SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Infidelity isn’t the only substantial trauma I have had to deal with in life, and humor has always been a part of my healing.

That said, it took almost two years before I could find a way to laugh about much of anything. When I finally was able to find some humor — and I get why some of us will never find humor in this — it highlighted the absurdity of it all.

If it is a choice I have not made, there is no way for me to fully ever understand that choice. But when I can identify the absolute nonsense of the rationalizations made about those choices, they are all absurd and I when I finally able to laugh at that, I knew I would be okay.

I did mock the AP along the way, but that wasn’t humor, that was intended to frame who and what he is.

Because I chose R, mocking my wife happened a couple times, but out of pain, not any fun. I shut that down pretty quick, since it wasn’t helping either of us heal the M.

It’s in my profile story, but I was a master at remarks I thought of a teasing, but really were terrible things said under the guise of a joke to hurt her.

Her affair was with the electrician working in our house. On Day about a year after we were in Home Depot and I remarked to her in the aisle with the tool belts that I should put one on and she could blow me in one of the aisles and the other workers could listen.

Her AP set her up to do something like that where he told the other guys on the job to listen and took her. Into a room where she gave him head and they all heard. Not only that, he left a deposit on her shirt and when she came out from behind the door they were all snickering One of the worst moments of her life

After I said that she collapsed on the floor hyper ventilating. They were all set to call 911 but we calmed her down. I have never felt worse about it treating someone as horribly as I did that day.

That was the day all the cutting remarks ended. Sad it took that to make me stop.

In the early days, when we would go to the grocery store and see a very old and decrepit woman, I would ask him if he had a hard on.

My therapist told me "Time heals all wounds". So, I stabbed him. Now we wait…

One night she said "I know I screwed up" and my response was "no honey you definitely screwed down". It was shot and it felt good.

I am, according to a very reliable source (moi!) a very funny woman. We do not joke about his As or APs. There have been too many, and if I made a joke, we both know it wouldn't be because I'm "healed." I am an avoider, not just because I don't like conflict, but because when I do engage and say what I'm feeling in the moment, I can and have completely devastated people. My mean streak flows very, very deep, but it's there.

The closest we came to joking about any of them was between BIG DDay (dday 2) and dday 3. I was using the work van to set up for an event. The work van I spent a day in a bank buying for him. The work van he fucked AP in. I was a bit triggered and let him know. He was trying to talk me down and boost me up yadayadayada. Telling me it didn't mean anything and to not be triggered by that fucking van. That FUCKING van. Har-dee-fucking-har.

We don't ever really talk about it at all. He asked the other day why we haven't watched The White Lotus. From the advertisements, I can tell there is a lot of philandering going on, so I just have no interest, even though in any other circumstance, it seems right up my alley. Did I tell him that? Nope. Just said I didn't think it would be good for me. He didn't ask anything, and I didn't expound on it.

[This message edited by Trapped74 at 11:06 PM, Thursday, January 12th]

"A little over a year from Dday and we were cleaning out our master closet there was dress shirt neither of us remember. Without thinking I said "some dude probably left it here 🤣"

I actually did find "some Dude's" work shirt hanging in my wife's closet. Wasn't funny except watching my wife come up with a creative way to explain the he didn't leave it here....gave it to her when they were out together because she was cold and he had it sitting in his truck so he gave it her to wear. I actually believe that one. Most of the other "explanations" were pretty much fabrications. But I did find the humor in making her work so hard to come up with convincing lies and her acting all relieved when I "acted" like a bought it.

[This message edited by DrTarzan at 1:51 AM, Friday, January 13th]

My WH and I have used humor as a coping mechanism throughout our marriage, and we have joked often in our marriage about many things. I"ve joked with others here, and it's not gone down well.

I don't joke about the affair with my WH. It's not funny. My WH feels bad. The AP isn't an object of ridicule. She's as pitiful as my WH is.

Honestly, this is hard for me. Every situation deserves a good joke. But no, it's just hurtful.

I want to be able to joke about it in a way, but really I just want to mock the AP. That's harder in my situation than some others described here, because in a lot of ways I do not at all believe my WW "affaired down". Just being honest about it. If you stood us side by side and asked a hundred women which of us is the better looking man, it'd be a 50/50 split. We make very similar incomes doing vastly different careers. I don't know him well enough to know much about his personality, but I'm well aware of my own shortcomings so that naturally gives him an edge in my mind. So I battle very hard with the classic feeling of being inadequate compared to my WWs affair partner. He's younger, attractive in a very different way (different ethnicity, very lean and athletic build, whereas I'm a much more muscular, bigger man without the six pack abs this dude has). So I compare often just like so many BS's do, and I've often said to my WW, "I need you to cut him down in my mind. He haunts me. He's this suave, good looking, sexual dynamo with pornstar 'equipment' (which that part is true, and really sucks for a BH and does a number on my mind and confidence)" I need her to tell me the bad, what he did wrong, his little failings that humanize him. She told me the truth about him, and I asked, so that's on me. Wish I didn't know some of it now, but too late for that. So I think some joking and mocking may be necessary to help humanize the guy. At least in my situation, that's the benefit of using humor. I call him little gamer-boy. That seems to help me.

