SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I think some people are more comfortable with rug-sweeping than digging into the nitty gritty. I am not one of those people. Most SI members are not those people, otherwise we wouldn't be here trying to figure it all out. I don't think you're going to get any support from this site for not doing the work. I also don't think that rug-sweeping is healthy. I think it leads to angst and regret later on down the line.

And I think rug-sweeping is the perfect term. It's like sweeping dog poop under the rug and wondering why the carpet is stained and the house smells so bad. If you don't deal with it, it will always stink up the room.

I wouldn't stay married to a person who isn't willing to own their stuff, and isn't interested in growing their soul and their heart and their mind. To me, that's what life is all about.

This honestly does not sound like R. Between his defensiveness about the A, monitoring your conversations with your family and refusing to see them because of what he did, and the drinking and saying mean things to you. This all sounds very emotionally abusive to me. He needs a lot of work. Definitely should be seeing a therapist.

Slight off-track because a poster asked what the work might be:
That "work" is stuff like:
Realizing what made them go down the path of infidelity. After all – we all know its wrong, so what made them think that THEY could do it and that for them it was OK?
Realizing and accepting that each and every grain of blame and accountability for their decission to have an affair is on them. There is no excuse, nothing to hide behind. There is no "my wife doesn’t appreciate me" or "she came on to me so hard" or whatever. It’s only "I am totally 100% to blame for my wrong decisions".
Finding ways to deal with whatever made him decide to cheat, and find ways to convince the spouse he’s following those methods.
Be willing to partake in treatments, methods and ways to improve the marriage and communications with spouse.
Be willing to deal with marital and personal issues correctly – even if that leads to divorce.

Back on track:

Lemonpie – why not try something new. Rather than wondering what he needs to do then think hard about what YOU want and what YOU might have to do to get that.

This approach can lead to two things, neither really so bad…
If you are clear on what you want and what you need, then he can decide if he can give you what you want and need. Best case scenario is that finally he does.
Frankly – the other scenario isn’t really so bad – he can’t and/or isn’t willing to give you what you want and need so you divorce.
Either path gets you to a better place than he’s offering right now.

Lemonpie

15-ish years later, I can say that my fWW's affair qualifies as one of those black swan event type one-off situations. But there was no way to know this right after D-Day. For me, until I saw her get IC, probe deep and get to some sort of understanding of the "why," there was no confidence in the path forward. This took nearly two years.

Yes, they do.

Thank you, I really appreciate this forum and just being able to vent. I know there is so much toxicity in my relationship and I hate that I am exposing my kids to it. I think what is hard about us or him is when we are good we are great and when we are bad we are really bad. He sometimes says to me if you can’t get over it, leave so nothing is trapping me here, I guess other than fear and managing three small children. He is nice now but I imagine e the divorce would be messy. I honestly sometimes wish I had just left, stayed at home and not given it another chance but he wrote this long letter about getting me back and how sorry he was and I wanted to try for the kids. I was raised in a very catholic household as well so it was ingrained in me that marriage was for life. My parents are supportive of any option as they haven’t particularly liked how he has treated me but hard to let go of years of this strong belief

Yes, I feel that absolutely do. They not only need to do it to become a safer partner. They often should do it to become just simply a better person and a better parent if they have kids.

Do I think my husband would do what he did again? I think it's unlikely. He has been in therapy and it's clear he is very deeply shaken and hurt by his actions. But that doesn't change the fact that it was certain underlying issues that made him think what he did was justifiable while he was doing it. He is conflict avoidant, a people pleaser, and was always taught to show no emotion. None of those personality traits are particularly helpful in life.

I hear alot about WS needing to do the work ion. Do you really think it is needed for them, not to do it again? I feel like my husband’s affair was a perfect storm of him having a middle life crisis and a young and pretty girl being interested in him. Normally his firm is all male, so that was unusual and the fall out has been huge for him never to do it again

Do I think my husband would do what he did again? I think it's unlikely. He has been in therapy and it's clear he is very deeply shaken and hurt by his actions. But that doesn't change the fact that it was certain underlying issues that made him think what he did was justifiable while he was doing it. He is conflict avoidant, a people pleaser, and was always taught to show no emotion. None of those personality traits are particularly helpful in life.

A couple of things for me to unpack here. There are a couple of phrases I see related to cheating that absolutely grate my nerves. They are "it was a perfect storm" and "anyone can cheat. The stars aligned and my WS gave in".

In the book and movie The Perfect Storm, Billy Tynes (the George Clooney character) made risky, and downright stupid decisions that put him in the middle of the "perfect storm". Would he "do it again"? We don’t know. He got himself and his crew killed (much like "marriage 1.0" for most of us). He had traits (selfishness, entitlement, arrogance) that made him a poor captain (or at least able to make REALLY poor decisions). Did he get caught in a "perfect storm"? Absolutely! But he also has to own his decisions that got him there. I doubt the families of the crew just said "wow, it’s just the perfect storm".

IMO, the WS makes many conscious decisions that puts them in that position and puts themselves and the marriage in danger.

Almost every man has a midlife crisis of some sort. I also guarantee you every man on here has been hit on at work. I worked in a full service restaurant with a bar as the general manager in the late 80s. The waitresses were all young beautiful women who liked to flirt and hit on the boss up to and including blatantly offering sex. At this time, I was being cheated on (but didn’t know it) having sex withheld at home and being treated like shit at home. I was having "weekly perfect storms". But I never cheated. Morals. Later in life I was an executive at a top 10 Bank. Many women direct reports, colleagues and bosses. Propositioned MANY times. Never cheated. Morals.

