SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Mickie,

What made you choose that particular AP?

She gave me attention, and I dunno, I mean she had a pulse.

Yeah, sometimes it is that simple.

I agree with MCS- convenience, willingness, proximity, etc. The pool of people who will cheat with you is limited. Proximity is often a factor because often the boldness escalates.

What do you mean the boldness escalates?

Meaning that at least for me, and I think some percentage of affairs, I think that one of the people tend to start testing the waters, and the less resistance they get to that the bolder they become. I tend to think that many affairs have a period where there is beating around the bush and the closeness is gradual?

For WH:

Are there any lingering/occasional/random anxieties, fears, insecurities about your spouse's commitment to stay in the marriage after infidelity?

What made you choose that particular AP?

He was my ex and I was in love with him. He wanted me to leave my H (only married two years & no kids at that point) but I was too much of a gutless wimp to take the leap with both feet, so, affair/cake eating.

MrCleanSlate and Bulcy. Thank you for your responses.

BTW - I suspect an awful lot of BS/WS troll the AP's out of fear more than anything.

I'd imagine this is very true. Gives us a sense of control of that fear.

I was very much against this at first as I saw it as unhealthy and not stepping away from my affairs. However, I do see it differently now. It offers BS some comfort to know things about them and that one has moved away from our hometown.

I ended up telling WH about what I had done. He has a similar view as you do. He hates that he put this person in my head, but supports doing anything that will help me. He said he doesn't really want to know/hear anything about her, he understands why I do.

When your BS shows you all the ways you too were tricked and manipulated in the affair what are you feeling?

My husband thought one thing about the sincerity of the AP thinking he was amazing and him believing all the ego kibbles. We discovered she was following a dating script. My husband admits he was also manipulated but I get the feeling he doesn’t want to accept it fully.

Mickie

The whole concept of being manipulated into an A always sounds like just another excuse to me. It’s fair to say that the vast majority of WS are capable of critical thinking and knew the difference between right and wrong. Unless your H had a gun pointed to his head, he entered the A using his own free will.

FWIW, I think the only manipulation WS are subject to is whatever we do to ourselves. We can convince ourselves that are actions are justified for all sorts of reasons. They’re all crap. I knew without a shadow of a doubt I was crossing a major, major, do not pass go, line despite what my AP was whispering in my ear.

I am going to disagree a bit with ff.

Not that we should blame our affairs on our AP, of course that's ridiculous.

However, to break the "spell" they had us under seeing the AP for the shithead they are is a process.

I didn't want to accept it fully either, I think as shitty as that is, it's normal. The reason is a lot of the power the affair had over you is you were basing your self worth on that other person. Them believing you were great was the high. So, if they didn't really believe you were great, and you have not yet replaced that with being able to feel good about yourself for wholesome reasons, it's a very painful thing.

And, it has nothing to do with wanting the AP, it has to do with the ego and what the ego was getting from the affair.

This may take some time, but the fact you are seeing it as the BS means to me that at least he is being authentic with you. So many people get caught and will throw the AP under the bus to appease their spouse. Which I KNOW why that's also important too, believe me I am waiting for that part RIGHT NOW. But, he will let that go fully when he has rebuilt his self worth on something more solid.

Again, this is nothing to do with pining. It's to do with the idea that a minute ago "he was the man" and for that not to have been true is hard for someone with a fragile ego to accept all at once.

I wasn’t manipulated. If anything, I was a bit more of the manipulative person, if there was one, by cake-eating and keeping the OM on the proverbial string while I tried to muster up the balls to D.

Not manipulated into an affair. Being manipulated and used while in the affair is what I was saying.

Oh I see. I don’t know that I was (although obviously can’t discount the possibility as I can’t see into his head). Again, I suppose I would have been more the guilty party there as I was the married one.

[This message edited by Darkness Falls at 3:50 PM, October 30th (Friday)]

Darkness Fallls, he was telling me that she was amazed by him and that she would call him brilliant all the time. That she thought all his ideas were the best things she ever heard and looked at him in wonderment.

Yes he was manipulating her but she was also reading from a dating script.

He was like “she never had her phone out when I was over. She’d turn it off and it was just about me”

I was like because she didn’t want you to see her other man calling. Lol

He believed so much that was just out of a playbook. So I remind him.

I'm with DF in that it was my idea to start things with OM, but I also got played by him lying to me about his safe sex history during the A. My reactions to that discovery were fury, then denial (I let him talk me into a totally implausible explanation), and finally, abject humiliation.

Mickie500,

Because we had previously been in an aboveboard dating and sexual relationship, we already knew each other very well—it probably would have been pretty hard for us to “play” each other in the ways you’re talking about.

Again, though, I’m not discounting anything because nobody can really fully know everything about the other or see their innermost thoughts, etc. It’s possible I was totally snowed by him in some way I’ll never know about. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Are there any lingering/occasional/random anxieties, fears, insecurities about your spouse's commitment to stay in the marriage after infidelity?

Notaboringwife,

My situation is different since I wrecked any chances at R, but I recognize some of the issues you describe in my story. I had already built my own narrative of the ways my STBXBW had wronged me throughout the M, and so as I tried (inconsistently) to become empathetic, I distorted her unavailability as punishing me. Because it, in my mind, had to be about me.

That fueled a belief that it was only a matter of time before she came to her senses and gave up. It led me to acting out which pulled me far enough from a healing path to make R impossible.

Now, this was early on, but had I learned more about myself early enough to understand that she DID love me, I think it would have made things more effective in finding my path.

I don’t think I was manipulated into the affair with my COW. If anything I was the one who pursued her. However she did offer praise and would always tell me how good I was at my job and how helpful I was when working with her. With hindsight this was her playing me like an idiot. It’s no longer an excuse, I was an adult and Was entirely responsible for my actions. For illustration, I was helping her with and dong some of her work at the detriment of my own. She would come to me whenever she had a problem.

I’m ashamed I needed those ego kibbles and now find I’m rejecting any compliments I get from other women. I avoid any one to one communication and am working hard on understanding myself. The affair was more than just ego stroking, it took me a while to realise this and accept I wanted more from it. I only mention it in response to the question raised. I do not feel manipulated as I am a grown adult, but I know she was doing everything she could to make me feel good. So, manipulated or not, it’s no excuse for what I did.

I was watching a documentary about addiction and those who relapse (often years later and sometimes leading to overdose like Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Someone in the film described every relapse coming down to a distinct moment where the addict says: "Fuck It." My Ex described his affair "like being addicted to cocaine or something" and I remember just staring at him and having zero clue what he was talking about.

In my case, I suspect he drew certain lines for what constituted an affair and what didn't. But once he crossed that made up line in his head, he was all in.

So did any of you have a version of a "Fuck It" moment too?

Did you as a WS have insecurities before the affair that made you fear your spouse would eventually leave you?