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Great post, DD. All really good points.

To be clear I don't mind the opposing viewpoint. Buck and I go back and forth a lot - so I apologize if any of that came off as a threadjack, or even as hostile.

It's true when I say I root for Buck. I wouldn't say I see my husband in him in that they communicate and look at things far differently. But, I do identify with the situation and also with his wife. I don't like seeing anyone stuck and often times we can't see we are the ones who keep ourselves there. Patterns can be good or bad, but they are always bad when you go in circular patterns that don't serve you well.

Daddydom

... sounds like massive FOO trauma to me. And unlike Buck who had a RA (cause/effect), you had an affair on your own volition. So it sounds more like a case that supports the FOO trauma theory, rather than disputing it?

I'm not dismissing FOO; they definitely play a factor in forming who you are and how you handle different situations.

I guess my point is this; many have a fairly good idea how they ended up where they are. IMO, what's key is what do you do now that you are here? One of my biggest issues was a real lack of empathy. Is it more important to know what caused that lack of empathy or how to fix it? n my case, its not much of a stretch to understand how I got this way. But I don't think it really helped me learn how to do a better job.

One of the things my IC said really stuck with me "Try to see a situation through the other persons eyes" That thought had never really occurred to me before. But that one little nugget has really helped me in my relationship with my wife.

... sounds like massive FOO trauma to me. And unlike Buck who had a RA (cause/effect), you had an affair on your own volition. So it sounds more like a case that supports the FOO trauma theory, rather than disputing it?

So, I missed this statement the first time. I want to correct something here:

There is no difference between what Buck did, what my husband did, and what anyone else here did.

An RA is likely an ego construct that was formed in FOO. The cause of an RA is not the other person's affair. The cause of the affair is the inability to cope. The cause of my affair was the inability to cope.

I do not think they are different at all. I did not cause my husbands affair, and neither did Buck's wife.

I will say my husband likely would not have had an affair at this juncture with this person. I can't say that there would not have been some other crisis that still would have led to the same result.

At the end of the day, you either believe in a black and white way cheating is always wrong under any circumstances. Or you believe cheating is justified in certain circumstances.

I would say cheating might be more understandable in certain circumstances. Meaning if there was a spectrum, there might be more understanding of say someone who has been abused and sees no way out other than to latch on to someone else who can help them get out to the opposite end where everything is generally fine but the person's damage and selfishness is the only thing you can find to point at.

But, in my mind, it's black and white. It's wrong in all circumstances for many of the reasons we should all be familiar with. And when you look at someone who cheats as an effect from the cause that their spouse cheats - they are not exempt from that. They may not care about damaging their marriage or their spouse, but it's still damaging to them and never in their best interest.

At any rate, I wanted to point that out because I think it's just as important for Buck, my husband, or any second mad hatter to got to therapy and work through both their trauma and create new constructs for dealing with trauma in the future.

Even if Buck gets a divorce, he may be faithful, but there is still there a lot he is carrying around that will effect his life and future relationships until he can come to terms with it.

I just wanted to state all that because I do not see my husbands affair as cause and effect any more than I see my affair as cause and effect.

Is it more important to know what caused that lack of empathy or how to fix it?

Thank you, this actually helped me (I think) to understand your point better. So what you are saying is not so much, "FOO doesn't matter" but rather, "Knowing how I fell into this hole is one thing. But I'm not going to "fall out" of the hole, so knowing how I got here isn't much help in regard to getting back out". Is that correct? You know why you are broken, but that does nothing to help you fix it, and knowing it didn't stop you from cheating. Hopefully I got that right.

Funny side story... I know you are a tech guy so you'll appreciate this... 25+ years ago, one of my early careers was as a tech support lead, you know, 1-800-OKCOMPAQ if I remember correctly. Anyway, I cannot begin to tell you how many support conversations started with the most baffling and unhelpful statements. People would start out sentences such as, "My computer is hosed!" So what was I supposed to do with that? Get the de-hoser? Or they say something such as, "My screen is working!" and then I'd ask them to do something, and they'd say ,"So, should I click on the Windows "Start" button first?" and I would suddenly realize that whatever "my screen doesn't work" means to them, it doesn't mean the same thing to me. My favorite however was the dude that was holding some paper up to the monitor screen in order to fax it. Good times. Good times.

