SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Sometimes I think I am losing my shit

It'd be concerning if you weren't. You can't process anything if you stay in shock.

You don't have to answer if it's too personal, but did he volunteer the info re: what she said when they were intimate, or did you ask him?

(REPEAT TRIGGER WARNING) So, while they were having sex once she had him tell her how much better this or that was than with me. You like my blowjobs better don't ya kind of thing. So, I know for a fact it would have been hard for him not to be thinking of me during sex.

Speaking as a compartmentalizer: not necessarily? He was responding to a script. If she said, "Call me a dirty little bitch," he wouldn't pause to audit whether he actually felt that way about her. It's a thing his sexual partner asked him to say to heighten the experience. A terrible, disrespectful thing, I'm not minimizing that, and obviously she intended for him to actually make that comparison and "win" over you. I just think it's possible that it was an unexamined response on his side.

These details are so hard to hear, but she’s more obsessed with you more than your H. She discovered a crack and went for it.

This is a situation where you shouldn’t compare your As.

Yes, and I don't try and think mine was better or any of those things. It's not so much comparing the affairs as we process what other people do through our own experiences with it?

The situation you described: some women get high on winning one over another woman.

Totally.

The AP in your H’s case obviously had a shit self esteem and needed to fill her bucket by comparing even her pussy with another woman’s (eww!).

I know, who does that? It never would occur to me to ask that? I don't even have that as a question after my husband cheated on me.

As to your H: as you know, the highs of an affair kind of overshadow everything else.

Yes, that's where my experience comes in, and I can understand it on that level. The pain is in the details so this is just one I am fixated on at the moment. Mostly because I am preparing what I want to know on the poly and right now this is one of my optional questions. That's why it even came to mind.

I was actually texting and asking my WH if he’s cheating on me 😭 the day he actually took off from work to go on a fuckfest with his AP. I also struggled to understand how could he maintain an erection when I literally just texted “are you cheating on me?” (For the context I emailed his work email and got an out of office, I actually joked in my text asking him that 😞 ) . But he did maintain an erection, not once but twice and spent a lovely day with his AP.

Yeah, that's fucked up. And, I feel like a hypocrite in one way for saying it, but then I realize that I have been saying what I did was fucked up for years, so I think I can have that reaction to anything else at this point!

How did I process? Well it took a while but I understood that the A highs are above everything. I understood this when it dawned on me that nothing mattered. Our kids didn’t matter. Their pain going from seeing their parents laughing, kissing, holding hands (yes, even during the A, how is that for compartmentalisation) to a wreck of a mother and an absent minded father didn’t matter. So how could I expect a text from me to bring any guilt?

This is good food for thought.

As to your H’s conversation with the AP... I would probably be stuck more on how did he even find that attractive? If I’d have sex now with a guy who’s asking me if his junk is bigger than my ex or whatever I’d be like “erm... you have serious problems and I just dried up, no thanks”.

EXACTLY! I was very high and into the AP and if he would have said something like that to me it would have been a serious problem for me. At the same time, I think back at some of the other things that were not a problem for me at all that should have been as well. Again, not comparing, but trying to use my own knowledge/experience to try and process it.

You were in your box, the one where the cheating spouse puts their BS whilst cheating, you became fictional.

Very good point and way to put it.

Or it may have made him feel powerful, having this woman wanting to compare herself to his wife (hence reinforcing he already had the better deal at home)?

I am not sure, I think it bothered him enough for him to remember it specifically enough to disclose it. OR he was afraid that I would hear from her what his response was. (It was generic, I forget exactly what he said "Like oh yeah that's good pussy" or something like that

Affairs are fucked up. And this detail will go around in your head until you will decide to put it in the “processed” file once you accept that yes, cheaters do such cruel and shocking things during an A that you cannot recognise them as a human being.

The worst of that for me is he has said that to me numerous times over the years, unprompted. It's one of his "go tos" for dirty talk. However, that's where my own experience helps me with that part of it - it's easy to pull out of a hat. It requires no creativity. We are creatures of habit and what has worked well for us in the past.

You don't have to answer if it's too personal, but did he volunteer the info re: what she said when they were intimate, or did you ask him?

