SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

A quick question to BS and WS.

Part of a discussion with BS yesterday on the time line. We discussed my justifications, thoughts and feelings and my defence of APs. We realised I had never thrown them under the bus. If anything, I have defended them and their integrity!!!!!

My question is is this normal or do other WS blame AP or at least not defend them.

Just curious really.

I was extremely reluctant to throw the OM under the bus. We started out as friends, and I made unrealistic promises about remaining so afterwards. I believed that (A) my voluntary confession was sufficient proof that the A was over, and (B) because BH "won" me, OM deserved my support as a consolation prize. Tossing him out like yesterday's garbage felt less ethical than taking sole ownership of what we had done together.

The problem with that logic was that OM and I gave up all right to support each other when we chose to cross the line. I was the architect of the machine of destruction, and he willingly helped to build it. There was nothing noble about protecting him at BH's expense. And for any WS who is thinking that it's doing the AP a favor to ease them out of your life: a clean break is better for everyone. For your BS, for you, and frankly for the AP. Any possibility of reconciliation is dependent on total and permanent NC, so it's cruel to pretend otherwise while clinging to an impossible future. Let them hate you if necessary and get on with their lives.

The only person to blame is ourselves, we made the decision to cross the line so there's absolutely no reason to throw any other people under the bus. It doesn't matter if the AP seduced you, it doesn't matter if you stopped loving your spouse, it doesn't matter about the situation, the circumstances, nothing else matter as it was the WS who solely made the decision to cheat, throwing someone else under the bus is just an act of shifting the blame.
IMHO, WS can't truly start the recovery (for themselves) until they understand and take full accountability for their action and not blame anyone or anything else. At least that's how I felt when I finally got there.

For me there is a distinction between "throwing them under the bus" and "defending them."

The former is cowardly and refusing to take responsibility.

The latter is, to me, much more painful for the BS. Afterall, you (the collective WS you) didn't defend your spouse or marriage from this nightmare but you'll defend a person that helped you destroy everything?

My WS would "defend" his AP. It wasn't her fault, she just got caught up in a bad situation, she was hopelessly in love so again, not her fault.

Couple of things in play here. First of all (and it took him quite a while to get there), if she is bad, then he is bad. Any accusation levelled at her, felt very much levelled at him. So his protecting her was in part, him protecting himself. He wasn't a shameless cheater without empathy or feelings! So she couldn't be either.

Secondly, taking off the rose colored glasses meant he destroyed his marriage, family and future for .... nothing. If his AP was in fact just a lonely bored serial cheating housewife looking to monkey branch from her dead marriage to our life with it's financial security, fancy cars, trips and robust social life, he not only destroyed his life for nothing, he also got played a bit, at least as much as he was playing her.

Everyone in these situation is responsible for their own behavior. Everyone has to own their bullshit, the pain they've caused, they way they've failed themselves. Protecting a co-conspirator is dead wrong imo.

I agree with doninvaun. What made me think R or a 'good' (mindful? non-antagonistic?) D was possible was that my W took responsibility from the moment she decided to end her A, which was a few hours before she revealed her A to me.

In my case, my W went NC via text to ow within 2 hours of revealing her A. I see that as 'throwing ap under the bus.' I find more than a bit of schadenfreude because d-day/NC-day was ow's b'day and because I see dumping via text as very disrespectful.

I was certainly angry at ow, but I knew my beef was with my W. She had the ability to say 'no.' If she had, my W, at least, wouldn't have cheated, whether ow cheated with someone else or not.

I sometimes go too far down the rabbit hole of imagining very disrespectful things, done to a person by another person. The person it is done to is usually me, occasionally my wife. The person doing it is usually a stranger, sometimes a friend, colleague or family member. The spectator is either my wife or myself.

For example, my wife might see a friend who had been invited over, excuse herself, go to the bedroom. When my wife checks she is actually going through my drawers to steal things. There is a meeting of eyes, a few words exchanged, but my wife saw what she saw. There is either a blow up or a quick exit and excuses, not believed.

There are infinite permutations. Most worse than the above one.

Another might be a stranger coming up to me and spitting in my face, or my wife’s face. How would I react? How would she react?

