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Totally unrelated thought, has anyone heard from Owl6118? I always appreciated his input and itd be great to hear from him if hes still around here.

Hi DT. Still lurking a bit.

It shocked me no end to read this tonight, I figured no one around could possibly remember me. I'm profoundly humbled if what I wrote helped you. That is very healing to me to know.

Drop me a DM if you care to, I don't generally correspond back channel but I'd be glad to hear from you without making a t/j.

Hi DT. Still lurking a bit.

It shocked me no end to read this tonight, I figured no one around could possibly remember me. I'm profoundly humbled if what I wrote helped you. That is very healing to me to know.

Drop me a DM if you care to, I don't generally correspond back channel but I'd be glad to hear from you without making a t/j.

Hey Owl6118!!! So good to hear from you!! I dm'd you. Hope you stay active. Ive found your input to be invaluable.

I've done some more thinking.

There seems to be this narrative being pushed on SI too often that affairs are (usually) about a WS feeling closed off from their BS--due to failings on their own part--and so in their unhappiness they seek comfort and solace in the AP, who could have been "anyone" open to cheating. And then after DDay WS slowly comes out of their fog and realizes that it was BS whom they wanted all along.

I don't agree with that at all. Sometimes--oftentimes I hate to have to say--people are not truly in love when they get married i.e., they SETTLE, sad to say. And on that note pretty often WS fall for their AP simply because they are more attracted to them and then the connection with AP builds over time. Sometimes WS and AP even get married and stay 'happily ever after'. It is an awful lack of character for the WS to hurt their family that way indeed but it happens so often and this thinking...'I may be hurting my BS but I deserve happiness in my one life' is so accepted nowadays. Maybe this paradoxically makes affairs that much more painful? I haven't fully worked through this in my mind but I need to. Anyway, I react so negatively on here to what I see as the "mental gymnastics" i.e., the previous paragraph, because I see it as SELLING R [even if that wasn't the intent by the person writing). It is so much easier for a BS to be open R if they believe that their WS's cheating was all about the WS trying to escape a prison WS built in their own mind and AP could have been "anyone".

Probably the MOST DESTRUCTIVE take I have ever read on here though was the take that the WS did not trusted their AP. WHAT?!?! The WS **actually got in the foxhole with AP against their BS**! That AP may have left the foxhole after D-Day does not change this fact. Damn!

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 4:24 PM, Friday, October 25th]

Some WS have true exit affairs, no doubt.

Some WS are unrepentant serial cheaters, no doubt.

Perhaps even most cheaters are not R material.

But if they are R material, it will be because the A was something that swept them up. The slippery slope of attraction to a new friend going towards the line and then over it one inch at a time. Not "anyone" but one of many possible. Someone that they have chemistry with.

I hereby move that we do not rehash that whole argument. Anyone second?

[This message edited by InkHulk at 10:46 PM, Friday, October 25th]

There seems to be this narrative being pushed on SI too often that affairs are (usually) about a WS feeling closed off from their BS--due to failings on their own part....

Huh?

I doubt that many SIers agree with or even understand what you mean by that formulation.

The closest I can get to that is the proposition that 'WSes (tend to) need external validation,' or - this is a big stretch - that 'WSes don't love themselves, so they can't love their BS or their aps.'

Probably the MOST DESTRUCTIVE take I have ever read on here though was when someone on here said late last year that the WS did not trusted their AP. WHAT?!?!

If I remember the author of that statement correctly, she seems to be honest, perceptive, and articulate. She says what she means. IIRC, she chose to conduct an exit A, so she had no reason to look for a 'trustworthy ap'.

I think this is a new argument, Ink , so I think it belongs in a new thread.

If I remember the author of that statement correctly, she seems to be honest, perceptive, and articulate. She says what she means. IIRC, she chose to conduct an exit A, so she had no reason to look for a 'trustworthy ap'.

I really REALLY don't want to make this about what one person said, as SEVERAL other posters agreed with this person. WHICH IS THE PROBLEM ON SI as far as I see it. (I should have worded my post differently originally and I apologize for that.)

The closest I can get to that is the proposition that 'WSes (tend to) need external validation,' or - this is a big stretch - that 'WSes don't love themselves, so they can't love their BS or their aps.'

And...I actually don't believe that a lack of self-love or a need for too much external validation is an issue for almost all WS either.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 12:38 AM, Saturday, October 26th]

Fine, didn’t get a second

WHICH IS THE PROBLEM ON SI as far as I see it.

The problem is that people who have had affairs and then did years of self work to understand why tell us things about themselves that challenge your current understanding? I see no problem at all.

The WS **actually got in the foxhole with AP against their BS**!

This isn’t hard to reconcile (pun intended). Think of any movie you’ve ever seen where criminals are partnering up. Do they work together for a while against the hero? Sure. Do they almost always have an uneasy partnership because they both know the other is an untrustworthy dirtbag? Absolutely! Does someone end up double crossing? Spectacularly!

You can partner with someone you don’t trust, it’s probably table stakes when you are doing shady shit.

