SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Since clueless non BS shoot the injured BS all too often, I will go on a spicy vent.

It's just bullsh*t that so many people think that infidelity is funny and should be laughed at . F*ck all the sitcoms and movies where the BS is portrayed as getting in the way of the WS and AP "true love".

F*ck the fact that is much more socially acceptable to not tell the BS. F*ck the fact the people who do tell often are seen as a "snitch " or someone who "stabbed the WS in the back" by clueless non BS's.

F*ck all the misconceptions that blame the BS for the A instead of the WS.

Here are the f*cken misconceptions.

Before the A

The BS must have done SOMETHING to make the WS consider cheating.

That something may be

1) Not enough sex

2) A nag

3) Cold

4) Unsupportive

5)ETC to infinity.

During the A

How can the BS not know that the A is going on ?

How can the BS not spot the signs of an A?

How can the BS not know that they are being lied to ?

After Dday

The BS is dumb for staying with the WS.

The BS is vindictive and unforgiving if they divorce.

It is the BS fault when the BS can't "get over it" within a month or less.

F+ck that sh!t.

All those damn social norms and misconceptions that just f*cken adds insult to injury to an already hurting BS !

You have been heard. I am sure more people will be along to weigh in soon.

I say about small minded blamey people "until it happens to you".

I generally do not mean that kindly when I am referring to mean people who victim blame. Bad stuff happens as the result of people’s bad behavior. And it’s the fault of the people doing the bad stuff, not the person having the bad stuff done to them…
Sorry you experienced this.

Do you want to hear another one? If the A doesn’t work out because the other AP lied and promised a life together that will never take place, they are immature people but the WS who lied to their spouse never gets mentioned. It is hurtful, disrespectful and cunning to lie to the AP because the AP is in love and the other is taking advantage of that. What about the WS? Are they not deceiving the spouse who trusts them?

Dorothy, didn’t you take me to task for talking about a "bomb in my living room"? 🧐🤨😏

You nailed it! F them all! I truly believe it stems from humans insatiable desire to be in control of everything. If I have control nothing can hurt me, right?

Oh she has cancer? It’s because she smokes, I don’t so I am safe.

Her son committed suicide? Can’t happen to my family, because I am a good mom and am in touch with my child’s mental health.

He was in a fatal car wreck? Well, I always knew he drove recklessly.

SHE/HE WAS CHEATED on? Wouldn’t have happened if they’d been a loving supportive spouse, like me!

All just a delusional mind games of controlling shit when it’s uncontrollable.

And I also don’t think the pain is fathomable to anyone unless experienced so they don’t have a clue what the hell they’re talking about. Sadly, it makes me hope they learn.

Oh so true. Early on I was asking the typical questions such as what did I do wrong what didn't I do what didn't I do enough of etc. I kept telling myself there has to be something wrong with me that caused her to do this, there's no way it just happened, I'm a good husband and a good guy, but has to be something wrong with me

The day I confronted her she responded with animosity anger vitriol and then she tried using deflection. She kept saying you are so angry and you're so mad and you're this and you're that and I kept saying when did I do that, can you give me an example and of course the answer was I can't remember off the top of my head. That's because she was trying to Gaslight me, make me think that I am in the wrong

But as time went by and I got better control of my thoughts and emotions I started to slowly realize that I did nothing wrong and this was 100% her fault. One night while talking she said placing blame doesn't help, we are both at fault and I snapped back with I am not at fault for you having an affair, you made the decision on your own

She retorted with so all those years of you not talking to me, of you freezing me out, you don't think you are partially to blame and I said no. I asked you to go to marriage counseling to help us learn how to communicate better and you adamantly said no so I went on my own and I realized what I was doing wrong and realized what I wasn't doing and I brought all of that home trying to talk to you but you still wanted no part of having raw open vulnerable conversations so no, you are 100% at fault

