SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

We often advise new arrivals that in the aftermath of the affair, marital problems are secondary. A WS who had issues within their marriage had many alternatives to cheating, including a demand for marital counseling, an ultimatum, or a divorce. By choosing to go outside the marriage, the WS loses any high ground they may have held, and the focus shifts to repairing wayward brokenness and rebuilding trust. Pre-A marital issues are tabled until after the BS and WS have time to heal.

This is solid advice, and it carries the caveat that either party may opt for divorce if they don't want to work to reconcile. But how does a wayward identify "after?" At what point is it once again reasonable for a WS to express unhappiness with the marital dynamic and/or the actions of the BS?

As I said on another thread, waywards are great at rewriting narratives to shift blame away from ourselves. We arrive here full of grievances, some of which may be greatly exaggerated or even products of our own imagination. If our judgment could be trusted, we wouldn't have cheated. The work illuminates the flaws in our thinking, and done properly, it kicks our feet out from under us. But how do we know when we've hauled ourselves upright, possibly for the first time in our lives? How do we trust ourselves when we definitively proved we're untrustworthy?

I'm not suggesting that there's a universal answer. No checklist or time frame can apply to everyone, and I imagine that in many cases, there's a gradual overlap where issues are negotiated while trust is still being rebuilt. But it's a question I once struggled to answer for myself as a WS, because the destination of healthy self-advocacy is not marked with a signpost.

Have you worked your way back to where you feel you have a right to advocate for yourself in your marriage? If so, how did you know you'd gotten there? Did you and your BS agree that the time had come? If you aren't there yet, what do you imagine that moment will look like?

Betrayed Husband here.

I think there’s a floor of dignity and self-determination below which a reconciling betrayed spouse cannot reasonably ask a wayward to go. I for one do not want to live in an autocratic, asymmetrical relationship where I have the “power” and my wife has “rules.” I do expect my wife to be transparent and truthful. I do not expect to issue ultimatums and mandates that must be complied with until such time as I grant her relief from them. That’s not a marriage, that’s a hostage situation. I do expect my wife to work on herself, and I expect us to work on us. Working on us means my wife gets to advance her needs and her wants for discussion. If she’s not willing to advocate for herself, or if I were to deny her that opportunity, then we would have the marriage I want only if I coincidentally got everything “right.” If I expect her to be “all in” and reconciling, then it needs to be a marriage worth pursuing for her, too.

I guess my short answer is, for me, my WW never lost the right to advocate for herself with respect to what she needed from the marriage and from me.

I never got the chance to make it that far, but I imagine this,

I understood immediately that there was going to be a need for time and healing from my betrayal. Often times you see our BSs really get back to some kind of emotional normalcy roughly 3 years out (under good circumstances). That seems like a whole lot of time on paper, but in the thick of it, even I had a lot of work to do in that time. I'm not sure I even had time to think about past grievances.

There's three Rs to R, recover, repair, restore. In the restore stage is where I tend to think this will come up. Its the point in which we restore our Ms and that includes the WS and their needs moving forward in the new M. If the two spouses both make it to the restore process, I also think that's where you begin to build on the foundation we (WS) have tried to lay with honesty and hard work.

I think when our BSs get some recovery under their belt, and decide that they want to recommit to their WS, our voices need to be heard, for reasonable needs and wants. Otherwise its not a M that serves both.

One of the preconditions my BW laid down shortly after D-Day was that we needed to work on us and our M. That the same old dynamic was not going to cut it. As she put it "what's the point of trying to R if we just slip back to the same old patterns and avoidances?"

So in some respects I never lost my ability to advocate within our M. I think more precisely though I was held to account for everything. There was a higher standard set for my being able to argue grievances knowing I had a lot of growth to do. In the process I learned how to effectively communicate and not bottle up emotions - which was one of my failings before.

I think a lot of successfully R'd couples will realize early on that it is a team effort to create something new and workable even while the wayward is still getting their shit together.

I will add that I was personally rather hesitant to bring up issues outside of MC for about the first 2 years, but had I not been at least meekly voicing those issues then maybe R would not have worked out so well.

I've always seen R as something partners do, and almost by definition both partners have to contribute, by making wants and 'willingnesses' clear. I know when I laid out my requirements, my W questioned at least a couple of them.

