SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello! This is my first post here. English is not my first language, so please forgive any linguistic mistakes. I am BS, 18 months after the DD. We're trying to fix our 20-year marriage. I seized on all kinds of help; articles, books, therapies. As you probably know, it is a continuous roller coaster. I think that unlike many women who have been betrayed, I am less (but of course also) bothered by the emotional part of my husband's affair, and much more heavily burdened by the sexual part. I started reading the book "Not Just Friends" recommended here. I broke down completely after reading the dynamics of the romance, mutual excitement and increasing sexual tension. Especially since my husband was having an affair with a coworker, so the author's explanations gave me the full picture. And that picture made me feel like reheated leftovers. Completely worn out ... And it made me feel not like the first but like the second woman in his life. Not exciting or appealing, but safe, so he chose me in the end. I can't cope with that feeling. How do you get along with the sexual sphere? It is so overwhelming for me that I went into "run away" mode again. Please help...

Sorry you found yourself here but this site is truly helpful. I get more here than I do with my IC. Best advice is to read, read, read. Great stuff here.

My situation is and as yours. Ima BH. WW cheating with a coworker. I have felt like 2nd choice for too long now. There is no feeling like it and they (cheating spouses) can’t relate to that feeling. It didn’t happen to them.
I get hung up on both the emotion and physical. She has stated the physical didn’t mean nothing to her but simply a means to keep the attention going. It still shatters me though.

Curios question for you. Have you and husband been intimate since the discovery? If so, Did you have horrible thoughts running through your head and it makes seem like being intimate is more a chore to keep THEM happy than something they or you desire? Are you doing the comparison thing?
All so brutal. Keep your head up. Keep reading and learning. And post whatever your thinking, don’t keep it in. Best of luck.

Hi Dazedandconfused1978, Thank you so much for your response.
Yes, intimacy jumped in very quickly after the DD. About a week after. Sex is great, the problem is, it has always been great for me. It still satisfies me a lot, but I actually compare myself to her.There are times when I cry during intercourse, but I hide it well. I don't take it as a duty - I love it, but sometimes it's too overwhelming. I had a coil removed last week. It was supposed to be replaced, but the replacement procedure failed. That failure made me feel sexually worthless. I feel that physically nothing makes me different from her anymore, that I had lost something very valuable because my husband could sense the coil and he liked it a lot.
During the affair, he told me some painful things about our sexual relationship. I think these words still hang over me. He now denies them and assures me that our sex is wonderful, but I don't see the excitement which takes place in an affair. How can I stop feeling like a worn slipper?

First off...WELCOME to the BEST club you NEVER wanted to be in .

When I first saw your title...I thought this is going to be GOOD...because I LOVE reheated leftovers!! I am from south Louisiana...where we cook a lot of gumbos...etouffees...and sauce piquantes. That juice permeates the seafood and meat when it is put up...so the reheated leftovers taste even MORE delicious...C'est Bon!!! I am saddened to see though that this post has you in so much PAIN (((HUGS))).

How do you get along with the sexual sphere?

This is pretty tough to get through . You are still so early in this and it seems like these thoughts will never end. At this point it won't really matter what your husband has said...your thoughts keep playing that you were the safe one...the second choice...and those thoughts are what you are listening to right now . Your mind movies are probably pretty horrible too .

What helped ME was to find out what the sex was REALLY like. This doesn't work for everyone...and it may not be what will HELP you. But it did wonders for the thoughts and mind movies that were running through my head. I questioned my H about the sex acts themselves. Oddly...the statement he made that hurt me the most was when he told me that he could kiss the adultery co-conspirator for HOURS. My H was never much of a kisser...and passionate kisses between us were far and few between. Yet here he was...telling me that THEY were kissing for HOURS. It devastated me .

As the timeline became more clear...I realized that THEY very seldom had HOURS together to kiss . They hardly had MINUTES together to fuck!!! I questioned him about this at length...and a clear picture started emerging. Kissing turned the adultery co-conspirator on...which made her wet enough to fuck. My H only kissed her enough to make her wet...then fucked her...then rolled over...dismissing her. This was HIS fantasy...to USE a woman . He didn't even kiss her goodbye when she brought him to the airport the day he left her country !! MY mind movies were way worse than what actually happened . Maybe yours might be too.

During the affair, he told me some painful things about our sexual relationship. I think these words still hang over me. He now denies them and assures me that our sex is wonderful, but I don't see the excitement which takes place in an affair. How can I stop feeling like a worn slipper?

