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I've always thought of myself as a highly compassionate, empathetic person. I think its important in the R process, but I can't seem to muster much at all - I feel a few flickers, but then it burns out again.

I know on a very basic level, that my WH's A, was a product of his own brokenness. This is a man that spent 13 years being kind to me, never raised his voice, was devoted to his family and treasured his career. Yes, it appears in hindsight that he was also very selfish and had extremely poor boundaries and I put him on a pedestal where he didn't belong - but he would be considered by all measures, a good egg.

During his affair, he was so angry all of the time. He was unreservedly cruel and cold towards me and our children. He became mentally abusive. He put his entire career and therefore our home, on the line. He could have lost absolutely everything he had worked hard for. He was the exact polar opposite of what I (and everyone who knows him) had ever known him to be. He even looked different to me. As soon as he ended the A, something changed in his eyes.

Typically when people begin new relationships, they do not suddenly morph into callous, angry monsters. They do not risk their job. The do not risk being disowned by their parents. So by this logic, I believe an affair MUST be a sign of a persons brokenness?

The question is, how do I see past the monster he presented as, to compassion for the man I loved for all those years?

I struggle greatly with this as well. My WH turned into an angry selfish person over the last five years. I think it was work stress and poor coping skills with an endless need for attention. He has been cheating on me for the last ten years so he was certainly a broken person. Probably broken before I even met him in my twenties I just didn’t know it yet. I think that people’s true nature comes out during times of stress and that as people go through life their decisions do show who they are and their character. So who he was I want nothing to do with. Who he will be I have hope will be a different more honest and moral person.
I’ll be honest I don’t have compassion for his choices at all. He made these choices and chose not to be self aware or look inward to work on himself until he had done very grave damage to our marriage. We are in R and are starting to progress. He’s working on himself and I’m gaining more confidence. I want to stay together to keep our family unit together And because we do still get along very well and he’s really working on improving himself and becoming a great partner. Do I love him like I did or admire him? No I don’t. And I’ve really had to grieve that. I still am. I may feel compassion for him eventually but I honestly doubt I will. But I think I can be happy with him if he continues to work on himself and continues becoming a good partner.

I think it has helped me to accept that this is who he is. We can be good and bad. And with wayward spouses I think we can accept that yes they were good to me at one point but there was something broken in them that allowed them to cheat. I don’t think we can gloss that over or look at it as some sort of "crisis". Because most of us will have some sort of crisis in our life and would not cheat. I tried to buy into that line of thinking for a while. That it really wasn’t him. He was just in a bad place. Etc, etc. I personally could not accept it. The cognitive dissonance was so strong for me. I have been able to accept that he was that awful selfish person. That is part of his character. I inadvertently married someone like that. I am however willing to give him grace to fix himself. And he knows this is the only chance he’ll get with me. He’s shown what he’s capable of and I can never unsee that.

I really can’t agree that the A exposes someone’s ‘true’ nature, as if there is some fixed self. We are many selves forever becoming, IMO and have many parts inside us, some very old and buried, some erroneous beliefs about ourselves accrued from early childhood, for example, that have gathered momentum and magnitude like a snowball on a hill, much of it unsconscious, or understood barely. The mechanisms of compartmentalisation and blameshifting that are brought in both subconsciously and sometimes consciously to some degree by a WS needing to assuage guilt, perhaps shame, and looking to self justify and defend themselves against inner conflict, mean they have to project stuff they don’t like about themselves onto someone else and to look for problems in a marriage to make themselves feel better. It’s generally quite hard work to sustain these arguing, conflicted parts inside and the escape of the A feels easy in comparison, a literal escape from self, the many selves. So therefore for me A behaviour does not describe the whole person, nor brokenness in the way it’s is generally discussed here on SI. I think it’s worth remembering that we BSs are beyond shocked as to the effect of infidelity on us, or perhaps I should speak for myself rather than generalise - I was amazed at how pierced to the core I felt. The glamorisation of affairs in media and film does not show the counter side of devastation on the physiology and mental health, therefore I think many WSs also hugely underestimate its effect. Thus thereby giving themselves more license as, whilst knowing it’s not harmless, don’t really have the emotional imagination to understand the depth of the betrayal.

[This message edited by Edie at 9:27 AM, Wednesday, February 7th]

I wouldn’t say that an affair reveals who a person is at their core, no.

It reveals a part of who that person is at that point in their life. And likely the weakest part of them, at that.

Consider that an affair is a part of a person they want to hide. Not their best self, not something they wish to shout to the world, "Hey, look at this part of me, this is the best of me!" Certainly the opposite is true. This is the part of the self that is clandestine, shameful, hidden, the part they don’t even want to admit to their closest confidante.

If we are to believe that an affair is "who someone is", then by extrapolation, would our reaction then be "who we are"? No. Because the premise is false.

Humans are complex. We have all done things that hurt other people, made bad choices, said things in anger. Were I to be defined by any of those things that I have done, my life would be much different now.

If we are to believe that because a person has had an affair that is the core of "who they are", this seems to allow that person no hope.

There is no redemption for anyone, then. If you have done anything wrong, then that is the "core" of who you are? Is there no redemption to be had?

I don’t believe that. I believe every person has the capacity for change.

I do not believe human beings are static in their existence. I look back over my life, and know that who I was at 6, 16, 26, 36, 46….and now….are all very different. Changes in my thoughts, my ability to love, my understanding of others, my compassion, all of my "core" has changed.

Things change daily. And I have to allow space for every other person to change, too. That’s where compassion happens.