No I didn't even know this was a thing to ask him. We were trying to figure out the best way to go about some of those details because I mean he saw her all the time. This was an ongoing sexual relationship. I estimate he had sex with her almost as much has he had with me during that time. He never had performance issues with me, but there were times where he wasn't as hard as I was used to. He was able to cover his tracks well because he needed back surgery, and I thought it was a combo of some muscle relaxers and the pain.

I don't think it's even possible for him to remember each and every time start to finish, when it was or any of that. I look back on the last year of our own sex life and could tell you some things that were spectacular or out of the ordinary, the rest of it blends together, you know?

So, what I said was, tell me anything you can ever think of that stands out, or if she told me about it that it would be extremely hurtful, or anything you all did that we don't do, anything you particularly enjoyed, etc. The only thing that I don't recommend about that is you just opened yourself to get all the worst details in one sitting. It took me 3 sittings with a lot of stuff I am still trying to process. Some of it I expected, we had sex on the same day sometimes, she was a little more into kink and pornstar behaviors, etc. All that stuff I already predicted before we sat down. I know her, she is a performer/drama queen.

It's obvious to me that for him there was a higher degree of being in it for the physical, I am not surprised. He liked feeling like "the man". I would even venture to say he took a lot of pride in the fact he was in his mid 50's and seemingly keeping both of us satisfied.

Of course she minimized the sex and made him sound lousy and with constant ED to the OBS. I made sure to relay all of that back to him. I couldn't help it. But he knows that I know that some of that had to be crap, unless he was just a lot more selfish with her than me.

Anyway, this all makes me want to barf.

If she said, "Call me a dirty little bitch," he wouldn't pause to audit whether he actually felt that way about her. It's a thing his sexual partner asked him to say to heighten the experience. A terrible, disrespectful thing, I'm not minimizing that, and obviously she intended for him to actually make that comparison and "win" over you. I just think it's possible that it was an unexamined response on his side.

This does ring true to me. But as Luna was saying and I was agreeing it's hard to understand how you find her attractive after that. The problem is that I have a hard time understanding how he was finding her so attractive even with out that being a thing. I mean, she doesn't have a bad body, she is taller than me, but she has that horse face and she over plucks her eyebrows, she smokes, and he is very much a leg man and she has kind of a cankle thing going on. Plus she is obnoxious and talks so much about things that noone cares about. I guess she had that good WAP. Whatever, you know? You want that, go get it. Good luck to you.

[This message edited by hikingout at 12:53 PM, October 29th (Thursday)]

These details are so hard to hear, but she’s more obsessed with you more than your H. She discovered a crack and went for it.

Yep, she wanted my life. I get it. I have a good life. She saw her opening and she took it.

And the crazy ones don't always go away quietly when they feel an entitlement to what you have....

You let them into your head, now stop that. Detach and go through a lawyer to let AP and OBS know you are done.

OBS I think would be okay to disengage. I am hesitant to burn down any bridge on that right now because while I don't think I will reach out to him any more, there is a chance that keeping that open may benefit me (or even him) in the future. But, now that I know they are trying to work it out I am not going to be forthcoming on my side unless it's to provide him with something he needs or to indirectly let her know how insignificant she is. I will be careful. I like him, always have. He was a little nutso at first but I understand that feeling.

If she continues to contact him I will get a restraining order, and follow any other legal guidance as needed. Right now I am not going to go and waste money on a lawyer because she tried to reach out once. I expected that. She saw he didn't respond and it went right back to the OBS. So, if she can't learn her lesson we will have to deal with that.

[This message edited by hikingout at 2:39 PM, October 29th (Thursday)]

I am trying to raise my daughters not to be these types of women. My WH has never admitted to saying anything like that - but the COW was pretty obsessed with wanting my life too, so I would not be surprised at all if she did. It just is what it is. She made sure to see him on my birthday - couldn’t even let me have that because she was so jealous. It was before they were having sex supposedly, but that’s one of the things that I just can’t get. It’s my one damn day of the year!

Anyways, please feel free to reach out to us. We’ve been in your shoes. I like that your WH told you immediately. It’s harder than it sounds.

I wish none of us knew this place existed because we never had a reason to be here.

But as Luna was saying and I was agreeing it's hard to understand how you find her attractive after that. The problem is that I have a hard time understanding how he was finding her so attractive even with out that being a thing. I mean, she doesn't have a bad body, she is taller than me, but she has that horse face and she over plucks her eyebrows, she smokes, and he is very much a leg man and she has kind of a cankle thing going on.