I think infidelity in a long term relationship with kids is much, much worse. It is just so terribly disrespectful of a person’s lifelong labour. The AP treated me terribly, even though it came from a place of not giving a f about me, or the effect on my kids.

In very few scenarios do I imagine the person would be forgiven, rehabilitated or defended. The Police might be involved, others might be warned off, told not to trust her, told she isn’t what she seems.

I expected something like that from my wife, but didn’t get it.

I got no contact, after months of indecision.

[This message edited by straightup at 10:40 PM, Monday, January 8th]

My husband owned his abhorrent actions and simultaneously kicked her to the curb in an almost comical calloused way. She felt thrown under the bus, but in reality, she was just discarded like trash. 🤷‍♀️ He knew instantly he owed her nothing despite whatever lies he told her. They were both liars, they both knew each other were liars, and therefore owed each other nothing. I would not have tolerated any defending of her or himself.

I'm certainly someone who has used the term "throwing each other under the bus" when describing how quickly my husband "turned on" his AP. When I say this, I don't mean to say he *blamed* her for the A - he never did that. I can't imagine he would ever think that would fly with me. When I say that, what I"m talking about is that he didn't hold on to any loyalty to her. Once found out, he didn't ever lie to protect her or them or to make her look better. He handed over his phone and her husband's contact information quickly and allowed me to inform OBS before my husband had a chance to tip AP off. OBS and I were in contact texting and calling back and forth throughout the weekend comparing stories and although AP tried to do damage control (all the typical cheater lies - no sex, it was only once etc etc.), my husband quickly realized that there was benefit to being the "most honest" cheater.

For the record, the dropping the loyalty to her was important to me. He couldn't be loyal to me while maintaining any loyalty to her. I see marriage as a partnerhship/team. If someone hurts my teammate, and I have my teammmates back, that person is now my enemy (and vice versa). The friend of my enemy is not my friend, after all. He went through a brief phase where he hated (or at least deeply resented her for being complicit in their A and the destruction it had on me and our relationship) and that felt useful for our marriage at the time. I'm glad it wasn't permanent though - that probably wouldn't have been healthy for ether of us.

All that said, as limited as his loyalty to her was, he had a harder time dealing with it when I had some choice words about her personality/character/ethical flaws a few weeks later. At first I thought it was because he was defending her, but the reality was that he understood very well that if she was all those things that I was saying about her (and she was), the exact same thing could be said about him. Although he knew it was true and he got there eventually, it was harder for him to come to terms with.

My W did not throw him under the bus, she took full responsibility and admitted to chasing him.

My wife believed she was his Savour, his redeemer, and that their affair had been destined. She lied and rug swept it for years and only 25 years later did she finally see him in the light of day for who he is/was. When it finally dawned on her she had been played, she became very angry with him and herself for living a lie. She has never admitted it, but it was only then that she realized her White Knight was one of Cinderellas transformed rats. Be highly intelligent doesn’t always make one smart.

My XWS vacillated between defending his AP and throwing her under the bus. Initially he defended her. He told me she was a devout Catholic, a good person, someone who didn't deserve my contempt because she was just so amazing. LOL. When I kicked him out, he started to wake up and realize she wasn't so wonderful after all. He threw her under the bus and expounded to me on all of my wonderful qualities and why he wanted his marriage with me instead of her...until I found out about the secret phone he'd purchased and wasusing to take his A underground. Then he was full of vitriol. I suddenly became a crazy, spiteful, controlling B who didn't deserve to lick the ground she walked on. At this point, I was no longer in shock and no longer willing to entertain reconciliation. I kicked him out (as he was simultaneously packing to leave me, the controlling B). He moved her to our state. It wasn't even a week before he was asking himself "WTF did I get myself into?" Consequently, he started trying to come back.
I don't know if all WS throw their AP under the bus, but I do know, after being a member for over 10 years and reading here, that many do. Many also, like my ex, vacillate back and forth. Had he stuck with his initial actions of keeping her thrown under the bus, maybe things would be different. I personally feel that every BS should divorce immediately. If the WS is going to do their work, they'll do it anyway. Reconciliation can come AFTER the divorce and after they have fixed their shit. If they do, then it's happily ever after, so to speak. If they don't, well you're already divorced, problem solved. A truly remorseful WS would be fair, generous even (to an extent), during divorce proceedings. My idiot ex just kept digging his grave deeper and deeper because he turned into such a hateful, petty, vengeful AH during the divorce. By not throwing your AP under the bus, you show your BS that you don't value her over the AP. If you continue, you do it to the detriment of your marriage. Like my ex, you are only digging your own grave. Imagine your wife GUTTED you with betrayal and then refused to discard the vestiges of the weapon that she gutted you with.
If your WS were asking advice on here, I doubt there would be anyone advising her to give you the gift of reconciliation. Almost everyone would be encouraging her to leave because the simple fact that you were still cherishing the weapon that you stabbed her with is conclusive enough action that you were not a good candidate for reconciliation.
I hope my analogies clarify things for you. Often the WS thinks that they are the ones choosing reconciliation. The fact is, it's the BS giving you enough rope. You can either hang yourself with it or succeed with showing her that you will earn back her trust. No WS deserves a second chance. It is a gift given through grace shown by the BS. Good luck.