The question is, how do I see past the monster he presented as, to compassion for the man I loved for all those years?

Is that your question? Or is it that

The question is, do I want to see past the monster he presented as, to compassion for the man I loved for all those years?

You are well within your rights to answer, 'No,' if that the healthier choice for you.

I felt some compassion for my W from the beginning because I was sorry my W was so effed up that she cheated, but I had a hard time having a lot of compassion for her pain while I had to deal with my own pain, pain that she caused.

My bet is that you do want to feel some compassion some of the time; otherwise I think you probably wouldn't have started this thread. Give yourself a break. Your WS hurt you to your core. It's natural to be filled with anti-compassionate feelings some of the time.

Have faith in yourself to figure this out. If your H is a good candidate for R, your compassion will probably grow. If he's not, your compassion will probably diminish.

And if he doesn't do the work for R and you dump him, maybe your compassion will go sky high - partly because he's so effed up and partly because he lost you.

*****

I recommend rereading the words of Edie and 5decades. Both explain a lot very clearly.

I struggle to find compassion sometimes, but I can often find it if I don't think of my WS as my husband but just as a person. I don't want him to be miserable and hating himself anymore than I would wish that for a cousin or even a stranger on the street. Where I struggle is opening myself up to him in a romantic way. When I try to find compassion while thinking of him as someone I'm partnered with for the rest of my life, my brain rebels *hard* and is like, no, this dude sucks. Do not reattach to him emotionally. Do not spend the rest of your life with him.

According to my therapist, this is a result of trauma. Deep down, I am *terrified* of him because of the pain he caused me for so many years, so my instincts don't allow me to think of him as a good enough person to romantically love and be attached to. What's even more baffling (to me) is that I can know this intellectually, but it does absolutely nothing to change how I feel. Brains, man.

Hi…I have never posted before. This is my first, but have read and read and read. And when compassion comes up, I normally take a break because I feel like I am compromised. Mostly because…I am a psychotherapist…and I was a BW in August of 2019. HB had a 1 mth physical affair with much younger woman he met at a conference that lived near us. As a provider, I tune in daily to couples and individuals who are going through the very things that have been written on this site. And I can even see myself as some of the therapists that have cost couples countless amount of time and suffering. I have compassion. So much, that I have tried to keep a thriving practice afloat while going through every thread I could to understand how these things could happen to someone like me. As Someone who has Compassion and faith in the real evidence based observations I have seen in couples transformed. I will tell you…compassion is not something we can give and expect anything in return for. In my experience, I have come to hate how much my compassion blinds me to some things in reality. But that is just it. When we connect with someone, it is not a choice. It is someone that has struck us to that part of us that needs exploring. That we just didn’t recognize or really even appreciate. I cannot tell you how many people I have seen that most would say, "play stupid games, win stupid prizes", but it’s not that simple. We as humans have a need to connect. To stay relevant. As a result, we interpret our suffering as being a part of our story. But do they know our story? Truly? As a therapist, I know what people tell me. What they leave out, I do not know. But I know when I have seen people lay their souls in front of me…and I can feel compassion without critique. I know hurting people hurt, and I hurt with them in those moments. I see my UH hurt when we stumble on trauma from his A. And it hurts when I see that. But it does not take away the right for me to also feel angry, sad, embarrassed, etc….having compassion does not make us more or less tolerant. Rather, it opens us up to feel connected. I say we quit trying to shut down down compassion with the other feels that happen. Let them all make one messy soup. Let them feels get all up in their messy ways. And know that compassion means, you are human, and to sit with another persons hurt comes with a cost and you are a good human for acknowledging that❤️. Thank you all for educating and helping me me even though you didn’t know I was here lurking😂

And this post is the first one that got me in the feels. Thanks y’all! Yes I’m from Texas.😂

I am sorry that you are experiencing this. I honestly think we tend to dissect things too much. I made it simple for myself... He was a complete mess.. He came to his senses and his brain is now functioning correctly again... lol. With much prayer, our lives are better. Hope the same happens for you. God Bless.

@Polfing2023 Promise to write more ! Your response gave me the feels !

How have you processed your own betrayal, considering you are a therapist?

Hi @WhiskeyBlues I'm so sorry you're having to deal with the emotional rollercoaster that comes from a betrayal especially when you make the decision to R. From my own experience, that compassion slowly came back as I went further in my healing journey and as I saw my H doing all he could to rebuild the broken trust and work on himself in order to be the best version of himself.

You said you experienced your H as a kind person for 13 years and then during the affair he became a monster, so I'm just wondering that since you're currently in R, what kind of person is your H now to you. I only ask because if he's back to being the kind person he was before, it might be that he took on that angry persona to mask his guilt and the wrong he knew he was doing.

I remember asking my H during our R process that did he think about me and the hurt I would go through and he said honestly he chose to be selfish and not think of me and the pain he was causing even though he loved me. Baffling right...but shows the complexity of human nature.

If you chose to R, I can only imagine you came to that decision after much contemplation, so I would suggest that you give yourself grace and time to heal so you have the inner strength that will enable you to move forward in your R journey with compassion.

A few flickers of compassion is a good start, just give it time. I wish you all the best and pray that yours will be one of the success R story on here too.

There is zero question that for my wife, living with me after the affair isn’t as easy as living with me before the affair. She will never be as trusted as before, and there lurks a reminder of what she did waiting to be brought up if she crosses new lines much tighter than the old ones. Frankly, im not sure I’d want to be married to me at times. Yet here she is. I can feel compassion for that.