There was something I learned early on in my recovery that helped me immensely. Our thoughts dictate our feelings. You have written how your husband told you painful things about y'alls sexual relationship during his affair. Those THOUGHTS are still with you...how could they NOT be? You also write that you don't see the excitement which takes place during an affair. What excitement did your husband experience from his affair?? WHY do you not believe what your husband is telling you NOW about how wonderful y'alls sex is???

My H does a lot of traveling for his work. We have been to many countries and I can honestly say that each and every one was so EXCITING to go to . But I can also honestly say that there is NO place like HOME . If given the choice to have the exciting adventures we have been on...or to be HOME...you can bet I will choose HOME every time!!! HOME is where I LOVE to be...and I didn't realize how MUCH I NEEDED it until we were traveling all over the place. The swamps...the moss in the cypress trees...even the alligators may not look like much to others. But to ME...it is like HEAVEN when I am surrounded by them . NOTHING even compares to HOME for me.

Your husband may have gone on an EXCITING adventure that included romance, mutual excitement and increasing sexual tension. But in that book you read...you will see that these FEELINGS...won't LAST. They have no substance...no foundation...they are not HOME to him. YOU ARE . You may not feel it now...because your thoughts are dictating your feelings. One day though...as you heal...your thoughts will turn back to the TREASURE you truly ARE . When that day comes...you will see there is truly NO comparison. The adultery co-conspirator is so broken that she settled for sloppy seconds. She spread her legs for flowery words that meant nothing except to accomplish the objective...to have her spread her legs. She was easy...and NOTHING worth having is easy. You may not see it now...but when you look deeper...it is there .

YOU are worth working for...and your husband KNOWS this . He could have left...but he DIDN'T. He made his choice...and it was YOU . YOU have a choice as well Dear Lady. My advice from the 8 years that I have been on here is DON'T EVER SETTLE. Right now your husband is NOT worthy of you...but that doesn't mean he can't be . IF he is doing the work to be the husband you deserve...and you feel you WANT to R...then GO FOR IT! But whether he does the work or not...this CHOICE to stay in your marriage is totally up to YOU . Change your thoughts...and you will change your feelings .

Thank you Want2BHappyAgain for the warm welcome and encouraging words. A lot of wisdom in them. And courage. I admire you can write about it so freely. I have to admit that my stomach turned over while reading about your husband's experience.
I guess it's hard for me to accept the fact that for a moment of pleasure in the bushes, even the vision of losing everything he had, his entire life so far, did not scare him.
I don't know what exitement he experienced because he avoids going into details. He claims that this knowledge will cause more pain than good, and wanting this knowledge is unhealthy.
I don't believe in assurances of the greatness of our current sex life because it has not changed. It's the same sex he was complaining about during his affair. I didn't become a porn star.
I think that my approach is greatly influenced by the fact that, apart from that he exceeded all his limits (he is generally secretive, and here- sex in the parking lot and in the bushes, at a temperature of 5 C degrees), he has fulfilled MY erotic fantasy with her and never with me.
I read a lot about changing thoughts but I admit that not much of it reaches me yet. Black magic!
What does "DON'T EVER SETTLE" means? I don't understand how this is supposed to work? What's the point of being in a relationship? I'm so lost in all of this.

He claims that this knowledge will cause more pain than good, and wanting this knowledge is unhealthy.

If you have questions, R requires him to answer them honestly. The answers may and probably will hurt. The answers will also start to rebuild trust.

Besides, his unwillingness to answer is probably more to protect himself from taking responsibility for his A. It's one thing to say, 'I'm responsible for the A.' It's quite another to say, 'I did this and this and this.' Saying the words about specific actions make his violations of vows much more real to him.

I needed consistent behavior for 2 years to believe my W chose me because she really wanted me. Part of the proof was her honest answers to my many, many questions. My recommendation is to tell your H he is no judge of what is healthy or unhealthy now, and if he wants to R, he needs to come clean and answer every question you ask, even if he's answered the same question 100 times.

Why would you measure your own value by the worst version of your spouse??? He doesn't get to decide who you are. YOU decide that.

