SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This is helpful, ladies. Thank you.

It turns out you internet strangers - though I feel like I know you all well - may have done a better job explaining my wayward wife’s “whys” than she has, and maybe because she hasn’t contemplated this as a “why.” I am aware that her first boyfriend raped her and that this rape was her first sexual intercourse at 15 or 16.

[This message edited by Wiseoldfool at 4:40 PM, Wednesday, March 24th]

As WaitedWayTooLong discussed, while many women who have been molested, groomed, sexually assaulted, etc may equate their value with their ability to service men sexually, our entire culture TEACHES (or socializes) women that our sexuality is the basis for our worth.

Right, but I want to be clear - the TRAUMA of the abuse is different than societal pressures. It's very important to see that because before infidelity I didn't even know what trauma was or how it effected people. I thought it was something you came home from a war with, or after witnessing a tragic event, or being a victim of a crime.

WiseOld - I'm a BW and I have the same thoughts. This conundrum comes up plenty on SI, namely: you risked me and our M for great sex.... or you risked me and our M for shitty sex. And for me, I believe it's a distraction from the real issue - that they RISKED their BS and the M for sex - of any variety. Or even more simplified: WS risks the BS and the M for whatever selfish thing they knew was a dealbreaker and did it anyhow.

I don't disagree. This knowledge doesn't really negate anything the WW has done. It doesn't alleviate the pain. It's more, this question gets asked so many times of how does a WW do this and not really be all about the sex. This gets asked many times over the course of a year. I think through my own therapy and understanding that most of the WS's I have talked to on this site all have this one thing in common. And, in every single case they say "it wasn't about the sex", "the sex was meh" etc. It's hard for someone to wrap their minds around that without thinking it's minimizing.

I try and take accountability for everything related to what I did. And, I still find NEW things to take accountability for. I am not trying to minimize anything because I want to change for ME. Hiding behind things does not allow that to happen. If I was looking for better sex, having the greatest sex of my life, or something to that effect, I believe I would take accountability for that too.

It's interesting because I am going to say that the trauma of my past abuse has been far more of a theme as the BS than the WS. I think IC wanted me to really look at my accountability and didn't want to detract from that. But, when we look at just how I relate to my husband, and the way I have trouble with anger with not just him but my abusers, it's so much easier for me to see how the SA, and the subsequent rugsweeping by the adults around me did, has really everything to do with who I am in a relationship, and not just in an affair. It's that consistency that I now have a hard time ignoring. And, It's a mind fuck to be as old as I am to try to think about new boundaries sexually and the fear that evokes in me.

the TRAUMA of the abuse is different than societal pressures

Oddly, my knee-jerk reaction to this is "yes... and no", but I can't put my finger on just why that is.

Not that any of my thoughts may be helpful on the subject :)

I think maybe I've categorized in a "trauma is trauma" kind of way - and that's made sense as part of my particular healing needs (or searching for a good fitting IC). But reading this makes me realize that while trauma IS trauma (like ice cream is ice cream), there are clearly different flavors. And I am very early in exploring the relationship between my current healing with the dysfunction of my teenage sexual experiences (including long term sexual harassment from my boss' husband when I was 15, that resulted in my being fired)

For some reason my mind is jumping to a story from The Body Keeps the Score where a husband & wife were in a car accident of the pile up & lots of vehicles & fatality variety. One spouse (I think it was the husband) was able to heal pretty well from that trauma, while the other really struggled with functioning, despite both being involved in the same accident. And we see the same thing in ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) in that some are able to better tolerate ACEs than others - even siblings who are both exposed to the same adversities.

And in my head, that leads me to Rick Hansen & related looks at how we cope with those traumas, what our wiring looks like beforehand, etc. That leads to the coping mechanisms we put in place in the wake of whatever the trauma is.

Not trying to de-validate your experience at all HO - just trying to wrap my head around the odd stew that is women's sexuality, trauma (esp of the "formative years" or of the sexual variety), and surviving infidelity. Thank you for the provoking of thoughts over here in GMCland :)

[This message edited by gmc94 at 11:11 AM, March 24th, 2021 (Wednesday)]

No problem.

My SA started when I was five. He started trying to penetrate me at 7. I didn't understand what was happening but I was terrified. This was definitely trauma in that it can effect your brain, as much as any other trauma. There are many other stories, I don't want to tell them here.

People who have been groomed specifically for sex as a child is VERY different than societal pressures. No question now in my mind.

Your experience of being 15 and having "consensual" sex with your older boyfriend, was wrong, but it may not have effected you the same way and that might be why you question if it's trauma.

