SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Bluer than blue.

My h told me why her but it was much like H/O is describing.

He said it could have been anyone that fed his ego, that was willing to tell him the things he so desperately wanted to hear, he felt like a failure , he felt less attractive , he didn’t make much money blah blah. She did all of that for him and it started with complimenting his work after he was denied raises. She was a manager in the same dept.

She had worked there for a few years prior and worked closely with him and he never found her attractive until he felt low and down. That is when she became some glittery unicorn and it made her attractive in his mind, at the beginning he was mean and told me he much rather have had it been a different girl and he told me there were a few extremely pretty where he worked but none of them paid attention to him , he also didn’t pursue it. He felt comfortable with her because he let his boundaries down around her and they started talking about things they shouldn’t and it went from there.

So he tells me it could have been anyone that did those things for him but it so happened to just be her so he "chose" her.

To me it just seems like he threw a line out in the water and took the first, smallest , saddest, grimiest fish he caught. Because he was all of those things too.

I don’t think my wife’s AP could have been anyone. I believe she was struggling with our relationship and was hanging onto fidelity, but asshat swung by on a bike ride one day and started chatting with her. He is a serial cheater to his current wife and knows exactly what to say to vulnerable women to get them into his world. It’s possible that it may have possibly happened with another man, but we’ll never know. What I hate is that he’s our local funeral home director and the entire community thinks he’s such a wonderful and caring person. Plus I hear other women say how hot he is and how they’d like to hook up with him. It eats at me to hear that crap when I know who he is. There are others in the community that know who he is too but no one is willing to rock the boat and put it out there. He really made her feel special and he was a friend, so yea, great guy! 😡

To me it just seems like he threw a line out in the water and took the first, smallest , saddest, grimiest fish he caught. Because he was all of those things too.

It sounds like he didn’t even have to cast a line. The grimy little fish jumped right in his boat and he decided to "keep it and not throw it back".

I don’t think there is a universal answer to this question. IMO "who the AP is" is all up to the Unfaithful. There is a moral deficiency in those who decide to cheat and that is the key driver IMO. I’ve driven myself crazy trying to make sense of it all while applying MY morals. It will never compute. So it can run the gamut from "finding my soulmate" to "can they fog a mirror".

I am the BH and never cheated. But I had MANY opportunities to. Being married and my moral code prevented me. Had I been single, I would have taken many of the women up on the offers. 90% of them were not anyone I would want any type of relationship with. Many I wouldn’t even find all that attractive. "Adequate" would pass the bill.

As H/O describes, it’s more about how AP makes them feel about themselves. The fantasy, the escape. That is definitely true for my WW. For many WS the ONLY criteria is that the other person is willing. As we explored my WW’s "whys" we got all the usual reasons. I focused on the first affair. She was 21, newly married and had only been with me. She thought she got married too young (obviously true) and never got to "sew her oats". So she flirted with a coworker. Her goal was to "see if she was attractive enough for him to sleep with her". So she did. Afterward, she decided "that was fun. I’m going to do it again". So no AP even lined up. Just liked how the chase and conquest made her feel. Men wanting to sleep with her validated her (not realizing having a mouth and vagina and being willing to use them were the TRUE boxes she was checking). That became her lifestyle for the next 20 years.

We were talking about her final affair. She said "if I had never transferred into the Collision Dept. I wouldn’t have fallen in with the wrong crowd and met final AP". I pointed out she didn’t "fall into the wrong crowd". She developed friendships with "like-minded people" who all cheated and cheerled for one another to cheat. Yes, she would have never met that particular AP. But history said it would have just been someone else. That was affair #11. So for her, not only COULD it have been anyone. It literally WAS! Anyone who was willing. Most APs were also married. She never wanted to leave (loved our life AKA "cake eating") so there was the "mutually assured destruction " component (not true "trust").

[This message edited by ImaChump at 6:34 PM, Saturday, September 7th]

The AP for my XWS’s LTA was on her 8th or 9th affair on husband #3 (per her own count). She pursued my H for six months before they met for drinks. She was … meh. A friend likened her to gollum on Rupaul drag race. But she knew how to make him feel sooo special and he loved being pursued. While I represented our house (which needed work and he never finished projects he started) and his age (he was 10 years older than me and he had started feeling the difference with heath issues as he entered his 60s and I had just gotten into the best shape of my life) and his job (we’re in the same industry and he was stalling out on climbing the ladder at work).

