This is complex. I don't really think that there is a way we can clinically "excuse" the WS though.

I am up early as I usually am off for work at this time...but..DS, age seven, and myself seem to have same darn cold. Fever, chills, and red throat/congestion...so we're off to the myriad of docs I know.. two in one day..the pedi and mine. It's wierd my doc says "what have you got...I tell him...He asks what I think...we concur." It sux being a healthcare professional and sick too...

As far as my xh goes here is my .02:
1)achieved threefold increase in income by our fourth year of marriage...incidentally, I left my profession to work with him, running a leg of his company for him. The success did really go to his head.
2)he was always about proving others wrong...I remember going to his 10th hs reunion w/him. He'd been skinny, not that popular, etc...he was obsessed with everybody saying he was cool, had gained about 50 lbs of muscle weight, and had pretty wife (me according to him back then)...and when at the reunion the most popular (then) guy at school wanted to hang out w/us afterwards (he was married too) I guess my xh's head just began the slow process of inflation that was to come in the next few years...He really enjoyed being the rags to riches kind of man. I used to think it was noble. Noble until it consumes you I guess.
3)He has uncontrolled urges when he gambles. I noticed this a few years after we married. We would either be at a resort (carribbean) or somewhere...they'd have a casino...and he'd be all about the blackjack table. He thinks he can always beat the house. And said "when I quit making all the money here...you can tell me I can't play blackjack anymore." He always claimed he knew when to stop...as he said he was a responsible gambler. AGain, this is an off/on thing that only happened maybe one or 2 times a year...He could go months without doing it. And then he'd spend five grand a night at the table. He would tell me to not worry b/c he makes so much money. I would wince. Then the casinos where he'd go would make him feel even better...feed his urges...by giving him perks like flying him here/there...treating him like a high roller, etc. I busted him and moneky at a casino btw...any questions here?
4)when the monekyho affair blew up, he was also shouldering the pain of dealing with his parent's own affair...his parents are HIS employees...and the role of son/dad is reversed. He signs their paychecks ok? Incidentally, his father had been sleeping w/a client of his (we had NO clue)for almost 2 years...and became suicidal when the OW demanded exposure (yea, the OP try this.) to his W. This added stress from his own parents I think drove him over the edge.

He has sense of entitlement that YOU could not understand, this man. He thinks everybody owes him everything now...that he's so handsome, successful, entrepreneus, etc...yet he forgets who helped him along the climb...me! And that has seen light of day since his wonderful marriage to ow2, family values, is crumbling.

Famous words my xh wrote and read in court...I remember holding my head in my hands with tears running down my face as my attorney read the copy of the email he sent to me during one of his "feelings of entitlement" high he was running on...the whole courtroom gasped loudly.

Words of my xh probably now famous in forsyth co family court: "I LIVED LIKE A ROCK STAR AND LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT."

I aggree. I am going through this the 2nd time with my wife. Both times a ww. 1st time EA, this time EA and PA. (not sexual, she says she could not do that because he sister did, whatever that means).

Both times my WW was depreased. 1st time not on meds, second time this year she was, but depression was getting worse. After hearing her talk about our marriage, (rewriting type stuff), I think the deppressed spouse takes the unhappiness they feel from the depression and place it on the marriage.

I know as a husband I am clueless to events and what is going on <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />, but I can honestly say, our marriage was not a miserable experiance for either of us. I was just a husband dealing with the depressed spouse, no different than if I was dealing with cancer. She was happy in the marraige, but depressed at times.

I think it is not the only cause for affairs, but I think a major contributor.