I think that there are many a BS who will rugsweep their WS's first affair and not realize it was traumatizing to them either. If you believe someone can be traumatized by an affair, surely you can believe that SA can do it too. And, that rugsweeping it, or not recognizing it in either situation can make it much worse.

But, honestly it doesn't matter if it qualifies for "trauma" or not, it still shaped my relationship to sex, the way I view men, the way I have used my sexuality, and why the quality of the sex really wasn't a driving force over whether the affair continued or not. I felt like I should clarify that because I don't want to start a debate about what trauma is or isn't, in this case I know it was a "HOW" for me in terms of the affair. I wouldn't say it was a "why".

I kidded myself that my primary abuser loved and cared for me too. That was my main point. HOW someone is comfortable with the humiliation, the overtly sexual relationship, being used, etc. It doesn't mean they kept going back for the sex, it can be a number of reasons they were drawn into that relationship and wanted it to continue.

[This message edited by hikingout at 12:42 PM, March 24th (Wednesday)]

In no way and at no point did I say, imply or otherwise infer that any betrayed spouse is to blame for or causes their own mind movies.

In fact, I went out of my way to say specifically that the wayward commits the infidelity which brings the conditions and basic content for the mind movies into existence and into the relationship.

I then went on to point out that betrayed partners who have seen or read graphic content about the infidelity have special challenges.

The waywards foist the story line upon us. We write the screen play. Unless we personally know the AP(s) and the AP is playing him or herself, we even cast the characters.

Unless the betrayed partners were somehow witness to every moment of the illicit involvement, our mind movies are not documentaries.

They are, at most, 'based on a true story.'

IMHO, they are visual representations of our trauma, but not necessarily an actual and factual and complete documentary about real life events. Nor how my husband felt about those events, nor how he felt while the events were happening. I was writing his character and his lines and directing him. Doesn't make my mental rendition of his story line accurate, or, for that matter, 'right sized.'

Pretty damned sure that my screenplay interpretation did not emanate from my psychological and emotional Happy Place.

The infidelity punched many of my insecurity buttons, which contributed to my trauma and created trauma of its own. My mind movies are/were my brain's visual representation of that specific trauma as well.

It helped me immensely to realize that my particular screenplay was informed by my insecurities easily as much as it was informed by actual fact.

I believe that realization stripped my mind movies of much of their power.

Your mileage may vary.

I’m returning to this just to reiterate that survivors of SA though not given a pass to cheat, deserve looking at the infidelity through a different lens. HO that having it happen to you at 5 literally turns my stomach. Girls being pursued for sex in low teens by older men brings the same reaction. Disgusting. I think had those factors been in play in our situation I would have had the compassion to stay and work through it. The abuse created an illness. I would never have walked away from it provided she was willing to work on the issues. That wasn’t the case here.

I do think many however do use the societal pressures as an excuse and I’m not on board with that.

I also get that the sex in many cases can be a cry for attention, but I’m not convinced in the LTA and where sex is an abundance that both the affair partners learn each other’s hot buttons, just as any relationship, and the sex gets pretty good. Why stick around and have sex with someone who isn’t your spouse for 6 months to 10 years if it isn’t. I don’t do that in any relationships I have now.

I will take a step further and in my case where it was just sex and not emotional, the sex thru the prism at the time must have been pretty good. If not why risk it all for it. As for the humiliation. He got off on it. In my profile I wrote about how he targeted the older owners and prided himself and actually bragged about getting them to do things for him, they didn’t do for their husbands. Maybe some had trauma, but averages say not all. My wife at first was just another notch, until I pissed him off which is also there. That’s when it got personal and he went scorched earth. She was a target for a predator, but she still had free will and exercised it the wrong direction

The reason I left the thread was my disgust in being told that my trauma and others are just embellished visions and we just just get the fuck over it. The poster who gave the example of a rape victim that might have been passed out shouldn’t have trauma because they don’t have actual memories of the act was spot on. Better yet, tell that to a girl who gets gang raped passing out at a fraternity party after drinking spiked punch that her visions of the rape is just a result of her creating cinema In her head and a result of her insecurities.

[This message edited by waitedwaytoolong at 12:57 PM, March 24th (Wednesday)]

Well, to be fair, Waitedtoolong, I never looked at it through this lens quite the same way before my husband's affair. I have a different IC now, the one I used for my affair has retired. She isn't pushing me to this narrative, but in taking my history and in listening to some of what I have to say in the aftermath of my husbands affair she thinks that there is a lot there that hasn't been dealt with.

