SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I know I ask the same thing in different ways and maybe this is one of them (trauma is fun).
I’m sorry

My H and I had a conversation tonight on what he found so great about his AP. I was always willing to have sex, dressed up, spontaneous, etc. he was honest which I have to appreciate and he told me that it was because she was "slutty" porn like, new, blah blah. I just fell apart. He said she would chime in at his old job and talk about liking to f*** , yeah me too? But she had been crushing on my H for years so of course she would try to fit in and tell him all the things he liked. He’s so dumb. She stalked his fb and mine and at one point he said "she’s so much like you" tf she ain’t

Anyways I’m upset because he said he treated her like a porn star and she seemed to like it. He never made "love" to her. He never talked about our marriage , me , or our kids BUT at the same
Time when they were done doing the deed he would lay with her for a few minutes , text her he loved her , defend her on d day and give her his time and money in gas. He told me it was because he got something, he got his ego filled , there was nothing special other than she was trashy and talked like a whore. (All the things I did in the bedroom) why wasn’t I enough!? Why did he go ten pegs down, why did he "pretend"
To care about her if he just wanted to F her and leave. Why did he not think about me and the kids?

He cried tonight and told me he wasn’t proud but he wouldn’t lie to me and I have to respect it but fuck does it slice me in pieces. I keep asking the same stupid questions and I’m not getting what I want or need but I don’t know what it is? I could easily talk about sucking some D and get many guys attention , why wasn’t this enough? He tells me it was "new". wtf is that?! I mean yes I get the butterflies and stuff but we took vows , we have four children, we have sex like rabbits…

I just want to make sure he wasn’t emotionally involved and he swears he wasn’t but how do I really know? He told her he missed her, he loved her , he spent precious money for gas, for food. What makes these wheels stop turning? I know time is one, I’m wondering if maybe I’m just one of those that can’t forgive?
He tells me the truth even when it hurts, he doesn’t hold back, it’s what I ask and then I can’t handle it and compare myself to some bull shit. Wash , rinse and repeat. Someone make it stop.

Side note. I have a lot to work on individually. I have self worth issues I never knew I had. I find my worth in sex because that’s all he’s ever cared about being a porn addict and I lost myself years ago.

I know how he feels now. What the hell did he feel then?!

He swears he did them to keep her on the line but that seems far fetched…. Maybe ? I just can’t grasp it.

Why , why , why? Just make it go away.

(((groot)))

Fuck I wish I had something for you tonight to help with the pain. Just virtual hugs and real life prayers.

I’m going to say something controversial here but I promise it’s not to spark a debate, but to hopefully give you perspective and maybe heal.

You’re worried about the emotional element of the affair and that he told her things like he loves her and misses her, I’m just gonna say a harsh truth. There are many Men who will lie to women to get laid. Especially women who are using sex as the main source of the relationship.

I’m not excusing him or saying it’s right, but I am saying a guy who has no problem cheating/lying on his family will have no problem lying to a woman who is acting like his personal whore.

Could there have been feelings or emotions? Sure, but if she is being as you described extra slutty, then I would expect most of what he said to her was to keep getting laid.

I know and understand very deeply the feelings of why I wasn’t enough. It’s not you or anything you lacked, he instead chose to indulge in his own selfish lust. Lust is a never ending dark pit that if left unchecked will consume, and no one can ever satisfy it. We don’t really talk about it a lot but lust is extremely addictive. And like any addiction it requires more to get the same results. I am sure if you were to see a porn addicts history generally speaking it will probably get more and more intense.

Affairs trigger that same response. It’s no strings attached sex. Hell, my WW even told me she felt she had to play to role of a whore during her affair to keep AP happy.

You are not the problem. He is. He compromised his entire family and life and jeopardized everything that mattered for probably a total of a few hours of carnal pleasure. You can’t help Someone who would do that. That is a person who could drink a thousand cups and still be thirsty and complain about how the water didn’t quench his thirst.

ETA: no it’s not far fetched at all that he said anything to keep her on the line. That’s the whole point of the affair. It’s to keep a fantasy alive. He lied to you so you wouldn’t find out, why is it crazy to think he would lie to a woman who made herself available to keep having sex with her, and again with no strings or commitments. Rarely do I trust a cheater, especially when they say things about how they loved their AP and what they had was special blah blah blah. When they say that they were basically using the other person, then yeah I am more willing to believe that.