Lemonpie, from the outside, this reads more like your WH "seizing an opportunity" than "falling victim to the perfect storm". IMO, when the BS buys into the "perfect storm" scenario they are codependently enabling the WS to rugsweep. "It’s anomalous behavior. It’s not who they really are. It was a one-off". Bigger’s description and your own admissions of your WH’s character issues (many of which are still "wayward thinking") show he has MUCH to work on. Is just "not cheating again" the goal here or do you want the "fully functional true life partner" you THOUGHT you had before the "perfect storm"? That was an illusion the "perfect storm" mirage lets you maintain.

CFme923, sums it up nicely. Even if her husband isn’t likely to cheat again, he has MUCH work to do to be a better partner and human being.

I don’t think my WW will ever cheat again for many reasons. But she too has many character issues that allowed her to cheat and justify it that she needs to "do the work" for.

I was raised in a very catholic household as well so it was ingrained in me that marriage was for life. My parents are supportive of any option as they haven’t particularly liked how he has treated me but hard to let go of years of this strong belief.

I think we all have ideas instilled in us from parents, society, church, etc about how things are supposed to be. I also think that Catholics and people of other faiths that are particularly strict have it tougher than the rest of us because the guilt for deviation has been so intentionally ingrained.

Something that really, really helped me was reading The Four Agreements. My MC assigned it to me right after DDay. It's about examining our belief system, where/who it came from, how it serves us or hurts us, and how to make sure that we're living authentically. I think it might really help you, too.

I was just reading through some quotes from the book and I realized that I could use a refresher. It's really good stuff. It's not hyperbole to say that it saved my marriage. It's where my seemingly grandiose screen name came from.

He sometimes says to me if you can’t get over it, leave so nothing is trapping me here, I guess other than fear and managing three small children.

As we often say here, when someone tells you who they are, believe them.

He does not care about the pain you've caused. He has no remorse for his actions, except for the fact that they have caused him a lot of inconvenience and reflect poorly on him as a person.

Also, Lemon, I'm Catholic, too, so I can relate to your abhorrence to even the concept of divorce. Fortunately, I was able to get an annulment based on several factors that proved that he did not enter the marriage with any intent of fulfilling his vows (fidelity being only 1 of them).

But I had also reached the point where I was so unhappy that I was perfectly willing to get divorced solely in the eyes of the state and live alone for the rest of my life because I was that tired of his cheating and emotional abuse.

If you're not at the point where I was when I left, that's fine. But your situation isn't going to change unless one or both of you changes. He won't change, so you need to do something differently than you did before and have been doing now.

I feel like my husband’s affair was a perfect storm of him having a middle life crisis and a young and pretty girl being interested in him.

Gently, he may not have actively sought out an affair, but not falling into an A when you have essentially no day-to-day contact with other women is hardly an achievement. It actually kind of sounds like he cheated the first time he had the opportunity to do so. Mere exposure to another woman in a regular basis is hardly a perfect storm. Having regular interactions with members of the opposite sex is a pretty every day occurence for most people.

I have no idea whether your husband will cheat again if he doesn't do the work. I do know, he'll continue to be a shitty husband though. He wont have learned anything from this - not really. If nothing changes, typically nothing changes. At the moment, he doesn't really have a moral issue with cheating, more with getting caught. Perhaps he just does a better job of hiding his tracks next time. I do know YOU will never feel safe with him around another woman, and will likely always be watching your back. It will impact your ability to heal and forgive, if you do not feel genuine remorse and change.

A man who can't own up to his failings and only chooses to surround himself with people who can provide him with praise and validation is precisely the type of person who is likely to cheat again... or

This. His inability/unwillingness to face his own shortcomings, and to put his own pride/ego over your healing and relationship with your family, is exactly the kind of thing that made him vulnerable to an A in the first place. I don't know if he's trying to isolate you, but whether that's his goal or not, that's the effect. He's also signaling to you that if you want him in your life, you are not allowed to call him on his shit or question him. The fact that you're here looking for ways to make yourself and your needs smaller in order to make space for his ego suggests to me that is working.

You deserve so much better.

When the going got tough, our wayward spouses made self-centered, destructive choices. When the "storm" came, they served themselves and what made them feel "good" to the detriment of their claimed values, commitments, families, etc.

So, do they need to do the work? Yes.

If one of their core "why"s is avoidance, I want assurance that they have the ability to recognize their own avoidance and that they have to tools in place to overcome their strong tendency to avoid difficulties, and the ability to show vulnerability, etc.

If one of their core "why"s is entitlement, I want assurance that they no longer feel entitled and that they demonstrate humility and selflessness as a strength moving forward.

In all cases, I want assurance of better boundaries and self-reflection.

In all cases, I want consistent demonstration of empathy.

When life gets tough and the next storm comes, I want a true, functional partner by my side.

Maybe next time it won't be an affair, but I don't want to be betrayed or abandoned or lied to in a different way next time. Because the skills that they have to cope with strife or crisis are lacking.

Your husband's unwillingness to do the work (and his active avoidance to be around those who know about his A) is just more avoidance and more chosing himself and his own comfort zone. IMO, you aren't safe moving forward with him.

True reconciliation is tough. When the going gets tough, sadly, he's continuing to show you who he is.

[This message edited by BreakingBad at 12:19 AM, Saturday, March 2nd]

The work will be done, eventually, or the marriage will fail.

Thank you. I guess you are all right, my husband just wants me to get over this but I can’t and keep making snidy comments about the ow. It is like I just can’t seem to bury it so it keeps spilling out of me. It. It is amazing we are still together as there was me kicking him out, telling everyone everything, the ow getting pregnant and then the pregnancy abruptly ending, the children being exposed to too much as I didn’t handle any of it well. I don’t know if we will just keep plodding along. At least I am managing my emotions a lot better

I have really edited my posts as I wasn’t sure if I was too revealing and I find this forum really helpful.