She made him feel like the golden child he had always been when time and life were showing him he was as mortal and human as the rest of us.

So it could have been anyone who flattered him and fed him bullshit daily. He actually believed her when she said her having affairs made a better parent to her two teenage kids . When I asked if that would be true if his sister did that with her teenage kids at home, he truly looked shocked. What a maroon. So he believed all the bullsh*t she fed him and because he wanted to believe the compliments, he bought the whole story, hook, line and sinker. He’s a serious scientist with dozens of patents in his name, but he believed this drivel.

So it can be anyone who feeds them the dream of who they wish they were. It’s not how the AP looks or what degrees they have or the car they drive. They just have to be willing.

Grout- you are a rockstar. A prize. An honest, loyal, loving person. She can’t hold a candle to you. You are by far the better person.

My FWH was constantly spamming all women--in IRL, through social media, sending feelers out through LinkedIn. He took whoever reciprocated. At first, I couldn't believe there were so many desperate, terrible women out there who were willing to be mistresses. But when I look at the shocking quantity of his attempts to get validation, in reality, only 2% were willing... which (at least a little bit) bolsters my faith back in other women.

And then the one who were willing, he became over-the-top obsessed with them. So that's why it feels sometimes like this person or that person was special. His obsession made them special. But they were not special. They were simply willing.

I think my EXWW affair was kind of a perfect storm. MLC brought on by the last child leaving for college, and her kind of hanging in the breeze blowing without direction. The powder in the keg for something to happen was there. Along comes a guy skilled in getting women of my EX’s age to not only cheat for the first time, but to do it in a way that destroyed the victim, who I think probably mentally would have been destroyed even if she didn’t get caught. We will never know, and she told me she would have taken it to the grave, but I really think she would have had a hard time living with herself if it never came out.

I do think due to her mental state and being so lost, something would have happened. It could have manifested in something negative like drinking too much, or something positive like getting a job doing something she liked. Or she could have turned into one of the ladies that get immersed in fitness. This happened to many of her friends that were in the same situation. Would have been far better if she would have invested her time in becoming a yoga teacher, rather than the route she took.

But in the end even though she was looking to change something, I don’t think she was actively looking for an affair. She just put her faith in some predator instead of me.

Yeah, absolutely.

But, just qualify this as "anyone who was willing to engage" in the cheating scenario.

I've never cheated. But, I work in a profession where women outnumber men by a wide margin, and affairs are aided and abetted by the irregular and widely variable hours as well as the presence of a steady stream of young and unattached trainees and lonely married travelers of all ages, away from their spouses in the field.

The "willing" make their "willingness" or "availability" known, in various ways. I've had it happen to me several times, when I was younger I thought it was something special about me. As I got older, and married, I eventually realized most were casting a much broader net. I was one of the "unwilling", even before I got married.

In each instance, they almost always find someone who is willing eventually. Take this example: One woman, who I will never forget, was smart, lively, very attractive, sober, and all over me around a dinner at a friend's house. I was 27, lonely, she was 24, I was very flattered and very interested!

Then, I found out she was married!!! Her husband was not at that party. She was "separated" but not legally. I said, you mean "married". My friend didn't see anything wrong with it and encouraged me to see her, she had expressed that she wanted to see me again. I wouldn't engage. After a couple of events where we were both present, and my unwillingness clear, she moved on. The first taker I knew of... a coworker of hers in his 50's, older than my parents.

Who knows how many men she approached or advertised her availability to before she had a taker. I knew of at least three including me, all in their twenties.

A year later...still married...still not legally separated. My friend commented "she treats her husband like shit".

Little did I know, I would find out how that feels 11 years later.

Could they really have been anyone?

For my H...very definitely. His Craigslist ads said he was a happily married man looking for NSA sex while working alone overseas. The RUSH for him was getting a woman who would be willing to have sex with him knowing he would only be USING her for sex and then he would be going back home to his wife . He also used Whatsapp...where he met the only woman who agreed to do this...because she was obsessed with America. He contacted over 100+ women...even after he started having sex with the adultery co-conspirator...because it didn't matter who...it just mattered how many.