1234Marine-

I’m sorry to hear that. Well- he’s already beneath you because he cheated so he can’t be as attractive as you.

Unfortunately all the insults I could think of would inadvertently crush your wife in the process so I think you might reconsider joking about it.

I’ve got a really viscous tongue- so I try to stick with just insulting her physical appearance and I’m lucky because she’s not all attractive.

I stick to insults about how grumpy she was and how great she was at rimming…..which makes my husband cringe because I’m like how many a*# did she practice on to get good at it…..and you kissed that mouth? See how that’s tearing her down but it’s destroying my FWH as well?

Instead I might say- "with a face and personality like hers she had to learn how to kiss ass" lol

But I digress.

AP is dead in my story, but he will never....living or dead....get humor from me. He deserves vitriol, and I am more than willing to offer that.

I may be sarcastic in real life, but to each their own. If humor truly works as a healing agent for some, then who am I to question that? You use what works, as long as it is in a healthy manner. I hold my wife's infidelities way up high on my 'cut-me-to-the-core' list, and humor just does not apply for me. Definitely wouldn't offer me any healing power.

I feel you, 1345Marine. I wish I could say with confidence that my husband affaired down, but in a lineup people would likely see her as superior to me in a lot of ways. Physically I don’t think one of us is necessarily more attractive than the other, but she’s a different ethnicity and has enough attractive features that I don’t that it hits at my self esteem pretty hard. She’s also more passionate and less reserved, more successful, better educated, comes from more money and higher flying circles, etc,, etc. So jokes at her expense don’t come naturally, and the ones that do occur to me just highlight my own insecurity and make me feel mean-spirited. I do think I’m a nicer person and more easy going and less drama generally (a lot of people at my husband’s work don’t like her because she’s overbearing, intense, and doesn’t listen well or give people the benefit of the doubt). But then this experience hasn’t really highlighted the easy going part of me, so maybe I don’t have the edge there, either. Sigh. I really do have a sense of humor. But it’s deserted me in this.

[This message edited by Grieving at 12:57 AM, Saturday, January 14th]

My FWH’s AP is of a different race. She looks like, well, frumpy Ashley Judd in Monster and I look more like Ciara/Meghan Markle.

She has very low self esteem and a shitty childhood from a trailer park. I’m a former school principal.

It actually feels just as bad when the AP is unattractive on my end. I am constantly turning down men trying to pick me up- and he was slumming. I realize it’s because no one would have suspected they’d be together—— but yet she had his attention for 18 months!

I will occasionally make a comment when she goes to the gym - "Tell Steve I said hello".

Steve is a mutual friend of ours that goes to the same gym. She doesn't see it, but I can tell he pays more attention to her when the 3 of us are in conversation. She has told me he's started conversations with her when I'm not there. I have a neurological condition that is getting worse, so I've joked if he's asked her "is your husband dead yet?", so he can move in on her.

That's about as far as our joking goes. We rarely talk about her affair, 7 years post dDay, let alone joke about it. Matter of fact, I'm extra sensitive to any infidelity stories I hear, like if something comes up on the news or something about a relative cheating. I generally just keep my mouth shut and hope the conversation ends.

However, my wife's sister made a comment that totally caught me off guard last year. There was this huge family gathering, about a dozen or so people, waiting for seating at Outback. I sat next to sister-in-law, seating was tight and we were squished against each other, when she made a comment, "I know you want to have an affair with me". (She knew of wife's infidelity). I get that she was trying to make a joke because we were packed like sardines, but I was really put off by her comment. I said to her, "when is a good time to start joking about infidelity?" It got real quiet and she started to stutter, saying "I didn't mean anything by it...", then I raised my voice and said, "No, seriously, you tell me a good time to kid around. Year? Two? Couple of months?" It got real uncomfortable after that. No one said anything afterwards, but I'm sure it made for family fodder once my wife and I had left.

No, never. I wouldn’t question how another couple gets through it. I just could not imagine laughing about any of it.

The closest I would say we have gotten is joking about some of the things we have learned about ourselves in therapy.

After I said that she collapsed on the floor hyper ventilating. They were all set to call 911 but we calmed her down. I have never felt worse about it treating someone as horribly as I did that day.

That was the day all the cutting remarks ended. Sad it took that to make me stop.

Oof. Most of us do and say things in anger post-D-Day or when we're triggered that we don't feel good about. I know I certainly did. The whole "hurt people, hurt people" thing, I suppose. I wont share the names I had for the AP due to the rules of the Reconciliation forum, but trust me, they existed.