IOW, if only for the WSes who cheated in part because of resentments and for those who cheated due to low self-esteem, I think the WS needs to advocate for herself from the point at which the WS becomes honest.

[This message edited by sisoon at 1:46 PM, March 16th (Tuesday)]

BraveSirRobin

By choosing to go outside the marriage, the WS loses any high ground they may have held

To me this statement denotes preparation for battle against an enemy or opposing force.

It may also denote a position or moral standing against the spouse.

In either scenario it denotes that there is an adversarial component to the relationship which might be a contributing factor as to why they are in this predicament.

Perhaps a truer statement IMHO might read;

By choosing to go outside the marriage, the WS lost the equality they held in the marriage

Brave Sir Robin,

I think this is a very good post, with good questions. It's an extension of some of the insightful advice you have recently given me.

Like Foreverlabeled indicated, I feel like phasing is probably the easier way to look at it. Also, like her, I have to project my thoughts a bit because we have never fully reconciled.

There were things that I had no choice but to work on s before we'd even gotten very far towards the repair stage. I had to become more self aware and less people pleasing which definitely led to more potential conflict. I could not wait for the relationship to improve to start asserting myself better in the relationship. Because the relationship wasn't going to improve until I could improve myself.

So, to me it was less about becoming equitable. It was more about figuring out how I got to where I was and being much more assertive was something I had to do regardless of the outcome of the relationship. It can become pretty complicated that some of the work you need to do may not seem welcome to the BS. Where you are, and where the situation sits, it's very uncomfortable to make those stands but it must be done in order to start establishing things like self worth, self love, etc. You can't love yourself if you can't stand up for yourself or have better boundaries. You can't heal without changing, and changing creates waves.

At the same time, I think the WS has to gain some humility in the situation asap. This tempers some of the conflict, some of the ways that the work can trigger your BS. This is what adds to the perception of there is a lack of equity in the relationship because your BS is not in the same space practicing the same things. They simply do not owe you a debt. Being humble goes hand and hand with appreciating your spouse more fully, being able to acknowledge your own accountability, and feeling appreciative of the second chance. To me being humble and grateful are things that go together. The BS may adopt some of those feelings again later, but you can't expect them to become grateful or humble towards you as quickly as you need to towards them.

If we are talking time frames, this is what it looked like for me:

Year one: Mostly a disaster, but I was doing the exercises that my IC laid out. The most important one I can point at is to stop doing everything. To separate my coulds and shoulds. This was scary to share with my husband that not only did I cheat on him, now I was going to need to stop doing as much for him and the family as they were used to. This went okay for me only because I was also diagnosed with emotional exhaustion so I think he was more affable to this as a needed "rest period". In turn this was so important for me to see I was loved anyway. That I could put those things away and just be.

Year two: I think I started asserting myself around the 18 month marker. There is a difference between being assertive (stating your needs and wants) and being controlling. Equity in a relationship sometimes can come down to one person being more in control over the other. That dynamic really didn't exist in my marriage to start with, and it didn't take over post DDAY.

Year 3: I thought, was us starting to restore our marriage. We talked a lot about what we wanted, we spent a lot of quality time together (due to lockdown on Covid, his time for AP wasn't there. I call his affair an 18 month affair, but it really had gone pretty cold around this time last year). Had the affair not been there, I would have said much of that equity had been returning. I would honestly say our marriage seemed better to me than ever.

I think you are right in what you said to me that I didn't do the last step. I took on a lot of accountability of our PreA marital issues, but I needed to go back and readjust that without the shame filter. I am not sure that I would have ever done that had it not been for his affair.

So, moving forward I will be trying to not over assign or under assign accountabilities based on affair stuff. That was a huge aha moment for me. I am sure for a while there will just be an imbalance in the other direction since I have a newer DDAY than he does.

Out of my experience, this equity should be not something that toggles on and off, but something that may be gone for a while after dday but slowly starts to return. The more work the WS does the faster that can grow. I also think that it's subtle, and often noone even sees it fully until hindsight.

I think as long as the WS acts like a second citizen in their actions, the longer they will be a second citizen in their marriage. The WS and BS will still always evolve at different time frames.

