I have read literally hundreds of posts to try to gain some understanding of how this could've happened to me. DDAY was about 3 months ago and I found out that my whole world was pulled out from under me. We are doing better. No more LB and we're having sane conversations. There's been NC for some time now and I feel like we're going somewhere.

I read these stories of how a WS can leave the one's who've sacrificed, loved, protected, committed to for years. They walk over the top of their families to selfishly fulfill some Bull*^$# need. They wrecklessly throw any thought of their families, kids, jobs, husbands, wives, extended families, self-respect.... out the window. HOW CAN THEY DO IT? Have their consciences been wrecked? Is there no right and wrong anymore? Many of them have had responsible jobs and been good, stable people, but then they do these irresponsible acts.

Then when they are found out they still show no remorse. They continue to spit on the people they've just cra&&&& all over. The BS is hurting, in pain, emasculated, no self worth > and the WS knows it>>> yet, they continue to add insult to injury and seem to enjoy it. Good God > Why?
How could the person that they were be so far away from what they've become?

Sorry for the rant, but I'm still left with so many questions. In my own situation we talk about everything under the sun except the A. and how to move beyond it. The moment we start on that she gets so aggitated and obviously doesn't want to talk about it.

I thank God for how far we have come, there was a time that I didn't think we were going to make it this far. I truly believe that we are going to make it, but I'm still haunted by this junk

RWS,

I don't remember your personal situation. However, I posted on another thread one reason a little while ago. Some of this might apply to some others.

Many people treat their spouses like dirt. Everything from withholding sex, not listening, not spending time, controlling, you name it. When the other spouse tries to talk about it, the above conditions are applied again. After a while, it is easy for another person to woo the husband or wife away. After the A is found out, the BS acts surprised. They shouldn't be, they brought it upon themselves.

The big question after that is, "How do they handle it?" Do they realize that it takes two to tango and try to fix all the problems, or do they act so self-rightous, there is never any real healing.

I am not writing that this is your situatiion. Each one is different. But as a retired Army First Sergeant, I've seen enough of these problems to last my lifetime.

This is what i have learnt and read about WW in the fog.

There are many ways why A started but the feelings WS go through are the same.

They are blinded by guilt. They do not feel good about themselves and hate themselves. They do not understand why they are hurting their spouse so much. The guilt grow and grow until they have to justify something so everything they do looks okay.

WH starts to think that BS do not deserve them and deserve someone better. Wh will say to themselves that since everything is already bad why bother saving it. WH keeps telling themselves that they need to let BS go and no point keeping them. WH feels even MORE guilty when they see us hurting. This compounds everything.

Then they see OP...new and exciting compared to BS who now looks like a raving mad woman...Nothing to compare...furthermore OP dont blame WH anything...OP stroke the ego and loves them no matter what and telling WH that he is not wrong etc etc.

WH starts to think he should not hurt both women...WH already hurt wife..no point hurting wife by keeping her or seeing her or saving the marriage.

WH thinks that since he already hurt wife than no point hurting OP too. It is justify to go with OP because they are also in the act of doing something wrong.

OP will say all the right thing...i love you forever no matter what even if you dont leave the wife i will understand and even you leave the wife i will be here for you. I want to marry you. You are my soulmate...you are not wrong and...so the stroking goes...

RAG...i am sure you have many married friends who are also having the usual marriage problem but i bet none of them are having affairs. I just want to say that i disagree with the following...

After the A is found out, the BS acts surprised. They shouldn't be, they brought it upon themselves.

BS did NOT bring this upon themselves.It is the WH that made the CHOICE to do the wrong thing.

I have a lot of married friends with marriage difficulities but none of their spouses are having an AFFAIR so i disagree that just because one spouse is not agreeable that means it is okay for the other spouse to go out and look for a replacement???!!