This isn’t something my WH should be proud of but again, the fucked up affair attraction rules: his AP has an eye problem. Once she took her glasses off and he must have had a certain face expression as apparently she said “oh sorry, I’ll put my glasses back on”. She used to perk her glasses on her nose and my WH apparently used to literally shudder mentally at it. She smoked and he hates smoking. She smoked weed and if there’s anything he hates more than almost anything in life is weed smoking. She swears and is rude, talks in slang (which he hates) and makes basic spelling mistakes, also a lot of the stories she told made him think she must have a problem as she was always right and everyone else wrong.

This isn’t me slagging her off. I think the above description came on the first two weeks post dday (she’s the same age and also shorter than me, and I’m short) and he was not blaming her. It was me trying to understand.

But... he was in love. He even said that he could see all of this. But he loved her. As I said my WH also didn’t give her up as he felt responsibility for her pain so I experienced dday 2 when he suddenly woke up releasing it was all a bunny boiler situation and she had no qualms on destroying his life.

So anyway: try not to dwell on it for too long as it won’t make sense. And you’ll go through the cycle of “I can’t believe the low level he went to, I’m disgusted and perhaps that is his level of what’s good for him in which case I’m waaaay too good and I’m wasting myself on this man”. Oh and the cycle of “shit... if he was willing to lose me for that what does that say about me?...”

Ultimately it is about them and their selfishness and (I can’t believe I’m finally saying this) the AP could have been anyone. Anyone with low self esteem who thinks that all that they deserve is the crumbs from a married man.

Hopefully the AP on your side doesn’t turn full bunny boiler mode on. That’s even more infuriating. I can’t tell you how many times I repeated “so tell me again, how much did this woman love you and cared about your kids when she’s now causing us going to the police and installing surveillance cameras and talking to our daughter not to talk to anyone? A woman who threatens to show up at your door and cause a scene in front of the kids?”

That is terrible, Luna. I hope she does not show up at my door.

Ultimately it is about them and their selfishness and (I can’t believe I’m finally saying this) the AP could have been anyone. Anyone with low self esteem who thinks that all that they deserve is the crumbs from a married man.

You know, I do understand this, and I even can apply it to my situation. I know that sometimes takes a BS a long time to do. But, I went through that on my end. I know some of it's proximity, opportunity, the secrecy, the being who you want, etc. Usually the WS says the whole I love you but I am not in love with you to the BS. In this case, I am getting "I love her but I am not in love with her." That's confusing. I think she was there for him in a really dark time and that created some affection and loyalty to her. But, I guess it's better than him saying it about me. It just makes me wonder if he's being honest. I tend to think that men tend to think the emotional details are worse for their wives, and I am hoping that's not what I am seeing. So early in, anything is possible at this point.

I like that your WH told you immediately. It’s harder than it sounds.

Yeah I know. I think in that way, I confessed. I have talked to him about TT and this site. I think he always knew if I found out he was going to have to spill it. I think there is plenty he is not honest with himself about, but there is not a lot I can do with that part of it yet. The details, I don't think he is holding those back, but his memory is not so sharp on when, there are some dates I can put with what he is telling me but they had to coincide with other things that were going on. Birthdays, holidays, etc.

I also feel like I need to explain myself: if my WH’s AP and I would have met in different circumstances and she wouldn’t have fucked my husband and decided she wanted my life (the lengths she went to show me that is crazy, including claiming she’s on holiday in the same spot as us 😳 ) I would have been her friend. She would have had amazing morals and she would have been a single mother who’s doing her best in life and deserves the best. Well... fuck my husband and I think I have every right to focus on your flaws.

I suppose your H formed a secondary attachment based on his mourning needs at the time. But there’s also the possibility where, if he’d be to admit there were no feelings there, he’d have to dig deep enough to see what is left?

