SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Alright so this may be a REALLY odd question but hear me out.
I know that MOST, if not ALL WS enjoy the sex, the ego kibbles, the illicitness, etc AT THE TIME OF THE A.
I also know that MOST WS, if they heal and do the work look back in complete disgust and hate who they were at the time and what they did, some even see the AP as who they were too.

My issue is I know this. I know there is no way I can go back and rewrite my H idea of his affair while he was in it, I want to be able to go back in time and smack him so hard to bring him back to reality but I can't , that ship has sailed.

How do you live with knowing that someone else gave your S what they wanted, how do you look at them knowing they enjoyed every minute of hurting you and touching someone else, stealing time to from the kids to be with them? I feel like if I bring this up in my IC I will sound like I am crazy, (because he is doing the work) which I still will bring it up I just don't know how to let it go. Call it pride/ego whatever it may be. He never fails to tell me how much he hates what he did multiple times a day and that he never looks back at it and if he does it is because I ask questions and he digs in his memory and even then he said it makes him feel nauseous. WHY ISN'T ENOUGH for me to hang my hat on?

I am trying to re frame things and positive self talk, he builds me up through his actions and words but I keep going back to "He had his hands all over her and loved it"
I had him write down all the things he loved about me and sometimes I will go back and read them when I am having a rough day but then I think about what he did and it all means nothing.

Anything that helped you?
Should I word my questions differently to my H?

First of all, what you are feeling and thinking is absolutely normal. I think every BS has felt and wondered this. Secondly, you can absolutely and should absolutely bring this up with your IC. You should be able to bring up anything you want in Therapy at any time.

I can’t help with how to get over it, because my WS did not do the work. But don’t think this is an odd question or an invalid question because it’s a completely legitimate question.

Curious if you’ve asked your WS about this? What is their take?

Bearlybreathing

Curious if you’ve asked your WS about this? What is their take?

I have many many times, we talk about his A more than most other subjects right now

He describes it as the lowest point in his life.

He tells me that if he could take it back he would, that he can not change how he felt then, he described it to me as enjoying the high and ego boost that he received from her and that in a normal non A life she wouldn't have been someone that he chose to date but she was so great at validating him. That she could have been "anyone to make him feel better about himself and spend time with him" (we have four kids)

He told me that he didn't think of the kids or me while he was with her he said it was like "playing a part in a movie where he got to be the hero" Then he would come home. I am very independent and not vulnerable because of issues I am currently dealing with and she was very soft, needed validation just like him and he said they gave that to each other. They both also made crap money at the same crap job.

Any time he tells me what he loves about me or compliments me I keep throwing in his face that he told her the same crap. When I say this, he admits he did but it was all to keep her on the "line" so he could keep going to get his high from her. He dropped her on DDAY, so I have to believe for him it wasn't about who she was as a person but more of how the A made him feel but it doesn't change the laughs, the smiles, the sex, the kissing THAT was all real. He loved all that then.

Sorry I am ranting, to sum it up he tells me he did enjoy it then but not because of her but because of how he was able to feel needed, wanted, validated, masculine and he should have just came to me and told me his feelings and got a better job before he spiraled but he can't go back, all he can do is move forward and be a better H/ father and person, that he promised not to lie to me anymore so if he said he hated it then it would be a lie. He says looking back now it makes him sick and he sees things about her now he didn't then but he kept pushing that down to enjoy the high.

He said that during the time of the A he considered her a good "friend" and they just had benefits with each other and towards the end she caught real feelings and they started to not see each other as often and that is when he started to snap back and see what he did, in his mind he was really just living two lives, one where he was this sex beast who everyone wanted and then the second where he was the dad and H that wasn't good enough and couldn't provide for his family .... He didn't not want the second one, he wanted the first one to help the pain and escape with the second one , if that makes sense?

I just keep pulling him back to the past.

[This message edited by Groot1988 at 1:59 PM, Thursday, March 28th]

I get it! I struggled with this for a long time. I think I really turned the corner when he truly started getting deep into therapy, his whys, and what he was really thinking during the affair. And of course, when my own healing allowed me to truly believe, feel, and understand that it had nothing to do with me or even the marriage. I no longer believe my husband ever enjoyed hurting me. In fact, he had his head so far up his delusional ass that he truly believed he wasn’t hurting me, because I’d never know. 🙄🤷‍♀️ once I did know, NC was immediate and never broken. I am sure that helped too.

