SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

A BBC series Dr Foster is about a man who cheats on his wife and her falling apart. It’s powerful and tragic. No happy ending.

OF COURSE the infidelity was wrong wrong wrong. But after the infidelity, she made the choice to stay with her husband. She stayed. She raised her kids. She stayed even though she was INVISIBLE to her entire family. She stayed and built a life with him...took care of her husband when he was ill and dying. And he obviously knew she had “settled” in her life with him.

What’s right,

I realize we’re speaking of fictional characters in movies or stories.

Even so, we are likening the characters’ behaviors and how that behavior would be perceived in actual life.

Yes, she stayed with her husband.

But let’s be clear.

This woman was a deceitful, lying, backstabbing, selfish piece of worthless shit.

Period.

She felt that she was “invisible” to her family?

Sounds like the ubiquitous, typical, trite, and tired old mental acrobatics that adulterers use to justify their lying, deceit, and betrayals.

“I didn’t think you loved me anymore.” is another way of saying “invisible”.

She would not have wanted her husband to have done the same thing she did nor would she accept such a lame and worthless excuse if he told her “but, but, I felt invisible to you!”

He ended up living a lie.

The one who was not there in the marriage was her.

And, even so, her husband did not use that to justify him acting on his inward emptiness and need to feel validated by some one else.

She felt “invisible”? That’s just a euphemism for the good ole “You weren’t there for me!” excuse pulled from the adulterers handbook that we speak of here.

The fact that the POSOM and the deceitful, backstabbing, liar wife were played by Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep, respectively, doesn’t make her infidelity any different or less damaging than the wayward wife who’s giving her boss daily blowjobs and quickies in his office or the company parking lot.

If it were in real life.

No man would want to be this woman’s husband.

There is zero nobility in this woman’s character no matter how much Hollywood wants the public to believe so.

[This message edited by keptmyword at 9:43 PM, November 23rd (Monday)]

I agree with this ^^^ . Yeah, she stayed. But how about giving him a choice? She didn't confess. She was a coward. She saw herself as a martyr. It was disgusting.

The scenes of her alone in her bedroom, trying to pull herself together for a family event;

While I really felt for this character at that time, and it was WONDERFULLY acted, I would have pulled an all out hissy fit and NOT kept it together for the family. I simply could not have done what she did. I'm not that emotionally mature. ha!

Atypical first and second season covers the affair of the wife and mother of the main character

Thanks for mentioning Atypical, I just started watching it after seeing your post. Wow, the show's great. Centres on a high school kid with autism, the actor playing this character is astonishingly good.

The affair and its aftermath I thought were written and acted very well. The show is really good at portraying uncomfortable situations in family and high school life.

"Breaking Bad" has an infidelity theme woven through several seasons. Skyler White (Walt's wife) sleeps with Ted Benneke, her boss and the owner of a family company. When we first meet Ted, he seems handsome and wealthy and successful, and genuinely enamored of Skyler. Skyler, meanwhile, is angry and resentful toward her husband, Walt. She sleeps with Benneke and then rubs Walt's face in it.

Later, we see Benneke as the shallow, materialistic opportunist that he is. Weak-willed and short-sighted, he lacks gravitas and manliness and is really rather pathetic. It's one of the few shows/movies I've seen that unpeels the AP in this way.

"Breaking Bad" has an infidelity theme woven through several seasons. Skyler White (Walt's wife) sleeps with Ted Benneke, her boss and the owner of a family company. When we first meet Ted, he seems handsome and wealthy and successful, and genuinely enamored of Skyler. Skyler, meanwhile, is angry and resentful toward her husband, Walt. She sleeps with Benneke and then rubs Walt's face in it.

I'm rewatching that series now (pandemic life, lol). It hits me how similar Walt's secret life is to an affair too and how it affects Skyler almost as if it was. The lies, the hiding, the not knowing where he is and not trusting him.

There's an old Cary Grant movie entitled, The Grass Is Greener. Grant is a pastor of a church and his wife (Deborah Kerr) cheats with Robert Mitchum. The movie portrays pretty well the spouse left behind aspect. In the end they are back together but it appears that it probably won't last.

Watched "On The Rocks" with WW...