[This message edited by HellIsNotHalfFull at 4:56 AM, Wednesday, July 3rd]

I want to add one last thing. It took me a long time to fully grasp it, but when a cheater says "I love you" to either their spouse or the AP, what they really mean is I love the way you make me feel.

That’s not love. That’s selfishness and a manipulative mindset that has created a one sided transactional relationship.

Groot - your title says it all!!!

When does this ever end?

Why does this have to hurt so fucking much?

I can honestly feel your pain through your words. And I’m so sorry you are struggling. But I get it.

I thought I was doing well, and I was. But not now. I’m back to asking the same shit - saying the same things over and over. Wanting him to leave.

I remember on one of my earlier posts I think you commented that one of my one liners was awesome (something like that). I just want to say :

‘TF she ain’t’ (like you). Takes the gold star ⭐️

You’re clearly a wonderful mother and a very good wife and by the sounds of some of your stories - a very cool chick. Your husband is one lucky MF

How are you feeling after some time has passed?

I know while you are in it that it feels pointless and repetitive. But you re-asking questions and going over things, I can’t cite studies or anything, but I believe that is doing some constructive work. It’s your brain’s process for reconstructing the reality your husband fractured with his lies and betrayal. Yes, you are on the rollercoaster, but all rides come to an end. Do your best to take the answers and absorb them. You can test them again to look for consistency and further clarification, but do try to make progress.

It’s a chaotic process, it definitely goes up and down. But if the overall trajectory is upward, that is what you are looking for, IMO. I believe that I have heard evidence in your posts that you do have that upward trajectory. I’m sorry you hit another dip on the worst rollercoaster in the world.

They tell lies to the AP about their marriage and they tell lies to the spouse about the AP.

I was literally blindsided.. my partner was one of the ‘good ones’ (if they even actually exist!?) and honestly anyone who would have talked about our relationship would have said ah they’re solid he wouldn’t even look at a hot girl if someone walked past, he stayed in his lane. Anyone I’ve told about my situation since d-day have been utterly dumbfounded.

To be honest, the truth is we will never actually know the real truth about how they feel over their affair or their AP. He could tell you things till he’s blue in the face but ultimately is any of it even the slightest bit true when the cheater has proven they’re a solid liar. Chances are it’s not.

Sorry to sound so harsh. I’ve just started reading lose a cheater gain a life which someone on here recommended to me and I think it’s rubbing off on me. It’s a very good read whether R or D but it does give a healthy dose of reality.

I’m truly so sorry your husband has put you in this position. I can’t even imagine how you feel with 4 little ones to have to look after as well. I feel like I’m dying from the inside and it’s only me I have to worry about. I’m dizzy most days, gaining weight, no motivation to do anything productive. I’m literally wasting my life right now.

You have such strength and courage to be able to voice everything you’re feeling to your husband. I’m struggling to do that.

It has to hurt if it’s to heal. Whilst pain is the process, it means it won’t hurt forever once we’re healed so that is our light at the end of the tunnel (whether R or D). But it’s a shit ride while it lasts and I guess some will go through quicker or slower than others. I’ll be last to the finish line at this rate!

The short answer to your question is that he lied to her.

The longer answer is that the entire thing was so full of lies, from side to side, top to bottom, inside-out, and all around.

First off, let’s look at the lies from AP. She lied to him about who she was, entirely. She talked the way she did because she knew he wanted to hear the things she said, NOT because the things she was saying were necessarily true. She was saying things in order to have sex with your WH. That was her purpose. And don’t think anything else, because that is the reason she said the things in the first place. She had zero consideration of you or his marital status - it was what SHE wanted. So she lied about who she was, what she liked, what she didn’t like, and just about everything, in order to attract your WH.

Your WH lied about himself to her. He likely told her things that were just dumb. White lies about liking what she was wearing, or movies she said she liked when he hated them, etc. It’s just how this works. He lied about compliments he gave her, when his intention was to have sex. Lies.

He told her lies because he wanted sex. He lied so she would consent. He lied so she would feel good, and play along, and she lied so he would continue.

They lied so the excitement would rise. They lied so the secrecy would play on, because it was tantalizing. They lied because it’s part of what makes an affair lust seem so much more than what it is, and it feeds on itself.