I don’t find it an argument as I do an interesting discussion. I never really expect to convince you of anything, I know better than that. But, once again I will tell you things that you will say make your head hurt.

Everyone sees things through the lens of their own value system. Trustworthy people value trust. You are likely trustworthy and so that is important in your value system. Most affairs are not logical and you are a logical person. So it’s not hard to understand why you get hung up when someone says they didn’t trust their AP.

People who have affairs are at a point in their lives where their character is very low. People of low character have low expectations of the character of the AP. In You are both cheating on your spouse so most of the safety is knowing that person doesn’t want to be exposed any more than you do. In my case we were also taking huge career risks.

There is no trust amongst thieves. A thief knows the other one is a thief, they don’t care because they don’t have to hide who they are and they can work together to achieve their dirty deeds.

I always felt like my husband was better than me in my pre A marriage, this was an insecurity/low self esteem issue. The AP was more flawed and therefore it made me feel like I had an upper hand in ways I didn’t have in the marriage. I spent most of my time trying to prove how awesome I was, with him as the audience and really it was myself I was trying to convince.. I have read accounts of thousands of adulterers and have seen this theme hundreds of times.

The affair was kind of a funhouse mirror - there was a lot of distortion on what was important.

An affair looks from the outside like it’s a relationship. But while in the affair, it didn’t feel that way at all. I didn’t have a plan past the minute I was on. There was no future to picture, because it was too exhausting to even consider. I didn’t think the ap was better than my husband, it was more he didn’t know me so it was easier to play out this role of what I wished I was -younger, sexier, funnier, more interesting.

Except it was just pathetic. Deep down I did want to be those things but it was so hollow without having the qualities needed to be a good person. In a relationship you can be all those things together. In an affair, you can only be the superficial ones and you are essentially removed from the most meaningful parts of yourself.

If we are mostly reflecting on our own superficial traits, then this affects our values lens I was talking about. So instead of looking for normal things like trust, we’re instead valuing their superficial traits or the superficial in the relationship. Whatever is within is then projected externally.

I have read only 5 to 7% of affair relationships lead to marriage and of those, approximately 75% end in divorce. So if we assume only 25% of the initial 7% last, this means that less than 2% turn into long-lasting marriages. I am sure there are different factors for why this is but having had an affair and having been betrayed, I tend to believe it’s because fundamentally you know that someone who will do it with you will do it to you. You know what they are capable of, because it’s what you are capable of.

I disassociated when vulnerability was required, which is another signal I didn’t have trust.

What I did have was someone willing to ignore both of our marriages and feed me bullshit all day and that beat out real life for a period of time- which is really sad because the life I was escaping was good, it was real, it had a future. There was security and

I did ask my husband if he trusted his ap. He is a man of few words and he just said "I felt like I had the upper hand." And this rings true to me. We don’t need trust because in our magical world of make believe we are always in control. We are alway more clever, we are untouchable. It’s all just narratives born of cognitive dissonance.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:25 AM, Saturday, October 26th]

Haha I just read ink’s reply above mine and he said what I was trying to say in far fewer words. Shocker!

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:20 AM, Saturday, October 26th]

I woke up way too early this morning and have been reading through bits and pieces of this thread, and it strikes me how much combined wisdom there is here, and how many different scenarios of betrayal there are.

I really, really wish I had had this place or anyone or anywhere at all that I could have gotten wisdom and feedback from in the immediate aftermath of DDay. I did the pick-me dance in a big way, and I’m still unraveling and recovering from the psychological impact of that four years later.

That said, while I regret not reacting more decisively and self-protectively, I don’t regret not defaulting to a nuclear I’m-filing-for-divorce-right-now option.

My husband was in emotional crisis when he made the choice to cheat on me. His sister, whom he was very close to and whom we all loved absolutely dearly, was on her deathbed at the end of an incredibly painful cancer journey. It was the throes of the pandemic, and we had a lot of other hard life stuff going on, and I had two tween/teen kids I was trying to emotionally support through a difficult time. Nuclear options and hard 180s and ultimatums would have made things harder and worse on everyone.

I do wish, though, that I had had much clearer guidance immediately after DDay about how to handle contact with a coworker AP and how to draw strong, clear boundaries there. We ultimately figured it out (he still works with her), but it was a rough road that really hampered progress in healing and reconciliation. I also wish I had come across the concepts of hysterical bonding and the pick-me dance much sooner; it would have given me much needed context and a framework for understanding my emotions.

I also fell prey at the beginning to sunk cost fallacy and thinking divorce wasn’t really an option because of money, kids, other family members we care for, etc. But I realized over time that while I might not WANT a divorce for those and other reasons, I sure as hell needed to be prepared for one, so I did all the research and made all the plans to give myself that option. That was *definitely* one of the healthiest things I did for myself. I don’t think we’ll get divorced, but I know exactly what my plan is if we do.

Ultimately i believe my husband is a good candidate for reconciliation, and we’re walking that long, difficult road. At four years out I still feel like "reconciling" is a better description of us than "reconciled." His betrayal did incredible damage to me as a person and to our relationship, and there’s a lot of complex trauma from that period and FOO issues on my part to work through. The arc of our healing process is long, but I believe it bends toward reconciliation (apologies to Dr. King).