Spoilers...

WW identified with the wife/victim - husband is a busy exec, his career is taking off, he's spending time with a female coworker, she feels invisible... that was us.

In the end, the husband is clean, the wife's suspicions were unfounded, and it never occurred to the wife to cheat.

Not sure how WW felt about the final act.

One thing the film got right: The wife confronted her father about his infidelity and the pain it caused her. Well portrayed, including the father's avoidant response. Later, the father acknowledged that his affair was hell for everyone.

The film is essentially a portrait of a woman suffering the effects of her father's affair in her own marriage... even though there is no infidelity in her marriage.

No question this material would be triggering for many.

Love and anarchy is a Swedish mini series on Netflix. Typical 40 something wife is infatuated with a younger guy in her twenties. They start to flirt, then sleep together. She gets to “find” herself with him.

The series ended before the husband, of course who is insensitive to her needs, finds out. What the ending would leave out is what happens to this family, with two young kids, after she gets caught. They probably will never show the devastation that her “journey” would bring.

The Undoing on HBO.

Same team as Big Little Lies.

About a therapist that doesn't see the problems in her own marriage.

Can't say I'm enjoying it.

The female lead in the Undoing is driving me crazy. I scream at her every week. She's not very self aware given her profession.

I really took some time to think about whether I wanted to watch any of the programs folks described here.

I decided to put my toe in the water for Dr Foster.... man oh man! I'm about 1/2 way through and there have been moments I've had to do a serious gut/reality check about whether this is pain shopping. Can't definitively say that I have a answer either way on that front, but now I'm hooked. Of course the deets differ from the show and my own situation, but holy cow, I can't say that I've ever seen a show that captures the hell of being a BS better than this.

I don't wanna give away any spoilers, so I'll leave it at that.

I bought season 1 of Dr. Foster on dvd (Amazon says it was Feb 2017). I wanna watch it but hadn't found the time when I felt I was in the right frame of mind. Now that X has passed, maybe I will- after the holidays. But the 2nd season dvd on Amazon says "usually delivers within 8 months".

I dunno about season 2, but season 1 is on Netflix

WW has been rewatching The Undoing - of course she identifies with the victim.

I've come to the conclusion that as procedural crime dramas go, it's not a great show. The detectives make stupid mistakes. The antagonist is defeated by his own ego. The one twist comes near the end in a courtroom scene that is improbable, which is why it's a twist.

Ultimately, it's not about an affair, it's about rich people in NYC who cannot accept less than whatever they desire. Yawn.

I've been teasing WW: "when will Season 2 start?"

I like The Undoing. I’m only 3 episodes in but I like what they have shown so far. I think the cheater is portrayed perfectly.

The “I was sucked in” like was classic!!! Typical cheater move.

It hits me how similar Walt's secret life is to an affair too and how it affects Skyler almost as if it was. The lies, the hiding, the not knowing where he is and not trusting him.

I had the same thought not long ago. Sort of goes to the issue discussed here on SI sometimes that there are various types of marital infidelity that don't involve sex or emotional entanglement with another human person.

"Attack of the 50 Foot Woman"

A rich woman is made 50 foot tall by an alien and she attacks her money hungry cheating husband tearing a building apart and killing the mistress and husband, but kills no one else I believe.

Cheaply made 1950's sci-fi, you have to wonder what happened in the screen writers life.

Just a couple of warnings about Dr. Foster. Dr. Foster is a woman whose husband is having an affair with a much younger woman. In fact she doesn’t look much over 20. The young son sees everything that’s going on and it’s damaging to him. The wife’s reaction is over the top and so realistic because you know that’s how everybody feels who has been cheated on. I recommend it for the reality of it but be aware it is heavy going. I don’t remember how I found the whole series but I watched it all.

"Molly's Game" has an infidelity theme, through the eyes of a daughter who witnessed her father's infidelity. It's not revealed until later in the story.

I like watching 1930's movies.

I just found "When Ladies Meet" 1933 pre code

Myrna Loy, Robert Montgomery

The OW, BW both smarten up at the end and see what a

POSOM the WH is.

Bing video, free.

[This message edited by oldtruck at 7:06 PM, December 7th (Monday)]