SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

When in their explanation as to “Why” your wife tells you he was physically more fit than you, more creative in love making, wealthier and more successful, it’s hard to turn off the mind movies. Even though she now denies any of that was true, it’s the reality that at the time, that’s how she defended her actions.

The mind movies for me were awful. I had to know all of the details, which in retrospect was probably a mistake. But on the other hand I am a person that needs to dig, so I never would have been able to leave it not knowing. Our short lived MC told both of us not to get into the details. One of the reasons they were short lived as that didn’t fly with me.

What I found out was devastating. In my house and bed, right next to pictures of us and our family on the nightstand. Check

Acts that we didn’t do, not so much as she wouldn’t, but rather I knew she didn’t enjoy so I never pushed for. Check.

Unprotected sex, as many times as was physically possible for them to do in a short amount of time so the I didn’t enjoy excuse went out the window. Check

And me having sex with her hours after him. Check

I just couldn’t get the thoughts to go away. Especially the non missionary acts. For some reason her on all fours for me visually was the worst. It didn’t help that I pain shopped those acts with porn watching. Not healthy on my part.

I’m not sure if she had mind movies of him or not. I’m interested in the WS point of view when they talk about mind movies from WS perspective are they positive ones. I know she regretted what she did, and viewed the affair from the rear view mirror as a nightmare. Especially as she lost her family over it and that was the most important thing in her life, but I never really knew if the actual acts were looked at with some sort of satisfaction or disgust. She claims disgust, but the frequency they did it leads me to believe it had to be pleasurable.

He was definitely in our bed almost every time we had sex after, which like Ms Panda was a long time in coming. Not quite 2 years, but a long time. When it did come it wasn’t really lovemaking anymore. I couldn’t with him in the bed with us. I never could do oral after knowing I did it hours after him, and it was a huge part of our sex life. It was missionary. It was quick. It was filling a carnal need and never brought us closer. In fact it probably was a wedge that helped in my decision to throw in the towel.

I do admire those who could exorcise the AP from their minds. For me what she did was too brutal, and no amount of remorse or even knowing how much she loved me could solve

I will say that although she sounds like a monster, she isn’t. She was a super caring partner for 25 years prior to her affair, and would have chopped off an arm to get her marriage back after. A person can’t be that good an actor for that long. It was a moment where she was a monster, but deep down wasn’t. It’s just the hurt ran too deep for us

I will say for some period of time though, it was unwanted, involuntary, and compulsive.

Addictive personalities (and I do believe for some the affair is a form of addiction) tend to have impulse control issues...

I am only commenting to raise awareness around this because it isn't as straightforward or simple for some of us.

Re: unwanted, involuntary, and compulsive-- yes, I understand this.

I was answering more from the perspective of the possible value of mind movies ... specifically, "I hope we can have a good discussion about the value (if any)"

I guess I don't see any value, for the WS, in having mind movies about AP. Unless it's specifically to see yourself doing things with AP and VOW NOT TO DO THEM. Or, maybe to understand what a true pig you were while in the midst of the A. **using "you" in generic or impersonal form

Personally, I think that once a WS gets to the point of understanding the core of their own faults, flaws, failures (etc.), that the compulsive and unwanted mind movies of AP have decreased substantially (if not completely ceased). Then again, maybe I'm prone to think that way because it happened that way for me.

But it's an interesting discussion. And your comments caused me to "reach" a bit more into my own answer-- and see a different POV-- so, I thank you for your response to my original comments.

I’m not sure if she had mind movies of him or not. I’m interested in the WS point of view when they talk about mind movies from WS perspective are they positive ones.

As a former WW, I can honestly say that the majority of what I considered to be mind movies, during the A, had little to do with sexual acts.

During the A, I was more likely to replay discussions we had or to imagine how our relationship would progress. (Still yucky, but hoping not as yucky as thinking we all replay the sex over and over in our minds). My A, in my mind while it was happening, was based on a "mutual and rewarding friendship," and not about sex. **And yes, those words are in " " for a reason, as I see the wrongness of my beliefs at the time.

I still, however, would not term those mind movies as having any value.

Today, I view all that time as wasted time.

Today, I have zero mind movies and no fond memories of any part of my A.

Addictive personalities (and I do believe for some the affair is a form of addiction) tend to have impulse control issues. You will find many of us who had an affair have other issues interrelated with certain addictions.

Yeah it’s interesting. I’ve seen that a lot on this forum. Definitely layers of issues compound the situation and need IC.

Personally never had any addictions or mental health issues. But that just goes to show we Waywards come in all shapes and sizes. I did have issues of entitlement and underlying insecurities dating back to when I was a wee girl. I call it the ugly duckling complex.