Runningwithscissors,
As a WS, I can tell you that I also would become agitated whenever the subject of the affair came up because I felt guilty. Also, I felt that the focus of our conversations shouldn't be on the affair so much as it should be on what we can do to make our marriage better...how can we meet each other's needs better? (You mentioned that we do this to selfishly fulfill some bull*^$# need) I hope you didn't mean that....we all have needs, maybe they are different from yours, but they are valid needs just the same. Suppose you had a need to eat every day and you couldn't cook or prepare food without your spouse's cooperation....how long would you wait around for them to help you meet that need? Maybe that's a bit extreme to use as an analogy, but it's a legitimate, basic human need, just as are our many, varied emotional needs. So talking about details of the affair doesn't really help, unless it helps to uncover the needs your spouse was having met through it so that you can begin to meet those needs for her. It's so easy, after years of marriage, to just coast along. You get to a point where you feel like virtual strangers to each other, then you don't know how to approach your spouse about what you need, and it also appears that they don't care and don't want to since they haven't even tried for so long. I'm not saying you brought it on yourself....NOT AT ALL! But you do have to try to take a good, hard, honest look at what your marriage was like before the affair to see what YOU were doing and not doing for your marriage. I admire my husband so much for being able to look at himself and admit that he could have done a better job meeting my needs (if he had known, of course!) while trying to deal with such an enotionally devastating thing! But it ALWAYS takes two. What I like to say is that an affair is nobody's fault and yet it is everybody's fault.
Ok, I know it seems that the WS is a completely different person with no conscience...I know that I have acted defensively and at times a little cruelly after being caught...do you have any idea how hard it is to admit to doing something so wrong without trying to dump the blame on someone else? So I got defensive to protect my pride. In my case, I never asked to be absolved of all blame. I just wanted my H to recognize that there were conditions in our marriage that we BOTH allowed to develop that made me vulnerable to having an affair. If he would have continued to pound me for what I had done, I probably would have walked away. Some people think they are being very noble staying married and not having an affair in the midst of a mediocre or even bad marriage....they tend to feel self-righteous about it...and maybe are even proud of themselves for accepting the way things are without cheating. My H even gave me a few digs about that..."AT least I'm not the one who cheated." Ok, but did you do anything to help, either?
It's only been three months since you found out...so all of what you are going through is normal. You can search your whole life for a satisfactory answer to the "WHY" question and never find one that justifies what happened. Us WS's aren't looking for a way to justify what we did...we can't. There is no justification. Only forgiveness, understanding, compassion, and learning.
Thanks for listening.

Scissors,
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I read these stories of how a WS can leave the one's who've sacrificed, loved, protected, committed to for years. They walk over the top of their families to selfishly fulfill some Bull*^$# need. They wrecklessly throw any thought of their families, kids, jobs, husbands, wives, extended families, self-respect.... out the window. HOW CAN THEY DO IT?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">First of all, those aren't "bull****" needs. They are REAL and DEEP needs. Real enough, deep enough, that when unfilled over time the WS becomes depressed, downtrodden, hopeless. I hope you are only venting your frustration here on the board, and not talking to your WS like this.

I can only speak from my own experience. In my case, I felt huge unresolved issues from my H's EA. I tried talking to him and we made some progress. Then he got very angry, defensive. Lots of LB's. I suggested a counsellor and we went but he skipped the second appointment because "she made him mad". I tried for several months to approach my H and work through the issues and kept getting rejected. Eventually I found myself in an EA with a long time friend <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

Why?

Some of it was that my needs weren't getting met - we'd had talks about this before H's EA as well as after the EA. But mostly, in my case, it was because the LB's my H was tossing out made me feel frightened and unsafe. OM listened to me calmly and offered alternative views. OM felt safe, though he didn't always agree with my thinking. OM and I never had a "lovey dovey" plan-the-future type thing. When I started thinking of sharing a funny story with OM before sharing it w/my H, I knew I was in trouble.

To a person in an A, they are willing to give up "their families, kids, jobs, husbands, wives, extended families, self-respect" because it feels, at the moment, like an act of survival or self preservation. At least in my case it did.

Well, thanks for your replies. Yes, I was blowing off a little steam. But, there are many times I look at this wasteland of aftermath of the A and get pretty upset. It's like the door was opened and the very fire of hell was invited into our marriage.