Anyway, the point of my aside is this... people who don't understand what they are working with and why it works like it does, are not going to have the understanding and control neccessary to do (whatever it is) properly, and they will certainly not appreicate what it could add to their lives if used properly.

Similar to yourself, I was in IC for years, and it was all good stuff, I understood myself better, but I just couldn't manage to DO anything with that information for the longest time. Like most WS's, I just used it as a crutch, and figured, "I'm broken." But it was more than that. Yeah, I was broken, but the real problem was that I was literally missing some things that a healthy individual would have. Sort of how a person raised by wolves might pee on your carpet, not because they have an attitude problem or are gross by nature, but because they don't even understand what them peeing has to do with anyone or anything else, and they would have no empathy or understanding of why you are so upset about your rug being peed on. The concept of thinking of others, or having self-respect, or the value of the rug being peed on... they simply don't exist in the first place. They just needed to pee, and did so. End of story.

What was missing in my background was any sense of self-respect, or healthy coping mechnisms, or healthy boundaries... and the biggest missing asset was myself. I didn't exist, not really. Being raised by a narc, my role in the world was to please others. My self-worth was derived from my value to others. If I wasn't pleasing other people, then I had no self-worth. I was worthless. Which started a lifetime of "hustling for my worth". And when no one was paying attention to me, I snapped, like a twig. I had no value. In my desperation, I found someone to pay attention to me, to value me. And that, is how I came to have an affair, in a very, tiny nutshell. But I didn't understand that at the time, and my broken brain told me that I was doing the RIGHT thing by doing whatever I need to in order to makeself feel better. I was just peeing on the rug, that's how I had always peed.

In my experience, being able to go back and fill in the blanks was like opening my eyes. EVERYTHING got better. My life, my relationship, my job, my friends... I suddenly have a life where I exist, on my own, and not for others.

But more importantly, what happened was that my wife was given solid, quantifiable and observable reasons to believe that I am different enough to be "safe" again. I'm not just "white-knuckling" my recovery like a dieter who might make it a month before shoving that next brownie in their mouth. She sees proof, in how I think and react, and in how proactive I am about things. The other day, my wife was calling for me... I didn't hear her. She called several times. Finally, she came upstairs to my office, kinda frustrated since I had not responded, and told me how she was calling me and I had not responded. In the past, that would have CRUSHED me, and I would have been buried in guilt in shame, knowing that my actions had not pleased her, and seeing the reflection of disappointment in her eyes. But not now. I just replied, "Sorry, I didn't hear you". My wife was so surprised she actually brought up the point that it was nice to be able to discuss displeasure without me crawling under a rock in shame.

Anyway, that's my shpiel. To me, if you don't understand what's broken, you cannot begin to fix it, and if you try to fix what you don't truly understand, then you are just shooting in the dark and hoping to hit a target. And if it breaks again, you'll be back to square one. Teach a man to fish and all. When we are capable of understanding ourselves, we become capable of controlling ourselves, and when we control ourselves, we respect and love ourselves.

"Try to see a situation through the other persons eyes" That thought had never really occurred to me before. But that one little nugget has really helped me in my relationship with my wife.

Exactly. You were given a tool that you didn't have before, and that tool helped, a lot. It might have changed how you look at others or react to others. Now you have a comparison. You know how things felt when you didn't see through others eyes, and now a new tool is available, one that helps you understand others, and in doing so, understand yourself better, and enables you to make better choices about how to best react to/help that person.

An RA is likely an ego construct that was formed in FOO. The cause of an RA is not the other person's affair. The cause of the affair is the inability to cope.

Good catch, thank you for pointing this out. I would suggest that an RA is a response to a trigger condition, which then exposes the person's inability to cope. An RA is (I think) an attempt to restore power, to "even things out", and let's face it, mostly to hurt the other person. However, people with healthy boundaries and self-respect, such as my wife, don't typically fall prey to it. Not because they aren't tempted to in the first place (most BS's tell me that an RA was among their first thoughts) but because they respect themselves too much to do it. The goal of the WS (all people really) is to be in control of what we do, and to do only that which we feel is true and right and just, so that we can maintain our dignity and self-respect.

