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I’m not biased at all. She’s a wayward and I’m giving feedback like she’s a wayward. It’s as simple as that. I don’t agree that a MH gets a free pass because they didn’t strike first.

Also I’m not the only one saying it, so why are you just addressing me?

I think the issue LC is having here (correct me if I'm off base) is that Mickie knows first-hand how hurtful and damaging that withholding feels from a BS perspective, but is acting like it wouldn't be as damaging to her (now) bh for her to do that. Not a higher standard, but an equitable one.

This and the obvious lies about motivation for deleting everything. It’s not about his well being.

[This message edited by landclark at 5:38 PM, December 9th (Wednesday)]

Buck, how long was your wife's affair? How long were your two revenge affairs?

I’m not biased at all. She’s a wayward and I’m giving feedback like she’s a wayward. It’s as simple as that. I don’t agree that a MH gets a free pass because they didn’t strike first.

Also I’m not the only one saying it, so why are you just addressing me?

You are biased LC, not a put down, we all are in some way or another. And she's not 'just' a wayward, she's a MH, there is a difference. You are parroting advice or 'common knowledge' that you've read but you're not offering any feedback based upon your experience as someone with direct experience. And truthfully, you are not a wayward, or a MH, and you offer feedback from that perspective, you don't know what you don't know. This isn't a bash, it's just facts.

Buck, how long was your wife's affair? How long were your two revenge affairs?

I need to write my story on my profile or make a post. I just haven't had the stones to do it yet. My WW had a 6mo-ish A with a married coworker. Shitty MC, rewriting history, TT, minimizing, blameshifting, and rugsweeping all happened. The only thing she did right was end the A before I found out. I had a 1.5 year RA with a previous FWB that was single. I later had a almost 5 year A with a divorcee I met in grad school. My WW knows about both.

You are parroting advice or 'common knowledge' that you've read but you're not offering any feedback based upon your experience as someone with direct experience. And truthfully, you are not a wayward, or a MH, and you offer feedback from that perspective, you don't know what you don't know. This isn't a bash, it's just facts.

Pretty sure she opened this post to betrayed as well. Maybe you missed that? So yeah, I’m offering my feedback from a betrayed side based on what she has said here and I have direct experience with being cheated on.

I really don’t understand your issue to be honest. Also again, I’m not the only one saying it. Do you have some sort of bias toward me for some reason?

get even

My WW had a 6mo-ish A

I had a 1.5 year RA with a previous FWB that was single. I later had a almost

You cheated for 6.5 years. Your wife for half of one year. You say its ok to get even. This seems wildly disproportionate.

I'm not having a go at you. Truly. I'm trying to understand how you can say 6.5 years of cheating is even with 6 months.

I'm not having a go at you. Truly. I'm trying to understand how you can say 6.5 years of cheating is even with 6 months.

I'm not having a go either, but herein lies the danger in 'getting even' I think. Where does it end? When is it 'even'? And I thought you put it very well Buck, that energy would be better spent on healing. I agree.

Just speaking from my BS perspective, an MH affair just doesn't cut the same as an A. Because it is something that I think a LOT of BS's (myself included) think about doing to hurt the WS back in response to the trauma. It's also something a lot of WS's offer to their BS for recompense. Mine did. There's just not quite the same level of betrayal to the original ws imho. Tho I do believe the emotional cost is high for the BS that RAs. But then I'm not a MH, so I might be way off base. And while I still hold that any infidelity is wrong, personally I understand the motivation behind RAs a lot more.

A cheater is a cheater is a cheater. For God's sake people get a divorce. .

*****Tiny T/J**********

There's just not quite the same level of betrayal to the original ws imho

Maybe not the same level of betrayal but based on my own experience, the trauma can be just as damaging to the original WS turned BS/MH.

We can all agree Mickie has work to do. BS,WS,MH whatever you want to call her.

********

Mickie,

WS turned MH here. I betrayed my spouse first, I/We never dealt with it. Then last year my world was turned upside down by her betrayal. Even after everything...depression, emasculation, no self worth, attempt at suicide, divorce, lost my home, lost time with my daughter, lost my dogs.....Looking back through all of that, I still needed to know the truth. I would not go back and shield myself from it.

Your husband (forget the other labels WS/BS/MH), deserves to know what you have done. Lying, omitting, minimizing, trickle truthing will hurt you as well as him.

Doing the right thing, isn't easy. Otherwise none of us would be here. Also YOU will be better for it.