I'll be honest with you.. most people do experience a hit to their self-esteem at dday, but then we snap out of it once we realize that the AP isn't worthy of our respect. Maybe I was fortunate because the OWs my WH cheated with were stunningly unattractive. I mean, "roll over and bite your arm off" nasty. It didn't matter to him.. they had the prerequisite parts, yeah? But this allowed me to see his sexual affairs for what they were. He didn't care how ugly they were, couldn't even see it for himself. He was swaddled in his fantasy. The first thing I asked him on DDay was, "dude, were you drunk???"

I get it. Your WH has other experience now that he didn't have before, a means of comparison. But why would you EVER assume that you come out as the lesser? No matter what the OW looks like in your case or how she is in bed.. she's inferior to you. She's the kind of person who would fuck another woman's husband. You're tearing yourself apart, wondering if you're good enough for a man who cheated on you. Seriously. He doesn't get to decide your worth in ANY way, and particularly not after he's shown himself to be a lesser specimen than what you once thought him to be.

We get hurt and we get scared and then our imagination runs away with us. But I actually saw video. It was sickening and I wish I could scrub my brain out with bleach.. but it was nothing special. It was just a couple of twisted idiots humping in cars and in bushes. If you step back and take a clinical look, it's not even interesting porn. This was certainly NO THREAT to my confidence. And after all, who was my fWH willing to beg and change for in order to be with... certainly not any of them.

YOU decide who you are and what you're worth. YOU determine the level of your confidence. All that other stuff will fall into place. Trust me on that.

Hi sisoon, Thank you for your advice.
He's generally quite open to conversations regardingthe affair. He patiently answers the same questions for 1000 times. However, we read in one of the books that we should avoid details of the sexual sphere, and I think that on the one hand he follows this advice, and on the other hand it suits him. He told me how it happened, but didn't go into details. And I would like to know them. There are also many basic unresolved matters, such as when did this start. He can't even tell me a month. He does not remember, and we no longer have possibility to find it out, although of course I have my exclusions and assumptions.
All in all, it is good that this topic has been raised, because I have a question on this matter as well. In order to be able to establish certain details, he sent a request to Facebook to provide him with a file with conversations from that period. Facebook blocked his account for reasons unknown to us. We wrote applications, confirmed his identity, but to no avail. I wonder if I should ask him to retrieve his phone data? Did you ask for correspondence? Have you read all these love confessions and stories about your marriage being a torment? I only saw a small fraction of it and that way I found out about the affair, but most of messages have been deleted. Not sure how should I act?

Oh, dear Lord! ChamomileTea I am soooo happy that I found this forum! Thank you ever so much for your words!
You are absolutely right! I am a special person. A woman of many talents, when her only one is wrecking marriages, and even this ineptly! Physically she was not attractive either, although I have to admit that she is either very photogenic or good at editing photos, but I was disappointed to see her in real life. I remember looking at my husband questioningly after I saw her. I didn't have to say anything, he himself said that he knew she was ugly, but she gave him something he hadn't had with me for a long time. She put him on a pedestal. Now he states he wanted it all with me all along. I understand. I just wish he had told me that before he got involved in an affair with the gherkin.
It's all complicated, because on the one hand I know that she is not equal to me, and on the other hand I wonder why he decided she was worth of taking such a risk? The poems he wrote to her (and never to me), also make me wonder...
Sorry, I am already very tired and cannot collect my thoughts. Today I will fall asleep like a baby with all your words in my head and heart! Thank you so, so, so much!

What does "DON'T EVER SETTLE" means?

It means that YOU don't EVER stay in the place of feeling "less than". In other words...don't be content with being "reheated leftovers" Dear Lady. Find your voice...and retake your place as the HOT MAIN DISH you are . YOU are the TREASURE...even though it may not feel like it at this point.

I don't understand how this is supposed to work?

NONE of us do when we first come here. The GOOD thing about this place is that even though we are ALL unique in our healing...there are common paths that some of us find ourselves on. You may find some advice that works WELL in your situation . What works for some people won't work for others though. So take the advice on here that works for YOU...and leave the rest .

What's the point of being in a relationship? I'm so lost in all of this.

Oh gosh...I can't tell you how many times people have asked that question on here. You are actually doing very well by reaching out like this .

I wasn't sure WHY I would ever want to stay in the relationship I had with either of my 2 cheating husbands. I realized there was no point in being in a relationship with my 1st H when I caught him cheating on me the 2nd time. I realized that my relationship with my 2nd H became even better once we worked on ourselves to HEAL from our brokenness . I have NEVER regretted going for D with my 1st H. And I am so HAPPY I went for R with my 2nd H !! Life is so much BETTER now!!!