If the BS doesn't seem to be evolving at some point, then measures such as IC should probably be employed. Not for the WS, but for the BS to examine how they can best move forward, as it's not healthy for one to be stuck in any given cycle. If the WS is doing good work on themselves, they very well may outgrow their marriage if they have a BS who is toxic and not doing anything about it. It's not surprising to me why marriages end years after the infidelity. One of the people stay toxic, and the other one does work (this could be either the BW or WS), the one who did the work may find they can no longer see the relationship as tenable. Notice that the divorces on this site really start to spike in year 3, 4, 5. I think it takes that long to see that one person is not willing to move forward in a way that works for both of them. There are few that are self aware enough to know they will never get past it and divorce immediately. The majority will see if they can get past it and the success will depend on if both people go all in and do the work.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:12 PM, March 16th (Tuesday)]

This one is so difficult to answer. It's sort of like that old quote, "I can't think of how to define pornography, but I know it when I see it".

Sadly, I think this call really rests largely on the shoulders of the BS. Not because they need more things to decide for or dictate to the WS, but simply because they are the victims here. So they are the only ones who know "in their gut" if they are ready for that step. Usually, when we are hurt by someone else, the mistrust that follows is not a conscious choice. It comes down to being able to trust that person again, at least to some degree. Do they show remorse? Have they made an effort to make things right? Are they contrite? Are they capable of owning their choices and actions? Are they able to show empathy? Do they seem to have honestly changed, or at least shown the desire and effort to do so? Do their actions and choices match their words? And the sad truth is, even if all of these things exist, it still might not be enough to rebuild the trust needed to be vulnerable enough to discuss the marriage and things outside of the A.

My wife and I are in year 5 of R, and honestly, have only (very recently in fact) begun to discuss topics that existed in the marriage before the A. This hasn't happened by plan, rather, it is taking place more organically. I think we've hit the point where talking about the A is something we're comfortable with, and I am now able to talk about pretty much anything without getting defensive, although I do trigger sometimes, we both do. But we can go back and see that now and talk through those challenges too. It is still terrifying to open up and be vulnerable with your post-A spouse no matter who you are. But you take the small risks for the small wins, and then react accordingly. Over time, with work and sacrifice, we hopefully get to the point where enough vulnerability exists to discuss pre-A topics.

Like everything in R, both partners need to be ready, both independently and together, to take a particular step, before that step is taken. If only one partner is ready, then it is unlikely the steps taken will succeed. Each partner heals at their own pace. One of our MC's once described it as, "Two people are walking along the same path. If one partner gets too far ahead of the other, then they need to either wait for their partner to catch up, or walk back to where their partner is and then walk with them."

I'm a BH, but no stop sign so...

The *first* thing we did after DDay was basically a full inventory of the marriage. I wanted to know that it was fundamentally sound and that this wasn't an exit affair. I'm not excusing exit affairs by any means, but I do believe it is worth it upon uncovering an A to think about whether the M is worth having at all. I think before reading Not Just Friends, I sort of bought into the idea that an A is a symptom of a bad marriage and I just didn't realize I had a bad marriage. I now know that is totally false.

Nonetheless, I actually don't think there is any problem with the BS trying to correct poor behavior, but it should NOT be a "condition" for R. I'm not entirely sure how to do this without accidently starting the pick me dance, and I obviously didn't have tremendous success right out of the gate.

Anyway, I guess my thinking is that, despite my rocky road to recovery, it's essentially fine to identify problems with the M right away. All of them, and to deal with them in order of priority at all times. It's just that betrayal immediately starts massive high priority issues with trust, betrayal, and lack of respect. So when it comes time to fix things, they are ALWAYS in the front, forever. So the triage then is to keep treating the high priority items first, and if they are stable, they won't require as much treatment.

Now, I'm not in R, so take the grains of salt and sprinkle liberally :)

I'm kind of LOL at the differences of opinion - which are all valid IMO....

I read ThisIsSoFine to say throw it all out early and then triage. I could never have done that, and I wonder if the differences are more about the particular type of baggage any particular WS or BS is carrying?

I always viewed the non-infidelity Festivus to be something that happened after committing to R. I wasn't interested in hearing about his beefs until he had enough solid work under his belt AND I had enough healing under mine to make it something productive, rather than an airing of grievances fraught with blame & shame (on both sides). And, from my side of things, why would I want to subject my trauma ridden self to criticism from someone I planned to D?