I knew the AP’s name. Before the idiot had been "discovered" I was feeling all the feels of things are off and had found a FedEx packing slip for some woman back in his hometown. Yeah, yeah, song and dance, perfectly reasonable reason he had sent her something. That packing list went in my file cabinet. Three months later I asked outright and very kindly if there was someone else. Oh no, no, self deprecating. Three months later I found the love letter while out in the garage looking for steel wool (idiot, I am the only one who does building projects, bad hiding place). The love letter was just signed to "My J" from "Your J". Well, I had Your J’s address in my file cabinet. I tell you this, because in my heart of heart’s I do not believe FWH would have ever told me her name. He offered up pretty much nothing. Anyway, we are separated and in agony limbo. It’s Christmas Eve and I get very drunk and call Your J’s mother. (I’m not stupid, I know how to use the internet and do people searches. I have no qualms about invading her life, she invaded mine. I know about her career (and would have been willing to destroy it if it wouldn’t have destroyed my husband’s career and paycheck too), I know her family member’s names, where she went to school, what she got her degrees in, her duty stations, her current address. Drunk me calls the mother-in-law (or whatever you call the AP’s mom) and asks if her daughter is still having an affair with my husband, because he was vaguely fuzzy on that. No NC phone call in my presence, no NC e-mail, none of that. Boy, you should have seen my husband come storming over after that phone call. "How could you hurt an old woman [sic 65] like that!!!." Blah, blah. So mother-in-law is upset at daughter and it is my fault?? Um, daughter was cheating with married man with four kids. What he should have felt was chastened. He needed to tell his AP to suck it up. That what they had done was pretty horrible. Frankly, my FWH should have been glad I didn’t call everyone on both their lists. I get that he needed to keep her all warm and fuzz in his heart. Hell, he probably does until this day. But understand this, until you can stop with the warm and fuzzies for your AP, you cannot and will not have a marriage in anything but title. Doesn’t mean bad mouth them or blame just them. But it does mean you do not protect them, ever in anyway. Your spouse should know three times as much about the AP as the AP has heard about the spouse, kids, and your lives together. Windows and doors, People!

My wife and I were discussing this thread the other night. I don't think at the time of discovery I threw the ap under the bus. I didn't openly defend the ap. I'm not sure I ever defended the ap. I think after time I more and more openly would say I thought the ap was a terrible person, in many ways and had a terrible life brought on by herself, I believe. I still think that and believe it to be true. I think for me, it didn't take too long to find out about the ap, her life, her using people to whatever extent she could and how she would surround herself with as many guys as she could in her life.

Doesn’t mean bad mouth them or blame just them. But it does mean you do not protect them, ever in anyway. Your spouse should know three times as much about the AP as the AP has heard about the spouse, kids, and your lives together. Windows and doors, People!

This is something I have only just accepted. I have bad mouthed APs in the past, but this was superficial at best. I was still protecting them by my lies and my anger generated towards BS. Throwing them under the bus is not just calling them an asshole. It is meaning it and understanding why. It is accepting they are to blame for their actions and I am to blame for mine. It is being truthful about them and what happened and doing this with compassion.

A quick update, both to keep you updated on what's happening and to keep thread alive.