Anywho, back to the mind movies. I do know that the reverberation and repetition in my head afterwards made me feel pretty nuts. I knew intellectually that I was acting crazy and that allowing my thoughts to replay (at first about the sexual stuff and later about replaying the rejection) was toxic. So perhaps the value to me was that it forced me to get help. I knew I couldn’t tackle these issues alone.

One of the scenes that bugs me most is a letter she has wrote him near the end when he is dumping her to move on to his newest side piece. In it she shares her answer to “why are you still calling me...We’re over!.” She replies, “because every time I close my eyes I see our future. Flying in your plane, sailing on your boat, making love in your hot tub on your back deck and watching your neighbors reactions, having you inside me after I’ve sucked your c@<k, and spending mornings finding ways to make you stay naked in bed.” He then tells her again to not ever call him again.

This is a major scene that plays over and over in my head that she now denies even though I have a copy of my he letter he sent me to try and get her to stop calling and writing him at the end of their 3 1/2 year affair.

Yes I will second Sundance’s answer mine were never on the sex either. Everything she just said was what mine were like.

Mrs Panda - I have never been an alcoholic or drug user but I do have an addictive personality and have had other issues. My dad was an alcoholic and I am assuming some of it comes from him. I was just always very mindful about alcoholism so I avoided it. I would say in my younger years I had live addiction issues and looking back some of my thoughts and behaviors were disturbing. The affair was a throwback to that.

HO, if I remember correctly, the instances of sex with your AP was minimal. The vast amount of time spent most likely was the emotional part leading to the sex. It’s natural that the mind movies would drift to that.

My guess is where the sex was a much bigger part of the affair, the mind movies would go in that direction.

I had some pretty awful experiences after the divorce with some unpleasant women. However the sex was great. I tolerated it as a trade off as at that point I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I now in hindsight view the short term relationship as a nightmare, but the sex part with a smile. I’m guessing that, although most WS wouldn’t want admit it, is pretty much the same if it was more than just a once or twice encounter and the sex was good enough to risk a marriage over

The sex mind movies of the BS, and the WS have to be totally different. One positive, and the other negative. Of course I recognize that this is not in stone. I had some bad sexual experiences too, but if I went back repeatedly, they were mostly pretty good.

[This message edited by waitedwaytoolong at 5:11 PM, February 25th (Thursday)]

I had some pretty awful experiences after the divorce with some unpleasant women. However the sex was great. I tolerated it as a trade off as at that point I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I now in hindsight view the short term relationship as a nightmare, but the sex part with a smile. I’m guessing that, although most WS wouldn’t want admit it, is pretty much the same if it was more than just a once or twice encounter and the sex was good enough to risk a marriage over

Waitedtoolong,

I think this would be a common assumption. But, I am someone who also before my marriage had some casual encounters, failed relationships, etc. I do not have feelings of humiliation or shame surrounding the sex I had with them. It hurt noone, and while sometimes I might think I wasted my energy on that person I don't have ill feelings about the sex, even the less than stellar experiences.

An affair was different in the aftermath for me. I realized I had been used (I know that should have been obvious), I felt humiliated, and duped. I do understand I was not duped I made my own decisions, but there is this sense of betraying myself. So when I say duped, a lot of that was me feeling like I duped myself. My skin crawls thinking about letting another man touch me. You just can't compare it to sex that you had as an untethered, single individual and sex that was the worst decision of your life. There simply no way for good feelings to co-exist with the level of devastation it brought.

And, regardless of my affair having limited physical contact due to distance, there was graphic sexual talk and pictures on the daily. I think all affairs are sexual, even emotional ones. There just in my mind is no way to carry any good feelings or fondness over any of it - we were two dirty pigs rolling in the mud, and it's truly gross to think about.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:14 AM, February 26th (Friday)]

I do find it interesting that she would like for me to believe it was all about the “intellectual” connection all these years later and that the sex was just “ok.” So is that why for a short burst of time, anal, oral and new positions with new toys came into my life? Talk about plots for Mind Movies. “Geez husband, the sex was so bad with my AP we had to employ several new items to make it worthwhile so we could connect intelligently,”

“I didn’t meet him secretly for over a year to have sex, but rather to talk about business ideas and possibilities. “

[This message edited by Niceguy25 at 2:03 PM, February 26th (Friday)]

Niceguy25

That’s really rough and it sounds like you haven’t ever gotten an honest answer from your WW? I can only imagine that it is about self- protection on her end. And maybe shame.