Your husband dug a big fucking hole, you decided to dig a few feet deeper. With or without him, you need to figure out how to climb out of it. It starts by making good decisions. By positive actions. By living with integrity.

Landclark, I really don't have any issue with you. I typically agree with most of what you post. I almost always see your point of view even if I don't agree with you. I have to say I'm a bit shocked at the RA responses here. The oddest "reason" given for not having one seems to be integrity. Some betrayed folks feel that they would be giving up their integrity by cheating. And I know what they mean and I agree with them. But what does your integrity say about staying with someone that's treated you so poorly (and that's putting it mildy)? What I mean is it's not like your totally against infidelity, you're willing to tolerate it in your spouse - the very person that has access to virtually every aspect of your life. Hell, you're not just tolerating it, you're likely doing the lions share of the work. Are we not judged by the company we keep?

Hellfire, I never said it was even. Like Ellie said, when is it even? If we're nitpicking, the vows were already broken when I cheated. It's not like the M was intact and undamaged and I had a faithful wife sitting at home while I was out cavorting with loose women. Yes, we still needed to get the government's blessing to officially end the M and divvy shit up, but it was already dead. I just put a couple of rounds into the corpse.

I have not contacted my online AP of only a few days. He did however use some google number to contact me because he realized his number was blocked. I admittedly weakly told him I was going to end it but I don’t think he believed me until he couldn’t reach me. He did a fake Instagram request and a sneaky phone call.

I have ended the affair. That’s what I have the strength to do. Unfortunately the shaming attempts don’t work on someone like me who already feels broken and justified in their retribution. I’m trying VERY hard to quiet the voices in my head that are telling me that “hey you didn’t actually seal the deal by taking it physical you just talked about it”

If he asks I will tell him the conversations were of a very sexual nature and that when we entered that aspect of the affair he was not mentioned.

You can tell me til you’re blue in the face that I should tell him ...I’m okay with not telling him. If I am being asked to move on without those details then he won’t have them either.

I KNOW that now that I see with my own eyes that the words weren’t even about “HIM” I don’t see the point in knowing what he said to her nor him knowing what I said to him.

I suppose there is “best practice” to reconcile and make things right according to this SI community.... but I take it as this....

Some people can get to a peaceful place just by going to therapy. Some people like me need ESMR. And some people will need to take the healing one step further and experience it differently.

Also- just a word to this community

If a person, most typically a wayward spouse shares their effed up thinking and feelings as I have done here for the purpose of being authentic about whatever they are feeling at the time what is the purpose of beating them down? I know what I’m doing is wrong that’s why I’m here. It’s like “hey guys I’m in limerance with someone who is not my husband help me.” And then you respond- “ how could you even like someone......and your poor husband ......you stooped low......have some integrity....”

Got it- I know it’s wrong that’s why I came here!

Mickie,

So very true.

2x4's start swinging and sometimes the mob mentality takes over - especially here at the Wayward side when Stop Signs are not there - and the posts can get a bit harsh sounding.

Most are well intentioned, so take some of what is said through that lens.

You've had a lot of presence of mind to be here and to share your struggles - which is a lot more than many do. You'll find your way though this. Pick through the advice and take what works for you.

Mickie

I can so relate to what you’re going through.

Many folks forget the adage “You get more flies with honey than you do with vinegar”. 2x4’s can be helpful in some circumstances but even then, it’s all in the delivery.

Constantly hammering a point home to someone who is clearly resistant isn’t going to make them more likely to acquiesce. In fact, the opposite often happens. Add in the vitriol which often accompanies those “well meaning” 2x4 and you end with a person even more dug. Or they just leave the site all together.

That is the real tragedy IMO. I have seen other WS come here who post a couple of times, receive the “mob treatment” and then never write again. Certainly some may have not been serious about recovery while others just lurk. But for the latter category and those that leave, that certainly goes against what this site is all about. This forum especially, is supposed to be a safe spot for WS to work through this. But when a chorus of folks continue to toss negativity your way, it becomes just the opposite. That’ not only negatively impacts the WS but also the BS as well.

That being said, there are some truly wonderful people here from both sides of the infidelity fence. I am truly blessed to have met these folks; in fact I owe one of them my life. Through their help, I am finding my way through this. They understand that having empathy and compassion, especially in an anonymous forum like this, costs nothing except a few minutes of their time but can reap great rewards for the recipient.

Mickie don’t let the negativity stop you from posting. There are those of us who only want to help you navigate this as best we can.

You can tell me til you’re blue in the face that I should tell him ...I’m okay with not telling him. If I am being asked to move on without those details then he won’t have them either.

