SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I just wanted to chime in that this is a terrific thread. My EX reads here, but I wanted to make sure she saw this so I texted her to look for it.

It is too late for us, but the principals here might get her to move off her shame which I think is holding her back from moving on.

I know some BS wish bad things for their WS, and trust me I am still pissed at what she did to us, but her not functioning doesn’t help my guilt for finally pulling the plug, or our daughters who still love their mom.

Again, great thoughts here

@ Daddydom

My WS has FOO issues, but I don't think any sexual abuse (to my knowledge). My WS IC definitely feels she has innate issues and unhealthy coping skills from her upbringing that have been with her since childhood - emotionally detached, lying to protect, avoiding rather than dealing,anxiety, depression.

I have a question to the WW side. Based on my earlier postings, should I be feeling more of a concerted effort from my WS to shower me with love, affection, and intimacy? Mind you I am about 1 1/2 months out from D-day, but I sometimes feel I am providing more love and affection. Is this right, or is my WS still mired in her own self-guilt and not loving herself? I do see that from her.

I do want to say she is trying in her own way to be better and work to making changes. She is attending IC weekly, has agreed to my own boundaries that must be upheld, and will talk with me when I request. She tells me how hard it is not to lie, how hard it is to tell me things that she normally would hide, and says she battles inside her mind constantly. She still get's defensive when I ask her questions, but ultimately answers them. I think my WS is so used to lying and being deceitful, this new truth telling is anguishing for her. She has said it makes her feel like "shit" when she tells the truth what she has done, basically it means she has to face what she did in honesty.

Any advice or thoughts?

[This message edited by dogma at 10:28 AM, March 14th (Wednesday)]

thank you thank you thank you for this post.

I'm a month out from DDay I have IC today at 11am, and thought I really want to work on my why's in there today.. Well I got up and realized I can surely do this work on my own before I go and every few days when I feel ready. I loved writing in college and really dove in today. I typed three pages, and already started uncovering a lot of resentment and issues I had I didn't even realize prior to doing this. It also helped me work out stuff mid writing, I would feel a resentment toward BS about something, realize how warped and wrong I was regarding it and self corrected it now. Thank you <3 this is so helpful for me.

Bumping.

Daddy Dom. You have given me hope. Thank you so much. I truly believe this will help my WH.

Bumping for the general good of the world.

@DaddyDom

Excellent insight. I can appreciate the pain of self-discovery. My personal view is that most people do not want to discover the 'why' and 'how' - it is perhaps too dark and demonic an area to explore. This is why I am not in favour of MC or IC, until these issues have been self-analysed, written down and if possible, verified by another party who can confirm your story to be true (not an IC or MC).

I would add one item to the list: addiction based on mental illness. Dopamine highs are quite real and are (imo); an important part of cheating. We take responsibility for this inducement. Dopamine and addiction to 'highs' are disorders - whether they arise from porn, drugs, sexting, physical cheating, blowing up cars, stealing something, or some other form of violence.

Slippery slopes - once you smoke the pot while watching porn, you convince yourself that it is okay. After a while, you don't get the same highs, so you repeat at a higher and deeper frequency. Then it moves into the real, prostitutes, one-nighters, weirder porn, harder drugs etc.

After a while you don't ressemble the happy 7 year old, innocent, friendly, busy with life. Now you are a depraved compulsive sliding into the dark side.

Why did you do it? List is endless but should not include Freudian bullshit.

Boredom; lack of self-esteem; or the opposite- grandiosity and power issues; narcissism; immorality and no moral compass; need for attention and affirmation; the high from dopamine and addictive neurological patterns; a hatred for someone etc. Usually the answers are quite simple: lust, no empathy, ease of access, anonymity, 'everyone is doing it', 'I deserve that high', feeling important. Why do women willingly become prostitutes ? Surely what afflicts them afflicts many WS.

Each why is different per individual, but there will be some commonality and the answers are usually not that hard to figure out. Likewise, the 'how' to fulfil the why's will likewise be quite different, yet much commonality will exist between case studies.

bumping for hurtpenguin

Bump.

Why's are usually pretty straightforward aren't they? They have nothing to do with childhood experiences, being called fatty, your father drinking too much, your mom being slovenly, your dog pissing on your pillow.