He said things because they worked for what he wanted, which was to keep having sex, to keep the level of interest up for her, to keep that sense of "newness" going - because in fact, the ONLY thing true here is that he was after some sex that was "new", and in fact this AP could have been anyone anywhere on the planet, she was not special at all. Nothing in this affair was actually about her. It was all about your WH.

And he lied to and about you. Lied to her about you, so she she would believe things about your relationship that would make her feel more comfortable engaging with him. Lied to you about where he was, what he was doing, and how he felt during the affair.

But what he just said about not being in love with her? That’s the one thing that rings true here. His words sound real, because they are in keeping with the idea of affairs for the sake of sex and not for emotional connection.

(If he thought he was in "love" but suddenly snapped out of it, he could have been feeling limerence. Hard to say.)

But it sounds like he’s now giving you some really hard truths. What’s harder is trying to make sense out of something that really doesn’t make sense at all - which is where you are right now.

My heart goes out to you.

Groot I feel you. Hope you are better today.

The issue of love v. lust was (is?) one of the hardest parts of this for me. I could not believe my husband could engage in an affair and not love his AP. I refused to believe it.

Part of it is that I couldn't. I couldn't spend that kind of time, intimacy, money, etc with another person and not be in love or fall in love. It just makes no sense to me. So that's the first hurdle. They are not us. They have a different mindset and makeup.

I must have asked a million questions around this issue. I can tell you what my WS said to me (once we got past the tidy answer of "no, I didn't really love her. We good?"

He admits to intense lust. He called it "blinding." That meant he didn't care about her personality or her life or her dreams or whatever. Not because he's heartless (he may be tho!) but because the lust took over and that is all he cared about.

He had moments where he would recognize the falseness of the relationship. They both would lie or manipulate the other from time to time to get what they each wanted. God forbid he stop and think about that. The fun times would end. So he'd swat the thought away and carry on. But he knew this was a bit of a game.

As the affair progressed and the talk started to be about real life issues, he started to lose interest. He wasn't interested in helping her solve real life problems. He could do that at home. This was about fun and escape. Ick to real life.

After sex, his lust high satiated, he didn't like lingering. He would, to please her, but he said the sex cloud would clear and he had nothing to say to her. No real interest in conversation or hanging. He wanted, in his words, to get back to his life.

He said 90% of their conversations were about sex and planning for sex. Nothing real deep going on there.

He eventually realized that he loved the way she made him feel. Like, he loved that A LOT, but the actual person? She was nice enough, he said, but he really wasn't that much interested in her.

And lastly, he said that he never got that warm feeling one gets when they are with someone they love. Excited? Yes. Fun? for sure. But that warm feeling of just looking at someone you love and respect? Never showed up.

So that's what I've been told and I think over time I can almost get there to believing it, mostly. The bottom line might be: if your husband truly loved another, why would he stay?

I just want to make sure he wasn’t emotionally involved and he swears he wasn’t but how do I really know? He told her he missed her, he loved her , he spent precious money for gas, for food.

I went through similar. My wife said similar.

Do you think you are sending signals with your questions as to the answer you hope to hear?

Years later, revisiting, i had the realization that humans are emotional animals, if you want to predict what they will do, figure out what is in their emotional self interest. It trumps logic every time. In an event of that much import, of course there was emotion. Bigly. There sure wasn’t rational logic.

So then the question became, can I accept that? Can I accept what is obviously the truth?

I accept it. It happened. I can’t undo it. I think a lot of the question asking is an attempt to undo it. To get to a desired answer. That was and is a waste of time. I knew the answer.

Probably one of the most devastating discussions I had with my wife was when I told her calmly all this. I accept it, there was an emotional connection of course. I know who you are, probably better than you do. When I was asking questions, she had at least a smidgen of control. That was gone, leaving her exposed.

It is so painful and am so sorry you are going through this. Seems like it takes forever to get to the other side.

I 100% agree with HouseOfPlane's post. It hurts but normally there is some emotion involved.

I think a lot of the question asking is an attempt to undo it. To get to a desired answer. That was and is a waste of time. I knew the answer.

Holy hell I have gotten so many good responses that really resonate with me
Thank you all for your answers.

I would not say that I am much better today, all the shit from yesterday kinda carried in to today and my H and i were up until midnight because I couldn't get off the spiral train and I was having panic attacks.