FWIW, I personally distinguish RAs between a ONS trauma response and anything beyond that. Just my opinion, but I really don't think someone who has an ONS in the midst of the post dday trauma will necessarily (or "by definition" bc it's still an A) have the same issues.

However, when the BS/MH spouse gets up and does it AGAIN is, IMHO, when they are squarely in the "an A is an A is an A" territory.

I suspect many will disagree with me, but in my world view, I can fathom a sort of "pass" for the ONS trauma response. There was no way I would have even considered it if all the thoughts/needs/feelings of dday were not pretty much the only things that had any real estate in my mind. It may still have the same "seeds" (so to speak) of entitlement, but I honestly was wholly unable to just think straight in any capacity during the 1st 6+ months. I was aware enough to know that my goal was primarily to try and "make" my WH hurt as badly as I did... once I realized that was impossible, it wasn't hard to walk away. Had I done it, I don't know that it would have had anything to do with my FOO.

And, I'm only speaking from the perspective of a BS who seriously considered - but did not act upon - the RA.... so, what do I know anyhow

ETA:

[an RA is] mostly to hurt the other person

which is exactly where I was.

However, the "people with healthy boundaries and self-respect... don't typically fall prey to it" seems to really miss the ways in which dday (or it's trauma response) can decimate both. IOW, I honestly believe there are PLENTY of BSs who had good boundaries & self respect before dday, that went from 100 to zero in the aftermath, and it takes a TON of work (and time) to climb back to whatever that self respect/boundary level was before. And that is - directly - related (or solely?) to dday trauma.

[This message edited by gmc94 at 3:14 PM, April 22nd, 2021 (Thursday)]

Good catch, thank you for pointing this out. I would suggest that an RA is a response to a trigger condition, which then exposes the person's inability to cope. An RA is (I think) an attempt to restore power, to "even things out", and let's face it, mostly to hurt the other person. However, people with healthy boundaries and self-respect, such as my wife, don't typically fall prey to it. Not because they aren't tempted to in the first place (most BS's tell me that an RA was among their first thoughts) but because they respect themselves too much to do it. The goal of the WS (all people really) is to be in control of what we do, and to do only that which we feel is true and right and just, so that we can maintain our dignity and self-respect.

I am going to drill down to this further.

One, I think that when someone cheats after their spouse cheats doesn't always constitute an RA.

Sometimes the person is simply trying to escape their pain, the same way most WS's are trying to escape our pain. Someone came along in my husbands life that made him feel better than I was making him feel. ​I do not think that my husband was trying to get even with me. It does read like Buck was in that category - to give her a taste of her own medicine. That's why I said at that point it might be ego. Needing to go and get your ego reinflated? Not sure.

I can understand what GMC is saying about RA's and one night stands. I get what you are saying there, but I do disagree to an extent. The truth is when anyone has an affair I don't think most know they are going into a long term situation or a short term situation. Many WS's who have had a LTA would tell you they never had a plan past the day they were on.

So, if someone had an RA to begin with - thinking I will have a one night stand and show him/her - that's no different than someone taking drugs thinking they will just try them. Some people will get hooked on the drug, and some people may not. You do not know which one you will be until you go down the path. A serial cheater to me is someone who never learned any lessons the first time, becomes addicted to the highs and looks to replicate that with different people. In the depths of my despair when my affair ended, I could have easily said I will find someone else and continue my fantasy world. I have a harder time understanding the ones who get caught, go through all the rigors of keeping the marriage only to go and be able to destroy that person again. I tend to think that most serial cheaters are just people who didn't get caught. But, the ones who do over and over and see the devastation and don't care, I can't go there in my mind.

I tend to think that there is an over estimation of how much thought the WS puts into starting or continuing the affair. I can understand how that happens because if you are a BS who has never cheated, then you think the way you think that has led to never cheating.