Dear Eaglesoar,
My mil's situation has changed since then. She is now in a new facility, one for dementia and alhzeimer's patients. She no longer is being held under the gun, and is just one of the group at the new place.
We are looking for a new facility though, my mil's mental capacity has slipped in the month that she has been there. She complained to my husband that they are not doing as many activities as they used to (she thinks she is still at the old facility).
Are you and your w/h in recovery process?
I am not ready to share this website with w/h yet, but when I feel we have made enough progress, and I am certain I am dealing with husband and not w/h, I will encourage w/h to visit marriage boards.
Then I will mention you and your husband's situation.
I know my husband prided himself on his family loyalty, and dependability, and all of what has happened to him has taken him to new levels of shame, embarressment and pain, for all that he has done.
I know that going through a crisis is not getting a free pass for having the affair, but I know he will find comfort that there are other w/h's that also slipped from grace and had inappropriate affairs while drowning in their lives of too much reality.
We are going to find facility that seperates the dementia patients into two groups, one that has little knowledge of what is going on, and the second group where they have a little more mental capabilities.
The old facility had plenty of day trips and daily activities, this one has very little.
When mil complaines to xwh about very little activities, he attempted to comfort her, while silently agreeing with her, and later told me that the reason she was losing her mental functions had to do with the decrease in activities. Even though nothing is said to me, I can tell the resentment is just under the surface, his blaming me for this situation.
Today I am going to start looking at different facilities within a fifty mile radius. Hopefully I will find one that fits my mil's needs.
My mil, is now having daily conversations with her deceased mother and father, whom she says works there at her new facility. She also told my husband that her dr. teold her that she needed to start eating more cookies and candy. She said the dr. said it was good for her. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />
Life in the facility is like the movie "Groundhog Day"
One of the patients says cute funny things to my mil, she laughs at what he says, and he repeats the story, once, twice, three times, etc.,etc. My mil laughs everytime, because it is like she is hearing it for the first time, every time. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I'm a recovering sexual addict. My first affair was triggered by me dealing with my grandmothers alzhiemers and watching her die from it, along with my wife starting back to work after 4 years of being at home with our daughter, and me learning I had a genetic disorder. At the time I didn't understand my addiction. I only thought my wife had a problem. Dumb me, two people can have problems at the same time and mine was a lot worst than hers. I swore to myself it wouldn't happen again. Well without the proper help and counseling you can tell youself all kinds of things, but it doesn't help. Greater problems came up in our family than those I had dealt with before and the anxiety and depression was so high and that it triggered my addiction once again and in a few years I had many multiple affairs. Now with the right counseling and treatment I'm doing great in recovery and I'm still married to my wonderful wife. So affairs can be linked to depression or unhealthy addictive personalities.

I believe my husband has been suffereing from depression for several years. Perhaps even the full 15 years of our marriage and before that. He has never been a "happy go lucky" kind of person. Isn't one to let loose and kick up his heels. Part of his upbringing required him to maintain a level of decorum. Father sold the family business, parents sold the family home and moved away, mother died, father remarried rather soon and rarely sees his children. I think my husband started wanting more because he thought he was "entitled" to it. He say himself falling away from his American Dream and was looking for something to get it back. Instead of sharing his fears with his wife of 14 years, he went looking for someone to help him start something new and better. Woamn with no responsibilities (kids), woman who made as much money as he did, woman who's family was upper crust (not mine), woman who was very invloved in sports (I love sports, just don't have that much time between work, kids, and home). She made him feel "alive" or in my opinion "not depressed". Anyone that has read about the brain chemistry of romantic love/lust, knows that the "high" you get from being with that OP is very real indeed and very addictive. ****** we all want to feel like that....but reality is...it won't continue with our long term significant others.
My WH has told me that he has NEVER felt he deserved to be happy. That is big...huge in terms of insight. Yes it is a "Woe is me" attitude, but it suggests that he has issues that he needs to work on before he will ever be happy with anyone. The hardest part of loving someone who suffers depression is that WE CAN NOT DO A THING ABOUT IT...it isn't our problem and we can not fix it for them. It is hard to walk away from an ill parent/child or spouse, but in the case where their mental health is bringing everyone else down ie having affairs, we need to detach, let them ask for help and realize it may never happen.

I actually think my FWH is bipolar. His mood swings are big. I just have to learn that his mood swings should not dictate my moods.

These describe me

1. Anxiety and/or panic attacks.
2. One or more attempts at suicide.
3. Relationship problems.
4. Unable to say NO <- big one.
6. Need to be perfect.
7. "Bad Person" syndrome.
8. Unable to take compliments.

I am not the one having an affair. It is some of these problems I had that led my husband to haven an affair

I was a victim of sexual, emotional, physical abuse growing up. I had a small A during my first marriage. I'm certainly not proud of it, and hesitant to post it here for being flamed. I was a Christian, still am and it had been years since I'd had my husband's attention. He ignored me except for when he wanted SF. I'd struggled with anxiety and depression for years and also told that I had PTSD.

Before the A these are the things that happened to me-
1. Second child- was told that she was handicapped and went into labor early.- which was a huge inconvience for exh
2. Had extreme financial difficulties
3. Fed my mother and her husband (both were my abusers)
4. Buried my mother and paid for it
5. Brought my beloved grandmother to live with me
6. Lost 45 lbs due to stress
7. Had to have a hysterectomy
8. A week after the hysterectomy my grandmother died and I had to bury her and pay for it.

Something just clicked in me when she died. She was the only person in my life who ever loved me more than they loved themselves. My hormones were all messed up, they changed my AD's and I was being tempted. My exh was too busy in his life and with his hobbies to notice how depressed I was, even though I cried everyday on my way home from work.

Yes, I believe depression is a huge issue in infidelity.

