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But that's the point... He did NOT do this to me. He did it to himself. I was never the target. I was, at best, on the periphery.

We are bystanders, Thumos. The attack is not directed at us.

I don't agree with this. I agree that we didn't matter to them at the time, absolutely. Where I don't agree is that we just happened to be present while they did a thing and whoopsie oh no, they just didn't realize they were even doing a thing that would affect us.

They knew to lie and gaslight us. They knew to hide it. They knew that they were married. They knew that discovery of this would cause us pain. If they did not know that this was an awful thing to do, they'd have never bothered to lie or hide it.

I think this whole "we were just collateral damage" is infantalizing a WS and treating him like a child who just doesn't know right from wrong.

None of us married someone that stupid. None of them popped out of a coma with amnesia and just started dating. They all knew that they were married. They knew how to look us in the eyes and stone cold lie. They knew how to fuck someone else and then come home to us as if nothing happened and eat the food we prepared, watch a TV show with us and relax into our company. They had that in them. They weren't self-flagellating with someone else's genitals.

I'm not saying that a WS can't become a better person. I'm saying that it's unhealthy to look at it purely as "they were victims of themselves".

[This message edited by DevastatedDee at 3:39 PM, July 29th (Thursday)]

That's exactly what I did. And yeah, it works like gangbusters. You either get a divorce from a remorseless cheater, or you get R from a WS who has snapped to attention.

See, and I didn't. Because I had everyone telling me to cool it, to wait, to give it time. Exactly the advice I didn't need. What I needed to do was what you did. Instead, I participated in some rugsweeping based on bad MC and other pushes, didn't get transparency, got a lot of footdragging and some really awful additional things said to me. It may just be too much for me at this point.

I guess what I'm saying is I feel I OWE it to recently betrayed spouses to tell them otherwise, to give it to them straight and to not encourage R until they have seen some really amazing superheroic efforts from their WS's.

The attack is not directed at us.

This is probably where you and I differ in our experiences, what I heard on the VAR, my WW trying to get me on an SSRI (a brain altering substance) etc. It's just a lot. And it was downright malicious when you look at it objectively.

And I read too any other instances here that seem downright directed at a BS and malicious. Take a look at Apparition's story, or the guy whose fiance recently on JFO tried to get him in the hoosegow. Or WW's trying to foment false DV charges against their loyal husbands. Or what about the HVAC guy whose WW convinced him to fix the heater in the cabin that was her AP's fuckpad? And then laughing about it?

It just seems to happen way too much for me to think anything other than there is a level of contempt and directed malice in so, so many cases.

I think this whole "we were just collateral damage" is infantalizing a WS and treating him like a child who just doesn't know right from wrong.

None of us married someone that stupid. None of them popped out of a coma with amnesia and just started dating. They all knew that they were married. They knew how to look us in the eyes and stone cold lie. They knew how to fuck someone else and then come home to us as if nothing happened and eat the food we prepared, watch a TV show with us and relax into our company. They had that in them. They weren't self-flagellating with someone else's genitals.

I'm not saying that a WS can't become a better person. I'm saying that it's unhealthy to look at it purely as "they were victims of themselves".

100 percent agree. This is what I'm often talking about when I use the "litte lost girl in the woods" analogy. I know some women take umbrage to that, and I admit it's snarky, but I could easily say "little lost boy in the woods" in talking about WH's, too. Maybe I should start doing that. There's this fainting couch infantilization of WS's I find really offputting, whether they are men or women. Too much excuse making. Too many pats on the head for when they finally start exhibiting a modicum of normal decent human behavior.

I think we should start trying to eschew that more. Stop fawning over it.

[This message edited by Thumos at 3:47 PM, July 29th (Thursday)]

It just seems to happen way too much for me to think anything other than there is a level of contempt and directed malice in so, so many cases.

I don't see how you can intentionally make a fool out of someone without having contempt for them. At the very least, a profound lack of respect.