... on the one hand I know that she is not equal to me, and on the other hand I wonder why he decided she was worth of taking such a risk?

WS's aren't risking "for" the AP. Cheating is always about the cheater. The AP is just a mirror they use to see themselves as they'd like to be. That's why it doesn't matter what the APs look like or if they're good in the sack. That is, unless the "what they'd like to be" includes that sort of thing. Most just want to see adoration. So... they ply adoration into the mirror and it's regurgitated back to them. You see how that works? The AP is nothing. It's all about what's gone wrong in your WH which needs validation. That, and the lack of integrity it takes to ACT on something like this. If a person's core value of Fidelity is intact, they can't cheat. Cheaters have a "but..." in there. ie. "He believes in fidelity, but... not if he needs validation and flattery." The problem is the "but...". Our core values shouldn't be contingent on other people or on whatever emotional voids we're experiencing.

And sweetie.. it wasn't about you either. Your WH cheated because of what's gone wrong with HIS character. There is no legitimate excuse for cheating. Whatever his malfunction was, he had a whole decision tree of other choices to address it, but he didn't. That's about him. Never about you.

I'm unsure if it is published in any other language but there is a helpful book called "How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair" and after he reads it he may be more willing to be truthful about what happened, more ready to truly work on rebuilding your trust. I recommend you read it first just so you can observe if he has absorbed the advice given in it.

He can't rebuild your trust if he isn't honest with himself and yourself or is avoidant in answering the harder questions asked.

[This message edited by LostInHisFog at 11:21 PM, Tuesday, December 7th]

Want2BHappyAgain, that all makes sense now, thank you

"He believes in fidelity, but... not if he needs validation and flattery."

There is something in it... I am not an overly praising person. I didn't have a great need for flattery myself either. Since I know that he needs it, I try to notice his efforts (whatever they concern) and express my admiration loudly. However, this does not seem to solve the problem, because there may always be someone from whom he could get much more of it. He should work through the reason for this need within himself. It's good to know where to start.

I'm unsure if it is published in any other language but there is a helpful book called "How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair"

The language in which the book was published does not matter much. All books we have read so far have been translated by me into our native language. I'm currently translating "Not Just Friends". For me it doesn't matter that the text is in English, but for him it was a hindrance. However, this is not why I decided to take this step. I looked for help in our native forums and in our native books. The level was overwhelming, and I found it unfair that my countrymen do not have access to good literature on this topic. I do this for them. Through this frightening level in our forums, process of my own healing stopped (if didn't back down). That is why I decided to go to this forum and despite my doubts, I must honestly admit that it was a great decision. You are all great!

He can't rebuild your trust if he isn't honest with himself and yourself or is avoidant in answering the harder questions asked.

It's a bit of my fault, because I wasn't sure if I could ask some questions myself, and I don't think I insisted too much when for some reason he refused to answer. I often hear that he doesn't remember. That the stress at that time was so great that he just doesn't remember. I'm inclined to believe it because he often cannot remember what he did the day before, but on the other hand, is it possible to forget about such exciting events? It makes me wonder... I also wonder if I should ask for the data of his phone to be restored? It would dispel all doubts, but am I entitled to it?

It's late and I'm too tired to attempt to respond, but I'd like to drop a few observations.

Naamah, you've done an excellent job of describing the double edged sword that is this type of physical, superficial, shallow infidelity.

Why on earth would anyone risk the kingdom for something so, cheap and tawdry?

Especially if, and actually when, the same 'pushing the envelope' type of sexual adventure and play was possible, available and even desired with and by one's life partner?

I think this is one of the better threads currently on SI for a couple of reasons:
1. The OP did a very good job of describing the juxtaposition and cognitive dissonance between the life she'd built with her husband, and her husband's subsequent and very oppositional actions, and
2. Long time members here showed up with excellent, insightful, empathetic responses.

Naamah, you have my empathy and my sympathy.
I was in the exact same situation as you when my husband cheated. His incident was equally tawdry and superficial and seemingly out of left field, totally out of context with the life we had built, and were building. And, also, the life that *he* insisted that we had to have, that we should have already had, and he was leaning on ME hard to conjure it out of thin air.

Let me guess:
Your husband has some pretty hardcore and predictable expectations of 'married' and 'wife,' which are likely completely incompatible with frolicking around in bushes, parking lots and back seats of cars in freezing weather and in public.