I'm confused. Is your plan to confess but refuse to tell him the details of the texting, or not to tell him about OM at all?

Mickie,

The 2x4s and verbal beatings definitely suck and are hard to hear, but for good reason. They're hard to hear because we've trained ourselves to avoid that conflict. They suck because there's still a part of you who is in denial. We all experienced it. Eventually, you'll see these words as a form of help.

Hi Mickie -

I understand how you feel. When I got here I left for a while because of the 2 by 4s. What may surprise you is I came back because of them as well. The further away you get from this affair the more what has been said will resonate for you. You will begin (hopefully, I certainly did) to see what was said is advice that is in your best interests.

Even without having my husband cheat on me I was low enough to know what you mean by the "shaming doesn't work".

There isn't a WS here who hasn't had these painful truths thrown at them, so I can empathize fully with you on that.

At the same time if you don't wake up, you are going to keep making this worse for yourself, and I think that's what we are all seeing. You already have, your behaviors have just continued to esculate. Instead of going in a direction of healing yourself, you are going dangerously the opposite direction and making it far worse for yourself. Like your title says this side of it is horrible, I truly understand that.

You are approaching a problem with broken thinking. It takes a long time to feel remorseful over your actions, but until then you will swim in shame and justifications, and my concern is if you really have the strength to walk away from this. And if you do, will you just start up again with someone else. The more this goes on the lower you will sink and the harder it will be to climb out.

Part of the reason full honesty is important from a WS is you can't get clean without it. You can't rise up, absolve your shame, without doing the right thing. You may not be ready yet. I get that. I went to counseling for 2 months before I confessed. But, I urge you to do something different here in your remedy. You need to make an IC appointment and start thinking about the things that are going to be healing instead of using people like bandaids. That may sound shaming, but I don't see how I can shame someone for doing something I myself did. It's more, I have been there and have done this and know it's a dead end.

Lastly, I am a WS. I cheated on my husband. Some days it's very hard for me to see I didn't have it coming to me that he turned around and did the same thing to me. But other days, I can see that:

-He lied to me for 18 months all the while I was working on myself and our marriage. I was a second class citizen. It's not that I can no longer see that I earned that role in our home, but looking back it's awfully hypocritical. It's as hypocritical as anything I can say or do now with a BS hat on.

-He must not believe cheating is as wrong as he was acting when we had our tumultuous first year after dday. He obviously believes it's right in certain circumstances to be able to bend the rules for himself. So he basically condemned me while doing the same thing.

-He is as much of a coward as I was. He could have done many other things than cheat, same as me.

-He has now doubled up our risk on divorce and breaking up our family. You have kids at home so this is just creating a more and more toxic environment that they have to grow up in. You didn't start it, but you are perpetuating it.

-He doesn't feel better. He has prolonged his own misery because he has not dealt with his own healing on what I did to him. He's created a distraction for himself so now he has twice the climb to get out of this. I can't save him, but it's excruciating to watch.

-I broke his trust, but mine for him had been intact. Now, he has broken mine. Way harder for us to resolve our relationship in this state.

I bring all that up because sometimes it's helpful to see it in someone else's experience because you aren't quite in the emotional weeds with someone else's situation.

The truth is most WS are at a low point when they cheat. And, honestly, most of us have unresolved trauma. I wasn't cheated on, but I was every bit as low as you sound right now. It didn't make it right for me, it doesn't make it right for you. It didn't help me it made my problems infinitely worse. Same for you.

So, what should happen now? I should go and even the score because I had a 2 month affair and he had an 18 month affair? I had sex 3 times, and he had it about that many times a week or more for 18 months? No way am I going that route, not to spare him exactly - but to spare myself. And, also I want all options open to me, especially R, so I am not going to do anything other than find the next healthy thing to do. That's the best I have for you - find the next healthy thing to do.

I support you if you want to divorce him, but please do not ask us to support you to continue down this path you are on. I know you are broken, but looking for anyone to validate your decisions at this point would be a disservice to you, and disingenuous to ourselves.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:34 AM, December 10th (Thursday)]

I’m okay with not telling him.

I hope that, over time and with counseling and healing, this thought changes. If you're not going to be 100% honest with your spouse then why stay married? Good luck.

Damn, BSR, I'm really sorry to hear your news. I didn't know. I am so sorry.

This confused me for a minute! I think you thought I wrote hikingout's comment.

[This message edited by BraveSirRobin at 12:50 PM, December 10th (Thursday)]

I am confused too! I was about to ask if you were ok, BSR.