Redrobin

I’m truly so sorry your husband has put you in this position. I can’t even imagine how you feel with 4 little ones to have to look after as well. I feel like I’m dying from the inside and it’s only me I have to worry about. I’m dizzy most days, gaining weight, no motivation to do anything productive. I’m literally wasting my life right now.

This is sadly how I feel right now to be honest. My motivation is in the garbage lately and I just want to sleep, originally I lost 12 lbs but I have added those back and some days going to the gym sounds agonizing. I just want to curl up into myself and be alone.

5 decades

Your post really helped me, he told me all of those things but like most of you all I have a hard time believing anything that comes out of his mouth.

But it sounds like he’s now giving you some really hard truths. What’s harder is trying to make sense out of something that really doesn’t make sense at all - which is where you are right now.

^YES I agree, the further he gets away from the A the more the truth seems to come out and he comes back to earth with us. Sometimes his answers are so hard , really for both of us.

Webbit

You’re clearly a wonderful mother and a very good wife and by the sounds of some of your stories - a very cool chick. Your husband is one lucky MF

Thank you! My H told me how lucky he was to still have me and how he was so desensitized due to the porn and the shit he was talking about at work and he said that he never really credited me for all of those things I did. Makes me sad to think that these past 10 years and all of the effort i put in to be a cool wife was for nothing really, when someone else out there would have appreciated me. Being a wonderful mom, that I don't regret, those babies are my everything.

The End

My H said so many similar things that you put below.. I just have such a hard time accepting it of being able to digest it for what it is and move on, I feel so stuck. Like the answers I am getting may be too hard for me to process that I keep wasting my time, like house of plane said, he nailed it I think. I keep trying to get an answer and I don't know why i keep trying when he is giving me the truth , I just want to undo it, I want it to go away, I want it to make sense.

I have more to add and really appreciate all of your advice, last night and today kicked my tush emotionally so Im going to nap with the kiddos.

I hate what brought me here but I am thankful I found it.

Don't be too hard on yourself for asking the question over and over. First off your trauma brain needs to reconstruct the crime. It also needs to revise the story it's been writing about your life. You need answers to do that.

Answers are also a way to rebuild trust. The more he answers truthfully, inch by inch, you start building trust. It's not fun but it has a purpose.

Also, denial and bargaining are part of the grieving process. Of course you don't want it to be true! You're hoping for an answer that is an exit ramp off this roller coaster. If that doesn't work (spoiler alert: it won't), then we bargain: if he didn't love her, maybe it will hurt a little less.

This is all normal. There is nothing wrong with you. You are on the path to acceptance. You haven't reached the destination yet but it's blatantly clear you're hiking the path with your whole heart.

He told me it was because he got something, he got his ego filled , there was nothing special other than she was trashy and talked like a whore.

Listen to me, Groot. It wasn't about her. It wasn't about you or anything you did or didn't do. I know it feels that way, but it isn't. It never fucking is. It's always about how it made them feel. It's always about the waywards own ego and sense of self. He relied on other to validate himself which made him like a leaky bucket, needing to be refilled constantly. It didn't matter how much you - or anyone else - gave him because it was NEVER going to be enough for him. Again, this is an issue with him. If the bucket is leaking, we don't blame the water (or the person filling the bucket), the issue is clearly with the bucket.

Let me repeat. It doesn't matter how good of a wife you were, how many kids you had, how spicy you kept the bedroom. He took you and all that for granted in the interest of getting that bucket filled. He 'pretended' with her because he knew it would keep her motivated to fill that bucket.

That doesn't jive with you. It doesn't make sense. I get that. Trust me, I was you. Neither you nor I would do that, because we are healthy people who know how to self-validate. Our values and integrity mean more to us than a quick ego boost and so for us, the trade off would never be worth it. I read this, and told myself this hundreds and maybe thousands of times before I really started to believe it. Like I knew it intellectually, but my wounded self took much longer to convince. Over and over again, I reminded myself that if freaking Beyonce could get cheated on (this was recent pop culture news during my D-day era), it certainly wasn't about Beyonce not being enough.. And yeah, maybe I wasn't Beyonce, but it wasn't about me either.