He thinks *he's* bored?
You're bored stiff, I imagine.
You mention wanting him to get out of his comfort zone and explore some new territory with *you.*
In addition to the injury of the infidelity, it's a huge insult that it took an interloper in your marriage to shake him up and out of a dull routine. Added insult: she's actually unattractive.

The point is: she isn't, wasn't, you.
And there's the double edged sword.

Yeah, he wants to feel all edgy and dangerous by screwing in the bushes (really? this is A GROWN MAN??? NOT A DESPERATE HORNY TEENAGER???) but,
HE DOESN'T WANT *YOU* SCREWING IN THE BUSHES.
THAT FEELS ALL KINDS OF UNCOMFORTABLE AND UNSAFE TO HIM. Too strange. Too strong. Too risky. Too unpredictable.
EVEN IF YOU'RE SCREWING HIM, IN THE BUSHES.

Also, he wants to feel 'dirty.'
BUT HE DOESN'T WANT YOU TO FEEL 'DIRTY,' NOT FOR YOURSELF, AND ESPECIALLY NOT TO HIM.

Honey, he's simply not man enough to handle your full sexuality.

He's not man enough to handle the whole, integrated woman.

He's got to slice and dice women up into Madonnas and Whores, because the fully integrated woman who can have his babies, raise his children, serve dinner to his mother, balance the checkbook, bring home a paycheck, *and* screw him in the bushes, that woman scares the shit out of him.

He can't see you that way, he can't let YOU see YOU that way-
because YOU might just be a bigger, more virile man than he is.

Slicing and dicing women into smaller bites is the sign of a frightened, insecure man.

Which brings me to the next point:

He's screwing her in the fucking shrubs, in public, in freezing weather, and she puts him on a pedestal, and worships him, despite having to drop her drawers in the most undignified and devaluing conditions possible, and for this she gets the crumbs of attention from his stolen 'spare time' and nothing more, and he's OK with that? He thinks that's a positive? He considers that 'a win'?

She puts him on a pedestal?
That's what *works* for him-
Even though he's treating her like a dog in heat?
Where's the mutual admiration and respect and value?

Yeah, that likely feels OK enough to him- AS LONG AS, BUT ONLY IF- you are at home, being the pure and good wife, keeping everything safe and sane on the home front.

He's got the best of both worlds, right???!!!
As long as he can keep 'em separated!

To me, *this* is the hallmark of an emotionally, psychologically, sexually immature man who is terrified of an integrated, sexually mature and psychologically mature woman.

Honey, this ain't your deficit.
It's his.
<3

You don't 'need' to be one iota more 'exciting' or 'edgy.'
Your adolescent husband needs a big fat cup of grow the fuck up.

There is something in it... I am not an overly praising person. I didn't have a great need for flattery myself either. Since I know that he needs it, I try to notice his efforts (whatever they concern) and express my admiration loudly. However, this does not seem to solve the problem, because there may always be someone from whom he could get much more of it. He should work through the reason for this need within himself.

Healthy adults don't need praise and flattery. I'm going to re-post something I posted for someone else just to save some wear and tear on my carpal tunnel injury. Feel free to ignore whatever parts don't fit your situation, but I kind of feel like you might be falling prey to the "unmet needs" fallacy and all the pick-me dancing that goes with it. You're not a ego kibble dispenser, right? And even if you were, this unhealthy need for adoration is a hole inside which can't be filled. It's a bottomless pit. Your instinct on that is exactly correct.

My own WH went on a Craigslist binge six years ago, multiple partners, various degrees of emotional attachment. He even thought he was in love at one point. But ten years before that, I'd caught him out in some online shenanigans, porn, cybersexing, emotional affair, etc. In fact, I caught him out only two weeks before a planned meet-up. I'd already seen an attorney before I confronted him and I was bent on divorce, but he pretty much cried his way out of it and I settled on MC. As you might have guessed already, we too were bamboozled with the "unmet needs" model of therapy, which sounds so reasonable. I upped my wife game, and did my best pick-me polka, but within a couple of years, he was right back at it behind my back. By the time we reached the ten year mark, he had screwed up his nerve to go live and in person on Craigslist.

