SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Fantastic

While my affair never involved intercourse, I can relate where my head was during the A if that helps.

Getting caught or facing any kind of consequences was never in the forefront of my mind. Certainly I didn’t want to get caught and took steps to make sure it didn’t happen but I had convinced myself it would be no big deal if it happened.

I had lied to myself about my wife and marriage so much that I believed my own lies. She didn’t love me, wouldn’t be that upset etc. I cringe when I think about it now but that’s how delusional I became.

Thank you,ff4152, for taking time to reply.

I have always thought that affairs are such a sign of total selfishness that thinking about their consequences is not part of the package with regards to being caught, however the idea of risking a pregnancy for someone who has been ALL HIS LIFE very cautious in everything he's done, seems to me so crazy and out of order, since it would be a permanent "side effect".

But I strongly believe the point is the total craziness and selfishness that make people go ahead with their choices and ONLY THEN will they deal with the consequences. Total lack of sense of responsibility, total selfishness are probably the answers.

For those whose affair did not extend to sex can you explain how/why it took that path. I have read research showing robust percentages of affairs being self-reported anonymously as not including sex. I suppose people could have lied but why lie on anonymous surgery’s. My husband’s A was reportedly physical but didn’t make it to sex. I would believe him based on the facts and circumstances I know, but then everyone on SI seems so skeptical that it is even possible for the A to not include sex. Any insight would be appreciated.

I do not qualify for your question, but I think I understand the answer for a lot of people.

I didn’t really care about having sex with my AP. Of course people always ask why do it? Mostly because that is what he cared about but also because in my mind we were having this big romantic experience. I think it depends on what you are looking for in an affair. A lot of people have one to get external validation. And while those are two vague words that mean a lot, it boils down to wanting to feel special to someone.

To which a normal person might say well my ws was special to me. Why was that not enough? Ws do not realize they have the power to believe they are special, believe their spouse loves them. Because many do not love themselves they do not believe they are worthy of these things. I thought my husband was better than me, and his efforts in the marriage were based on reasons that were beyond who I am as a person. Like he wanted someone to take care of him and as long as I was doing that then he was good.

It’s ridiculous but these kind of thoughts are deep down and usually unexamined and unchallenged.

Part of why it’s effective with an affair partner is we often believe they can play the role and be believed. A spouse knows us, and our not so flattering pieces. We know we are not fooling them. We play make believe basically as a way of escaping the pain or discomfort we are experiencing.

In other words, many people have an affair for reasons other than sex. Some do have affairs to get sex. But I would have felt what I wanted without the physical aspect. I went along with those parts because I was getting what I needed from the situation. Very desperate.

[This message edited by hikingout at 7:41 PM, Thursday, October 10th]

WS only.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 6:03 PM, Friday, October 11th]

WS only.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 8:48 PM, Saturday, October 12th]

WS ONLY.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 6:03 PM, Friday, October 25th]

Hiking,

Thank you for your response. I agree with all you have said. The APs adulation was the the thing of value to him. My love for him, such as it was, was insufficient. It was a broken thing even then. I loved him with the loyalty of a devoted wife. But, he had not been kind for several years and he knew it. Having young children triggered every childhood wound he had, emotional abuse at the hands of a cruel narcissistic father. I should have walked well before he cheated. He didn’t believe I could have possibly really loved him as he felt broken inside and unlovable in an unfixable way. It was far better to get the devotion of a secretary being raised up to a bunch of fancy things they both thought had value, cars and the chance for a fancy lifestyle. He knew that stuff didn’t engender love in me. I don’t even know why I bothered to ask the question about sex. It is not because I think it makes his cheating better if he didn’t do that. He has been 100% clear that he very much wanted to and had she been willing would have jumped at the chance.

I guess I just want confirmation that he is telling the truth. Because if he chose to come out and confess about all this nonsense six years after the fact and cause all of this pain now and STILL lie about what really happened then he is truly a sadist and a sociopath. My friends all think he came clean because it was the right thing to do and he didn’t want the lies hanging over us. But he’s a people pleaser so others tend to see the good in him. I have no way to be 100% sure.

I only know that the one day he really had a chance for the privacy to do the deed is the same day he broke it off with her. And I just don’t think he would have the balls to break up with someone a few hours after he had sex with them. The risk of her lashing out would be so high. Plus if she’d been willing to have sex I doubt he would have broken it off. He would have been reveling in that experience and have wanted more of it. Essentially I don’t believe he was a good enough person at that time to have ended it with someone who was willing to sleep with him. And he did end it, that is one thing I know for sure.

As you said many have an affair for a reason other than sex. That is true in our case as well. If they did not have sex it is exclusively because she chose not to go that far for some reason I will never know. I can say without question that if I were to have an affair I am a zillion percent sure I would have sex. But thats just me. And it sounds like thats you too.

[This message edited by Stillconfused2022 at 3:27 AM, Sunday, October 13th]

For those WS in Reconciliation - how do you feel/what goes through your mind when you realize you have [inadvertently] triggered your BS?

