her utmost to get physical with another woman's husband; you do not think it is fine.

Your wife thought - and may well still think - it is acceptable to pursue another woman's husband for sex when your answer to a poster who asked you when you were going to start branching out and getting involved with other women was, "It will never happen".

You seem to feel bound by a set of personal values, rules, boundaries, and thoughts about marriage that keep you honest, supportive, and faithful to a wife whose value system seems to be, "If it feels good, do it", with no sense of obligation or responsibility to you, and no concern about who gets hurt as long as she has fun.

And if you don't like it, you get told to suck it up by someone who claims to both love and respect you. That suggests that your wife urgently needs to consult a dictionary to look up the definitions of those words, because real love and respect do not manifest themselves in indifference to a respected loved one's pain or discomfort.

A very well-respected poster in these forums called Stevesn always says that if he had a friendship or other relationship with anyone that made his wife unhappy or uncomfortable, he would end that relationship immediately.

That is what love and respect looks like.

In relation to your wife leaving, you said, "If she leaves, she leaves". In relation to divorce, you said that you are waiting for your wife to do something significant enough to justify it, like having a PA like the one she tried to engineer with her 'friend'.

In both scenarios, the prime mover is your wife, with you standing on the side-lines like an an analytical observer holding a check-list. "Well, I haven't caught her doing something bad enough for me to invoke the nuclear option, so I guess I have no choice but to stay and see what she does tomorrow".

Essentially, your wife is governing the tone and quality of your life, because you choose to stay with her, and because divorce is only seen as a reactive response to a bad thing she does, rather than a proactive action taken because of positive things your wife is not doing, like making you feel secure, loved, or respected.

Those things are the standard currency and essential foundation for a healthy marriage, and they are things that you could find with another woman if/when you finally decide that you deserve them, and you acknowledge that time's a wastin', as the saying goes.

If you are just waiting for your wife to cheat again or to leave you, it suggests you accept that you can have a life without your wife.

My question is, why should your liberation only come from a reaction to your wife doing something bad? Why can't it come from something good, like you proactively deciding that you deserve something better in life than your wife is capable of providing?

I hate saying all these things, but I feel frustrated, because you deserve so much better than you are being given.

TIF, I think you already know this but do you feel you are caught in a nice guy feedback loop? The conversations you recount are far too diplomatic considering the way your WW continues to behave and treat you.

It doesn't seem to me you owe her this shuttle diplomacy/tea ceremony delicacy. Not to say you should be intentionally cruel, caustic or confrontational. But might not some more blunt talk be a little more beneficial for you?

Also, it occurred to me last night that after our exchange on some of the stupid shit your WW has said, you're doing a bit of what I was doing awhile back.

I realized I would defend my WW for saying some gobsmacking damaging things by leaping to her rescue and saying here on SI "well she later apologized for that."

But who cares? She said it. She meant it when she said it. And then she stuck by it for awhile. It reflected a damaged worldview at odds with my own. It reflected a cruel lack of empathy. It reflected a person more wrapped up in defending their own precious ego.

I don't need to recount everything my WW said in at least the first year after DDAY, but you've read some of it.

Stupid, vainglorious, horrible stuff. Deeply damaging stuff.

Your WW is exhibiting the same pattern, but she's COMPOUNDING IT with further disrespectful tangible actions in 3D time-space.

It's really convenient to say these terrible things, stick with them for a little bit, and then later say "oh I don't know what I was thinking, I really didn't mean it and I'm sorry."

That's a form of gaslighting, at least in my book. My stepfather was verbally abusive toward myself and my mom. He would apologize profusely. And then do it again. At some point, the apologies became meaningless.

Does that make sense?

And that's to say nothing of the fact that your WW seems to have a familial pattern of glossing over or excusing infidelity (or perhaps just female infidelity?). I don't think that's overstating it.

[This message edited by Thumos at 4:40 PM, October 22nd (Thursday)]

I'm almost more worried about your wife. She thinks she can keep pushing the line and doing all of these reprehensible things.