I appreciate all of you on this thread and this site. It’s been my biggest source of support and wisdom on this journey. Hiking out, I always admire your thoughtful honesty. Want2Be, thank you for the reminder that some people’s journeys are longer—I don’t think I realized before this thread that your path was more on the 7-year side. I sometimes get discouraged that I’m four years out and don’t feel healed yet, so it’s encouraging to hear your story. And thanks to the rest of you for sharing and talking. I appreciate it; I wish I had found you all sooner.

hikingout,

Mods if this is a threadjack please take whatever actions you deem necessary.

You said;

People who have affairs are at a point in their lives where their character is very low. People of low character have low expectations of the character of the AP. In You are both cheating on your spouse so most of the safety is knowing that person doesn’t want to be exposed any more than you do. In my case we were also taking huge career risks.

My question for you is around character. What i hear you saying here is that people who commit infidelity have low character. That this low character is at the point surrounding the infidelity. This dip into the low character area is within the normal 'domain' of that individuals character and that any number of things can push an individual to that low character area. Finally, that the low character within the individual can be changed (is maleable). Changed so that the low character area of the 'domain' of their character is no longer an option.

Is that accurate?

Jason-

I said it the way I did because I think anyone can develop their character over time. I have worked hard on my character, so I know it does not have to be a life sentence that once a cheater always a cheater.

I think for some ws, they may always be a cheater or of low character. But I can only frame this around my own experiences.

Someone’s chaacter is comprised of many things and is complex to talk about. We all have things about us that are underdeveloped. we all have light and dark. Some of us will make a terrible decision and start making really bad trades and get further and further from the person they deep down want to be.

It’s hard to really go back in time and say "I had great character" it’s hard to really remember ones make up or state of mind especially when you spent years kind os sleep walking through life and going through motions every day. But evidence supports that I operated pretty well on the up and up. I didn’t go around wanting to be with other men (not even in my head) I put my kids and family first over everything, I didn’t lie to my husband or do things behind his back financially, sexually, or otherwise. My friends would tell you that I never even participated in talking badly about him. I worked, I handled large sums of money, I had a staff under me who I treated well. I didn’t steal when I went to stores. I tried to be a good wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend and employee.

Everyone has light and dark, I surely was not perfect but it would be hard to say I always had low character. But once you start making really bad trades you can go to depths you didn’t know you were capable of you let your hands off the wheel.

Think about people you know who got on drugs. Sometimes they are the people you least expect and before long they are stealing shit to keep things going.

However, in the aftermath of all of it I can clearly see that some of the things I might have pointed out are as me acting in good character was really just me playing roles that served me very well. I was avoidant, which I think is a character trait that I still work on. I have used escapism my whole life rather than facing things head in. My avoidance was a big factor of having an affair. I see many areas where my value system was underdeveloped.

At the time of my affair I was depressed, burned out and I didn’t care about myself. Honestly I think I would have been considering suicide deeply if it hadn’t been for my kids. I had even been diagnosed with emotional exhaustion and ignored it mostly.

I clearly see now that the relationship we have with ourselves is reflected in the relationships we have with others. I couldn’t care for my husband if I didn’t care for myself. But the avoidance and lack of back bone in my character didn’t dig in and try to figure out how to get better. Instead, I just did whatever I could to qvoid the bad feelings. I drank a lot for years. I don’t think I was ever a true alcoholic because alcohol wasn’t hard to give up when I did but I certainly abused it and leaned on it too much. I made a lot of money and spent a lot of money. I planned trips and obsessed over them. And when those bands aids didn’t work I just kept going until the affair was what I was doing.

So I don’t think it was a fast decline in character, it was slow and the trades just kept getting worse. Nor do I think it was fast to build a stronger one. It was long hard work to become a stronger person with better coping skills, more self awareness, and a stronger vision of who I want to be and why. It took a long time to put away the shame of my decisions enough to have the self compassion to mend that relationship with myself knowing that relationship will always be reflected in every external relationship. It took years to decline and years to go up.

I guess what I am trying to say is life is long and I don’t think being of low character is a life sentence so that is the language I used. I also think it’s possible to have a good character your whole life. I absolutely believe it’s possible you can go from being a person who would have an affair to one who would rather stick a fork in their eye or be publicly flogged than do it again. Every ws falls somewhere in that spectrum and they all have the power to move the needle if they really want to.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:20 PM, Saturday, October 26th]

Haha I just read ink’s reply above mine and he said what I was trying to say in far fewer words. Shocker!

Still licking my wounds from Sisoon calling me long winded

I felt like I had the upper hand.

Just want to say, that sent a shiver down my spine when I read it. A perfect demonstration of the matter at hand.

Irony, Ink. Your posts can be long, but they do communicate well.

In yesterday's Stupid Picture Friday, one of the posts was something like, 'I don't show my age with my looks. I show it by texting complete sentences.'

[This message edited by SI Staff at 6:11 PM, Saturday, October 26th]