However, I've always believed that committing to R meant that any lingering resentments (preA, pre dday, or after) would need to be addressed. Because for me, that's the point where I've decided that I want to rebuild a new M 2.0 with my WH, and I absolutely do NOT want to build a M with anyone who can't communicate their needs (that's the shit that got most of us into this mess to begin with).

Anyhow, this is another place where I suspect the length of the LTA I'm dealing with is a factor in that MY pre-dday resentments became conflated with infidelity related stuff bc from my perspective, the needs/resentments I was OK letting go for the sake of the M before dday became fodder for reexamination bc his theft of my agency meant my choices to compromise were NEVER fully informed.

And the flip side was that I honestly didn't have much (or any) compassion for his pre dday resentments bc he was cheating in one form or another when they began to build. It's pretty hard to listen to criticism from someone who was actively deceiving you or banging someone else at the time the resentment took hold.

I suspect most folks don't have so much of that bc the lies were for a MUCH shorter period (and in that context, ThisIsSoFine's post makes a lot of sense to me, it just wasn't what I was dealing with).

So, BSR I'm now curious if the length between dday1 and dday2 impacted your self advocacy and/or your BH's ability to manage hearing / finding compassion for your resentments?

I think the WS can bring up issues they had with the marriage at any time they want... just not as an excuse for why they had an affair.

So, BSR I'm now curious if the length between dday1 and dday2 impacted your self advocacy and/or your BH's ability to manage hearing / finding compassion for your resentments?

Honestly, I didn't have much in the way of resentments about our marriage. As a champion rugsweeper and compartmentalizer, I thought we were pretty happy. When I found out that he wasn't, and he started demanding answers, my principal reaction was panic, not resentment. As we got further along, I did point out that his affairs got rugswept along with mine, and that if we were going to unpack what happened between me and OM, it was only fair to address his OWs. He was very fair and supportive about that.

The issue I referred to in the OP was financial. It was basically impossible for my BH to work for a while after the trauma of D-Day 2, and I was anxiously watching our bank balance drop while not feeling I had a right to press him. After all, he was in that state largely because of me. I was also aware that he was feeling as freaked out about our budget as I was, so it wasn't especially productive for me to point out out. Gradually, though, my emotional self-doubt was trumped by practical realities. His degree is far more marketable than mine, and telling him that the clock had run out on full-time affair processing was a question of providing for our kids and keeping the house, not my personal feelings.

My questions are less about my own experience with my H and more my general curiosity about a topic that was sparked by hikingout's post, which I couldn't explore there without threadjacking. That being said, it's second nature now for me to analyze my thought processes and look for holes in them. It's hard to feel confident when I used to conflate confidence and arrogance.

[This message edited by BraveSirRobin at 11:45 PM, March 16th (Tuesday)]

BH, I recognize some names so maybe some are familiar with our story.

Wife cheated years ago, I filed for divorce without any real evidence, only my intuition based on her behavior. With being served she spilled it all in a desperate attempt.

Few years later, because of small children, we reconnected.

FYI divorce doesn't fix infidelity.

Once back together I really struggled with accepting it. My wife who is naturally a very aggressive forward woman became timid, which i found very unattractive.

I believe there is a period of time that has to pass before the WS can really push pre-affair issues. Had she pushed too soon im sure I would have jumped on the first thing smoking simply because I was having an internal battle being with her to begin with.

After a while I encountered her to express her thoughts and feelings, she wouldn't. Finally I told her we have to blow this thing up to rebuild something stronger. Flood gates opened. Shockingly it was nothing new, I'd heard it all before only this time I actually heard what she had to say.

Point being, it all about timing, the WS has to be at a point where they are no longer trying to protect themselves and the BS has to be ready to openly hear, comprehend and emphasize with the WS. Her feelings were valid, and she never lost her voice in my eyes.

Timing is everything, too fast and its falling short, to late and well, its too late and old patterns reform.

Year One:

Hot Mess. Both of us.

I was more angry at Husband during this time period than I'd ever been with any person, thing or circumstance in my life.

I was also inconsolable.

At this early stage I was acutely aware that I was angry about much, much more than the infidelity, but the infidelity was sucking all of the oxygen out of my lungs.

I was stunned at the sudden loss of trust, out of left field. Not only had he gone there, he'd actually stepped over that line, he'd quite deliberately misled me about it. I'd spent years believing a lie.