I always assumed that bad marriages had affairs but after lots of research I realized that good and bad marriages have affairs. Once I accepted the fact that the only part of a relationship I can control are my actions and that if my partner is going to have an affair it's going to happen and I am powerless to stop it so there's no sense thinking about it or worrying about it or obsessing about it, a large weight was lifted from my mind

A few weeks back while talking my wife said I understand what you are going through and I said you need to stop saying that because you don't. You can guess and you can empathize to a degree but until you are on this side of an affair you cannot understand what it does to your soul

ETA. During one conversation recently I said try to imagine that you found out I was carrying on with a woman who is 13 years younger than you (the AP is 13 years younger than me, I was 49). Someone who is obviously younger and healthier and has a body that is better than yours. Now try to imagine how secure you think you would feel in your relationship. Do you think maybe it would always be in the back of your mind that your husband wants someone who is younger and healthier and has a better body?

[This message edited by WB1340 at 5:18 PM, Tuesday, October 29th]

F'em I say... until it happens to them.

I heard all these it's ridiculous the way society carries these misconceptions.

I no longer have these people as my friends and I kicked my xWS to the curb so yeah F'em

I truly believe it stems from humans insatiable desire to be in control of everything. If I have control nothing can hurt me, right?

Oh she has cancer? It’s because she smokes, I don’t so I am safe.

Her son committed suicide? Can’t happen to my family, because I am a good mom and am in touch with my child’s mental health.

He was in a fatal car wreck? Well, I always knew he drove recklessly.

SHE/HE WAS CHEATED on? Wouldn’t have happened if they’d been a loving supportive spouse, like me!

All just a delusional mind games of controlling shit when it’s uncontrollable.

OMG Ontheotherside, you said perfectly what I've struggled to explain. Thank you! I noticed this control piece as I noticed the similarities between people's reaction to my mom dying and my husband cheating. They want to believe they are safe and so they continue with the illusion of control. Hell, I was a person that did that, too, before the A. I recall saying to the STBXH when we were together (while, in retrospect, he had already started the affair), "You could never cheat on me. We spend all our time together! When would you manage to do it?" He laughed and agreed. I believed and wanted to believe that I would notice something changing if he cheated; that it would look like the movies where he started coming home late with lipstick on his collar. Well, he never came home late and the AP didn't wear lipstick, yet I was still cheated on. Isn't it funny the extremes to which we will go to avoid giving up the illusion of control?

I've observed that some people I've known who have undiscovered affairs say seemingly cruel or insensitive things to affair victims.

However it's more like they are trying to justify their own behaviors and minimize the damage they have done, rather than insensitivity.

Righteous rant there Dorothy123!

F+ck that sh!t.

This should be on the infidelity T-shirt. I may just have one made for myself.

YUP.

It's always been bizarre to me how infidelity is universally accepted as bad and the cheater is the bad guy when people are talking about an abstract concept. But when it's personal--when you know the WS and BS--suddenly all these misconceptions come into play. Now it is, at least partially, the BS's fault, and any minor character flaw the BS may possess or any bad moment they had that was witnessed by others is used as justification on behalf of the WS.

But agreed--it's a control thing. "I never nag my H so I will never be cheated on."

I can't fully identify with the mindset of non-BSes because even before I discovered I was a BS, I never victim-blamed or looked down on a BS. And I never thought I could never be the victim of infidelity (like it was only meant to happen to ugly nags), although I did think my H was completely trustworthy... in that sense, I always believed I was safe: not because I was so amazing, but because I thought my H was. Weeks before DDay, my friend had her own DDay, and when I was mentioning it to my H, I talked about how if that happened to me "my world would implode." I certainly did not say, well my friend is xyz, so therefore, infidelity is somewhat expected.