But you've got a limit, and I sense you are close to it with all of this self flagellation.

When you hit that limit, it's going to be over, you're going to be resolved -- and the whole thing is going to come crashing in on your WW.

She seems so delusional she won't know what hit her.

[This message edited by Thumos at 4:47 PM, October 22nd (Thursday)]

Hi TIF,

In the example you gave about 'that' friend,

"I'm sorry but it's important to me"

Did you ask your WW why it was so important for her to keep the friendship, and even build it up? How does that friendship enrich the M?

As to this:

"Right, but then there will be consequences."

Your WW is fully aware that there are consequences due to choices she makes, but she wants to blame it on you for her making the 'wrong' choices (for her).

Basically, your WW is still deep in wayward thinking. HER needs are still paramount (over the needs of the M).

Until she can get out of that mode of thinking, you will have to live your life in limbo (if you still insist on staying in the relationship).

YOU are also making a conscious decision of staying in the M, knowing the consequences... so, are you trying to blame your choice that you are making on your WW?

I do not say that in malice, but more as a point to think about.

Your therapist sucks.

Took the words right out of my mouth!

Lost puppy is an accurate recollection of what she said. However, this turns out to be partially true of her motivation to seek comfort elsewhere, there was a deeper issue (which could be true or not). When MIL attempted suicide the second time, my wife found her in our home mid attempt (cutting). She ran and hid in the closet and called me. I rushed home and did first aid on MIL (bandaging neck, wrists, and ankles) until the paramedics arrived. She did survive that attempt.

When she wanted to talk about how she felt paralyzed and scared about this, I was a reminder of her inaction. She would visualize me doing the first aid covered in her mother's blood while she did nothing. This didn't give her much comfort. Me being emotionally cool and inarticulate as it came to comforting her over her mother's death was really just a small adder to this mental block in coming to me for support.

This reminds me of an episode of Superman where Superman heroically saves a citizen's life and Lois aquires an unquenchable desire to sleep with Lex Luthor!

Come on friend!!

I’m now 8 years out. I’m a physician, my WH is a stay at home dad. I would have had to pay $5000 a month in alimony if I had divorced. His affairs were sex only affairs on Craigslist with anonymous hook ups.

I stayed because in my own childhood history, my parents’ divorce ended in badness - my mom brought a lot of horrible men into my life as a child. She should have stayed married to the “boring” guy. My WH made some changes, prolly about 70% of what was needed. Deep inside, I knew that his affairs ended our marriage.

It’s not terrible. I pretty much run the show, (he is like a 1950s housewife, takes good care of me). Am I in love? Don’t we always say love is an action? So I guess I am, because I act loving. My kids are fine, way better off than if I had divorced. He would have brought some terrible people into their lives. He already was doing that when he was fucking people in alleys on Craigslist. Smdh.

I get everything I want. We move when I want to; I don’t care what he wants anymore. I was totally codependent before; that woman is dead, thank god.

So I’m going to give more pragmatic advice. Can you do that without being abusive to your WS? Can you be decent and not be abused yourself? And you should sit down and have a VERY HONEST conversation with yourself about what’s in it for you? $5000 a month for me, as well as someone who does everything I ask of them. He’s not a horrible human, I enjoy his company. If he cheats again, I will divorce.

As the Dread Pirate Roberts said, “Good job, go to bed. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.” Every day has been this. And actually, it’s been ok.

He did change, though. I keep his balls in my purse now. Everyone has their price. I guess we found ours.

Going on 21 years now, affairs happened when I had a 1 and 3 yr old, and we were in year 13.

What’s in it for you?

3 yrs Thanks for posting. I think this is what thisisfine needs to see.

You can take some control back, and be happy and content, but you don't have to allow your WS to be disrespectful to you or the family as a whole. He isn't getting that.

I too initally gave R a shot because my H had lost his job and I was going to end up paying not only CS but SS because we had been married so long. I wasn't about to do that, when we have essentially been equal earners up to that point.