The husband I thought I knew died a (metaphorical) long, slow, painful death during Year One. It took a solid six months of trickle truth, denial, defensiveness and even defiance before Husband began to get his head wrapped around the concept that the genie was out of the bottle and was refusing to go back in.

He wasn't going to be able to bullshit his way out of it this time around.

Year One was about coming to terms with the loss of innocence in our marriage.

Year One, zero stars, do not recommend.

Year Two:

I began to sort out *why* I was so angry, specifically.

Of course I was angry at the infidelity.

Year Two was when I began to be more upset about the deliberate dishonesty, and also when I became downright furious about the trickle truth during the first year. It was insult on top of injury. How stupid do you think I am? Here's a clue: I'm no longer the innocent young wife and mother with two preschool babies and a first house in escrow, praying that you didn't do A Thing bad enough to match that guilty look on your face, and too ready to believe you didn't.

Year Two was when I also began identifying and sorting out my own codependency, although I hadn't yet fully owned it.

I'd been living on hopium for decades:

"It'll be better when:" fill in the blank.

It'll be better when:

We get out of this shitty apartment (dirt cheap rent while we saved the necessary money) and into a house.

When Husband grows up a little more.

When the holidays are over, and I'm not trying to make and keep everyone else happy while working full time with two kids in tow.

When Husband's big project is over.

When Husband grows up a little more.

When our kids get through this challenging age.

When Husband's big project is over.

When Husband's parents get over their latest version/round of butt hurt.

When the fucking holidays are over gawd how I hate fucking Christmas and the huge deal MIL makes about getting her way every fucking year regardless of how we are working our asses off over here and we have barely fifteen minutes with our own kids. And the huge fucking Christmas fight Husband and I have EVERY. FUCKING. YEAR. over it and NOTHING ever changes: MIL gets her way with a nice slice of drama on the side.

I've since realized that MIL knew damned good and well that she was causing drama and turmoil and that was part of her fun.

WILL THIS MAN EVER GROW THE FUCK UP?

And for most of that time I had a smile on my face and a 'happy attitude' because you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, right?

I now look back and realize that I was trying to 'nice' Husband and his FOO out of being big fat entitled dicks. I was doing the non-stop 'pick me dance' not against another woman, unless my MIL counts, which is a damned interesting premise, but against the entire fucking world.

I spent *years* being my husband's bottom fucking priority while he chased validation far and wide, and avoided conflict, and made everyone else in the world happy at my expense and at the expense of our marriage.

In Year Two it dawned on me that I'd spent too many lonely years slogging through life with a largely physically absent and almost totally emotionally unavailable partner. I'd self soothed for years by clinging to my husband's narrative that all of these external demands were indeed *that* vitally important (of course they were, ego kibbles and conflict avoidance uber alles) and that this, that or the other thing would be "over soon" and then we'd have time for each other.

Only guess what? That never happened. Wasn't gonna happen.

There weren't enough ego kibbles in the world to fill up the sucking soul wound Husband's parents had inflicted, and that they continued to inflict at every opportunity.

And for all those years, I'd soothed and comforted myself by telling myself that it was all OK, Husband really did love me, and his untarnished fidelity was proof.

And Husband was more than happy to let me believe that. In and of itself, that might have been merciful, if it wasn't so fucking self-serving on his part.

Imagine how it felt to have that narrative ripped out from under me out of nowhere, and to find out that it had actually been ripped out from under me *years* earlier.

I was *shattered.*

People often say that Year Two is more difficult, for precisely this reason: we spend it meeting the actual demons, not reeling in shock from the blow.

While we were going through Year Two I would have told you that things were getting better.

Looking back on it, Year Two was literally hell. I wasn't getting 'better' necessarily. I was getting back up on my feet after being sucker punched, and I was still mad as hell, and the anger was fueling me, sustaining me. It was giving me the impetus to kick over a whole lot of rocks and to tear down a lot of false constructs and bullshit in my marriage and in my life.

I gave up on the outcome in Year Two. I didn't give a flying fuck if we ended up divorced. Maybe that's what needed to happen. Maybe it should have already happened. Maybe it will happen. Either way, we're coming to Jesus and we're coming right the fuck now. Batten down the hatches, Jesus, we're coming in hot.