My H told me that most of the women he contacted simply ignored him...but others told him he was a pig for cheating on his wife...or something even worse. It was only ONE woman who agreed to have sex with a happily married man ...but it only took one to destroy my world as I knew it .

After talking on Whatsapp for a bit...my H and the adultery co-conspirator agreed on a place to meet up. My H got to the restaurant first. He recognized the adultery co-conspirator when she drove into the parking lot...from a picture she had sent him previously. He told me that his first thought when he saw her was, "She'll do".

Affairs basically boil down to two SELFISH people who USE each other to get their fantasies met. This was TRUE in my situation...and it seems to be true in most of the posts on here as well...including yours (((HUGS))).

Could your AP really have been anyone? My
H swears by this and maybe I need reassurance, maybe because my trust in him is in the trash.

I think the answer to that is yes and no. I don't think the affair that my WH had could have happened with just anyone. Instead, the AP could have been "anyone" who had access to my WH as a friend or at least someone he knew enough for them to already have his phone number or a way to contact him/talk to him frequently either without my knowing or without my being suspicious. In other words, I don't think WH would have met someone at a bar and ended up in a 2+ year long A. He may have had kissed the person at the bar or maybe even had sex with the bar person in their (or his) car that same night or at least participated in inappropriate flirtations but the chances of him exchanging numbers and continuing after that night were slim IMO. ***not that this is a good outcome, just that I don't think the A he had could have been with just anyone situationally.

His A took cultivation. WH politely ignored AP's flirtatious advances and inappropriate comments for at least a year before he entertained them, and she had excuses to talk to him about non-work things (such as planning the OBS's surprise b-day party where she contacted WH on the phone via text while intoxicated and mentioned she found him "sexy" and asked if he thought about her the same way and he just ignored that comment completely except to say "not really I guess" - and she apologized again via text the next day and didn't go there again until some other reason occurred to contact him - swapping shifts or something and commented on how good he looked blah blah blah) and lots of time to do it - a year+ of consistent ego stroking and then the opportunity to act on it. But do I think she could have been anyone he worked with that he was friends with or at least friendly with in a co-worker way? Yeah, it would not have mattered IMO.

Interestingly in the beginning WH claimed it could not have been anyone other than AP not because he thought she was so special but because he did not (and does not) believe that any other woman at his work would have behaved the way AP did. That was a load of BS in that at the time WH thought they were in love and that she was that special he just would not admit it in so many way.

Now WH admits that he was ripe for anyone who pursued him in the way she and knowing him/having access to him the way she did likely would have sufficed.

Like your WH, my XWH was heavily into porn, but he got into incest porn... so his AP wasn't just anyone. So... no, his AP wasn't just anyone.

If you want more info, check my bio. Shameless plug for members to fill in the bio. It's very helpful for those trying to help.

Wow- I did read your story Lea and I cannot even begin to imagine. I am sure there are fetishes and perversions that would make a specific type of person attractive to a ws. I have known some that cheated because they were bi and looked specifically for a male, or had a things for transgender folks. But I think most of the time those fetishes still have some interchangeable aspects to them- for example switching from a neice to a sibling. (So it’s specific they need to be related, no true discernment over who the person is or how they act as evidenced by his sister being crazy) Okay, barf. I never saw myself writing that kind of parallel. Though I have noticed incest porn is all the rage. (Barf again)

I think the crux of this question goes back to are AP’s special? And by and large it does seem the answer to that has been answered many times here over the years- especially in threads called "do ws affair down?"

There are exceptions to every situation because no general answer fits all. But I think it’s safe to say the majority of AP’s are not appropriate life mates or people they would choose when seriously dating as a single person. Some people do cheat with an ex or a "lost love" but even some of them are still just searching for a ghost that isn’t really there.

My sister has been having an on and off affair with her first serious boyfriend. He is an alcoholic and a heavy pot smoker. She is super imposing the person and relationship she used to know onto this shell of a person she doesn’t know at all. She tried to start other affairs with people that she used to have crushes on in school and such, so maybe it can’t be just anyone, but there is no true discernment really happening. And yes, her husband knows, and yes I have tried to talk to him. He is pick me dance all the way and I can’t seem to reach him.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:03 PM, Tuesday, September 10th]

I should have been more specific when I worded my question but usually by the time I get upset or frustrated enough to post I am all over the place.