Exactly. I mean how much respect could you have for your husband if you arranged for another man to come over to your marital home at a specific arranged time for the express purpose of unprotected sex, and then later that same afternoon convince your husband to call the AP and thank him for a gift you knew was a reward to you for having sex with the AP?

Apparition

On the Statute of Limitations, there is no such thing. The betrayal is a permanent part of the marriage history. But hopefully, a resolved part of the history, were the wayward did the work to present themselves as a safe partner: which means they are always transparent and can speak about their poor choices in the affair with genuine honesty and compassion. If they actually did the work and recognize were they failed then that is the "old them" and the "new them" can look at it all clear eyed and without shame. Remorse, sure, regret, okay, but they don't have to carry a cross for the rest of their life.

But that's what I'm saying... at what point to we recognize that the WS has arrived and we let them climb down off the cross? When should we check ourselves to make sure we're not holding a grudge? And personally, I don't believe that the WS ever reaches the point where they don't feel shame about what they did. Of course, working on shame is part of the process WS's must tackle in healing, but I still think it's just normal to cringe when you're reminded of a bad thing you've done. I mean, we're not perfect people, right? Most of us can identify with doing something wrong or something embarrassing in the past. We might not be wearing the hair shirt over that thing today, but do we really enjoy being immersed in that painful memory. I'm saying no, not much.

This is all so new for you though, Apparition. You are still in the trenches, with your ears buzzing from the grenades going off around you. I'm talking about way, way out.. when the decision for R is agreed upon and everyone is where they are by choice and all the work is getting done.

TheEnd

Yes, I was victimized by my asshat of a spouse but I do not want that to define the rest of my life.

Exactly. And as long as you carry that victimization inside you, allowing it to define you as "a victim", you can't heal. Your rage and sadness will remain. There is POWER in knowing that you have a choice every day about where to stand, either in or out of the marriage. And in the early days, you need that power. There's REST in writing off the debt. My fWH should have seen me standing there. He should have thought about me. He should have honored his vows and promises. But he can't change the fact that he didn't. Nothing changes it and nothing makes it okay.

On the subject of victimization though, we see on the horizon, The Karpman Drama Triangle, and how prolonged feelings of victimization can encourage us toward taking our power back in the persecutor role. It can be a truly slippery slope, even when people divorce. I don't think my father planned on becoming an disinterested asshat when he and my mother divorced. But there was so much bitterness in him toward her that he just couldn't bear to be around her. And if that meant missing our milestones, so be it. The shame of it is that all that stuff drifts away when people are riddled with cancer and in their death beds.

I think it depends on the specific of the A and the WS, as you pointed out Thumos.

The BS is always a victim of the A, but is not always the target of the actions of the WS.

I think that if I couldn't empathize to some degree my wife's initial motivation, journey from friendship to A through incremental boundary breakdowns, and if I felt that I was personally targeted, I would have a much harder time reaching R. It wasn't exactly easy in the first place.

Exactly. I mean how much respect could you have for your husband if you arranged for another man to come over to your marital home at a specific arranged time for the express purpose of unprotected sex, and then later that same afternoon convince your husband to call the AP and thank him for a gift you knew was a reward to you for having sex with the AP?

I genuinely cannot even imagine doing that. I don't even know if I could done that under threat of death. That's just beyond.

They knew to lie and gaslight us. They knew to hide it. They knew that they were married. They knew that discovery of this would cause us pain. If they did not know that this was an awful thing to do, they'd have never bothered to lie or hide it.

I think this whole "we were just collateral damage" is infantalizing a WS and treating him like a child who just doesn't know right from wrong.

Dee, I'm not suggesting the the WS didn't know that what they were doing is wrong. Of course they aren't infants. They know that adultery can get them divorced, they hide it, yadda, yadda, yadda. But if you can't accept that it was NOT about you, you're better off getting divorced as you have done.

EVERYTHING my fWH did while he was cheating on me was about him. None of it was about me, and even though he had tons of rationalizations about me at the time, it was not done TO me.