In our case my WH had to admit that he convinced himself he was in love (and the feelings felt genuine at the time) otherwise that would make him face the possibility that he may be a sleazy man who couldn’t say no to fucking another woman when the opportunity arisen. He felt he overlooked so much in his A that it was a form of self deceit. The way to to sort through this was taking myself out of the equation: if I wasn’t there, if he wasn’t married, how would their relationship have looked like? It was a breakthrough to see the shock on his face realising “I don’t think I would have looked at being with her more than a month on a FWB agreement. Going out with a weed smoker, swearing, binge drinking woman isn’t my idea of a relationship or falling in love with someone like that”. And I know that. Not because I’m so much better. But because I sat through so many lectures aimed at my son about how weed fucks up your brain, how binge drinking makes you lose control etc coming from him. He’s a control freak and she’s a “live in the moment” woman. So it is all circumstantial after all...

But all these things... these are things that you will have to process by yourself. Because I remember the moment I realised that should my husband not have entered that door on dday telling me he’s in love and shatter my heart... I don’t know how I would have processed later on being married to someone who is willing to risk us and our family for cold blooded cheating...

And should you decide to R, you will have to rediscover who your H is again and decide if his work is good enough.

I have to admit, if OM had ever said anything like what you're describing, I would have been disgusted and furious. I hesitated to say that before because of the obvious hypocrisy -- "you'd sleep with him, but you wouldn't let him insult your BH while he was doing it?" Fair point, but yeah, pretty much. I had built up a mythology in my head where what I was doing was separate from BH. BH was my real life, and OM was a secondary bubble, and he was supposed to stay in his lane. Either OM understood the risk of pulling a stunt like that or it just wasn't his jam, because he rarely mentioned BH, and never in a derogatory way.

Again, I'm not trying to sound holy here. I did many terrible things, and I justified them all with wayward pretzel logic. Every WS has their own egregious offenses.

[This message edited by BraveSirRobin at 2:25 AM, October 30th (Friday)]

HO, I just wanted to say I am so sorry this happened. I have been reading in the 'BS questions to WS' in the ICR forum for the last couple of weeks. Your answers to the questions there have helped me so much in my recovery. Reading your posts gave me answers I was searching for for a very, very long time. You showed me what remorse and putting in the work look like.

Seeing your updated signature was like a punch in the gut. Sending you love and hugs.

BSR- yep I am on that same page. Some of it might be gender too. I don’t know how to explain it but perhaps that just would have seemed worse to me coming from a man somehow. Petty bitch comes to mind.

Hedwig- thank you.

So something just jiggled loose for me today. I have been thinking a lot about the period leading up to my affair for a few reasons. And through thinking through someone else’s thread it occurred to me that in the couple of years leading up to the affair we were having regular sex. But it was a bit as if I was doing what I would normally do when we weren’t t connecting. I was trying to put effort into the wrong thing. This wasn’t his fault we were working 12 to 18 hour days. There wasn’t time for fun. But we ignored that other aspect.

Not a reason for an affair but I am guessing a lot of marriages go off the rails for not keeping a balance of the two sides. Still looking at context, not just about the affair but what things were going wrong in general and their impact. Lessons that can be learned. He is having to work today to make up for the people who were fired. I didn’t feel like helping so I didn’t. But in some ways I wish I had gone.

I definitely contributed to his unhappiness, and unlike many of the BS's here I did so willfully and unnecessarily. I didn't just contribute to his unhappiness, I created his unhappiness with me as his wife. I took away my value as his wife.

There are things my W does that I don't like. I've given up some things to be with my W. I sometimes don't ask for changes because I fear the unintended consequences of changing just about anything.

I could say my W has contributed to my unhappiness in those areas. It would be (much?) more accurate to say that I accepted her as she was in order to receive what she gave. My choice. I could have confronted. I could have asked for changes I chose not to.

Your H made similar choices about your qualities as a wife. That's his responsibility, not yours.

And I gave him the anger to precipitate his sense of entitlement.

Not sure how to respond to this, but my immediate thought is, 'Bullshit, this is not a productive way of thinking.'

From what I think I've read, your H's A was a variation of a standard NOT "Just Friends" story. I'll agree that something triggered your H's sense of over-entitlement. Maybe it was your A. Isn't it more likely, though, that his ap's availability was the trigger?

*****

I'm not sure about this, but let me suggest an experiment.

Take any applicable statement you make as a BS, and ask yourself how it would sound coming from a WS. For example, this is how my opening quote would read:

My BS definitely contributed to my unhappiness, and like many of the BS's here my BS did so willfully and unnecessarily. She didn't just contribute to my unhappiness, she created my unhappiness with her as my wife. She took away her value as my wife.