I tend to think there might be more understanding over someone who did a ONS revenge affair because that's much more fathomable I guess. But, again, it depends on whether you believe cheating is wrong in all circumstances or just in most. Having been where I have been, it's wrong in all circumstances. Not just morally, but having an affair is far more damaging to one's self than most who have never cheated can begin to imagine.

I always think about a cousin I have that is on and off drugs all the time. It only took once to set her on a different path for life. Cheating carries that same weight.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:39 PM, April 22nd (Thursday)]

Wow hikingout, fantastic points made, thank you for that.

I think that when someone cheats after their spouse cheats doesn't always constitute an RA...Sometimes the person is simply trying to escape their pain

This makes a lot of sense. I would assume most people would know if they had what they consider an RA or not. I am not a BS and have not been involved in an RA so I usually try to avoid the subject if possible. Like you, I stick with:

Having been where I have been, it's wrong in all circumstances. Not just morally, but having an affair is far more damaging to one's self than most who have never cheated can begin to imagine.

This is more of a "with the benefit of hindsight" viewpoint for me, however I agree 100%. It is amazing, never previously really having the concept of self-respect and accountability in my life, now that I do, I value them greatly, above all else really. Where I felt lost before, I feel as if I have a compass now, if that makes sense? Anyway, I cannot comment on the morality of an RA, because I believe it is a reasonable response to being betrayed. It is not a decision anyone should ever be put in a position to make in the first place. I find it hard to admonish anyone too heavily for what they did/thought/said in the middle of grief and pain. People who never cursed in their life often think differently when a bowling ball lands on their toes. That's just how it works. But at the end of the day, we all are what we do, and we have to live with ourselves, and measure our worth by our own measuring sticks.

[This message edited by DaddyDom at 3:53 PM, April 22nd (Thursday)]

Anyway, I cannot comment on the morality of an RA, because I believe it is a reasonable response to being betrayed. It is not a decision anyone should ever be put in a position to make in the first place. I find it hard to admonish anyone too heavily for what they did/thought/said in the middle of grief and pain. People who never cursed in their life often think differently when a bowling ball lands on their toes. That's just how it works

I agree with everything you said but this. Especially what I value now versus what I valued without hindsight.

I do not believe in an eye for an eye. I just do not think that you ever get what you need from that. You almost are always going to create more damage and make the path to healing much harder.

Let me put it to you a different way.

I was in the middle of a nervous breakdown when my affair started. Is it understandable that I wasn't thinking clearly? Yes, probably. Does it take away the accountability in having the affair? NO. It didn't make it any more right.

I would propose to you that many of us WS were carrying around a tremendous amount of unresolved trauma. You were. I was. Right? Why are you giving the BS who turns around and has a response affair (I like this term better than revenge) any different pass?

When my husband had an affair it told me that he didn't believe affairs were wrong in all circumstances. Should he accept mine as a result? I will hold my answer, curious to hear yours.

BSR, everything you mentioned in your last post is true. I did not leave because my youngest was 10 at the time and I didn't trust my WW to raise them correctly. I also didn't trust her judgement when it came to other men. Her AP was a real POS and I'm not just saying that, he beat his wife pretty badly - I'm talking about a broken nose and orbital bones type of beating in front on his 8yo daughter. Also, AP had moved several thousand miles away for a job and wanted me to follow and the whole thing was sorta deja vu about my childhood. I was keenly aware of how my absence could impact them and being in their lives (and raising them) was important to me. Now we have a 2yo granddaughter and a grandson due in late May. I'm finding it very difficult to actually file for divorce.

Because either you think cheating is wrong or you don't. If it's alright under certain circumstances, like being cheated on first - then you do not think it's wrong in a black and white way.