Does every marriage have some problems? Yes
Do needs go unmet by each spouse? Yes
Did many of my needs go unmet? Yes
Did many of her needs go unmet? Yes

For you to use the analogy of having a need for food is a little ridiculous, sorry. And to call someone self-righteous for sticking to their marriage vows is just wrong. Right is right and wrong is wrong>>> Period. Many people want to try to make themselves feel better by repeating some psyco-babble mantra to absolve themselves of guilt.

Could I have fallen into the same trap of adultery? Yes
Am I any better than my W.? No

So, with that being said, please spare me from the justification of this sin. If you have some constructive reply that adds to the discussion, that's great.

Thanks

As I wrote in another thread, I'm not good with the fancy words. I think Onlywords and Turtlehead explained better than I could what I ment.

BTW, I was the BS. However, our situation was not like I usually read about here. Our children and I think their mother (my XWW) was not a well person. Since she left us, she has been through 4 or 5 marriages, and is alone again.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> So talking about details of the affair doesn't really help, unless it helps to uncover the needs your spouse was having met through it so that you can begin to meet those needs for her. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Where did you come up with this?

Discussing the affair the hows and whys is cornerstone to reconcilation. I haven't read a single published authority on infidelity and marriages that doesn't subscribe to the fact that not only does the affair need to be discussed but it must be discussed until the BSs need to know is satisfied.

Dr. Harley, Shirley Glass, Frank Pittman, Janis Spring, Peggy Vaughan, Dave Cardner, and Dr. Laura are among those they say the WS must openly and honestly answer any and all questions raised by the BS.

And from that group only Dr. Harley says there should be limit to the time period in which the affair should be discussed. He supports getting all the questions and issues out on the table one time and then moving as quickly as possible on to unmet needs. His feeling is that affair talk is painful and he doesn't want the focus to be on pain.

Most of his colleagues disagree. There perspective is that continued talk helps the BS heal on a number of levels.

One repeatedly consistent by the WS rebuilds trust and reduces the some of a BS insecurities.

Two indicates a committment on the part of the WS to the marriage not the affair.

Three forces both spouses to see each others pain. In the begginning BSs either can't or won't see their WSs pain. As recovery advances there comes a point in time that the BS sees that the WS is going through pain as well. Its no longer all about the BS's pain once this happens.

Four changes the dynamics of the recovery process from confrontational to cooperation. In the early stage of recovery post D-day there is exist not only an angry state but a state where the BS and WS are on opposite sides. Most WS do not want to talk about the affair. Do not want to even admit there was an affair in most cases. On the other side there is the BS who is an almost hypervigilant state. They want and demand to know everything while at the same time believing nothing. If these dynamics remain in place for too long one often sees a BS much later in recovery still not moving forward because they are convinced there are more discoveries and truths waiting to be found in the affair. The WS doesn't want to move forward because they become convinced the BS will never get over it never move forward.

Openly talking about the affair changes recovery from a me versus you relationship to an us relationship.

Finally talking about the hows and whys in the word of one experts "disarms" the WS of the tools used to have the affair. Talking about how a WS was able to conduct the affair takes away the secrets and methods used. Shows where the marriage boundaries were breached. It takes away or at least limits the "tricks" the WS can use in the future that might open themselves up for a future affair. It also empowers the BS by giving them an understanding of how it all works (how many times do you see a fustrated BS say they didn't have a clue}. They have the security of what to look for if they think things are not right--talking later down the road in the early stages of recovery remember the BS is often hypervigilant and extremely insecure/paranoid.

So talking about the affair is absolutely essential to recovery and reconiliation.

Now that being said its correct that the weaknesses and shortcomings in a marriage need to explored and explored in depth. There has to be a willingness on both parties to work on the marriage. Failing to honestly look at the marriage leads to not wanting to work on the marriage or not working on the parts of the marriage that need working on.

Affairs happen for many reasons. In most cases the condition of the marriage plays a role in the vunerability of either spouse to have an affair. There are exceptions when a WS has some deep internal issues like past abuse, sex addiction or personlity disorders.