Dee, I'm not suggesting the the WS didn't know that what they were doing is wrong. Of course they aren't infants. They know that adultery can get them divorced, they hide it, yadda, yadda, yadda. But if you can't accept that it was NOT about you, you're better off getting divorced as you have done.

EVERYTHING my fWH did while he was cheating on me was about him. None of it was about me, and even though he had tons of rationalizations about me at the time, it was not done TO me.

Well, I guess I viewed it as let's say he liked to light fires. Bit of an arsonist. He especially liked to light fires at home. He wasn't setting the curtains aflame in order to burn me alive. He was setting them aflame because he liked to watch the pretty colors as the fire ate away at the house. When I wake up in a burning bed and go to the ER with 3rd degree burns, I'm going to be pissed at him. I'm going to blame him for me being in the ER. I'm going to hold him responsible for that. He did literally do that to me. I'm not going to see much distinction between "he wanted me to burn" and "he likes lighting the house on fire even though it means I'll burn". One is "I want to hurt her" and the other is "I don't care how much she gets hurt". Both result in me getting hurt. The nuance is not for me to sort out. That's for him to sort out. My job was to accept that he set the house on fire intentionally and decide what to do about that.

I don't actually sit around angry at this guy, btw. None of this messes with my day. I type all this about him without triggers or any real feelings at this point. I am content to never interact with him again as long as I live, but I don't sit around actively feeling anything at him. I remember how I felt very well, though.

[This message edited by DevastatedDee at 4:27 PM, July 29th (Thursday)]

You are still in the trenches, with your ears buzzing from the grenades going off around you.

This is why I keep using the analogy of a trench soldier who is shell shocked being sent back to the front because a piece of paper says so.

To extend the analogy, don't you think Apparition deserves a respite out in the French countryside somewhere, away from the front for awhile?

That's what an immediate therapeutic separation would do. I'm in no way expecting a therapeutic separation to last for months, although it might. That all depends on the BS and what they need.

A minimum of 30 days seems like a good start. During that time, they see an attorney, understand the divorce process, perhaps even do some house hunting and other homework. During that time, the WS writes their timeline, provides to BS, undertakes a poly, proves they are clean and disease free and so on.

Then the BS decides after 30 days if they would like to extend the therapeutic separation, move forward with D, or perhaps at this point tentatively discuss what an R might look like.

The WS would have 30 days to get their act together. The BS would have 30 days to get some space to think.

If there's a fear that the WS will run to the arms of the AP during that time, well as I said before this is one of the "stress tests" for whether the AP is fit for R. If they run back into the arms of the AP while their BS is in essence convalescing, then they are probably not a good fit for R.

[This message edited by Thumos at 4:27 PM, July 29th (Thursday)]

I would have a much harder time reaching R. It wasn't exactly easy in the first place.

Not that it's ever easy, but you have something of an advantage over me in that this wasn't right up in your face with someone you considered a friend, who was in your house regularly.

But if you can't accept that it was NOT about you, you're better off getting divorced as you have done.

CT, do you think the attempt to get me to go to a psych and get an SSRI Rx was about me? What about the sex in our home and then conning me into thanking the AP for a gift? What about the things I heard on the VAR? What about telling me "that's your problem" when I expressed my grief over the fact that she was my one and only and had thrown that in my face? Or telling me the affair was "private" six months after D-Day?

I could go on.

I'm curious about your take. I'm not trying to put you on the spot, I just am curious about your thoughts on it.

[This message edited by Thumos at 4:32 PM, July 29th (Thursday)]

Thumos

I guess what I'm saying is I feel I OWE it to recently betrayed spouses to tell them otherwise, to give it to them straight and to not encourage R until they have seen some really amazing superheroic efforts from their WS's.

I try to get the newbies to grab the one-up when I can too. But it really does have to come from a place where you mean what you say though and most are too terrified to do it. I don't think the WS has to be "superheroic" in the beginning though. I just think they have to be willing to work. My WS still got busted breaking contact a month after DDay, while he was supposed to be "proving" his trustworthiness. They can still fuck up that close to DDay. He had been trying to the old "let her down gently" routine, but after my ultimatum, he ghosted her instead. It just depends on whether they're working with you or not. It won't be perfect.