Dammit hiking, I don't know how to respond to what's quoted above. I can tell you what I think, but when I read it back and it doesn't hit my ear right. I cheated partially because I wanted to give her a taste of her own medicine. She was blameshifting it all onto me and I was filled with rage. She approached the whole aftermath wrong and needed taken down a few notches. She needed perspective and my RA gave her that. It also helped with the injustice aspect. And, since I'm putting my dirty laundry out there, having sex with someone else did wonders for my ego. I also felt that our marriage was over, I checked out and never really checked back in. I was staying but I viewed the marriage as temporary. I stayed for the reasons I gave BSR above. In my mind it's hard to separate the cause and effect of her A and mine. Her A and behavior handed me the issues that led to me cheating and I feel that's the big difference in a "regular" A and a RA. The fucked up thing is none of that really applies to my second A and I have no defense for that except I was willing to lose the M. And all of what I wrote sounds like bullshit reasoning to me now. I had other options and I chose being a cruel, vengeful asshole over them.

What was missing in my background was any sense of self-respect, or healthy coping mechnisms, or healthy boundaries... and the biggest missing asset was myself. I didn't exist, not really. Being raised by a narc, my role in the world was to please others. My self-worth was derived from my value to others. If I wasn't pleasing other people, then I had no self-worth. I was worthless. Which started a lifetime of "hustling for my worth". And when no one was paying attention to me, I snapped, like a twig. I had no value. In my desperation, I found someone to pay attention to me, to value me. And that, is how I came to have an affair, in a very, tiny nutshell. But I didn't understand that at the time, and my broken brain told me that I was doing the RIGHT thing by doing whatever I need to in order to makeself feel better. I was just peeing on the rug, that's how I had always peed.

Oh boy, my wife has told me this in almost the same exact words you have used. My wife also had issues with empathy. I guess I'm coming around some on the FOO thing.

DaddyDom

1-800-OKCOMPAQ

1-800-PACKARDBELL (or whatever it was) I used to work on those nightmares so I feel your pain!

I do agree with what you're saying. You have to recognize that your behavior is wrong before you can begin to address it.

I found someone to pay attention to me, to value me. And that, is how I came to have an affair, in a very, tiny nutshell.

This definitely applies to me as well. What I didn't realize then was had I paid attention to my wife, I would have gotten it in return. We give ourselves all kinds of reasons why it was ok to cheat but the (at least the ones which reflected badly on our BW) one I really hung onto was since she doesn't show me any affection, she mustn't love me. One of the most sobering realizations through this entire shit show was, my wife didn't turn her back on me, I did it to her, our child and our marriage.

What I didn't realize then was had I paid attention to my wife, I would have gotten it in return. We give ourselves all kinds of reasons why it was ok to cheat but the (at least the ones which reflected badly on our BW) one I really hung onto was since she doesn't show me any affection, she mustn't love me. One of the most sobering realizations through this entire shit show was, my wife didn't turn her back on me, I did it to her, our child and our marriage.

Amen to that. Sadly, when we needed to realize that the most, we failed to. I don't ever want to fuck anything up that badly again in my life.

Good catch, thank you for pointing this out. I would suggest that an RA is a response to a trigger condition, which then exposes the person's inability to cope. An RA is (I think) an attempt to restore power, to "even things out", and let's face it, mostly to hurt the other person.

Even though my RA happened when my brain was basically cracked (weird disassociation response), I've put a lot of work into figuring out why that was my response instead of anything else. I don't feel exactly guilty about it considering it doesn't remotely match up to anything he did, but it did concern me that this was how I coped. It didn't fix anything, obviously. It just served to freak me out afterwards that I had put myself at risk with a stranger and that I had put this stranger at risk because I had no idea what STDs I might have had from a husband who had sex with prostitutes. That was unkind to him too and he didn't know that he was an AP.

I've found it hard to figure out what is FOO and what is just who you are. My parents were old-school get-out-the-switch/yardstick spanking types. My brother would cry in response to a spanking. My cousin would cry. I would stand there defiant and let them wear themselves out trying to get a reaction because I would rather have died than show that it affected me. They eventually stopped because it made them feel ashamed to keep beating in the hopes of breaking me. When I was raped as a teen, I responded to that by becoming promiscuous and "taking sex back", refusing to let that guy destroy anything for me. These aren't healthy responses, but I don't think that they're a result of FOO. I think this is my basic personality. So it makes sense that on DDay I responded to finding out he was a serial cheater by immediately finding a stranger to have sex with. This all tracks, based on how I've responded to more things than I can list in my life. I don't even think the RA was hitting back at him so much as hitting back at a sexual trauma. I wasn't really thinking so it's hard to say for sure. I was on automatic pilot.