For the most part a marriage can be strengthened or as some authors put it "affair proofed" by looking at those conditions and adressing them.

So yes to working on needs and H#ll no to not talking about the affair for any reason but those needs.

I am sorry but there is no justification for that. Dday was 2 months ago for me (bs) my ww did not know what her needs were so she could not tell me. So am I at fault, I don't feel I am. Yes I did neglect her and she neglected me also she would not have sex with me for a long long time long before the A. She only talked to me about her problems at work nothing else. I got sick of listening to it. I did not mistreat her I did very nice things for her and helped her with projects around the house, took her to Home Depot to match paint colors and so on. While she made a committment to our teenage daughter to take her to dance lessons every week, but instead she was at a hotel with OM. She would come home late from work but was really with OM. My daughter felt so neglected during the A that we had to get her into thearpy she was cutting herself and thingh like that. SO yes Tellmewhy. There is NO justification and no good reason period. We are in recorvery and it is very hard for me. I am on antidepressants and I was on the edge of a break down when the Dr. told me I was suffering from severe clinical depression. Thank the Lord that he started medicating me. I am better now. We go to MC and WW goes to individual thearpy. She is trying very hard. We will make it but at 42 years old and after 23 years of Marriage it is difficult especially when I trusted her and when I confronted she looke at me and said I never cheated on you. How do I take that.

Tellmewhy

Scissors,

You sound very angry in your posts. With DDay only a couple of months behind you, that's no surprise. You have every right to feel angry.

Yes, onlywords' example of food being a need was a little ridiculous. She said so herself: Maybe that's a bit extreme to use as an analogy, but it's a legitimate, basic human need, just as are our many, varied emotional needs. Please read what she wrote again, with the defensiveness down. She's trying very hard to convey what a WS is thinking. She's trying to answer your question about HOW a WS can do what they do.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">And to call someone self-righteous for sticking to their marriage vows is just wrong. Right is right and wrong is wrong>>> Period.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Re-read what onlywords wrote. She did not call anyone self righteous. She said some people tend to feel self righteous. That is her experience. Pay close attention to what else she says. If he would have continued to pound me for what I had done, I probably would have walked away. Now, mayabe this applies to your situation and maybe it doesn't. Maybe your W wouldn't walk away if she felt "pounded" by you. But it's one WS' experience and that is what you asked for. You would be wise to examine your own situation to see if this applies. You may save yourself a lot of heartache if it does, thanks to onlyword's generous sharing of her time and intimate, painful recollections.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">So, with that being said, please spare me from the justification of this sin. If you have some constructive reply that adds to the discussion, that's great.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I don't know of any recovering WS that would say what they did was right. I don't know of any recovering WS that tries to justify what they did. You asked WHY a WS was led to do what they did, and to behave in the fashion that they did, and you have gotten some honest answers to that. At the time the WS is acting so selfishly, these are thoughts that are going through their head.

I understand your pain and anger, I really do. To ask for insights and then rebuke those who try to help you in your quest for empathy, however, is counterproductive.

Runningwithcissors,

You are not the only one who feels like this, this is the same thing that's killing me inside. 9 mos. after dday I keep asking myself these questions:

1. Is my marriage better now? Yes, but at my expense.

2. Will I ever trust my wife again? Not fully...ever. I keep reading on how people do trust again but I question it. There will always be some doubt.

3. Did I lower my expectations for my marriage? Yes. Or else I would not have stayed.

4. Wouldn't it have been alot less complicated for my wife to tell me she at her limit? Like you stated we all have needs go unmet and allways will.

It's refreshing to see someone post with feelings that alot of people are afraid to mention because it goes against "recovery methods" but come on right is right,wrong is wrong.

Dad and Calloway have it right. Dad couldn't have said it better.

I tried to have an open mind reading about needs. It is pretty obvious that the betrayed were not doing everything right, but who does?

