SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

What sort of intervention would have stopped your WS from cheating? (This is a dialog with Ink in some ways, but that's a question for all BSes.)

Fair question Sisoon.

Initially, I found playing ‘what if’ a waste of my energy — and I think some part of the trauma trying to heal is playing things over and over in our heads to find a way to NOT experience the pain we got hit with.

As mentioned before, at least one SI member suggested my wife had to fail the way she did in order to learn. I don’t know that she did. Maybe. I know she would prefer not to fight through the guilt and shame she does upon reflection.

The examination of if I would have known more, or if I was a more effective communicator, or if my wife was able to ditch the mountains of resentment without having to betray her own standards or me — does allow me to understand her better NOW, but that still doesn’t change what happened.

Even with the experience I have and my wife has, the great kindness and communication skills, we understand the M isn’t bulletproof.

I think even if we make people engaged to be married read relationship books and study SI as a warning, humans are still human and will find ways to cave in to temptation and validation, failing each other in the future.

Now we kind of have this thing where neither of us compromise. We find solutions where neither of us have to as often as we can. I have seen old wounds say something similar. Hard to create resentments when you get great at creating win wins. I feel like we are truly equals now and that my needs are as important as his. There is nothing for me to resent in that paradigm.

Ah yes, giving instead of taking tends to eliminate the evils of compromise.

Compromise definitely set my M up for trouble. Maybe this is one lesson that could be taught at marriage camp.

Everything I was taught about compromise sustaining relationship peace was wrong. One person always loses in a compromise, one wins. Stack up some loses and resentment is around the corner. I’m not excusing resentment as an excuse to cheat, I’m just saying it really harmed our M well before the A.

Well, I realize that you may not want an attempt to answer the question as literally stated--but this may still be helpful.

What would have that sort of help looked like though?

1. You are aware that your WW's family was in no position to help--it sounds like they have their own issues and ultimately they are on your WW's side anyway. They are not going to tell you that you are making a mistake by getting married to her. Or by STAYING married to her.

2. You also said that your WW was very good at charming those on the outside of your marriage. So there is a chance that your friends and family were not have been able to see your WW's issues.

3. What if someone DID say to you that your WW is abusing you and that you should leave the marriage. Would you have taken the advice. Really....

ETA: 3A. Even if you would have tken the advise from say your brother or any other of your close friends...It can be very hard for our "in-person" friends to tell us that our spouse is toxic (much harder than it is for us on SI to advise someone). The truth of the matter is that if someone and their spouse DO reconcile, the friend or family member who was advising divorce is often excommunicated as not being a friend of the marriage so to speak.

As you know already, you CAN cut your chains to your WW. You don't have to stay married to someone so toxic. Which leaves me to my next question:

4. When does this all become a prison of your own making. I mean, *you* are the one who is choosing to stay w your WW, right?

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 11:55 PM, Sunday, February 25th]

The only warning people were likely to give me was YOU SHOULD APPRECIATE YOUR HUSBAND MORE…HE’S SO NICE AND HELPFUL.

The people pleasing is oof…all the stuff HO described (so i think its not just women, but I agree as women we are conditioned this way)… the 80 hour week then the litter boxes, then the plants, then the grocery shopping, then the laundry, ad infinitum. When we’re skiing he’s the only husband who always carries my skis and a zillion other teeny things. It’s just painful to watch because he’s trying sooo hard.

And then he blows, like every 1-2 weeks and is a total p&*^k as described above.

He does agree he needs help. I told him I’d have to wait and see. I feel like Charlie Brown with Lucy pulling away the football. Every time I trust he’s gonna be supportive it blows up. But, supposedly now he’s committed.

One good thing, he agreed to read all HO’s posts. I’m trying to figure out whether he could read just the posts standalone instead of full threads so he doesn’t see my stuff.

Also Ink…do you think that little yellow Gottman book is helpful? Think its called the love prescription or something. He’s been carrying that thing around with him for a few months (but I think it’s not been opened)

[This message edited by Stillconfused2022 at 3:05 AM, Monday, February 26th]

I feel like Charlie Brown with Lucy pulling away the football. Every time I trust he’s gonna be supportive it blows up. But, supposedly now he’s committed.