Where I'm torn is whether or not this is actually a negative coping mechanism that I should try and change. It can certainly be negative. I can do the wrong things with that mindset. On the other hand, it has led to me being successful in a number of things. It has led to be being able to handle life's disappointments and challenges. This defiance against being broken has served me well. I've had therapy and I've given it thought, and I really just don't know what to do with what I've figured out.

When I was reading through this, I caught myself nodding to what gmc94 said. The level of damage betrayal trauma caused within me was unimaginable. I would have gladly gone back and taken repeated beatings from my father, before ever choosing the pain of betrayal. For me, it was way more personal than anything else I've ever experienced. I didn't recognize myself. At best I was just fragments of a person I knew a long time ago. Rebuilding enough to feel like a human being has taken close to 18 months. With all that said, I would have been completely wrong to have a RA. With no legitimate excuses. Let me explain it from my addict brain.

I am an alcoholic, I was over 4 years sober until Dday. I excused myself to drink that day. All that work ruined, but not by my XW or her affair. I chose to lose my sobriety. Pretty much everyone I know (outside of AA) was extending me grace. Saying things like:

"Don't be so hard on yourself", "DDay was one hell of a bombshell", "So you had one night of binge drinking, you deserved a break".

I am soooo glad I got back on the wagon. As bad as DDay was, I've had much much worse days since then. I knew drinking was WRONG. No matter how many perceived excuses I had, crawling back in the bottle was bad for everyone around me (ESPECIALLY ME). If DDay was an excuse, then every TT, every mind movie, every trigger, then separation, and divorce, mom's death.......the list goes on. I would have never ran out of excuses to do bad things.

To me a response affair will always be WRONG as well. Excusing one's bad behavior is always a bad idea.

To tie it into the topic....No trauma (FOO, infidelity, or pre affair based) is ever an excuse to do bad things. We should learn from our history. Identify our blind spots, and become more prepared for whatever trauma that WILL happen next. Hopefully learn some better tools and cope in a healthy way.

When my husband had an affair it told me that he didn't believe affairs were wrong in all circumstances.

Hikingout, this statement stood out to me. I know for the sake of this conversation, you've tried to be very black and white about things. This just seems kind of extreme. I know actions trump words, but do you really believe he believed this? At least for me, I always knew my actions were wrong. I just didn't care enough about myself or anyone else to stop myself. Personally I don't know if I could continue to try and build something with someone who sees fidelity loop holes. I know that sounds hypocritical since I'm a WS and partook in swinging years ago. Sorry if this is a T/J.

N- people can recognize the wrongness of their thinking and shore up their integrity in a very meaningful way. The loophole can be closed. I would rather do anything else but go through any of this again. Not only all the damage and what it’s taking to fix but also I just do not want to be that weak. Selfish, short-sighted person again.

Buck- most ws deep down don’t *think* they care about losing the marriage but at the same time we are smug enough to think we have control over the situation. I personally think most people who cheat use resentment to fuel entitlement. I think if you do some work surrounding your own affairs and on yourself there is a chance for some

Major breakthroughs in your life. It might be pressing the divorce button but it also might lead to healing in the relationship you have now. I want that for you and anyone here. It’s as I said the reasoning that started the affair is different than the reasoning of staying in the affair.

I understand the pain my husband was in. I do not dismiss that. His actions towards fixing those feelings were misguided. I can see all that. But at the same time I am allowed to have feelings about it and require he does some work. I do see the cause and effect as being there but the effect should not have been an affair. It was against all his interests. For one he had a sweet divorce agreement that he now has lost. For two, now he has all this shame and distorted thinking that he has to unravel. For three I think he does want our marriage but was afraid to want it because he lost so much by my cheating. So cheating himself was a bad choice for HIM as much as it was for anything else. He has prolonged his own misery rather than dealing with what still remains to be dealt with.

[This message edited by hikingout at 9:44 AM, April 23rd (Friday)]