Emergent

Thank you so much. You’re right and I know you’re right but it just won’t sink in yet. I look at photos of her all of the time trying to figure out what he found just irresistible about her and I just can’t see it. Her tattoos are horrible , she has no hair, she makes no money, and she is a shitty person with no morals… so there is nothing? Other than the ego boost she gave my H. She was "beneath" him , he felt like something and she made sure to give him her all (as shitty and little as it was).

I know she could have been anyone. Then why do I keep going back begging for him to tell me she wasn’t special? Why do I keep asking him to reassure me that she was nothing ?

If I know in my head why can’t I just accept it in my heart? When he tells me something, when he answers a question, I feel good for a very short period of time and then I’m spiraling and mad the next. I thought answers were supposed to help? I thought they were supposed to heal and help me on my path. Why is my heart rejecting his answers?

He is giving me the "truth" and my mind is like :

"Um no. This doesn’t work , this wasn’t how your life was supposed to be, you make him take it back, you make him fix it".

Is this normal to be stuck in this cycle?

I don’t know how long I can’t stay in this cycle.

My kids have passed lice back and forth for three motnhs and I finally got a script for that so it should be gone (special needs child hated having her hair treated)

, I’m working from home with four kids that destroy my house then I spend the rest of the day cleaning it , and I just have nothing left. I literally feel empty then add this on top?!

How the hell could he do this to me now? Why not wait till the kids are grown at least then I could spend time crying in bed and not worrying about who I’m letting down.

I hatttttttteeeeeeee thisssss!

ETA it’s after midnight here.

Happy Fourth of July. ( the date my H asked me to marry him)

Maybe that’s the reason for the added spiraling?

[This message edited by Groot1988 at 5:37 AM, Thursday, July 4th]

Part of the issue may be that you're applying your thought process to him. It doesn't work like that. His thought process is disordered and isn't going to make sense to you.

What helped me was to do a little different. Grab some popcorn and sit on your couch. Pretend you're watching a movie involving your WH and his AP. He's already decided that he is entitled to do pursue AP, he's going to do this. Entitlement includes all of the bull puckey the things that includes to don't care, etc.

Thus helped me to understand that the A was all about XWH and AP. I was barely a blip on their radar.

I'm so sorry Groot that you are feeling this way. Unfortunately I have no real advice for you unlike all the other wise people on here, just wanted to say I feel your pain and I am right there in the same pain with you. Like you I am just so exhausted with feeling like this, most days I just feel like I can not do this anymore, not the M necessarily but living with this. No matter if we R or D I still have to live for the rest of my life with this, the knowledge that the man I have spent more than half my life with, have three children with, and believed to be a truly good person to the core, could do this horrible thing to me and our kids and our family. And it feels impossible.

trying to figure out what he found just irresistible about her

he wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at himself in a mirror.

Isn't it interesting when a WH tells his BS he lied to the AP, to get what he wanted, and told her "what she wanted to hear," to get the outcome he wanted...

And the BW is supposed to believe he's not doing the exact same thing with them. Telling us what they think we want to hear, to get the outcome they want.

They are point blank telling us they will lie, and manipulate, to get what they want.

Then the bw is supposed to believe not us..they wouldn't lie to us. Even though they've admitted it's how they operate.

It's no wonder infidelity is called the ultimate mind fuck.

[This message edited by HellFire at 3:02 PM, Thursday, July 4th]

In my case, my WH definitely had a type. He also used porn, a contributing assistant in his thought process toward sex. He also said that the fact that his APs talked trashy and said nasty things about sex, and did openly nasty things (like flashing him) were definitely contributory to the attraction.

When we say "it isn’t about the AP, it could have been anyone", it’s definitely true. My husband had 7 APs. Seven.

You could almost swap them out in terms of who they are, because they are all similar - people who he walked away from, they all talked nasty, all flashed him, all were sexually initiating things with men, all drank a lot, all dressed scantily, etc. (how do I know? I knew every one of them in one way or another)

So the affair is not about you or the other woman.

The one thing it IS about is your husband. He is the person who chose this. He is the one who lied to you. He is the one who betrayed you.

I have an odd book suggestion, that has nothing whatsoever to do with affairs. If he would read it, and you of course, you can begin to understand exactly where and when and why his thinking went wrong in all of this. It’s called Leadership and Self-Deception. It’s not about love, it’s about how we treat other people and why.