You get to jump in line because this one hits SOOOO close to home for me. This Peanuts imagery is one I have used extensively with my wife.

One good thing, he agreed to read all HO’s posts. I’m trying to figure out whether he could read just the posts standalone instead of full threads so he doesn’t see my stuff.

Suggestion: maybe temporarily edit and delete your comments on threads you want him to read. Save it somewhere and restore it later. It’s worth some stretch to get HO’s wisdom disceminated.

Also Ink…do you think that little yellow Gottman book is helpful? Think its called the love prescription or something. He’s been carrying that thing around with him for a few months (but I think it’s not been opened)

I know not of this little yellow book. Please share a little more info, I want it.

InkHulk,

Just so i am clear, are you asking about help before you were married or help after you got in that car and got up to speed at 155 mph?

Why did no one help us?

Before marrying WW I was warned by my mother and by close friends. There were red flags in abundance. For example she told me once "No one knows my business!" Those aren't the words of someone who would come to me and say "I met someone at work today. I'm attracted to him. Please pray for me so I won't fall into temptation." I ignored everyone and every red flag and reaped the consequences. The heart wants what the heart wants.

After D-Day1 and D-Day2 I reached out to many others for help but got the deer-in-the-headlights look. It was as if I had a communicable disease. The pastors and counselors were just as bad. So I came to the conclusion that only those who had walked in my footsteps could offer empathy and help.

When I was in my 20's and deep into my alcoholism, people would say to me "Why can't you just stop drinking?" It wasn't until I joined a 12-step program and was around people who were in my same situation that I got the help I needed. SI has been like that for me.

Why did no one help us? Because it makes them uncomfortable and they don't know how to help because they've never been in that particular situation. If you want to know how to successfully R, find someone who's done that. If you want to know how to D and live a better life, find someone who's done that. They are the only ones who can truly help.

Subconsciously, they worry it's "catching." No one wants to get too close to a ship going down because they might get sucked under too. If I hear my friend accurately describe issues in her marriage, I might see the cracks in my own...and now I've seen a problem that I used to be able to ignore.

I definitely feel that I’ve made some friends uncomfortable, like if it can happen to me then it’s plainly obvious that it could happen to them. I’ve talked some about that with my closest friends, hence the Gottman evangelism.

Some worry they don't have the time, energy, capacity to support when they have their own life stressors happening.

I've appreciated the people (outside of my IC) who are willing to be ongoing support. I try not to lean on anyone too much and cause caregiver fatigue.

I’ve been very conscious of trying to not overwhelm my IRL support system with this disaster. They have busy lives, and I’ve been pretty needy. I also deeply appreciate those who have stuck with me, and all my closest friends have, thank God. But again, SI could take it all and more, any hour of the day or night, no fatigue I’ve found yet (or at least you have all been kind enough to hide it, except WBFA )

As straightup said, what we can do is be the change we want to see.

He’s got good things to say, that one.

I understand where you are coming from and I think that spouses that are avoidant and low in emotional intelligence but are not blatantly dysfunctional people are really the ones that you just would never see this coming.

This speaks to me, that its the subtle stuff, these traits that looking back are genuine risk factors but not all that outside the expected norm that are so so difficult.

It was certainly a huge shock to me that my WH was capable of cheating on me but once I put these other pieces together I see more of the cracks in his coping skills and integrity. Cracks that he is very aware of and is working hard at fixing.

I’m very encouraged at your report that your husband has stopped being avoidant, that is hope giving. I hope his and your work pay off and you are genuinely happy.

Now we kind of have this thing where neither of us compromise. We find solutions where neither of us have to as often as we can. I have seen old wounds say something similar. Hard to create resentments when you get great at creating win wins. I feel like we are truly equals now and that my needs are as important as his. There is nothing for me to resent in that paradigm.

This sounds like nirvana.

Edited to add: sometimes I reflect further after I post which I find beneficial to my own self awareness. I realize now that sometimes the pinpointing I was going through about resentment also included the image I was still trying to protect. It isn’t a good look for us ws to admit resentment. To tell people it’s there while knowing that what we just did hurt our spouse more than some of these resentments we were holding but we still are talking about them, well it makes it seem like we are unremorseful. In reality, you can be remorseful and be needing to examine the resentment so that you can be sure you are creating a person who no longer has the need for them. It’s a very touchy thing to admit "I cheated on you but I also resent x,y,z" because we can fully expect that to not be taken well. In our minds we just don’t want to continue to endure the things we are resentful about. At the same time we don’t have the new skills and self confidence that those patterns can be different.