The Why's deal with the basic human weaknesses one can read in any classic Greek tragedy, Russian novels by Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, or the Old Testament. Pride, stupidity, arrogance, selfishness, greed, egotistical narcissism, self-loathing, confusion....

Why did I cheat? All of the above and more. Many will claim an 'addiction' - but addicted to what? Your own pleasure? That is called hedonism and is no more complicated a 'why', than the pot-head who justifies wiping out entire centres of his brain by claiming 'medicinal needs'.

At the core of many 'whys' are power, self-gratification and escape. A disregard for the emotions and feelings of 'others', a lack of empathy and a self-destructive intent.

All apply to myself and I would guess to most others. And I did not need to spend 100s of hours with a psychobabbling IC to figure that out.

Great topic. When my wife hit me with the whys I truly couldn’t put it to words, I think mostly because of the shame but also because I truly didn’t look far into myself to know “why” either. It took a lot of reading, video watching and counseling sessions for me to learn about the why than the basic lusting. I sat down and wrote it out on paper just so the words could stare back at me and come to self realization, and I’m less than a year in and still early in my process and have such a long way to go I admit but wanted to thank you for this insight.

@AnotherIdiot

Why's are usually pretty straightforward aren't they? They have nothing to do with childhood experiences

I would have to say they can, I think in my case they most certainly did. Having sexual experiences at a very young age, before you really even know what sex is, definitely has an impact on you.

@ anotheridiot - isn't it possible you are right that these are the core reasons but foo issues are what helped contribute to one being more susceptible or more likely to succumb?

I don't think in just infidelity either but in a whole host of aspects of our lives. Nature of nurture says we are impacted by what's around us and by how we were raised...

Bumped for napa.

bump, and thank you DaddyDom. Even if my H won't dig into himself.

You should publish this somewhere! So glad I decided to visit the WS forum, which maybe I should do more often. Thanks so much for sharing this.

Wow! I've sent the links to this to my WW and I've asked her to do the Why? exercise.

Every now and then she asks why I'm on this forum since I get angry or hurt by the posts of others. I tell her that through all the crap there are nuggets of extreme wisdom that makes it all worthwhile. This sir is one of those nuggets!

Thanks you for your posts!

Thank you everyone who has responded. It is wonderful that you have found some value and wisdom in the post, and I hope it helps you or your WS to start doing some of the hard work that is needed.

Wanted to bump this again, with thanks to Daddydom. It's around 3 months since I first read this post, and having completed a course of IC and now 4 sessions into MC I found myself coming back here in the depths of a maelstrom of self-manufactured insecurity and was stunned by just how on-the-nose the wisdom is here. The Why-Dig-Repeat philosophy I had internalised to the point that I thought the idea came from my IC originally - like knowing how to throw a ball it seemed like something so natural I'd always known it.

Wanting to bring something new to the table: I found that my guilt and shame paralysed me. I had to find a way to move past that in order to begin to fix myself, and for what it's worth I'd like to share that here. First though, it's important to realise WHY that's necessary.

Some users here are very capable of feeding those emotions and causing damage to both the person reading their posts and those in their life - it's no exaggeration to say that some of the things I read on SI contributed to my BS and I both very nearly taking our own lives in despair. I would highly recommend that all users, however hurt, remember that every BS and every WS is a person with a vast catalogue of their own difficulties, and I would counsel compassion in your posts.

That said, for me the first step was in realising that the person I had been during my OA was not the person I had ever wanted to be. The person I had become was a result of unchecked, unscrutinised flaws. Since I was unaware of those flaws and the terrible repercussions they would have, the guilt was an emotion that had already served its purpose; to provide a negative enough reaction to ensure that I wouldn't repeat the same mistakes. That emotional energy was better spent now investing in the self-analysis Daddydom describes so eloquently. I couldn't forgive myself the affair yet, but I could forgive myself for not seeing it coming and not being self-controlled enough to stop it in its tracks the moment I told my first lies - PROVIDED I made every effort to find and conquer those flaws. For me, that's the least my much-beloved wife deserves having chosen to stick with me for now. For me, that gives me the strength to keep at it when the anxiety and self-loathing seem insurmountable.

Bumped for BG95.