I tore the whole marriage down with my bare hands in Year Two. No sacred cows. Not one.

Year Two particularly toward the middle and the end, was when Husband really started getting some traction in his own work. He began to clearly see his avoidance, detachment and dysfunction. He continued to show up for us, but he was also beginning to want changes in his life and in his way of dealing with life for himself, regardless of whether the marriage survived.

Husband's burgeoning self awareness was the bright spot of Year Two.

Husband drew some remarkably strong lines around work life balance. Like, truly hardball, take no prisoners stuff. I was in "I'll believe it when I see it" mode but damned if he didn't follow all the way through. He walked the walk, literally. As a result, we have our life back. That's all him. He did that!

We did not share our difficulties with the FOO, nor even with our own immediate family, so it came as something of THE MOTHER OF ALL BAD TIMING surprises when a couple of colorful personalities spooled up and started acting out in their characteristically colorful fashion.

I swear to God, narcissists, sociopaths and garden variety toxic people have a fucking sixth sense about this shit. Even if you are as quiet as the grave about your struggles, they will show up out of nowhere to punch your buttons at the most sensitive times.

We *were* as silent as the grave outside of our own household during Years One and Two. Maybe that itself was the trigger. Nosey narcissists knew something was up, and poked us to see what would come tumbling out.

At one point we were getting tag teamed: Husband's parents on one side showing their asses about the holidays in truly spectacular form even for them, and an insidious narcissist from another part of our lives who was hell bent on creating drama out of thin air. We suspect that there was/is a whole other agenda going on there, and we were merely pawns in a larger game. It was, weird. Bizarre. This makes no fucking sense at all sort of stuff.

In the past, my conflict avoiding, validation seeking, ego kibble chasing husband would have immediately thrown me and us under the bus, then boarded the bus, hopped in the driver's seat, and rolled over me three or four more times just to make sure all of these Very Important People knew he was on Team Them.

Because, conflict avoidance, people pleasing, ego kibbles uber alles, of course.

It was absolutely breathtaking to hear my husband tell my Holiday Acting Out MIL to take her gaslighting and manipulations and go pound sand.

Not those exact words, but damned close enough.

It was all the more stunning because it genuinely emanated from *him.*

I mean, to me it was just Holiday From Hell #4,678,563: Same As It Ever Was. I was indeed holding Husband's feet to the fire during Year Two, but MIL's stupid reindeer games were the least of my concerns at that point.

The important thing is:

Husband saw it,

Husband recognized it for what it was,

HUSBAND WAS OVER IT,

Husband handled it, decisively, firmly, and without throwing me or us under the bus.

Ditto the narcissist that came out of left field. She and her husband were fucking with me, and trying to recruit Husband, trying to drive a wedge in between us. Long triangulation story but I suspect this is actually a control struggle/ power play going on in this other couple, between this narcissistic wife and her husband. My husband and her husband were very close. I don't think she can stand for her husband to have anyone in his life except for her. She didn't feel on solid ground to test that bond, but she could damned sure come after *me,* another female.

Anyway, Husband saw through this and shut it down cold right quick. Again, breathtaking to watch. I was stunned.

On the other hand, the end of Year Two saw me starting to drift into an entrenched bitterness over it all.

Even though Husband acted stunningly appropriately and courageously in the face of it, getting goaded by those narcissists at that time was a stark litmus test of how devalued I and we had become in our own lives.

I was becoming an unacceptable level of snarky, contemptuous and disdainful toward Husband.

Husband then had to stand up to *me,* without returning my bad attitude in kind, and without throwing me under the bus.

He did it, he stood up to me, fairly enough.

It wasn't perfect but it was damned near close enough for where we were and what we'd been through.

Year Two, two stars, proceed with caution.

Which brings us to Year Three:

In Year Three we are not discussing the actual infidelity, nor those specific why's, nearly as much as we are discussing the other myriad of damages to our marriage and to us as individuals.

I can listen to Husband's damages and why's and actually *hear* them, not just dismiss them as excuses or deflections.

Boundaries with other people and with other situations continue to strengthen. This has nothing to do with sexual or romantic infidelity, but has everything to do with valuing our marriage and our individual agency.

I am honestly beginning to trust Husband with non-material things that are important to me: time, attention, preferences priorities. I believe he understands that what's mine is mine, what's ours is ours, and it's not all his to give away at will for ego kibbles, for validation, and to avoid conflict for himself.