Chaos,

Personally I think Oh Shit, and then kick myself wondering where my head was.then my gears change and I try to determine how best to get him through it. It rarely happens these days but in some ways I feel like it’s a little more intense for him than back when he had many. I am not sure if it’s a build up of small things, or it’s just more jarring because it’s on his mind far less?

I can have triggers too occasionally but I don’t find that is helpful in helping him, I used to think it did but as we have learned to communicate more deeply I am more delicately aware that we are two different people with two different sets of coping, values, pains, etc. That seems like a silly thing to say but my husband has been a quiet one over our years of marriage and it’s left me to assume in some ways that was a blank page I was always left to write on. I used to have to help him guess why he was sad. So perhaps it’s his increased self awareness that has caused me to be more aware of our individuality.

Anyway, the reason I just wrote that part is I think a lot of couples do this and frame it in their own understanding. It’s human nature. It takes that veil coming off to realize just how curious one needs to be to have a deeply satisfying relationship. I can’t claim we are all the way there yet but this knowing has certainly inspired a vision of where I want us to grow towards.

I think triggers are one of the hardest parts of being a reconciled couple, personally.

[This message edited by hikingout at 9:51 PM, Friday, October 25th]

Thank you Hikingout!

It rarely happens these days but in some ways I feel like it’s a little more intense for him than back when he had many. I am not sure if it’s a build up of small things, or it’s just more jarring because it’s on his mind far less?

I'm sitting here reading and saying YES like Meg Ryan! That's exactly it. All the above. IT is more intense in a way. It is a build up of small things and it is more jarring because it has been a while.

I'm glad I posted and so glad you answered. I was having a rough one due to all the above. And just couldn't figure it out.

I think triggers are one of the hardest parts of being a reconciled couple, personally.

Boom! You are not wrong. And that is something I never thought of.

Panopticon72,

I want to answer your question about using protection.

For context: My affair took place about 50 years ago and my MS and I are still working on the fall-out.

I had intercourse once with my AP during our 2-year affair. We didn't use protection. I had an IUD and trusted that it would work. I didn't consider STDs and he gave me one which I passed on to my husband the same night. I was very selfish and foolish.I can't say that I trusted him not to give me an STD, but I just didn't consider it. I was so excited about the moment that I wasn't considering what I was doing to my husband or my family...or myself.

It must have been painful for you to hear your BS say that he trusted her.

I am curious. My ex claimed that she felt guilty after sleeping with her AP but was determined to not lose me and so she kept her guilt hidden away. I am asking after cheating with your AP and coming home to your oblivious spouse. If guilt was what you felt or if you felt something more sinister? Maybe a triumphant feeling that you just put one over on your spouse by enjoying the benefits of 2 relationships while your spouse goes about life thinking everything thing is hunky dorey.
Did you resent your spouse for not noticing you were having an affair?
Did the fact that you had sex with your AP once make it easier to continue your affair?

So for me, yes I would cry after breaking different boundaries but I would push that away and kept at it. I would liken it to a drug addict that steals from their grandma.

Cognitive dissonance is holding two opposing views at once. I knew what I was doing was wrong but kept justifying why I needed it.

I never felt proud or sinister about doing things behind my husbands back. I am sure that is something that does happen, it just wasn’t my experience.

I didn’t want my husband to find out mostly because I wasn’t ready for my escapism to stop. But affairs by and large are highly illogical.

As for sex, I think often we see things like that through the lens of how we value it. With many Bh’s here and my own, they can only imagine affairs being motivated by sex. It’s logical, because that’s what affairs seem to be about. For me the driving factor was pretending to be something I wasn’t because I didn’t really know who I was. My behavior in the affair was immature and cringey. I think I wanted to feel like I did in my youth, but then I acted like I did at a younger age. Affairs are escapism. The sex part for me was more part of keeping the attention, escalating the "relationship".

I think it’s hard to frame that for some men. We experience sexuality differently. Sex for most women is not a scarcity. I personally was the lower drive partner in our marriage. So I wasn’t looking for something I had plenty of. I was looking for more of things I perceived I lacked. And I think for my husband, he couldn’t see cheating for anything but sex because he had an over abundance of most everything else. We often value things that we want more of, and take for granted things we get easily. It’s human nature.

This doesn’t mean that your ws feels the same way about any of it. But I don’t think it’s uncommon for people to cheat for other reasons than sex.

It doesn’t make it better of course, the sex is a tangible and it still occurred. I am not trying to invalidate your feelings or say it was nothing. I knew it was wrong and that it would hurt my husband if he were to find out. I just told myself things to get past that. "He will never know. What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him" "I deserve this because I have sacrificed so much to be in this marriage and I never get what I want in return" "maybe this will help our relationship, spice it up"

And of course all the things I am saying is bullshit, appalling, gross, etc. I can see that today. But we justify to cover our guilt and shame while in reality we are only adding to it. And the bill always comes due, but when it does we often hate ourselves even more than when it started. It’s the most destructive thing I have done to myself, my husband, and so many others including the innocent woman that I didn’t give a thought to while I was helping her husband destroy her world.