Is there any subtlety about infidelity that you haven’t explored to the utter depths? I so wish I could just call you up and discuss this for a few hours. I think I understand what you are saying here and I don’t quite now how to interact with it. Like, should I just expect that my wife’s collection of resentments should just evaporate? That seems non-authentic. Maybe they could greatly lessen with the kinds of self realizations you describe, understanding her role in creating her own discontentment in her life. But somethings will be real, things that she should have demanded an apology for years ago and I probably still owe an apology, but I’m in no mood for offering up a long litany of apologies for cold complaints. Or should I just expect her to accept that the time has past on what she chose to bury, Marriage 1.0 is dead, you killed it, and the chance to deal with those things died with it? I don’t know.

I thinks he believes that no arguing means safety. I also think he sees himself as a victim. Me as the bad guy. I’m no longer so sure I am. I thought I was for a long time. He festers and stews on his unhappiness rather than speaking. He doesn’t usually stonewall as such but he just refused to say what was in his head. Then accuses me of being too scary to talk too. But I think he sees everyone as too scary to talk too.

I just want to say that I 1,000% relate to this paragraph. It feels so grounding to hear others share their experience and have it so closely match. Thank you for that.

I think my resentments were mine to deal with. As I grew confident in speaking up and practiced new skills I fully saw my responsibilities in them. And as we got better at negotiating and connecting they dissolved. I think holding them for sometime was kind of a mental experiment of what boundaries look like.

Daddy dom said in a thread recently that he didn’t love himself and therefore he had no basis to form boundaries. That resonates within me, because once I learned to have my own back and knew how to steer the wheel I also didn’t want to carry around the weight anymore.

I am speaking purely for myself, I do not have insight on how it applies to your situation.

I do think my husband has also had to learn to handle the new me, but the fact he did spoke volumes. It confirmed to me that I could truly be loved for who I am and that I was a big dummy to think differently for so long. It’s a journey for sure.

And yes I still learn new things all the time. I kind of think it’s like layers of an onion, and I am intensely curious about myself and others. If I weren’t the age I am now I would probably go into becoming a therapist myself.

o fatigue I’ve found yet (or at least you have all been kind enough to hide it, except WBFA tongue )

Thanks for the shout-out!

No fatigue on my end, I just want to see you out of a bad situation. Staying where you are right now has got to be miserable, and you deserve MUCH better....

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 10:32 PM, Tuesday, February 27th]

Oldwounds made a key point I forgot about, but which was also true in my experience. No marriage prepation material I ever saw spelled out the kind of red flags associated with a deceitful and/or personality-disordered partner. It all mainly focused on the importance of ironing out whatever differences a couple may have about money and household management, with a few sentences about marital sex, but zero mention of temptation or infidelity. The assumption was that two mentally healthy adults were considering marriage.

When my wife and I went for pre-marital counseling thru her childhood church, the guy basically looked at us, said we looked like a lovely solid couple, threw a book at us and said we’d be great. What the hell do we even have these social structures for if they are so useless?

I can relate to the feeling. I remember asking my mom for advice, my friends, I would try to communicate as best as I could and we had even tried couples therapy before. It seemed nothing really took us to the real answers and only served to at times push us together more into the very toxic dynamic we shared.

My ex was definitely a ticking time bomb, there are so many things she struggled with long before I ever came into the picture. What I had to of course look at though were my why’s on how I ended up being with someone that had so many struggles to begin with. Someone that my mother pushed me toward and that my whole family would rally for me to be with.

Turned out all of that abuse I experienced when I was younger had me primed to be with someone like my ex. My family advocating for us to be together also made sense. My ex was what I was always taught love looked like. She was my mother, my brother, and my father all wrapped up into one with a nice little bow on top. This "style of love" and her "way of being" was so normal to me. Red flags? 🚩 no way I was gonna notice them!