Groot, I just read your response about your WS felt like he was playing in a movie. My husband said similar. He mentioned how he felt like he was writing a book and not really "doing" it because it was all bullshit and not going anywhere. He had a way of convincing himself it wasn’t like real cheating when the man falls in love with the OW and leaves his wife and kids. 😂🙄(I can actually laugh at the delusions now) In his book, he was the hero that had it all together. Successful businessman, beautiful kids, good wife, friends, and a fan girl who recognized his superiority and reminded him of it🙄. He had it all together! In realty, he was nothing like the character he created and had zero self esteem. I remember telling him, "You’re an idiot. You truly became the disgusting loser that you felt you were. I hope you can learn to love yourself, but write now you’re not lovable and whatever negative thoughts about yourself you harbor are true and then some".

Yes. One of the hardest things to move past,is knowing he wasn't sorry,when I didn't know. He thought he was smarter than me,and he'd never get caught.

Theothersideofhell

In realty, he was nothing like the character he created and had zero self esteem. I remember telling him, "You’re an idiot. You truly became the disgusting loser that you felt you were.

This a million times.
I actually asked him how he felt like such a hero saving a woman that had zero self respect , while taking time and money away from the children he created that stood at the door crying every time he left to "go to work". He was borrowing money from his parents and neither of them could get more than an appetizer and a beer when they would go out together, what a match they were.
He was the villain at home and a hero to someone that shoulda saved her damn self but couldn't. I remember asking him how it felt to hear that he was such a great person and dad all the while screwing her in random places and abandoning his kids the entire summer pretty much. That made him cry.

It amazes me the story that they rewrite in their heads to justify any of it.

And of course, when my own healing allowed me to truly believe, feel, and understand that it had nothing to do with me or even the marriage. I no longer believe my husband ever enjoyed hurting me

I think that I will eventually get here but he should not have been able to enjoy anything with her, without sirens going off, like how do they just forget about their spouse and kids?

I was so where you were for a long time! I asked him how he got self esteem from a pathetic woman willing to cheat and screw him, also a pathetic loser. He goes back to not really getting self esteem other than the fantasy that someone believed he was something special. He said in his eyes anyone in his real life already knew he was a joke. With her he could fabricate being someone else and as he said "who she was didn’t matter". It was just a character he wrote into his story that didn’t know he was a fraud. 🤷‍♀️

It was just a character he wrote into his story that didn’t know he was a fraud. 🤷‍♀️

Ope

You are so right!
My H did admit he felt like a loser majority of his life, at the same time his band failed for the third time, he had no money, couldn't get promoted and I can see WHY he needed to be validated but he could have made huge changes a long time ago. He was given the ultimatum on dday that either he quits his job or he moves out (she was a coworker)
He now has a better paying job than me (most weeks) first time hes ever made good money in his life. He was always about chasing a dream or a fantasy rather than doing the hard work. I remember his 2nd day at his new job he called me crying saying he couldn't do it (he hates doing tests and they had him doing 2 weeks of e learnings).
He stuck it out and holy hell, best decision hes made, he is valued there and he feels needed there and at home and guess what, he did the work , all I did was tell him he had no choice.

He has came so far in such a short time but mannnnn it doesn't make me any less mad he could have been so gross and hurtful.

Completely normal. And yes I would talk about this in IC. You won’t look crazy, what you are feeling is completely valid and understandable. He might look great now but that doesn’t take away what he did.

So personally, I think the more you try and make yourself get past something the more it tends to want to expand or stick around.

My suggestion is accept that you feel this way. You don’t have to accept his behavior, you don’t have to force anything. This is how you feel, and it’s okay that you do. I think often resisting how we feel because we don’t want to feel it just makes it worse.

What I think will happen in time is it will get smaller. But it hasn’t been that long, and trauma changes the brain. Give yourself some grace. You don’t have to get over that today.

I also think as time goes along and if he continues to show you for a long period of time you may actually be able to tap into the pain he feels about what he did. Right now it would be too soon for you to grasp that. The pain he caused you is so big. But as you heal, you will realize that he payed direly for his decisions. The scales of justice will never bring it back to balance but the way I think of it is he can get it to a certain point that your grace will kick in.

And if none of that happens, then divorce. But I feel like what the underlying thing you have going on here is most bs’s pressure themselves to make decisions or to het over hurdles faster. If you can learn to accept where you are in it and lose the false sense of urgency, it’s easier to exist in the parts that are going to take a long time to heal.