Yes H/O is correct, I meant more of being "special" having something that we don't have as the BS but as time goes on my H words and actions are showing me exactly what many of you here have told me. She was nothing special, she was available and willing and decent enough looking to get him in bed I guess, although I disagree but it is what it is and it is over and done with.

My H originally told me it didn't matter race, size, iq level, humor, how much they made financially, morals , nothing, as long as she could stroke his ego and give him an escape then it would have worked. He didn't care about her for any other reason than he needed to pretend or she would have bailed on him.

Today he took our special needs daughter to the dentist and she has major cavities in the back of her molar that needs to get pulled and he was in tears feeling bad for it when they got home. (It isn't only his fault) brushing her teeth is hard due to her sensory issues and I struggle with it too. I know he blames himself for a lot of the things going wrong right now because a lot of it is indeed, part of the aftermath of him being absent during the A.
I hit him with a low blow when he told me he felt bad with tears in his eyes about her and I said " You didn't care about her for 6 months".
I drove that knife right on in and immediately felt bad because it didn't need to be said, he already knew and he was hurting. I am GIVING MYSELF GRACE though because I am still hurting too and I did apologize for it a few minutes later but I told him why I said it.

I will say things have gotten a little better with me being mean and mostly it is from him taking ownership before I even say anything, he has came a further distance than me BUT I know I will get there with him or without him down the road.

I appreciate everyone giving me advice and letting me in your lives a little to understand his thought process at the time.

My wife is the kind of woman who will have random men walking down the street propose to her — I was with her twice over the years when it happened.

She has known my same circle of friends for decades, all of them, at one point or another, hit on her. Some tried really hard.

For years, she had zero problem pushing away inappropriate attention.

Then, she had her boss hitting on her. She switched jobs to avoid that situation.

Two big changes then — motherhood and job struggles. Her working mother thing was costly, she felt like she went from perfection to failure for the first time ever.

At that point, a postpartum depressed young mother became comparatively vulnerable.

This is when our neighbor, co-worker, 7-years older family friend (we did BBQ’s, kids hung out as they got older, etc.) decided to be her shoulder to cry on.

I don’t know that it could have been anyone.

Richer, more handsome dudes had all been turned away during less vulnerable times.

Suddenly, the attention was what she wanted and she jumped in with both feet. No half measures. No looking back.

I’m not big on the ‘perfect storm’ theory, as there is no excuse to choose to cheat. The facts are, she was at a low point and she decided to go even lower, rather than face reality.

When the A ended, and she felt far worse than before the A.

For her, the path forward was to build from within, to understand she didn’t need anyone to validate her. It took some time, and even though the A was kept a secret for way too long, watching her evolution to being a stronger person was fascinating to witness. We still had tremendous work to due on dday — she just had a head start on her own healing, and that did help our rebuild.

Oldwounds

For her, the path forward was to build from within, to understand she didn’t need anyone to validate her.

My H is learning this and even though it hasn't even been a year from dday I see HUGE changes regarding needing this validation, I never realized how needy and insecure deep down he was. I guess I never understood because I haven't really ever needed validation, I am a people pleaser at times but mostly for people that I truly care and love, I try way too hard and I feel pressured to make sure everyone around me is happy and it took from me for years and made me just a very bitter annoyed person. So we both have slowed down and we both are focusing on ourselves and I hope over time that helps get us to a better place.

Hey Groot1988 -

Yeah, I never imagined my wife had any sort esteem issues, she had projected so much strength for a long time.

So we both have slowed down and we both are focusing on ourselves and I hope over time that helps get us to a better place.

That sounds like progress!

It goes slow, as I recall, very slow.

I was late to see your clarification about the AP being special — I found even if they truly considered each other special in the moment — when the fantasy hits the light of day, the truth makes any level of special (be it real or imagined) evaporate.

Quick t/j

Sorry leafields, I am not making light of this - just when I read this quickly "but he got into incest porn" I thought it said insect porn and I had to scroll back as I was like "wow, now that's a new one to me!"

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 10:38 PM, Tuesday, September 10th]