This is probably where you and I differ in our experiences, what I heard on the VAR, my WW trying to get me on an SSRI (a brain altering substance) etc. It's just a lot. And it was downright malicious when you look at it objectively.

And I read too any other instances here that seem downright directed at a BS and malicious.

You wouln't believe the horrible things my WS said to the AP about me, the names they called me... it was childish. Seriously, like two little kids snickering in a corner. That's part of the poison though. An otherwise good person can't do something that wrong without providing a bunch of excuses to themselves. My fWH had made me into a monster in his mind, every bit of his middle-aged angst and life disappointments was directed at me like a bullseye on my forehead. But still... this was not done TO me. This was so he could set me aside and not think about me. Every old resentment, lots of fluffed up grievances, and suddenly, I'm not a wife he owes his fidelity to, I'm an obstacle to be go around. This type of cheater can correct in amazing ways, once they're willing to give up the false image they've created in their minds.

Now, I'll grant you.. some WS's are just horrible people and we shouldn't bother with them. But that's NOT what we're talking about here. We're talking about a WS that we have decided to keep. We've made a free choice to try our best at R. No once can force us to do that.

This is what I'm often talking about when I use the "litte lost girl in the woods" analogy. I know some women take umbrage to that, and I admit it's snarky, but I could easily say "little lost boy in the woods" in talking about WH's, too. Maybe I should start doing that. There's this fainting couch infantilization of WS's I find really offputting, whether they are men or women. Too much excuse making. Too many pats on the head for when they finally start exhibiting a modicum of normal decent human behavior.

Empathy is a two-way street... and I'll grant you that there ARE some people who are not worthy of it. But again, that's NOT what we're talking about. We're talking about R. We're talking about making the free choice to keep our WS. So, if you can't find any empathy in your heart or in your soul for your WS, it's over. The R is done. There's no point in going on. All you're doing is prolonging your own misery and wasting your WS's time.

Now, I'll grant you.. some WS's are just horrible people and we shouldn't bother with them. But that's NOT what we're talking about here. We're talking about a WS that we have decided to keep. We've made a free choice to try our best at R. No once can force us to do that.

This is the circle I can't square, and another reason I'm having such a hard time and find myself in limbo. Because I know my WW is not a terrible evil person. I see it all the time. I saw it before the affair. But during the affair and for a good time afterward, she was a horrible person. Really awful. And the person I heard on that VAR was just someone I didn't recognize. I'm always walking around watching her waiting for Mrs. Hyde to emerge again. Maybe there's just too much damage.

Well, I guess I viewed it as let's say he liked to light fires. Bit of an arsonist. He especially liked to light fires at home. He wasn't setting the curtains aflame in order to burn me alive. He was setting them aflame because he liked to watch the pretty colors as the fire ate away at the house. When I wake up in a burning bed and go to the ER with 3rd degree burns, I'm going to be pissed at him. I'm going to blame him for me being in the ER. I'm going to hold him responsible for that. He did literally do that to me. I'm not going to see much distinction between "he wanted me to burn" and "he likes lighting the house on fire even though it means I'll burn". One is "I want to hurt her" and the other is "I don't care how much she gets hurt". Both result in me getting hurt. The nuance is not for me to sort out. That's for him to sort out. My job was to accept that he set the house on fire intentionally and decide what to do about that.

But we aren't talking about an arsonist, Dee. In my case, we're talking about a middle-aged man with a midlife crisis, low self-esteem, a FOO related need for external validation, and no boundaries due to a lack of integrity. We end up catostophizing when we're hurt. And yeah... it was a big injury, bigger that he could have possibly imagined. He's never been on the receiving end of that shit, so he had no way of knowing how deep the grief goes. But hell, neither did I. I couldn't have imagined the fucking anguish it would cause, or how bad it would get, or how long it would take to heal.