There has been a fair amount of discussion recently about APs. I am trying to take responsibility for my actions, but to also show BS that I am not protecting them. While I'm not calling them every name under the sun (I feel this would be overdoing it and seem like I'm doing this intentionally) I accept when BS does. Also I will use terms to describe these people that use offensive language, but only where I feel justified. I am also accepting that they, like me, made choices to be active in the infidelity.

Still a long way to go, I feel, but I'm feeling less defensive towards them. I need to continue with this and to ensure that it is genuine and not me playing to expectations. Something I've done a lot of and now struggle to filter out my own bullshit.

BS and I did have a short discussion about how in dreams it is perfectly OK to literally throw them under a bus.

Ditto TheEnd and emergent8.

In a nutshell, the BS wants to feel like the WS is firmly on their team. The AP is an opponent, an enemy of the marriage. Your teammate doesn't want to hear you say anything complimentary about, or in defense of, their enemy. Unless you lied to the AP about being married, the AP is not an underdog in need of your support. They knew what they were getting into when they stepped onto the pitch.

You don't have to join the BS in badmouthing the AP and calling them names, but you'd do well to accept that it's normal for the BS to want to denigrate them. Don't shame your BS for name-calling or tell them that you expected better of them when they talk about wanting to annihilate the AP. And don't defend the AP or say stupid things like, "You would have liked her had all this not happened."

My wife internalized an insult that I threw at AP, definitely showed me that she had a degree of loyalty and consideration for him still. I would not recommend that.

She has never deflected blame to him, but she has never hated him, and I really wish she would have. It’s a fine balance.

There is never a reason to defend the affair partner. They did the same thing to your partner that you did. However, they never promised they wouldn't, we did. I never felt the need to throw her under the bus either. To me, that's blame shifting. I used her to hurt my wife, though I didn't think of it that way. It tends to minimize what I did. I look at it in reality. I had an affair with a woman who was just as broken as me. It seemed like a good fit because we were both filling each other's black hole of insecurity and need for validation. Nothing more, with one big exception. I went into counseling to straighten out my thought process. I'd bet she didn't and has that same black hole that will never get filled. No, I don't hate her because she could have been anyone, ANYONE! Anyone who was willing to give me validation.

At this distance from the affair, I can say that if the AP would die tomorrow, it would strike me no different than if I read about any early death. She means nothing to me or my life, indifference. I believe that should be the goal.

[This message edited by NeverWillAgain at 10:03 PM, Tuesday, January 30th]

Reading through these latest responses I see lots of information that really makes sense. I can agree with probably all of the responses that talk about how they feel towards the ap. My one in person ap, there was never any sex involved, it was an emotional affair and then I found out it was no longer a two way street on each of our life's. It turned into her constantly unloading her unhappy life, children problems and everything else that was constantly going wrong in her life, I'm pretty sure it would be safe to say that was brought on by how she lived her life and raised her kids. I would like to say I feel,the same as neverwillagain said about the ap dying, but honestly at this point if I read the ap died, I would find some happiness in that, as bad as that sounds. Just knowing I would never have to see the ap again, accidentally running into them. I also believe that person is and would continue to live their life exactly the same as they have been³. A person who is truly unhappy with their life, trying to make others just as miserable as they have made me.

I'm curious WHY your wife is upset about you not throwing them under the bus? Is that the reason she still mistrusts your timeline and feelings?

Sometimes, it's easier to stay in a "safety zone" emotionally when you've been betrayed so completely. After being deceived and betrayed repeatedly over the years, she may have concluded that not trusting you is safer for her. She doesn't have to make herself emotionally vulnerable or available to you that way. She can keep you at arm's length, and any emotion she doesn't want, such as trust or forgiveness, she has a built-in reason to push it away. In essence, it is her shield against you. You cannot devastate her again if she doesn't let you in enough to do so.

Right after D-day, I defended the AP quite heavily and took steps (including hiding my NC letter from my spouse) to protect and defend the AP. There isn't a word in the English language that adequately describes the depths of the pain my wife felt after D-day. She was devastated to her very soul. Every second of every day was anguish for her. Here, her husband, who up until then had always been a loving husband, suddenly turned into someone she no longer knew. I was an angry, hurtful, petulant child, emotionally speaking. And the icing on the cake was that, while she was in agony, I was worried about how the AP might feel, how she might feel abandoned or unloved by me. None of those thoughts did I have for my wife. I tried to. I wanted to. But my head was so far up my ass that even I no longer knew who I was or how I got there. While I "got over" the AP pretty quickly, it was almost a year before I could think of her without guilt. It was horrible. *I* was horrible.