Of course, I was pretty shocked as you might imagine. I thought we were good. I thought his "needs" were met. Damned if I hadn't been turning myself inside out for a decade to make sure, right? The more I thought about it, the more I revisited what I knew about the "unmet needs model", the less it made sense. I was doing everything right and he still CHOSE to cheat.

Here's the fly in the "unmet needs" ointment...

Healthy ADULTS don't need to be validated. They validate internally. Healthy adults are self-fruitful in the matter of contentment and life satisfaction, and when things come up which make them unhappy, they address the cause and solve the problem. OTOH, the vast majority of cheaters cheat because they're seeking external validation. They are NOT emotionally healthy. They can't do it on their own. They've got a hole inside them and no amount of external validation will fill it. Certainly, the old and familiar validation of a spouse doesn't get the job done. Our "kibbles" are stale and boring. They don't create enough adrenaline anymore to make the cheater feel special. It's like getting an "atta boy" from your mom, right?

This is old pop-psy which is still being taught in schools and still selling books. But it's bullshit. NOTHING you can do (or fail to do) can MAKE another person throw away their core values and do something that's in this kind of opposition to good character. If you're a person who BELIEVES in fidelity, who VALUES fidelity, you don't cheat. End of story. Because when we truly value something we protect it. The cheater has a "but..." in his values system. ie. "I believe in fidelity, but... not if my needs aren't being met." For people like you and me, we have a "so..." in our values system. ie. "I believe in fidelity, so... I don't put myself in risky situations with the opposite sex." This is the BOUNDARY we create organically. We don't sit around planning it out. It just happens, because it's innate to our character to protect what we value. The cheater doesn't have those boundaries because he doesn't really honor his values. He only claims to.

I'm not saying that your marriage is over or that your WH can't change. What I am saying though is that this "unmet needs" model is NOT going to challenge him to clean up his flawed character. In fact, it allows him to offload responsibility onto the marriage and onto YOU. It's not your job to MAKE him feel (fill-in-the-blank-here). It never was. It's his job to control his feelings. You could have been doing everything exactly perfect for the entire length of your marriage, and he would still have cheated... because there's NOTHING in his character stopping him and he has no coping mechanism to fall back on when he feels unvalidated, inadequate, unappreciated, etc.

It's HIS job to see that his "needs" get met. Sometimes that might mean negotiating with you, say if it's about sex or about the division of labor in your home, etc. But sometimes, it might mean that what he sees as a "need" is unhealthy in an adult, like external validation through attention and flattery.

MC's are there to treat the marriage. The marriage is the client. So, of course they're going to talk about communications, resentments and expectations. The MC doesn't want to alienate anyone, so s/he's looking to find balance on both sides. But marriages don't cheat. People do. The only way your WH is going to make a change that safeguards against further perfidy is by correcting his need for external validation and becoming an emotionally healthy adult whose deeds are as good as his word. No excuses, just honoring the things he claims to value. For that, I would recommend IC (individual counseling) with a therapist who is well-versed in adultery.

The last thing any newly-minted BS needs is to walk into an MC's office, believing that they've come to safe harbor, and being handed a copy of The Five Love Languages or some other "unmet needs" gobbledygook. It would be really nice if we actually did have the power to control our mate by giving them "acts of service" or "words of affirmation", but sadly, we aren't gods who can stop a cheater from seeking out his/her choice of adrenaline rush and new kibbles. Although, this kind of pop-psy suggests that their behavior is somehow our responsibility. The more you dig into this ridiculous line of thought, the more absurd it becomes.

P.S. He remembers. Damned skippy, he remembers.

I am the poster child for 'He remembers.'
My husband was The King of Trickle Truth.
The man was as stubborn as a fucking mule about it.
Ask some of the long time members here, who showed up and delivered a swift series of 2x4's (harsh reality checks upside his head) when my husband persisted to stupid lengths in calling his infidelity 'an accident.'

Like, he tripped on an uneven sidewalk and he fell face first into a naked woman! No fault of his own! He didn't leave home meaning to cheat! No intent, no foul!

And also, he was big on the "I don't remember."
In fairness, his incident was many years ago.
He, and we, had both rug swept the ever living hell out of it at the time.
He was terrified that if he told the raw truth, I'd be gone.
I was the product of a spectacularly broken home and I'd already decided that I'd walk through hell before I'd put my kids through a divorce.
So, at the time, we both rug swept.
We buried it.