I would think that it would be pretty important to come clean and explain my actions if I had done wrong and then do anything possible to make ammends. Lying and twisting blame only serves to feed the lack of trust and foster a feeling that the affair is not really over or is being held open as an option.

The analogy of cooking meat? I guess if she yelled down the hall that she needed dinner, I would have no one to blame if I took a nap. But, I tried to make "dinner". She was out "dining" elsewhere.

Running: See my post in "Suzet* please read"

One other comment. Please don't take the words of onlywords to mean that your wife shouldn't talk about the A. Onlywords did with me, it just took time and it had to be at her pace.

Just because what your wife did was wrong (to break your marriage vows), if you want to stay married, you will have to work on the why's and how come's. So if you do want to stay married, you can't go verbally beating her up. Does it feel right that it now seems like you have to do all the work to keep your marriage? No, but your wife probably felt like she was doing all the work prior to the A and just gave up. Would it have been morally better for her to have dumped you prior to the A? Probably, but you're not at that point now.

It takes two and lots of hard work to make a marriage work. And Love Busters can undo all your hard work in a very quick time. Also, it's very frustrating when you're not communicating. You don't know what they're thinking and your imagination can get the best of you.

My opinion only to follow.....
Just don't know,


You are not the only one who feels like this, this is the same thing that's killing me inside. 9 mos. after dday I keep asking myself these questions:
We all ask these questions at first. Stuff doesn't add up, doesn't make sense and just generally pisses us off. I asked the same questions too but I didn't come up with the same answers you did, doesn't make me better, just different.


1. Is my marriage better now? Yes, but at my expense.

So what you are saying is that what you went through wasn't worth it, correct?
Do you call it an expense because you settled...lowering your expectations? Normally if you get something better that what you started with then it is an investment not an expense.

2. Will I ever trust my wife again? Not fully...ever. I keep reading on how people do trust again but I question it. There will always be some doubt.

Does your wife know this? Not saying that there shouldn't be some doubt (at first) till the trust is earned back but the only way you can trust IS fully. Doubt is the same as distrust. I find it difficult to believe that your marriage is better with distrust. Hopefully as time goes by you will see things differently.

3. Did I lower my expectations for my marriage? Yes. Or else I would not have stayed.

You shouldn't have. Your marriage is better because you lowered your expectations? Sounds a little self-righteous to me. Wow, I wish I were married to you. If you want your marriage to be better, raise your expectations.

4. Wouldn't it have been a lot less complicated for my wife to tell me she at her limit? Like you stated we all have needs go unmet and always will.

Granted, it would be nice if we were all built with an "I'm feeling like I am not important to you anymore" gauge but we aren't.
Hell we probably all would have changed something if our spouse came out and said...."XXX is really important to me, I wish you would do it more often because if you don't I might be tempted to find xxx elsewhere.
We, as spouses, should make every effort to find out what our spouses are feeling, why they are feeling that way and if we did something to make them to feel that way, good or bad. If you are having unmet needs, speak up. That is the main reason we are all here anyway. Somebody went somewhere else to get something we weren't giving them.(most cases)

It's refreshing to see someone post with feelings that a lot of people are afraid to mention because it goes against "recovery methods" but come on right is right,wrong is wrong.

Refreshing??? How is this refreshing because he feels the same as you? People post with these same feelings all the time here. Recovery methods here are just that, guidelines not rules. Can you stay married without trusting, lowering your expectations and having needs unmet...I guess YOU can.

Things can be different, better than you ever thought but it will take work, a lot of work, most of which might go unnoticed for a long time but it is worth it in the end.

God Bless

Doug

Hi, runningwithscissors. Your rant is certainly justified and your questions are valid.

I am a FWW who had an EA. I comfort myself sometimes that it never went PA, but the truth is, it never had the chance to do so...fortunately the EA was discovered and nipped in the bud before that could happen.

How could someone like me, whose been a "good girl" all her life and tried to please everyone and not make waves, do something as heinous as conduct an emotional affair with another married person? How could I hurt my husband and go against all my spiritual and moral beliefs like that?