However... I do admit I would laugh at infidelity jokes or when I heard about crazy situations that involved infidelity. I also didn't view cheating as a friendship dealbreaker--I would voice my disapproval to any friend involved in infidelity, but I continued being friends with them. Not anymore. Now if I discover anything like that, the person is removed from my life. I guess I had to walk a mile to truly understand how shitty of a person you'd have to be to participate in something like this.

You have been heard

Thanks.

If the A doesn’t work out because the other AP lied and promised a life together that will never take place, they are immature people but the WS who lied to their spouse never gets mentioned

Yeah. Misconceptions sucks.

Dorothy, didn’t you take me to task for talking about a "bomb in my living room"?

Hmmm. Did I ? I don't remember.

You nailed it!

Thanks.

Oh so true

Sadly yes.

F'em I say... until it happens to them.

Hallelujah!

OMG Ontheotherside, you said perfectly what I've struggled to explain.

I agree.

I've observed that some people I've known who have undiscovered affairs say seemingly cruel or insensitive things to affair victims.

However it's more like they are trying to justify their own behaviors and minimize the damage they have done, rather than insensitivity.

Interesting.

Someone should tell their BS's.

Righteous rant there Dorothy123!

Thanks.

This should be on the infidelity T-shirt. I may just have one made for myself

But agreed--it's a control thing. "I never nag my H so I will never be cheated on."

YUP!

[This message edited by Dorothy123 at 4:16 PM, Wednesday, October 30th]

ETA : I'm Okay.

This picture proves that "a picture is worth a thousand words".

[This message edited by Dorothy123 at 4:30 PM, Thursday, October 31st]

I get feeling angry about the lousy things people say and do around infidelity. A lot of people think it’s funny and others just can’t believe it could happen to them…

One of the lousier things exwh said to me in false reconciliation is if I didn’t do exactly what he wanted sexually then he would get "it" elsewhere.

He also got friends to harass me with texts that if I worked as hard pleasing him as I did being an awful wife about his cheating that I would not have been dumped or some sort of nonsense.

This and a myriad of things did not align with my values around consent, mutual respect, and intimacy in general. Nor was nonconsentual non monogamy in alignment with my aforementioned values. So I guess that makes me the villain in his story. Cue the mother talking in the Peanuts movies…Wawawa

How he married such a cold frigid nagging hag I will never know (replies sarcastically). Perhaps if he had been honest with me before we married about his sexual preferences , sexual history, and propensity to cheat, we could have avoided this whole unfortunate thing…

The actual joke in all of this nonsense at least for me is that how can anyone have a fulfilling sexual and intimate relationship when there is so much deception and lies. A lot of times I think if there were sexual or relational issues it is because the ws was acting in ways that did not promote intimacy.

People can blame the victim all they want but to them I say "until it happens to you"

In the too bad this has not to my knowledge happened yet department, bonus points if what actually happens is one of these holier than thou friends of his ( enemies to my ex marriage) comes home and finds exwh in bed with their spouse some day.

NO SOLICITING.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:52 PM, Friday, November 1st]

Ontheothersideofhell and Ballofanxiety, "Affair proofing your marriage " is an extreme example of trying to control the uncontrollable and blaming the BS all rolled up in a neat little package.

[This message edited by Dorothy123 at 3:59 PM, Saturday, November 2nd]

Dorothy123, that is so true! Affair proofing? 😂🙄 yes, of course, it’s up to the faithful to make sure their sweet, needy, little spouses keep their trousers on and when they don’t, needs just weren’t being met. 🙄 The betrayed really need a lesson in how to please their spouse otherwise they should expect it! 🤮 barf

Dorothy123, that is so true! Affair proofing? 😂🙄 yes, of course, it’s up to the faithful to make sure their sweet, needy, little spouses keep their trousers on and when they don’t, needs just weren’t being met. 🙄 The betrayed really need a lesson in how to please their spouse otherwise they should expect it! 🤮 barf

This really tickled my funny bone !

Othersideofhell

Glad I was not drinking my morning coffee when I read your post or I would be wiping it off the screen