It’s hard because before your heart was all in the marriage. It’s uncomfortable to try and rebuild something with that feeling destroyed. We want to outrun the pain. I think you just need to allow yourself to feel however you feel and be your own best friend. Be kind to yourself. When you listen to your self talk make sure that’s what you would say to your best friend. Try and focus on what you need. It’s great he is trying, but that doesn’t mean that it skips the steps. You are grieving something and grief is not linear.

Hikingout

I also think as time goes along and if he continues to show you for a long period of time you may actually be able to tap into the pain he feels about what he did. Right now it would be too soon for you to grasp that. The pain he caused you is so big. But as you heal, you will realize that he payed direly for his decisions. The scales of justice will never bring it back to balance but the way I think of it is he can get it to a certain point that your grace will kick in.

THIS
I think somewhere in me, I am still looking for justice and I do not see how he is paying for his decisions because he gets to keep his family when he chose over and over again to risk us. Yes he had to quit his job, yes his friends and family know what he did and how horrible he was and he now he lost all trust from me for a long time which also includes freedom. At the end of the day though he still has us, even if it is not always pleasant for him.
I hope that eventually I can extend grace to him and forgive him during his darkest time in life and realize that it was all about him and not about me. I have these fleeting moments of acceptance but I will be honest , they do not last long and then pain floods in.

You won’t look crazy, what you are feeling is completely valid and understandable. He might look great now but that doesn’t take away what he did.

All of our counselors just give him so much credit for coming so far in such short time. They compare him sometimes to people that were not as willing to change or the fact that he "got it so quickly" shows he loves me and since he is showing true remorse and changed all aspects of his life I should see it too. AND I DO. but like you said, that doesn't make me heal any faster, then throw the childhood trauma on top of it that she uncovered I feel broken now and I feel like hes this great man on a pedestal that destroyed my life. When I tell him this he says that he doesn't feel that way and his counselor doesn't make him feel that way, maybe it is my own insecurities or maybe I am trying to rush my healing because this place in my brain sucks and most days it is just too much.

If he does the real work and makes the real changes he will suffer the consequences for the rest of his life. He will forever know what he did to fundamentally change how his wife and children feel about trust, marriage etc. He will live with the knowledge of the horrible life long scars he created. I couldn’t fathom the pain that would bring. Glad I don’t have to.

Otherside of hell

YES!
My H admitted that he grew up without much of a conscience, which is scary. Either he buried the shame or he just never had one.
He started feeling bad about his A when the two worlds collided and he saw my pain but it took a solid month or two for him to REALLY get it.
These are all new feelings for him for the most part, he was so selfish and avoided conflict so this will be new territory.

Gently, the scales of justice should not be anywhere near balanced yet. You are so early out that you would be not even much past the shock stage.

This shit takes years. You will not be in as much pain for all that time, I see it a bit as a gradient, but you shouldn’t think in terms of justice at all yet. You all are barely out of the gate.

Not all counselors are experienced with infidelity. Holding him up as an exemplary spouse right now is not helping you. Exemplary spouses did not just finish cheating on you 6-8 months ago. I am concerned if you can’t be able to express your pain and just be heard in it rather than someone holding up how great he is doing- that’s a red flag that you may need different support.

As far as his pain, I am not talking about the consequences. Those are just natural and while they are uncomfortable I don’t consider that pain. I am talking about the pain of betraying yourself. What you thought your morals were. The humiliation you feel when you think about your own behavior. The pain of watching your spouse’s face contort into a window of their pain.

I am not really asking you to be concerned with that now. But over time, what tends to happen with reconciling couples is the pain becomes somewhat of a shared experience. You grieve together what his actions cost. I don’t think that always happens or that it should be anytime soon. Right now, your main focus should be on yourself.

What does that mean? It means allowing yourself to feel that outrage. The pain is in the details of the betrayal. The only way to heal is to feel everything and keep acting in your best interest. There is a separation here, and it doesn’t need to be removed right now just because he looks like the model ws. Right now the only person you can depend on for you and your healing is you.

I only brought up that part about how you will tap in there because it’s hard to see that whatever cheap thrills came from the affair, it did significant damage to him as well. And if that is untrue, that will show itself soon enough.

For now, it should be about you and what you need. I didn’t mean to take focus off that. All I am saying is all sorts of things may unfold over time where this issue will hurt less, and some of that I know comes when the pain is shared. But know this didn’t happen for us for a long time, on either affair.