As I have explored it more, I agree with her. I am not sure what to do about it. I knew I was a people pleaser in my marriage, but I didn't correlate it with sex or my attitudes towards it exactly. I have talked about it in the past and knew that it contributed to wanting to be a "cool wife" but I didn't look at some of the darkness/damage that accompanied that. I thought I had finished with the "hustle for love" mentality I had, but never looked at what that might mean for my sex life. I generally have to get to know myself in a new way now in order to figure out what's okay and not okay with me sexually. Boundaries are really difficult without understanding that. While it's easy to put boundaries between myself and other men, boundaries with my husband can become complex. I certainly wasn't looking to institute that aspect after my affair, but after his there are many more triggers that I tend to want to barrel through because I never wanted to put boundaries on our sex life. I have to now for my sanity.

It just in turn has brought a lot of thought processes to the way I think about some of the WS here that I have interacted with closely, and wondering if there was a correlation with using sex as a coping mechanism/escapism for them as well. I told this in this thread not to just give you food for thought about why else a woman might stay in a situation even if the sex is still take it or leave it. Might not have been the appropriate place since mind movies was the topic.

It just really seems to me your wife was getting nothing out of this at all, and was replaying some abuse dynamic from an earlier time. Apparently this is common, based on what I am learning. Some of what I know she did in her affair I can't imagine she enjoyed. In fact she allowed it to beat her down in many ways and there is a reason somewhere for that, though we may never know what that is. It's not just the boundaries of not having an affair, it's the total lack of boundaries to her own detriment that is suspicious to me.

As for the mind movies, sometimes the only thing that helps is what you did by removing yourself from the situation. I know this is triggery to you, but MR is a BW. I don't think she was trying to do anything but relay what helped her.

[This message edited by hikingout at 1:13 PM, March 24th (Wednesday)]

Not disagreeing with you HO, so much as questioning my own knee-jerk response (ie - why would my brain want to go THAT way?)

I sure rugswept WH's 1st PA. I remember having mind movies about it, but they were absolutely mild by comparison and VERY short lived (maybe for a month?) - isolated incident with anonymous prostitute who wouldn't give a rat's arse about whatever my WH did or did not do (provided he was a paying customer) was very different for me than the LTA. I don't know how to characterize it other than perhaps my ego wasn't much involved in his encounter with a prostitute the way it was with the LTA - the impersonal nature of a prostitute vs someone knowing my WH and all about me and my family may be a better way to frame it - one felt "about" my WH acting like a dipsh*t while the other feels more like a total invasion into my life/story by a third party, with my WH's assistance. I also think I put logic brain hard to work to rationalize it as a "sowing of wild oats" after a drunken argument prior to M (instead of something more healthy like thinking WH needed to really - and fully - explore WHY that was his response to a drunken argument).

So - again - odd in that had it been an isolated incident, I really don't feel it impacted me long term.... but when the infidelity came back with a vengeance, that 1st encounter did a good number on my headspace and healing from all that happened after. Also feels odd that I don't think I've had any mind movies about that 1st PA since learning of the LTA.

Yet, when I think about it, I've found that to be kind of the MO on my particular journey through infidelity, in that dday walloped & reopened EVERY trauma scar I felt I had more than adequately "healed" at various points in the 25+years before dday. Some were glaringly apparent immediately, others were deeper & more murky in their journey to the surface (and I suspect others still will rise up for a new look).

So, I guess writing this out it's making more sense to me & I can better frame the "trauma" aspect outside of the cultural ones. IOW how the trauma from childhood SA would resurface and impact the work after becoming a BS - all of my prior traumas came back as well. I once wrote of it as my personal "baggage" included some very finely pressed, folded, and packed garments that dday & the work in response upturned, requiring them to be looked at, shaken out and maybe ANOTHER round of ironing before they could be safely re-packed (or let go), KWIM?

ETA:

I kidded myself that my primary abuser loved and cared for me too. That was my main point. HOW someone is comfortable with the humiliation, the overtly sexual relationship, being used, etc. It doesn't mean they kept going back for the sex, it can be a number of reasons they were drawn into that relationship and wanted it to continue.

I was doing my post when you posted this.... anyhow, it's helpful for my own journey in healing/re-healing.

And I'm now curious how you view this from the WS vs BS perspectives - the "humiliation" feels multi-dimensional in that there is "comfortable with the humiliation" in the context of CSA/SA (no question my older "lover" used me, relationship was fully based on sex/my servicing him sexually, etc), in the context of an AP putting another "notch" in the belt, and in the context of the humiliation that is part & parcel for many (most? all?) BS (and I'm confident that isn't an exhaustive list).

and I was 14 when I "consented" to sex with that 25yo, after weeks of grooming.

[This message edited by gmc94 at 1:31 PM, March 24th, 2021 (Wednesday)]

Glory hallelujah.