I believe that in particular, he now sees and recognizes that those demands by the toxic people in our lives were about their own narcissistic supply. This isn't 'love' coming from them, and he doesn't have a 'duty' to throw his wife under the bus to demonstrate 'loyalty' or 'love.'

This is not what loyalty, love or respect looks like. This is what narcissism looks like, and we've been the supply for too long.

Coincidentally, as something of a weird Freudian Flourish on Year Three, we had to negotiate a strange sort of political/social situation with *yet another narcissist* during this past year.

By this point I was beginning to wonder if I was seeing narcissists hiding behind every tree. Is it me?

No, no, it's not me. We weren't the only people negotiating this situation and we weren't the only people raising eyebrows and pointing at an over inflated sense of self importance.

I bring this up because I find it interesting from a demographic perspective:

Recent works on narcissism skew toward increasing levels of narcissism in current times, and especially in younger generations. Participation trophies, helicopter parenting, safe spaces and the like are to blame according to these authors.

In our experience, in these examples, three out of the four people mentioned are older than we are. Only one is a GenX.

Interesting.

The hallmarks of narcissism in each are pretty undeniable, regardless.

I guess this interim has been our Late in Life Crash Course in Boundaries, courtesy of The Narcissists in Our Lives.

I do believe that we are firmly in reconciliation now.

Year Three, four out of five stars, recommend with optimism.

[This message edited by marriageredux959 at 7:17 AM, March 17th (Wednesday)]

Great discussion and I hope it can remain as open and constructive as it has been!

I think there is a very strong tendency in people to justify or minimize their mistakes (and I know “mistake” might not be a definite enough word here…). We might acknowledge we did wrong, but we add something to the excuse to “explain” why our decision might not be as bad as it really was. In infidelity the typical reasons might be “I was wrong to have the affair, but I wasn’t getting validation from you” or “I was wrong to have the affair, but I wasn’t getting my sexual needs met at home” or “I was drunk” or “I was lonely” … Whatever. There is an excuse left behind that is supposed to make us better understand why the WS might not have had a free choice.

I also think we tend to project these excuses to others. “My son flunked calculus but his teacher was really bad” being an example. Maybe the blame is that your son should have spent more time studying and less time gaming…

There is a well-known British comedian who was caught in a tax scandal. Many thought this would-be career-ending, but he seems to have come out of that situation quite well. One reason is that he totally 100% shouldered accountability. He didn’t hide behind his accountant, that others were doing the same thing, battle it out in court or use some legal loopholes. He simply said he was wrong, had no excuse and would make it right. Very outspoken about it and very open with his accountability.

I think that might be the issue - accountability.

The danger of going over the problems in the marriage early into the stages of reconciling might be that the WS can associate the excuses for infidelity with the marital issues. It semi-alleviates the blame for the decision to cheat. After all – if you have a couple of pages of issues that need to be addressed in the marriage then no wonder the WS had the affair…

Truth is that the typical issues in the marriage are NEVER an excuse or a reason to cheat. The decision to cheat is ALWAYS IMHO internal – it’s one the WS decides and reaches. That decision might be justified using excuses, but it’s always excuses and not real reasons.

I think one of the KEYS to reconciling is for the WS to fully acknowledge that there might have been reasons for why they cheated, but those reasons are totally on them:

“I don’t know why I need validation and why I sought for it where I did, but I am willing to work with my IC to understand this”

Rather than:

“You didn’t provide me with validation” or “I didn’t feel like you appreciated me”.

At the same time, it might be daunting for the BS to accept that their WS has this big un-excusable fault. That our wife or husband can really tell us that they risked it all for reasons that really aren’t connected to us but DEFINITELY impact us. That they cheated despite us – not because of us.

I think that if a couple trying to reconcile acknowledge this – the reasons for the affair have NOTHING to do with the issues in our marriage – then dealing with the problems in MC makes sense.

Regarding non-affair related marriage problems, I think it's also important to keep in mind that plenty of waywards were crappy spouses before cheating

I was willing to try to work through and even overlook my ex's selfishness, the way he tolerated his family treating me like crap, his laziness, etc, when I thought I had a faithful spouse who loved me. That all went out the window when I found out he cheated on me.