Thank you HikingOut, I am no longer with my ex and I am not willing to talk to her about the affair anymore. I remember many difficult times that I helped here through while she was in her affair. She claims she couldnt stand that he broke up with her and that it was just her being immature. I will agree that her behavior was immature but I cant help but feel like there was more to it than just a sort of "I'll show him what he gave up, by giving him what he gave up" mentality.

Notarunnerup,

I felt guilty, but kept seeing my AP, rationalizing and telling myself, as Hikingout did, "What he doesn't know won't hurt him." I felt conflicted. I thought I was in love with two men and that I couldn't help it. I felt compelled, sort of like a drug addict. I realize now that I didn't love either my spouse or the AP.

I didn't have a triumphant feeling. I know, though, that I sought out the high that I felt when my AP would give me attention and I craved that attention. I wanted to feel special. There were times when my spouse was angry and yelling at me that I felt that his not knowing everything about me was something I had over him, but that wasn't a way I felt very often or very strongly. I should point out that I have been conflict avoidant and rather than meet problems head on I would avoid them.

I didn't resent my spouse for not noticing my having an affair. I hid it from him. I didn't want him to know.

After the sex, I continued seeing my AP for about 7 months. During that time, I told myself one of my many lies to myself, that we could just be friends...that I wouldn't have sex with him again. However, we were never friends. Our interactions were always based on sexual feelings.

Happy Friday!

As a WS who put forth the hard work and made valiant efforts to show the BS how remorseful they truly were and that they want nothing more then to work on the brokenness within themselves, support the BS, while trying to heal the M (no matter the cost) … at what point along your healing journey did YOU (WS) feel that you were "deserving" of some leniency from the BS (ex. not having snarky comments around the A thrown around after every conversation, the BS showing you some grace/softness for your consistent/hard work, etc.)?

I know that my WH could literally move mountains and fly to the moon and back and it wouldn’t be enough. I suppose since we are trying to move in the direction of R, at some point I need to be better and not bitter towards my WH.

I did not have expectations on that. But I wouldn’t say my husband did a lot of that by the time we were finishing the first year. And it never happened a lot. I understood it when it did.

I personally think it’s takes time for the ws to get to the remorse stage and get better at supporting the bs. So it would be impossible to say when that timeframe would be.

Generally, I feel that maybe instead of being concerned with his expectations on it think about what you get out of being snarky and try to satisfy that with a different behavior. Most people do not feel better by being snarky. Maybe in the moment. But for a lot of people it adds guilty feelings which then makes one feel defensive and justify their behavior to alleviate the guilt, which tends to make one double down on the anger.

And most of that hurts the person doing it more than the person receiving the snark.

Just some thoughts. Not sure it was helpful.

Wanting to know about how much WS had to compartmentalise their lives in order to live with themselves? Did BS just not enter in to your minds or what? So hurt by lack of transparency that I am trying to get my head around how someone can act normal at home & be cheating without feeling awful about themselves especially when BS has had terrible tragedy in their lives already. Can anyone throw some light on how BS avoid the feelings of guilt they must have had/have?

I was not the greatest at compartmentalizing. My husband knew there was something wrong. When he cheated I had no idea, he was better at keeping things separate.

For me, it was more I felt dead inside. I didn’t care about anything anymore. I felt depleted, old, used up. When the affair began I felt entitled to the happiness it brought me. Even though it was fools gold and actually quite literally ruined my life for years afterwards.

So what helped me more mitigate the guilt was all the justifications I would makes things like "what he won’t know won’t hurt him", "maybe this will help me get back to myself and it will be good for our relationship." Just stupid shit like that.

In reality all I was doing was living in a make believe world, and that make believe would allow me to be pretty avoidant with the truth. I was simply selfish enough to do what I wanted.

Most affairs start with some sort of entitlement, the level of hiding comes down to how well you compartmentalize (and most men do that better than women do for some reason, just like I think women are largely better multi-tasters- I attribute it to how our brains are wired knowing there are exceptions and not always true for everyone)

As the affair progresses then come the justifications, which often includes rewriting of the marital history. There is often a way of focusing jn positives (most of which are made up) about the AP, and focusing on the negatives of one’s spouse (again largely made up or exaggerated). I think cake eaters do that last one a bit more subtlety. They may think their spouse is great except they don’t meet some need they perceive themselves to have. Thei justifications tend to be about getting more.

And all of this is because the ws has a weak character in the first place.

I believe people can intentionally build their character and get stronger on understanding their values. But I think for a bs who would have never cheated, it’s difficult to understand what someone with a lower sense of values and as a result lower character. It’s unfathomable and it takes a lot of deep work from the ws to help illuminate their mindset to their bs and how their mindset is changing.