What you are feeling is so normal it just bothers me that you don’t feel you have the right to feel it in therapy. I would consider making a change there. I would bring it up and if they start talking you out if that feeling then it’s simply not a safe place for you. You should feel the way you are feeling right now, it’s natural.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:02 PM, Thursday, March 28th]

This is a really tough aspect about recovery. We have reconciled and are doing pretty well but its always hard when I reflect on this aspect.

My wife's affair was almost entirely physical and i know for a fact that she greatly enjoyed this aspect of her affair. We both knew that this was going to be hard to overcome and in fact my wife thought it might be impossible for me after I found out a number of extremely explicit details. And I think for many men or betrayed spouses this would be too much to overcome but we have managed to work our way through it. My knowledge of these things will always be with us and obviously always with me during times of intimacy (there is no stopping those mind movies) but Ive been able to succeed by compartmentalizing our relationship and knowing the physical aspect is just one small part in relation to everything else we have together.

Good luck.

Hikingout

Thank you for your take on it, I will make sure I bring that up in counseling and set boundaries where I feel like my pain is validated and if not I will move on with different counselors. I have heard a lot about the affair eventually becoming "our" affair and I know that I am miles away from that. I will keep chugging along doing the best I can , him doing the right things now are helpful but also suck because he could have been this person a long time ago but he chose not to 4 months of being a great H doesn't make up for 11 years of being a self centered jerk, that will take time.

Reece

I feel you on so many things, his was very physical too.
This is one of my hardest to overcome too and it is strange because we had a great Sexlife before and still do, honestly the A never ruined the chemistry there and oddly enough i don't have mind movies during intimacy, its the only time I feel at peace.
I have always been very confident in that area and Ill be damned if her ugly a** takes that from me. My H had a porn fantasy and she sure let him live it out ..... I made sure to ask the details about what were important to me but other than that I don't want to know all of them. I've seen her and I know that in reality there is no comparison of what she could have offered other than to be completely dominated and degraded, now when I am in my trauma brain i question what HE THOUGHT of her but then again it was all fake and tons of chemicals and in my case drugs on top of it.
I will always be "jealous" that someone else was able to make him feel the way that I do because in my stupid logic I thought only i could do that. To me sex was emotional , it was love, to him it was just sex, amazing what porn can do to the brain.
It wasn't until recently he has seen sex as an emotional bond... to me this is just strange.
Sorry for ranting, thank you for the luck, I will need it!

I’m sorry you’re struggling. If it helps, I think what you are "stuck on" right now is totally normal and reasonable and rational. I also think that at around 5-6 months out, you’re right where you need to be in terms of processing/healing. That’s when I hit the anger stage. I had moved beyond the fear of losing my husband and everything I knew about my life, and my sense of injustice about A and the shit sandwich my husband’s actions had dealt for me was …acute (to say the least ).

I don’t know if there is one thing I, or anyone else, can say that will every make anything he did feel okay or just to you, and so I wont try. The fact that you’re feeling this way isn’t because of some deficit in your pride or ego. I don’t think your goal right now should be to swallow it or try to convince yourself that you should feel or think otherwise. It *IS* unjust and awful, and you should feel ENTITLED to your outrage about this. Sit with that for a bit and mourn how shitty it is and be morally outraged that the person who promised to love, honour, and respect you, not only caused this but had a good time while doing it.

Him doing the work now doesn’t cancel out what he did. Him feeling awful about it now, certainly doesn’t mean you can't be mad it happened. Nothing he does or say will ever make what happened acceptable. Full stop. Do not swallow or push down your feelings on this, or try to justify it, to make him or anyone else more comfortable. Anger can be toxic and obviously you don’t want to get stuck in the anger/outrage stage FOREVER (don’t worry, you are FAR from that right now), but it can also be productive and motivating and empowering. Harness your outrage – and you SHOULD be outraged - to ensure that you accept nothing less than every single thing you deserve going forward.

I think the only way past this was through it. Trying NOT to feel it, wont make it go away. Repressed or unprocessed anger leads to resentment, and in the long-term, resentment is TOXIC and will eat away at you and your health, happiness, well-beings and your relationships with others. I don’t want that for you. I actually ENCOURAGE you to talk to your IC about it, so you can work on ways to face it head on and fully process it. There is nothing crazy about feeling angry about something that is unacceptable. "Getting over it" now or ever should not be your goal right now, or ever. Do not feel guilty for those feelings, acknowledge them. Eventually you will get to a point where the thought of it doesn't make your blood boil, but that's probably not going to happen anytime soon.