I know I'm not alone in that. I've read many stories about other WS's who defended their APs. We usually turn the tables on our spouses and try to blame them for our misdeeds or try to justify what we did and frame it as a lack of something on their part. It's a common thing we do, part and parcel of having an affair, I suppose. But for our spouses, it is salt and lemon juice poured into the wound accompanied by an evil intention and a complete lack of empathy or care. It feels very personal to them, like a personal attack against them (and it is), while the WS remains clueless, harmful, and protected by (you) the WS. That is where a LOT of the trauma from infidelity comes in. No matter what the trauma is, it is always made worse by the inability of the other party to recognize, admit, own, and attend to their actions and emotions. It honestly makes the person who has been wronged (BS) feel like they are going crazy and being punished and tortured at the same time. Again, this is soul-level pain. And that kind of pain changes you, often in ways that you yourself may not like. But change must happen because, after that much torture, your mind doesn't always want to give you the option of ever trusting again. And that applies to everyone, not just the betrayer.

At eight years out, I never think of the AP unless there is some reason to. Sure, little things might jog a quick memory (a song, a place), but those memories are painful, hurtful, and unpleasant. I certainly don't have feelings of love for the AP, nor do I hate her, although I hate what she did much in the same way that I hate what I did. At the end of the day, she was a very broken person, and I was a very broken person. Now, I try to do better, be better, love myself more, and show my wife through my actions that I do love her. My only wish for the AP is that she gets help and attempts to change and grow. Not because I have feelings for her but simply because she's human, and we all deserve to love ourselves, even when we've failed everything so spectacularly. So I don't hate her, but let's be clear: I never want to see her again, and if she ever decides one day to try and pop into my life again, there will be immense anger and disgust on my part.

Part of your particular problem/challenge right now is simply the fact that you are still battling with anger and defensiveness, and both of these are clear signs of self-protection, which, again, is not trust-inspiring for the person you hurt. People with something to hide often do their best to push back, and anger usually accompanies a guilty mind. To be fair, most people don't like being blamed for stuff, even when we did what we're accused of, and I think that's part of us trying to protect our self-image. We don't want to be that person, so our heads push back. But responsible and empathetic people will hopefully take a step back at times like those and admit what they did. Note that it doesn't mean that everything you are accused of is true! For example, your spouse may accuse you of sleeping with someone that you never slept with. You don't need to lie and say, "Yes, I did," when you didn't, and that's honestly just another form of manipulation anyway. You need to show empathy and understanding for their feelings in that moment. Sometimes, the answer is, "While I maintain that I did not sleep with her, I also agree that I definitely would have under other circumstances, and had I done so, I would not have told you or felt the least bit guilty about it at the moment." It's not about acknowleding the truth, it's about acknowledging their hurt, their suffering, the fact that their life has been destroyed by your lies and misdeeds. It's owning the horror of what you did to them and showing them you actually understand and will own how awful you were. You have to throw yourself under the bus. And that's very hard to do, especially when you want the other person to love you more, not hate you more. In truth, throwing yourself under the bus usually allows the BS to consider any vulnerability with you again. Truth heals many wounds. Understanding and suffering along with them (and making changes so it never happens again!) helps them heal the most. It lets them know they aren't crazy. It lets them know you actually have a soul. It lets them know you aren't lying because no one would admit to being that awful unless they were really that awful.

I wish you luck. I don't have a magic formula to make your wife love and trust you again. Only you have that. But as always, it starts and ends with you. She may never trust you again, even if you change, even if God personally vouched for you. That's a consequence of infidelity. And it sucks. But it is what it is. You can still help protect yourself from that pain by loving yourself more. RuPaul famously says, "How the hell are you going to love someone else if you can't love yourself first?" And that's really the crux here. She can't love you if even you don't love you. So, work on that. You'll need it no matter the outcomes.