I could give you some history of the marriage, and how my husband neglected and verbally abused me at times, but that doesn't hold water as any kind of an excuse or justification for what I did. The truth is, there are millions of people who live in less-than-satisfactory and even outright abusive marriages, who are NOT unfaithful to their spouse. There is, quite simply, no excuse.

I will tell you how it happened in my case. I liken it to the "frog in the kettle" scenario...where the frog is put in cold water and then gradually the water is heated up until it's boiling.

I became friends with another man, and since both my husband and I have always had opposite sex friends (he works in a heavily female-populated career, I work in a heavily male-populated career)...I thought it was perfectly innocent.

I didn't set out to have an EA. But gradually this man became more and more important to me, until he was consuming my thoughts, and I was much closer to him mentally and emotionally than I was to my husband.

At one point, we verbally declared our "love" for one another, and that was all she wrote. It kicked off an intense two-month EA that probably only remained EA because we were separated by a few hundred miles. We planned to leave our spouses and marry each other.

The EA, as I told you, was discovered providentially and even greater disaster was averted...but the hurt and pain we caused our spouses was earth-shattering enough as it was.

I'm sure there are other ways people become embroiled in affairs. I know there are men and women who are actively seeking to have affairs. There are people who are sex addicts and women who are w@#res.

In my case, nothing could have been further from the truth. I let my guard down, and before you know it I was in over my head.

No excuses...no justification. But that's how it happened.

RWS, prior to your W's A had you ever discussed the possibility of either of you having an A
or better how to avoid one and protect your M? OR did you both just blindly cruise along in life oblivious to this possibility? Ounce a prevention worth a pound of cure. I suspect you both naively figured not us, we're different. But nobody is immune and until you come to terms with that you will find it very hard to heal. Empathy might be the first step. There is a big difference between a house fire and arson. You're calling your W an arsonist. Hang around and keep an open mind.

No, I disagree. I am not calling my W an arsonist. I said in my original post that it was possible for me to have an A too. I don't guess there is any fruit that comes from arguing whose at fault. I LB'd and she cruised her own way away from me. We cruised along together with a busy career and somehow stayed together. Oblivious, yes, absolutely. Is that wrong, yes, but does that automatically put out the "please have an A" sign on the door.

Sincere1 put it right. There are people who live lives that are much much tougher than what we had or many of these posts on this site, but they chose not to give in to this. Why? I have no idea. I have my own guilt to deal with and she has hers.

RWS, You asked how one spouse can have tough marriage and stay faithful while another doesn't.

I think I know the answer to this, but you'll have to read carefully and think about it...

A spouse who remains faithful throughout marital difficulties is one who maintains a strong sense of self. They know who they are and they know that infidelity is not part of who they want to be.

The spouse who is unfaithful most often as lost their sense of self or they are so angry about who they've become that they are fighting to change it. They want to become something different, something new. In all of that tumult, they don't know who they are. They have no sense of boundary about the kind of person they want to be. So they can find themselves in all kinds of behavior just to see if that's who they want to become. This often accompanied or precipitated by depression or other more severe mental disorder.

The chasm between knowing who you are and having no idea is so wide that those who have a strong sense of self cannot imagine what it must be like for someone who does not. If fact, those who re-establish a sense of self often struggle to understand they person they once were. I know I do.

Temporary Insanity...

Low

Our MC calls marital infidelity temporary insanity. All reason and morals, convictions go out the window and they become someone they never were or wanted to be overnight. Then once it's done they have to sort out the reality of what has happened. He said it's the difference between guilt and shame. Guilt is a God given thing that reigns us in with our behavior. Shame is us believing we are what we've done. He said that shame is toxic and will destroy a person.

I can soooo understand the question you posted in this thread..."How could the WS do this...." I have read up alot on this topic and I really can sympathize with the WS for feeling awful and hurting by not getting their needs met prior to the A. People can only tolerate being ignored, neglected, and/or abused in a relationship for so long. But, if things were soooo terrible that the only comfort the WS can get is by starting a relationship with another person than file for divorce at that point. End that relationship. Why stayed married at that point?