The truth is though, the names never made me feel any better, and in fact, it tended to make me feel worse. I'm not a mean person. In fact, when I was still in the phase where I couldn't help but compare myself to the AP, one of the things that I would always tell myself is that at least I'm a good person and unlike my husband and the AP, at least my morals and ethics were in tact.

Like Trapped, I also consider myself to be a very funny person (though you'd never know it here - particularly in this rather sanctimonious post ). One of the things they say that good comedy punches up versus punches down. I do think that's true. This far out, any joke I could make about the AP or my husband (when he was a wayward) would absolutely be punching down and I am way too funny for that.

I used to leave a phone message letting her know I was on my way home and to "... get her boyfriend out of the house before I got there, and hopefully he took care of some of my chores...". That was when I thought she would never stoop so low to cheat. Since her affair, I've gotten pretty serious, lost my sense of humor, and can't recall the last time I really laughed.

We are 7 months out from the last EA incident. My fWH liked to send the OW money through online gift certificates or buying gift cards where he would scratch the back of the gift card and send them the numbers through picture on his phone. We are in R but it’s a long road. We recently bought me a new car and because of some fluke, it could only be titled in his name. He was joking with me that "he now only is the sole owner…" and I joked,, just don’t give it to one of your GFs while I’m still driving it. He had this hurt look on his face. Later he told our MC counselor how badly that pained him. I’m ready to joke, but he is not. He has always been the more sensitive one and cowardly to boot. However, he is the king of jokes and sarcasm. . We have lost that in our conversations, because in our R path, we seem formal with each other. Our dialog is superficial. We save deep conversations for MC time because we are two people who had always had a great marriage til he decided to talk to sugar babies to middle aged women over the WWF game, then took it to another level with them. It will be a long time til we are both ready to joke.

I don't joke about her with my husband, but my two best friends and I have a hay-day at her expense.
We talk about her horrible style choices, how she's aged so drastically and just looks like a hose beast now.
It's actually been theraputic for me.
My husband and I have better things to talk about now and my friends and I can be catty about her with each other and nobody gets hurt.

Well, I’m only 2 months past d-day. However, I have cPTSD so I checked myself into the hospital the evening of the day he told me. My husband came back into the triage room with me. I was having a hard time talking and the nurse said, "could I just get your information from your husband?" I shrugged and managed to say, "if he’ll tell you the truth." That was kind of a joke? maybe? My husband sighed and said, "I’m the problem. I cheated on her." The nurses immediately stepped between us and said, "step outside sir." Got him the hell on out of there!

Yes, we joke. It really depends on my mood and how I’m feeling in the R at that moment. H is a very joking kinda man, he’s very funny and humor is how he deals with stress. It felt good the first time we made an inside joke. I think humor can be a great tool for healing it just needs to be used appropriately

I wouldn't say that we joke...but just the other day WH was commenting about how he keeps ALL his text messages and "never deletes anything" in reference to trying to find something his brother sent him like 7 years ago and I let out a big sigh and laughed and said "As if." He then sort of laughed and said "Well, aside from deleting about 20,000 messages from that person for like 2 years solid I mean. Otherwise I've deleted nothing."

He has tried to joke about things but I would just rather not talk about it. As far as he and I go - I'm infidelitied-out - jokes or not, but the above comment of his did make me laugh out loud.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 6:54 PM, Tuesday, January 24th]

Been thinking deeply about how to couch my response. H and I are joking types, so it's striking there's NO joking about AP or A. I've concluded the absence of joking is a good thing - at least in our situation. If humor helps you get through this - great. No judgement here.

H never threw her under the bus or put her down. He did acknowledge the nostalgia tinted glasses he wore during the A obscured her true nature; that fake familiarity made it easier to slide down that slippery slope. Nor did he defend her, even when I angrily released the Kracken (exposed her hidden financial shenanigans/multiple marriages) during D-day aftermath. He took responsibility for his choices - he didn't blame her. Which benefited our R. Him belittling her wouldn't have sat right with me. Would've felt like blame shifting - an attempt to put the blame on HER. ME belittling her is a different thing altogether Aside from early post D-day confrontations when I efficiently decimated his false assumptions about her character, jokes at her expense were ALWAYS with my support posse. Roasting her was VERY therapeutic. Being able to joke about her was a sign I was healing. But inviting him to join in on AP roasting would provide opportunity to take the heat off him, so I never went there.

Years later, joking with him about AP still doesn't sit right. Would feel like yucky triangulation - he and I triangulating against her. Which wouldn't be healthy for R. She's an outsider, not the hypotenuse in a triangle that includes us! H and I are a team, but we're still working towards healthy communication. Feels mean-spirited to use her as a scapegoat to reinforce our relationship, or gang up on her just to prove she remains on the outside. Plus it's difficult to find humor in the implosion of our old marriage. I'd be okay with him joking at his own expense about the A, about the absurdity of his justifications, etc. but that doesn't happen.

Thanks for posing this question OP! Prompted lots of productive thinking.

[This message edited by BoundaryBuilder at 8:08 PM, Wednesday, January 25th]