I think that there’s a lot toxic societal teachings merged with family of origin issues that create an environment for things like this to take place and to continue for so long. For me, it wasn’t until IC and lots of introspection that I was able to clearly see things as they are and to begin to break the patterns that plague my family line.

What help do you think would have improved your sitch?

I knew my W had a dark side. I just didn't realize the dark side was winning. Neither did her very observant therapist realize it. But I can't imagine what would have prevented my W's A. She would not change until she was ready.

What sort of intervention would have stopped your WS from cheating? (This is a dialog with Ink in some ways, but that's a question for all BSes.)

It’s a hard question, what would have possibly made a difference. And it’s tempting with hard questions to say there is no answer. BUT….

The fact that we all come to this forum and have some degree of the experience that our story has echos of many other’s, and that we can combine them and start to patch together some semblance of a profile of a future wayward. Granted they are risk factors, but we act on risk factors in other parts of life. We put seat belts in cars and then make laws to say they must be used. We educate on the dangers of driving intoxicated. When there is a big hazard out there and we have some way to influence outcomes, even if only statistically, we as people often choose to do that. I think society is sleeping on this scourge of infidelity.
My wife comes from a culture that is pretty stoic. I think her FOO trauma amplified it. She was explicitly told as a child that feelings were useless. She repeated that mantra in front of me. I look back now and I should have ran and she should have gotten advised that she was headed for prolonged misery by embracing that nonsense. But instead, embrace it she did and I just chuckled and chalked it up to different ways to do it. But I have learned the hardest of hard ways, not communicating is not a communication style and repressed feelings do not just disappear. We teach our kids in school to line dance and memorize capitals. We can’t find some time to squeeze this stuff in?

As mentioned before, at least one SI member suggested my wife had to fail the way she did in order to learn. I don’t know that she did. Maybe. I know she would prefer not to fight through the guilt and shame she does upon reflection.

Not everyone needs to have a heart attack before they choose to get in shape and stop smoking, right? I’ve lived around the idea that an addict needs to hit "rock bottom" before they ever come back up. But isn’t that really a tautology, like saying that something lost is always in the last place you find it? If an addict ever chooses to change, then the place they turned around is by definition their rock bottom. And if they never change, they probably debase their life to depths that make others who hit their "rock bottoms" blush scarlet.

People can change, I believe that. I just don’t know what it takes to make it happen. Pain is one hell of a motivator, I’ll admit that.

Well, I realize that you may not want an attempt to answer the question as literally stated--but this may still be helpful.

You’re learning!!!

4. When does this all become a prison of your own making. I mean, *you* are the one who is choosing to stay w your WW, right?

This was a really well thought out post, I appreciate it and agree with it. This last question has stuck in my mind. I don’t feel in a prison right now. I know I can leave, as hard as it would be. If the day comes that I stagnate and she does to and we are miserable and I stay anyway, then I could accept this label. But I’m not there right now, and I entirely plan to avoid that.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 1:36 AM, Wednesday, February 28th]

Just so i am clear, are you asking about help before you were married or help after you got in that car and got up to speed at 155 mph?

Premarital would be cool, but most of my history with my wife is obviously after we got married and that is really where most of the opportunities to observe this stuff come from. So I guess the second one, Jeff Gordon.

And yes I still learn new things all the time. I kind of think it’s like layers of an onion, and I am intensely curious about myself and others. If I weren’t the age I am now I would probably go into becoming a therapist myself.

I count myself lucky to benefit as an outlet of your curiousity and learnings.

InkHulk, I had written and then deleted part of my post about possible reasons why many church-based marriage prep programs seem to fall short. You're right, this major step should not have been a waste of time!

I think it's a result of historical deficiencies in ministry training programs.

In my denomination, the emphasis of pastoral education is all about theology during their multi-year seminary coursework. I don't think most of the candidates have much if any experience about married life other than whatever their parents modelled before they commited to the religious life. I feel it is a huge blind spot in their professional education, and just in the last 20 years, I'm aware of just a few psych counseling programs that have been established specifically to close this educational gap.

In terms of published marriage prep materials, I suspect there could be some concerns about legal problems for a denomination, if their marriage prep program sounded an alarm about anyone's mental status. In this day and time, I think most ecclesiastical authorities don't want their employees to run afoul of some angry individual who might raise a ruckus about being denied a church wedding.