I'm not exactly sure about all of what I hope readers get from this. Part of it, though, is to say that the BS role is best treated as entirely separate from the WS role, and vice versa.

[This message edited by sisoon at 2:23 PM, October 31st (Saturday)]

Not a reason for an affair but I am guessing a lot of marriages go off the rails for not keeping a balance of the two sides. Still looking at context, not just about the affair but what things were going wrong in general and their impact. Lessons that can be learned.

I think however we move forward from the trauma of infidelity, we all gain a level of expertise on relationships — or at least what we find was important to us within the relationship.

Rolling up on five years here, I have figured out it’s all about connection. Connection is key with ANY relationship, but 10 times as important in a day to day intimate couple.

It sounds so obvious and yet, here we all are.

And we tend to map out those moments when connections were lost, or distance was gained and from there, resentments tend to creep in to fill the void.

I agree, those disconnects aren’t excuses for anyone, but they do help us see how human we all are and how frail our connections can be.

No chance at a do-over for any of us, but it does help to see the patterns that cause us problems, in order to avoid them in the future, with our spouses or someone else.

Getting a connection rebuilt really isn’t as uphill as I thought, provided both people are reaching for the other. That’s the trick. Both people reaching at the same time.

HO if I would be to describe the process you’re going through at this moment you’ll realise pretty quickly that you’re doing what every BS does in the early days of dday: trying to attribute sense to something nonsensical and further more, trying to take on some of the affair reasons because that would make them feel in control. If I can identify what I’ve done wrong I can then ensure it won’t happen again so I’m in control of preventing another A.

You of course have to go through the BS process in your own time, there are no shortcuts. Having first been a WS I would venture to say that it is perhaps even harder to come out of the self blame step described above, because, at first sight, it’s pretty easy to attribute the reason of his A to the fact you had an A first. But as you know, As are complicated. And if you insist on taking on some guilt of it then it makes it clearly into a RA affair which both you and your H deny it is the case.

Look at it this way: my brain (I often refer to it as a separate entity because it felt that way for a long time) had this stupid but useful response to every guilt I’ve attributed myself: but did he talk to you about it? Why didn’t he divorce?

You see, in a similar way as your H’s actions, my WH claimed he was happy, he said it, he lived it. I couldn’t notice any change (of course, looking back there were some signs but I’ve attributed those to stressful time at work).

So when I reached the step above following dday I would try and take on “but we only have sex once a week, perhaps he wanted more” and my brain would go “sure, let me check for you, no, nope, cannot find an instance where he told you that he’d like more sex, in fact you wanted more but he made it pretty clear that weekdays are off the menu as he’s too tired”. And so on with every count.

I hope it won’t take you too long to process the stage of self flagellation and you’ll manage somehow to realise that your H had options: to divorce or to heal from the trauma inflicted by your A. Having an affair shouldn’t be on the options list of a healthy person, more so of one who experienced the devastation an A causes.

I agree what you are saying sisoon, and Luna. Maybe you are right it’s normal BS processes.

But for me there are contradictory truths here. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt I am not responsible for his affair. 100 percent he had other choices and what he did was wrong, cruel, and on him. That doesn’t change what he used for his justifications, that he now has to do work as a ws, or that at the time the affair started our marriage was in shambles over my actions. All these things are trie at once. I composed my list because I was trying to be clearer that from my standpoint the mad hatter situations have so many contradictory truths. I have kind of thought of that as healthy because in some ways we still have to deal with the idea that I am also a ws and he is a bs. Mine is fresher and that is obviously more the focal point.

It’s no different than yesterday looking back at the context of our relationship and understanding the conditions before the affair. I don’t blame the conditions on my affair but they exist the same. They provide insight on how it was that a good marriage came to the brink of divorce. In hindsight if I had chosen not to have an affair and ask for divorce we would likely have ended up in counseling and fixing it anyway. Or not, but I think we would have.

In the end all the woulda coulda shoulda is of course irrelevant. But it’s like Old Wounds is saying you tend to scour the relationship for where the connection broke and how frail it all can be. That the day to day can be maintenance or the slow decline.

My post from yesterday was it dawned on me that throughout the marriage when we had more sex, he was more generous with the other types of intimacy. And when he gave more that we had more sex.