At no time did I say that anyone's mind movies were mere embellishments and to "just get the fuck over it."

WaitedWayTooLong and gmc94, did you read my post about my struggle with mind movies? Go back and read it and tell me if I sound like I'm minimizing the experience of mind movies.

What I am saying is best said in my most recent post. We write our own screenplays and we aren't writing them from a place of happiness and confidence.

WWTL, go back and read your own description of your mind movies. Lots of graphic and explicit details about expressions of pleasure and satisfaction that, in fact, may not have been so accurate or may not have occurred at all.

You are layering that on top of basic facts. The facts are horrible. The layer of 'directing' on your personal screen play makes it even more painful.

It helped me when I realized that my own insecurities and baggage were informing my mind movies as much as any fact was.

You know the part about the betrayed spouse healing him/herself? Cleaning up my own mind movies was part of it for me.

Realizing that *I* was infusing my mind movies with all sorts of superlatives based on my own insecurities, baggage and anxieties helped me. Stripping away my editorial and creative license stripped my mind movies of much of their power.

"I don't know that it happened that way."

"I don't know what she really looked like or felt like, so there's no reason for me to assume it was better than me."

"I'm not inside my husband's head. I'm likely assigning a level of enjoyment and arousal that didn't exist."

I became the boss of my own mind movies. I became a ruthless editor and left a whole bunch of bullshit on the cutting room floor.

And when I looked at that pile of bullshit, I realized that I was looking not at facts, but a lot of assumptions and editorializing created whole cloth out of my own anxieties.

Comparing getting a handle on ones own mind movies by becoming ruthless about cutting out one's own editorializing and emotional infusements and anxieties and insecurities in order to strip the mind movies of their power to retraumatizing a rape victim is inappropriate and uncalled for.

Apologies are in order.

[This message edited by marriageredux959 at 1:29 PM, March 24th (Wednesday)]

I didn't think you were arguing with me, GMC. Not at all. I was just explaining what I was saying a different way. I didn't think you were questioning my situation, I could see you were questioning yours.

I said to my IC that I don't *feel* like I am traumatized by my husbands affair. I do believe he was traumatized by mine. And, I think maybe it's what you are saying, his affair hasn't effected my ego. I don't feel abandoned because I abandoned him first.

I would feel very differently if his affair was first. But, the work I have done makes me know to my core that his affair is not a statement of my worth. I know that because of all that came before this. Just like you could look at the prostitute and not feel it was a statement of your worth. You just never know what a situation is going to bring up unhealed in you.

This is not to say my husband's affair isn't painful to me, or that our marriage doesn't hang in the balance of him working on himself.

This is why I understood your earlier messages, what is a trauma for one may not be for another. I get it.

I was posting when you posted this:

And I'm now curious how you view this from the WS vs BS perspectives - the "humiliation" feels multi-dimensional in that there is "comfortable with the humiliation" in the context of CSA/SA (no question my older "lover" used me, relationship was fully based on sex/my servicing him sexually, etc), in the context of an AP putting another "notch" in the belt, and in the context of the humiliation that is part & parcel for many (most? all?) BS (and I'm confident that isn't an exhaustive list).

I don't know how to answer your question. I may have in the post I just wrote.

As the WS, the sexual abuse came into play in that I did understand that I have always led with my sexuality in terms of men I was interested in.

As the BS, I have explored this more from how I relate to my husband but it's brought an awareness that the AP was very figurative for me. I see the layers more deeply than I did as the WS. I knew it wasn't my "why" as the WS, which is why it took so long for it to come up in counseling, but the "how" existed in both the affair AND in my marriage AND in most of the relationships I have had. The whole debacle with the ipad is what is bringing a lot of this up because I had been plowing through things that were triggering me rather than assessing why. When I couldn't go through with the sex that night, it was like a lot of people pointed out, I was making a stand. I would never say my husband has abused me (outside of having an affair) or would want me to do things sexually I didn't want to. I would say that I plow through things I didn't like without any awareness of it.

I am not sure I am through this enough to be clear?

and I was 14 when I "consented" to sex with that 25yo, after weeks of grooming.

I didn't mean that wasn't traumatic. I could just see how maybe you don't associate it the same way.

I think MOST women go through the societal conditioning to the degree that when there is SA it's almost like "par for the course" or expected.

It's only been in the last decade that people are starting to challenge that more strongly. And being able to state how it effected them. For me, as the WS I think this was the origin of the shame I was carrying that impeded feeling my own self worth. I think part of me always felt like I was "bad" because of it.