Things I tried to remember as I processed my anger (keeping in mind that none of this made anything less awful or okay or acceptable, it just helped me put it into prospective and stop catastrophizing):

-I would rather hear that he enjoyed it because of course he did. If he was telling me otherwise, I wouldn’t believe it and I’d be furious that he was lying. I can work with someone who did something awful, who is being honest about it, owns it, and works on never allowing his brain to justify that again. I cannot work with a lying, self-protective asshole who is continuing to put his instinct to self-protect above my need for honesty, truth, and security.

-Just because he’s being honest, doesn’t make what he’s saying okay, and doesn’t mean I don’t get to react to it.

-I have enjoyed touching, and flirting, and sex, and the excitement of ‘newness’ with other people in the past. I have felt that rush. That rush is not about the person, it's about how *I* feel. I wouldn’t cheat, but I am readily capable of finding other people attractive and I can absolutely imagine enjoying the feelings that would come from doing those things with someone new, the same way I can derive enjoyment out of fantasies that do not involve my spouse. Those things are objectively fun and enjoyable. Being able to enjoy that does not detract from how I feel about my spouse.

-The fact that he gave the OW compliments, does not mean the compliments he gives me are not true or genuine. The fact that I couldn’t hear them without thinking of the OW didn’t mean that he was thinking of the OW, or didn't mean them.

- I'm fucking awesome. I am fucking awesome whether he thinks so or not. If he fails to notice or appreciate that, that's his problem, not mine.

I am trying to re frame things and positive self talk, he builds me up through his actions and words but I keep going back to "He had his hands all over her and loved it"

Gently, I'm glad you're being kind to yourself. It's good he's doing his best to make you feel appreciated and cherished......BUT you should be building yourself up. Your worth, beauty, value, intelligence, humour, etc etc is not dictated by his beliefs, or whether he notices it. All of that exists independent of him and what he chooses to focus on. Your value is yours - it has nothing to do with her. If you give him too much power over your self esteem, you are also giving him the ability to destroy it. The goal should be to knowing all those things about yourself independent of how he feels about you.

You are the best, finest steak in the world*. The fact that he decided to scarf down some cheap ass fast food burger when he knew he had steak at home, doesn't change the value of the steak. We all know that steak is objectively the better cut of meat. The fact that he enjoyed the burger at the time, doesn't make the steak any less delicious. That was always true, regardless of the fact that he now has the shits and his tummy hurts.

*Sorry for comparing you to a piece of meat!

[This message edited by emergent8 at 7:17 PM, Thursday, March 28th]

Emergent

Sorry for comparing you to a piece of meat!

DONT you apologize, I love my food, steak in particular

I really appreciate your advice.

I think the only way past this was through it. Trying NOT to feel it, wont make it go away. Repressed or unprocessed anger leads to resentment, and in the long-term, resentment is TOXIC and will eat away at you and your health, happiness, well-beings and your relationships with others

This is the last thing that I want, it just cuts very deeply to know that for 6 months I wasn't his first choice, the mother of his children, the person he vowed to love and protect forever, he went out to get a cheap thrill from a nasty a** hamburger It is SO MUCH to process but I know eventually I will. I will be so happy when I get to the day when I can say wholeheartedly he traded his family for HIMSELF, not the AP. Most days I know that , then other days I hate her more than anyone can imagine , except you all of course. I know this wasn't about her or me but about a very broken and ugly part in him I WILL NEVER tolerate again.

I have enjoyed touching, and flirting, and sex, and the excitement of ‘newness’ with other people in the past. I have felt that rush. That rush is not about the person, it's about how *I* feel.

Yes I do too but difference is, I stopped it and he welcomed it, I guess when you're broken and hurting anything works to numb the pain.

The fact that he enjoyed the burger at the time, doesn't make the steak any less delicious. That was always true, regardless of the fact that he now has the shits and his tummy hurts.

I hope his tummy hurts for a long a** time maybe if I am lucky, he will get some Hemorrhoids, that may help

Yeah, I would caution against the "our" affair crap. You had no agency, so why would you have ownership. My MC tried that line and I shut her down really quickly. I explained that if my wife got cancer, I wouldn't tell people we had cancer.

Words matter. They really matter and people will often chose them deliberately while feigning a cavalier attitude to them. Your MC might not be up to the task of navigating your situation. Only you can tell, though. Good luck.

OMG HikingOut is so wise!

Please read, re-read, and then read her posts again.

Cheers!

[This message edited by HardKnocks at 9:05 PM, Thursday, March 28th]