Some details came randomly spilling out, OF HIM, many years later. (Long story, too late tonight, but it was random.)
He'd actually *forgotten* how grievously he'd lied to me about what actually happened, NOTE THIS- he'd forgotten how grievously he'd lied to me at the time-
but he remembered *what actually happened* clearly enough that he recognized the dissonance between his false narrative that I regurgitated years later, and what actually happened.

It was so disparate- his original false narrative, the narrative that I regurgitated years later- and the actual facts, that it caught him totally by surprise. He startled and blurted out some truths in an unguarded moment. And that blew up the whole thing.

Of course he back pedaled furiously,
DENY DENY DENY!
and actually *threatened* me with all kinds of Bad Outcomes,
then 'reverse victim' DARVO'd his ass off for a good while (that's a Family of Origin/FOO specialty)
then went Solid Sad Sausage for a bit,

then tried one more/last round of "I don't remember/IT WAS AN ACCIDENT! I DIDN'T MEAN TO DO IT SO IT DOESN'T COUNT! I DON'T KNOW WHY IT HAPPENED! ALIENS PLANTED A CHIP IN MY BRAIN! ZOMBIES!"

I posted my frustration here.
Long time members responded with hardcore reality checks.
Hubs read the thread.

For the first time,
several years after the incident,
3.5 years after DDay2, wherein a caught by surprise Husband let fly some actual truths,
my husband admitted that he knew what the hell that he was doing,
that he did it intentionally,
that he did it under the pretense that I'd never, ever find out,
(and truthfully, if he'd been a person that had no guilt, or who could handle the guilt, I wouldn't have found out)
and that, yeah, he actually did remember not only the details of the incident,
but the details of his decision to go for it,
and why and how he thought he could get away with it.

These are quite sobering revelations, for both the betrayed spouse and for the wayward spouse.
It's very, very difficult to face these truths about one's partner, and about one's marriage.

It is perhaps worse to face these truths about one's self.

He remembers.
He doesn't want to see himself in the mirror that is your regard of him.
He doesn't want to see himself.

^^^ What Chamomile Tea said in her last response, +1.

He doesn't want to see himself in the mirror that is your regard of him.
He doesn't want to see himself.

That is such a good point. Just like the AP is a "mirror", so to is the betrayed spouse.. and that mirror shows a person that the WS doesn't want to see, doesn't want to take responsibility for, doesn't want to suffer the consequences of. So.. they shut us down, stupidly not understanding that TALKING IS HEALING and the only tool they've got in their arsenal for repairing the relationship is HONESTY.

Your adolescent husband needs a big fat cup of grow the fuck up.

That too.

^^^ We so need a 'Like' button. :)

If there are a few things I learned as a result of being a BS 2X:

Affairs are not logical and make no sense. I wasted tears in trying to understand and rationalize "why would he do this?" As a rational person there is no other answer than the cheating spouse is selfish and just doesn’t care (at the moment) what the risks are. They just choose to put their own selfish needs first.

Second it seems very often that the OW (other woman) is less than — less than the spouse and less than the kind of person our spouse would normally be attracted to. Looks, morals, behavior, lifestyle etc - the affair is with a "lesser" person.

My H’s OW was a millennial (20 years younger) covered in tattoos. I mean arms, neck, boobs, back, legs covered with tattoos. This is relevant only in the context that my H hates tattoos. But yet he was going to D me to be with her!!!! Since his affair I have heard him say how he dislikes women with excessive tattoos. It’s irrational at a bare minimum.

Third - the OW was the OW because she was there and available. The affair partners dream up this "connection" and "soul mate" crap to justify the affair. The OW is easily replaced and is nothing special.

That is hard to understand b/c your cheating spouse believes their affair is different, they are special blah blah blah. Nope they are just a bunch of common ordinary liars and cheaters.

I hope this helps you see that the trauma you are facing was forced upon you by nothing more than a selfish person who wrecked your life. As far as getting past the things that the cheater says during the affair, my H said the most horrific things to me to justify his affair and his intention to Divorce me. He actually told me "I only married him for other reasons than love".

I literally looked at him and laughed. It was so ludicrous that there was nothing I could say. Funny thing is when I decided to D him and he was BEGGING me to reconcile, every mean and hurtful thing he said during his affair I threw back in his face. Including that comment about "why" I married him.

I hope this helps you cut through the crap and realize that the affair period was a time when the cheater acts like a spoiled 2 year old and will do anything to get what he wants. It’s illogical and disrespectful and selfish behavior.