So before a wayward gets resentful or sullen about not being able to raise marriage issues, I think they need to think long and hard about what they can do to remedy the problem on their end first before making demands of their spouse.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 8:19 AM, March 17th (Wednesday)]

Regarding non-affair related marriage problems, I think it's also important to keep in mind that plenty of waywards were crappy spouses before cheating

I was willing to try to work through and even overlook my ex's selfishness, the way he tolerated his family treating me like crap, his laziness, etc, when I thought I had a faithful spouse who loved me. That all went out the window when I found out he cheated on me.

So before a wayward gets resentful or sullen about not being able to raise marriage issues, I think they need to think long and hard about what they can do to remedy the problem on their end first before making demands of their spouse.

^^^ Concise. <3

Regarding non-affair related marriage problems, I think it's also important to keep in mind that plenty of waywards were crappy spouses before cheating

The flipside of this is that some BS are shitty spouses/partners/people, before and after their WS’s affair. Being Betrayed does not mean that by default that a person is good, it just means someone cheated on them. Cheating is not the only thing that makes a person crappy.

I tend to think that a new WS makes their issues more important or more prioritized than their BS's issues. I tend to agree with what is being said about Pre A issues/accountability. Bringing those up early after dday would be interpreted as blame.

I wanted to clarify in my response that what I was referring to is more about current needs rather than the rehashing of marital issues. I didn't think of rehashing marital issues because I was too focused on my own accountability. I was scouring myself to find context and clues as to what went wrong.

I am revisiting that now that the shoe is on the other foot only because this is the only source I have for clues about the nature of his own waywardism. I am far more interested in the pre-A issues now as the BS than I was as the WS. Probably because I naturally want some barometer of what's changed moving forward. As a WS I didn't need the barometer because those answers were clearer to me. As a WS I had far more of the answers than I do as the BS. I find that to be it's own kind of inequity, and maybe even more so of an inequity

PreA issues are still pretty far down on my list of things to work on. It's good for study as I mentioned, but honestly if both people work on their own issues, you should be a stronger couple as a result. And, I still contend we had a very good marriage prior to the A's. If we didn't I certainly wouldn't stay around for the shit show that it's become.

Overall, the inequity in the relationship is a natural consequence of cheating. That's not something that the BS creates. The WS creates that. The only way equity is returned is if the WS's actions match a person who should have that equity.

Now, of course the BS may take longer to heal. That's to be expected. If the BS displays an unwillingness to do that, then the WS will have to decide for themselves at what point they are calling it. If the WS never returns to an equitable place I don't think the BS can ever feel the attraction that once was there. I don't think most BS's want their spouse to be a stepford wife or husband:

Once back together I really struggled with accepting it. My wife who is naturally a very aggressive forward woman became timid, which i found very unattractive.

I think that when I stopped wallowing, became someone who respected myself, started stating my needs, was comfortable not only having uncomfortable conversations but initiating them, it felt like the equity returned. So, who holds that imbalance? I think it's mostly the WS and it's related to holding on to shame.

There are exceptions, we certainly have had WS in here in abusive relationships or married to toxic BS's. That's not surprising since the WS is also likely toxic/dysfunctional/underdeveloped that they attracted that person into their lives. But, overall I think those are exceptions to the rule.

I think the preA issues are irrelevant in the time frame directly after the affair. At least in the first year. The marriage is blown up, it's now in a completely different composition. The trauma is fresh, everyone needs a chance to recover. Bringing them up is blameshifting and ignoring the emergency triage the relationship needs. If both people work on themselves, and create a new marriage, as long as the resentments have been dealt with, what is the importance of the pre A issues? That's not me making a statement. That's me genuinely asking a question.

[This message edited by hikingout at 9:42 AM, March 17th (Wednesday)]

The marriage is blown up, it's now in a completely different composition..... If both people work on themselves, and create a new marriage, as long as the resentments have been dealt with, what is the importance of the pre A issues?

This is a far more succinct way of expressing my view.

I guess an analogy would be that if I'm gonna go digging through the rubble of the house that's been burned down, I'm looking for the things I LOVE and care about (the photos, my kid's trophy, etc). I'm not going to dig thru the rubble of a dead house/M for the dirty dishes or the junk collecting dust in the basement.

And I think HO is spot on about the inequity.