Some cheaters are monsters. They're nothing but narcissistic ego and hedonism. Don't R with that. But some are just confused people with character flaws and baggage.

This is the circle I can't square, and another reason I'm having such a hard time and find myself in limbo. Because I know my WW is not a terrible evil person. I see it all the time. I saw it before the affair. But during the affair and for a good time afterward, she was a horrible person. Really awful. And the person I heard on that VAR was just someone I didn't recognize. I'm always walking around watching her waiting for Mrs. Hyde to emerge again. Maybe there's just too much damage.

What helps me is the Buddhist meditation of a leaf on a stream. The leaf floats and time is represented in short vignettes of what's going on on the bank. As the leaf drifts, we see change. My fWH today is not that guy anymore. That guy was like an alter ego that he has fought and overcome, and yeah.. there's no way I can ever know for sure what goes on in his head. He's a separate person. But I have faith in MY judgment on the subject. I don't even have to put my faith in him. I'm trusting my own eyes and the fact that if I am ever proved wrong, I can handle it. I'm never going to be squashed like a bug again. Those are MY changes. I'm no longer fragile.

Some cheaters are monsters. They're nothing but narcissistic ego and hedonism. Don't R with that. But some are just confused people with character flaws and baggage.

I don't think my XWH is a monster. I think he's a very messed up sad person with trauma in his past who ruined his own life in several different ways. I didn't lack empathy for the pain he had endured in life. I still don't lack empathy for the hurt little boy he once was. I had and still have no empathy for the person he was when he was cheating on me. I didn't even want to try and have that. I doubt it would have mattered in the long run with my particular XWH, but I wasn't going to be up to it either. You can do that, and that's why you can R with your husband.

Thumos

CT, do you think the attempt to get me to go to a psych and get an SSRI Rx was about me? What about the sex in our home and then conning me into thanking the AP for a gift? What about the things I heard on the VAR? What about telling me "that's your problem" when I expressed my grief over the fact that she was my one and only and had thrown that in my face? Or telling me the affair was "private" six months after D-Day?

I think the SSRI might go either way. The WS makes up a lot of shit in their mind in order to justify their actions. She might have created a "depressed Thumos" in her mind. Certainly, she wouldn't have connected your symptoms to herself if she thought you were still in the dark.

I found there was a duality to my WS. There was the cheater and then after he committed to R there was the remorseful guy I married. The cheater was capable of compartmentalization and could do and say terrible things... without guilt. I don't want to get into too many of his details, but I saw his email. I saw his words, pictures, videos. It was sickening. I remember one video in particular where he had just finished fucking an OW, and I kept running it backward over and over again, searching his face for any sign of guilt or remorse. But there wasn't any. There's almost a dissociative quality to the compartmentalization, where the WS get to create himself as whatever he wants. It's a fantasy he gets to step into, like his own movie where he's the star. Of course, in this case it was his own porno and what he had to do to keep that porn coming. But while he was in that "compartment" he was a free-wheeling, easy-going, sex god. But the cheater compartment is dual too, so at home, he was the subject of his own self-pity, misunderstood and put upon by an unappreciative family and a hostile wife. This was NOT about me. This was what he had created in his mind.

I can't tell you what was going through your WW's head when she had you thank the AP for a gift. My fWH's alter ego didn't really think he was doing anything wrong. In fact, I remember him telling me that the reason one of the OW was fucking him was because her husband was cheating on her and that I'd like her if I knew her. Seriously, he was so disconnected that he couldn't see HIMSELF in that statement. The irony of it went swooshing right over his head.

If it's impossible for you to believe that a person can get themselves so fucked up in their own minds that they believe their own bullshit, then yeah.. R is going to be really hard, maybe too hard.

DevastatedDee

I had and still have no empathy for the person he was when he was cheating on me. I didn't even want to try and have that. I doubt it would have mattered in the long run with my particular XWH, but I wasn't going to be up to it either.

See, that's what's great about you, Dee. You're really in touch with yourself. You knew that you didn't want to go through all that stuff and you were strong enough not to feel pressured about it. You're an SI hero for that.