This came from the idea that is often shared here about how the men say they can get anything from anyone else but sex in marriage. That is a fallacy because there is a tenderness I can only get from him. And that tenderness really is a huge factor in the quality and quantity of our sex life.

I don’t think I gavd him sex manipulatively (Gatekeeping).More so it’s when we were in a less connected state, I would give more things on my end, and that included other things that remind him he was special to me. But certainly sex made him feel loved and he would be more loving and vulnerable as a result. It seems a lot of times when I think back it was always me that would recognize it and do a little to get us back on the road and he would reciprocate pretty well.

So when discussing this yesterday in a different way on a different post, it dawned on me that we kept up our sex lore while not spending much quality time together. The sex was not as quality to me and I felt emptier. This is not a reason to cheat, but just like when I talk about my affair, this is where the connection was lost. I am more in a place of examine our relationship than his affair. Probably because when I think about the details of his affair it knocks the wind out of me.

It’s also that I am challenging what I believe about affairs and really getting more honest about his role in our crumbling marriage (not blaming him for my affair- but his role in the decline and lack of effort). This is telling me some of the things I want to negotiate in our new deal if we ever get to that part.

In all of that, I can see I am really just bargaining. Yesterday I was thinking, what if we just go on? He gets IC, but we let it go? I can assume he learned his lesson just like I learned mine but if it happens again then it’s non-negotiable divorce. That only works until I start thinking about what he’s done, imagining what he has done and then I go back to anger. It’s hard, I miss him. I miss us. There is no “we are even” in all of this. There is no easy path forward. HB has started and I kind of think it’s confusing me worse and giving me these little moments of delicious delusions that we are back, only to have it all come crashing down an hour later.

It hard, I believe he wishes it never happened just like I wish that for my affair. It’s hard not to see the conditions of each affair and how maybe we could have avoided that to begin with. And it’s hard for me to believe his would have happened without mine. It’s probably going to take some tome, because I can at the same time see clear as day that it doesn’t matter the conditions these were choices. These were bad coping. These were low integrity. Maybe we deserve each other. And yes logically I know that’s not how it is but I have to process these feelings that have nothing to do with logic.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:51 AM, November 1st (Sunday)]

I was reading your description of your WH’s AP and couldn’t help but think of that thread (I think it’s in JFO) “Honey, they always affair down.” The same was true for my AP and this is just another example. How he found her attractive? Yeah, I get that. My H made fun of my AP for a long time. And objectively speaking, I kind of agree with him. That didn’t matter to me when I was in it though. It wasn’t about his looks. It was about me and what I chose to get out of him. It was self-focused. Not other-focused. Your WH’s AP? She was available, wanted him, and fed into whatever shit he was going through (whether it was your A or other things). Most of the time, that’s all it is. Maybe that doesn’t make it easier to deal with but maybe it makes it easier to understand? I don’t know.

But it also shows why comparing A’s is pretty much hopeless. My A was romanticized. It was fantasy land and if he compared his junk to my BH’s that would have destroyed my fantasy (and again, gross). And like BSR said, my A was completely compartmentalized. No discussion of my BH was allowed during sex or really for the most part. I could bring him up (never during sex, but on “dates”), but not my AP. For your WH, it was different. That’s not better or worse, just different. The thing is that only you could to decide what you can come back from and heal from. Some people had very strong reactions about my A when talking to my BH. I had the whole hanging out in my AP’s apartment naked drinking coffee, etc., thrown in my face when I got here (and I totally understand you not wanting to share too many details because of exactly that). For some, a non-romantic A is “easier” to deal with than a romantic one. For others, it’s the opposite. People focus on how many times, did he or she finish, where the sex took place (the back seat of a car is either not as bad as in the marital bed for some or it’s so sleazy and that makes it worse for others), was it an EA or PA or both? Only you get to decide what matters to you. There’s no wrong answer and there’s no right answer. Just healing.

You have so much to heal from and your own WW status makes this even more challenging. I think Luna is right. You’re going through what every BS goes through. I know you don’t think you have it in you to deal with this and you don’t have to if you don’t want to. That’s why I love your list. You put both sides of the same coin there and put truths that are opposite but don’t really negate each other. It shows what is his to deal with and what is yours. That helps.