This is painful stuff. As a betrayed husband who really tried to save my marriage and not have it workout, I am envious or better yet proud of folks like Hiking in Out who transformed themselves. I also beleive like some of the betrayed men on here that some of the stats about womens infidelity is shakey.
My wife had 4 affairs and at least one of those was a fully involved "love affair". I know that it is difficult for experts to define who is a seriel cheater, but IMO she is at the very least a seriel liar and most likely a seriel cheater. I dont think I ever got the full truth. One of the more painful aspects of this is, I dont really have any idea who my former wife is. Maybe she was cheating on me my whole marriage. If she was not and is not a seriel cheater, I think part of her why much like hiking it out or many women you see who get into fully blown tryst after 20 years or so of marriage was symptomatic of a mid life crises.
She also said how romantic her affair was. From what I saw, I didnt see any real romance - just texting, a bunch of lies, cheating with married men, and alot of parking lott sex. Her co-worker AP never took her on dates or had anything more with her than alot of sneaky text, sneaky talks at the office, and parking lott sex. I guess for some that is romance, but I think it is really another form of crafting and buying into a justification for poor choices. I do beleive that women are more fearful of being labled homewreckers or whorish and using the concepts of love and romance helps assuage this in their minds. Once and only once in the very begining when I found out did she actually utter the words - I wanted the "Cake". Her words not mine. I said you wanted to perfect family life and great husband at home and wanted to go out and do whatever you wanted and in the end it did'nt matter who you hurt. She did not like the part about it didnt matter who you hurt, but she reluctnatly said yes pretty much. Esther Periel talks about discovring a former self and people act like that is some groundbreaking revelation. It's funny how words can be used to make things look better than they are. To me it is more like, rediscover a version of ones broken or lesser self.
After Dday and a three week sepration, she said she wanted to save our marriage and would do whatever it would take. Promised time and time again that all she wanted was me and our family. We worked the reconcillation front for more than a year. Both IC, marriage counselling, and EMSO over at affair recovery. She was a master manipulator throughout the whole process. She had so much empathy for the wives who got cheated on in our EMSO group, but lacked it for me and our children. About a year in I found out that she continued to cheat and lie the whole time. I also found out about three more affairs (all married men), but she said those were just emotional or only involved kissing. Her love affair was with a co-woker, a ten year older man who suffered from ED from time to time. Thats another story for another time. Makes me want to puke! I would have never continued under those conditions and under no circumstances would I have continued to have sex with her. I am sure that she and her AP got a little chuckle at myself and the other betrayed wife for being conmplete chumps.
I say all of this to bring back home a final point. If my wife was surveyed about love and romance on a post affair interview - she would say both were strong and present in her affair. Then again when I moved for divorce she reassured me and our MC that she really tried to save our marraige with all she had. All she did was go through the motions and continue to eat "Cake". She would also say that she is not a liar and hates lying. I dont think any outsider would charecterize any of what she experienced as love or romance - but that is how it would be recorded in a data set. As a betrayed male, I think one of the larger false narratives that we face is that women cheat because of a lack of love or romance or somehow the man is not doing his job at home. I dont buy any of that shit! Women can be cluster B personality just like men. Women can be Caker eaters just like cheating males. Their is also a vast discrepancy in the mateirals, studies, and overall social support for betrayed husbands. I dont think anyroad is more difficult regardless of gender. But those are areas of extra difficulty for betrayed husbands. My very best friend is raising a son that is not his, which he massively manipulated into beleiving was his. IMO it does not get anyworse than that if there is a measuring stick to say.
Another infuriating experience is that my wife had zero empahty for the APs wife. She would say that she was crazy and a mess of a person and that she was also a liar and manipulator. IMO no one wants to be the villian in their own destruction story or to be viewed as a person lacking integrity with a basline set of ethics. In short its hard to trust anything you read about the thoughts or opinions of unfaithfuls. My wifes affair would probably be charecterized as an exit affair - ironic how she continued to lie and work a false reconcilation effort for something she wanted out of. I've also herd from her scrambled brain more than once - well you're the one who wanted a divorce 
Just my two cents!
[This message edited by Fit43 at 3:41 AM, Tuesday, August 20th]