I think this is what people can miss sometimes. It's that no BS owes a second chance. If we choose it, we're choosing it of our own volition.

See, that's what's great about you, Dee. You're really in touch with yourself. You knew that you didn't want to go through all that stuff and you were strong enough not to feel pressured about it. You're an SI hero for that.

I second that. I credit SO much of my being able to move forward to you Dee. You too CT!!

I think this is what people can miss sometimes. It's that no BS owes a second chance. If we choose it, we're choosing it of our own volition.

Agreed. But I think it's just as important for a BS to know that just because they have may have decided to grant a second chance to their WS does not mean that they then have to stick to that no matter what. IMHO once an A happens, the BS gets to call the big shots - even if they decide 5 years or 10 years or 20 years down the road that they want out.

I've only loosely followed this thread. And it's no secret I'm not in R, my WH is not and will likely never be "R material", so get the grains of salt ready :)

When reading the 1st few pages, I thought about the wound of infidelity, or the wound from the trauma of it. IMO, we can absolutely "heal" from it, get to a place where it's not a dark shadow over our every day lives. AND, I suspect that many/most/all BS will still have triggers - even years/decades after a successful R.

So, to the extent that a BS will have a forever scar that will manifest, it seems the WS is always kind of "on the hook" for that.

If my WH had chopped off my hand, I can heal from that. I can forgive. I can choose to not "let it define me", I can not view it from a victim perspective, etc. I can even "grow" and become a superhuman with my remaining hand or other limbs - things I would not have known or learned had my hand never been chopped off. However, I still can't get my hand back, and my spouse could never go back in time to undo that swing of the axe.

There will be times that the loss of that hand manifests in ways that will need help from my spouse - could be emotional triggers of reliving the moment the axe fell... could be I just can't wipe my arse bc my remaining hand is sprained. Could be a lot of things.

So, I guess I'm confused by what is meant by "climbing down off the cross".

I don't think an R that includes holding a grudge is a "successful" R. And, in some ways, no matter how "healed" the BS is from the resulting trauma, it IS a life sentence of sorts in that it seems more likely than not that there will be times the scar manifests, and in some ways puts the WS back on the cross, so to speak.

I also don't agree with the "it's not about me" or not "to" me stuff. We can rationalize bad behavior from now until doomsday. I can see a lot of ways in which my WH's cheating was NOT "about" me. That doesn't remove the myriad ways it WAS "about" me, or the ways in which anyone with half a brain would KNOW how deeply harmful it is... including my WH - who I'm confident was very much aware it would cause me a ton of pain, and very much aware it would likely lead to D, and was equally convinced I would NEVER find out (we keep those secrets because we KNOW the consequences, which includes the pain to another - hell, how many WS will wax on forever about how they lied to "protect" the BS? ). It always reminds me of the drunk driver who says they didn't think anyone would be hurt - another way to relieve their guilt, and doesn't provide much comfort to the grieving family.

And I honestly don't understand (despite a lot of trying) the having faith in myself (or I trust myself), etc. Maybe that's just bc of my particular situation. I have faith in my ability to walk (TBH, duck gathering has taken more than I thought), but not to somehow glean when he's cheating. My WH wasn't an asshole for the entire M (which is basically all cheating in one form or another). He was a royal asshole right after the sex started, but for the most part he treated me very well in our M. Just saying I don't know how one learns to trust themselves WRT a cheating partner when they were extremely skilled in hiding a secret sexual life for a VERY VERY long time. For all I know, he could have broken NC with one of his APs or in a PA today and I would NEVER know, bc it just doesn't seem to manifest in his day-to-day behavior (maybe banging someone else & lying for so long became so comfortable it just wouldn't manifest? I dunno and I don't think I want to spend any energy on that).

Anyhow, as someone not in R and not married to R-worthy material, I don't think there is any statute of limitations. If there's trust and honesty and communication, that's all we can ever ask for (in any relationship).