Why stick around and have sex with someone who isn’t your spouse for 6 months to 10 years if it isn’t

Waited- my WH may very well be feeding me a whole bunch of bullsh*t on this front, but what he describes in the way of sex with his AP is pretty weak sauce. So why would she risk her primary relationship for a decade of intermittent weak sex with my WH?

I can theorize a number of answers - ranging from her being a serial cheater (she cheated on her 1st husband with my WH years before I even met my WH and slept with others in addition to my WS during their decade-long PA), being a BW (her 3rd husband left her for his AP), to any other number of things. Personally, I believe it is a power dynamic (again, serial cheater and my WH was not her first - or last- "new" sex with a married man) and her below zero level of self esteem. I think she got off on being sooooo irresistible that men would risk their marriages to women they routinely professed to LOVE and would "never leave" in order to have sex with her. Now, that's just my sitch and it's just a theory.

[This message edited by gmc94 at 1:56 PM, March 24th, 2021 (Wednesday)]

duplicate

[This message edited by gmc94 at 1:55 PM, March 24th, 2021 (Wednesday)]

Agree^^^^

The sex would not have had to get better for me to stay in the affair. It didn't bring me to it, and it wouldn't have kept me in it.

GMC, every situation is different. You WH was involved with a serial cheater. I think if you know you are the Thursday guy and know that there is also a Monday Sunday and Friday guy the AP becomes more like a prostitute rather than an AP. He might be telling the truth. Your WH has some serious mental issues that also might skew this whole thing. I give you credit for sticking with him. Though these issues may not stem from SA, some serious shit is going on and he is as ill as any SA survivor.

Going back to the topic, the enjoyment of the acts is only part of the mind movies Frankly had my wife hated everything, which she definitely does now, I’m not sure how much that makes a difference. Whether she was moaning in pleasure, or screaming in pain while having Anal, the visuals and thoughts are equally bad. The fact she did it so many times exacerbates it. Same with the other acts. She gave him a bj behind a closed door and tipped his buddies off. They waited for her to come out and he made sure he finished partly on her shirt which the workers saw. It so pissed off one of him he finally had to tell me what was going on. She was embarrassed and humiliated. Does that change the vision of her walking out and having these guys see the shit on her shirt? NFW.

Again, going back to the topic. I can still see these things, but after the divorce they didn’t hurt as much. Some of it was time, some of it sad to say was I got payback, and some of it was i had to move on. Writing here brings a lot back, but I really don’t think about it. I thought about it every time we had sex. I never think about while I’m having sex with my now girlfriend. Big progress.

I think there are those with time, some therapy, and better sex can let it go. That wasn’t me.

I do think that in conversations with other males bs, the prevalence of the mind movies is far more than most WW could imagine

Another factor in mind movies:

Trickle truth.

I suspect there is some correlation between the amount and degree of trickle truth and what we do with our 'screenplays.'

We try to connect the dots and fill in the blanks, and we are trying to protect ourselves from further surprises.

I suspect that many of us envision 'the worst' as a form of self defense.

My most vivid and painful and persistent mind movies were generated during the trickle truth period.

Somewhat related to the correlation of mind movies and trickle truth, those of us who found out years later/heard or discovered a significantly different story years later also likely spool up some hella mind movies in self defense. We don't want to be surprised like that again, so we'll infuse our cinematic masterpieces with every hurtful thing we can conjure, including our greatest hits of The Most Dreaded Thing That Could Come Out About This.

I think it was Bigger? who said that walking in on his fiancee and her AP and seeing the sex in progress actually 'right sized' it for him. He said that what he would have created in a mind movie would have been far worse.

The sex would not have had to get better for me to stay in the affair. It didn't bring me to it, and it wouldn't have kept me in it.

I’m pretty thick headed for a guy with as many degrees as I have.

I think this sounds a lot like what my wife has been trying to get me to hear.

Thank you, HikingOut, for (probably) translating for my WW’s words into ideas that I can receive.

Waitedtoolong - I have said quite a few times, it's probably not helpful at all for the mind movies. I probably should not have posted my response here because that's what the thread is about.

I was responding more to the statement about how if someone has an LTA that it's much likelier they liked the sex. It spurred me to share a theory I have held for a while that has become clearer now that I am in therapy for my husband's affair.

So, I 100 percent agree - my explanations on how that is possible has nothing to do with mind movies. I have mind movies too about his affair. I do not have any sure fire way to deal with them other than I try and apply some of the things I learned from my other time in therapy on how to overcome obsessive thoughts.

At this point, I didn't try and address yours because you have removed the issue by divorcing and moving on. I was more speaking to you about why I think your theory about LTA's versus STA's is fallible. It may be important to someone else, who knows.