Sometimes I feel like I got off easy because my BH never wanted details. Not sure how that affected his mind movies

He knew the one OM. Did not know the other. Not sure how that would be for him. I wonder what I would have done in his shoes.

But you never truly know until you have been through this.

MP

H.O. Thank you for your response. You are one of the few posters here willing to touch things like the third rail of mind movies from a WS perspective on the sexual part of the affair. You are very brave and a help to all of the BS who are on this site

[This message edited by waitedwaytoolong at 8:09 PM, February 26th (Friday)]

waitedwaytoolong,

If remorseful WS like HikingOut say they do not have positive thoughts about sex with their AP after they became remorseful why don't you believe them ? For me I project positive memories of past sexual experiences onto my wife and assume she has has the same memories of her AP. Other times I wonder if I am exacerbating all the sexual problems from her affair with my own thoughts and reactions. The problem is I just don't know what is true or false and I don' believe her to tell me the truth.

If remorseful WS like HikingOut say they do not have positive thoughts about sex with their AP after they became remorseful why don't you believe them ?

I do believe her. I also tend to believe any WS whose affair was a ONS or just maybe twice. I had enough short lived sex after the separation to know that the first or maybe the second time can be not so great.

Where it falls apart for me is when it is a LTA or in my case a huge amount of sex in a short time. I get that a remorseful WS looks back at the whole affair with disgust, but find it hard to fathom they would have so much sex, or invest sometimes years with another person, and have zero fond memories of some of the sexual things they did.

I hate to say this, but in cases where they did reconcile, and I’m not saying there wasn’t pain, they ended up with these experiences and sometimes a better marriage.

I’m trying to tread lightly here as this is a protected forum, as it should be. But think about the mind movies I or others BS’s had when we found out. Gut wrenching to the point of throwing up when I thought of them and lasting for years. Unless there was violence or something out of the ordinary, does the WS have the same visceral reaction? I just don’t think so.

, does the WS have the same visceral reaction? I just don’t think so.

I can't speak for anyone else but there are still times (especially after a shower) where I look in the mirror and want to put my head through my reflection because of the memories I see.. in fact during the first few months of going to IC and working towards reconciliation I put my fist through the mirror in an elevator (an elevator I shared with my AP on occasion). Wasn't pretty...

I think the mind movies are different and the emotions are definitely different (different reasons, different roles, different people). But it's a lot of work to overcome the visceral hatred I feel.

[This message edited by forgettableDad at 11:00 AM, February 27th (Saturday)]

This is an interesting topic to me. I was so crushed by the sexual parts of my wife's affair including mind movies and intrusive thoughts I can't even explain it.

I wish there was a resource or a forum thread for my wife to read to help her understand the devastation she caused me with all the sexual things she did with AP.

There really seems to be a shortage of forum threads, articles or books by/for WS to help them understand the absolute devastation they cause their BS in every area of their lives including the sexual area.

There is also a shortage of reference materials for the WS to use to help the BS recover from the devastation.

What can a WS do to help the BS heal from the sexual devastation caused by their cheating ?

[This message edited by Username123 at 1:19 PM, February 27th (Saturday)]

What can a WS do to help the BS heal from the sexual devastation caused by their cheating ?

Nothing.

I wish there was a resource or a forum thread for my wife to read to help her understand the devastation she caused me with all the sexual things she did with AP.

There's no magic forum post that would reveal to your wife the formula to heal you.

Your wife needs to go to personal therapy and do a metric fuckload of work to figure out the kind of person she wants to be and how to get there.

You need to find a good therapist to help you do exactly the same thing as your wife but from a different perspective.

Then at some point you and her will need to sit down and work on your relationship. And you'll have to do it as equals in the relationship. Even though it's not fair. And it will never be fair. But if you both invest and work together at least it'll be worth it.

There really seems to be a shortage of forum threads, articles or books by/for WS to help them understand the absolute devastation they cause their BS in every area of their lives including the sexual area

I've got a pretty large stack of infidelity books (in addition to the plethora I've checked out from my library), and "Cheating in a Nutshell" is the best I've found on this front.

Although it has a decidedly anti-R slant, I think every WS should read it, in the hope they can have a better understanding of the trauma experienced by a BS, and (perhaps more importantly) why the ways in which that trauma manifests (including mind movies) is basically the limbic system doing it's job exactly as designed/intended, and why it takes so long and so much work to learn how to manage.

Waywards,

Do you have any feedback on this comment:

"I get that a remorseful WS looks back at the whole affair with disgust, but find it hard to fathom they would have so much sex, or invest sometimes years with another person, and have zero fond memories of some of the sexual things they did." ?

I fear this exact same scenario with my wife.