So it looks to me like either extreme can open up the doors for cheating, if one is at all inclined -- either great success or great failure/pain/depression.

Edited to add:
It's either "Wow, I'm a superstar, so I deserve to have this extra attention (an A) as a reward!" or "My life sucks, so I deserve to have this extra attention (an A) to make myself feel better."

Either way, that's Entitlement with a capital E.

LemonMan, are you getting this down for your Institute?
Mulan

for me, this is what i have come to learn.

no way i can blame depression for affair that happened while i was engaged. that A was all about the deficiences in me. and i'll just leave it at that.

to me, i now realize this was the worst of all the things i did.

second A, about 5yrs into the marriage.... the night it happened i was being careless with myself, i put myself in a terrible situation and i got burned by it. i truely do not think i ever gave this guy any signals that i was intereseted in him. however, i will say, i think my general behaviour was not healthy.

however, i was totally taken advantage of while i was drunk that night, if my reaction would of been different when i woke up and discovered what had occured, i could of even have called it rape.

but instead, my reaction was one of eating up the attention. i was with the guy 2 more times before i really realized how wrong i was for doing what i was doing. at that point i cut it off quickly. buried it and went on with life. obviously i was extremely wrong for thinking i could do that. i did not take that opportunity to evealuate myself and my choices. nor did i allow my H to know about any of it. which was extremely unfair.

how i wish i would of told my H about it back then.

as for all the stuff that occured between 2001-2003, i do blame depression, i was extremely suicidal a few months prior, had to take a medical leave of absense from work for mental health, this was right after my dad died, he died April 1, 2001 (april fools day, very appropriate)... somehow my dad being sick (he was sick for a good 18months prior to dieing and i was slowly falling apart more and more during that time. his dieing openned the flood gates, the damange that occured due to the sexual abuse by my brother could no longer be contained.

i had gotten out of the day program at the local hospital, a few months prior to meeting the main OM from the internet which occured mid-July of 2001. i had been back at work for maybe a month, no more than two. of course the internet abuse had started before then, that started in april of 2000, i had even tried telling them about it in the day program. get this.... when asked how i was coping, what were my mechinisms, i seriously stated internet chatting as a coping mechinism. i told them when i could not sleep, which was pretty much every night, i would end up chatting all night. i was told that was not healthy, try finding a craft to work on instead. or to read a book, have a glass of warm milk.

i felt better when i first left the hospital, then i went back to work and everything crashed right back down on me and worse. i couldn't continue and i didn't want to go back to being suicidal...

i don't blame my H for my choice of falling apart (i.e. internet chatting which led to actual meetings) but i do continue to blame the marraige for not being strong enough to have helped me during that time. i have to work very hard at continuely forgiving the state of the old marraige.

i don't mean to sound like i am letting myself off the hook. i am not, how can i?? considering what i did while engaged. and besides, i too have just as much responsiblity for the state of the marraige back then.

that was all very hard to write.

I definitely think that my H's mental/emotional issues
have contributed to his A's !
After five years into being together, and two years of
marriage, my H was diagnosed with depression and OCD
(obsessive-compulsive disorder). I had always known
that he was quiet, moody, and had some "odd" traits
(repetitive type behaviors) but hadn't thought too much
of it, just that it was "him". I was pleased that he had
taken the initiative to talk to the Dr about how he felt
and that he was willing to try meds and see if he could
make some improvements, so I supported him whole-heartedly.

Within a year after starting treatment he had an inappropriate internet "friendship" with a woman in a nearby town, and an EA with an older, recently widowed
woman. Went through Plan A, B, and recovery, and had three
years of things going much better. H has always "blamed"
his actions and inappropriate behavior on his depression,
never on himself and what I consider to be some lack of
character ! For example- saying that he is unhappy because
of me or the marriage- instead of saying/realizing "I am
unhappy because I have depression and I'm not doing anything
about it". He has been tried on numerous meds (Ad's), all
of which have helped even out his moods, but he hasn't
stayed on any too long, due to side effects or feeling like
they didn't help. They also tried meds for ADD, which didn't
help him at all. While I give him "credit" for trying meds,
he's also always been told that he needs to do medicine
and therapy, and he just doesn't want to do therapy.
He tried one counselor for a short time, but found that Dr.
to be too much a "touchy-feely" type who just wanted to talk
about marriage issues (instead of his issues), then tried another who ended up being very "freudian" and wanted him
to come three times a week to analyze everything since his
birth, so he was very turned off and hasn't been willing
to do therapy since.

Some of his behaviors in the last year have made me think/wonder if he has SA, narcisstic personality, other
issues- but don't know for sure, just know he has been in
the habit of lying and getting out of responsibility since
his childhood, has a very overbearing and enabling mother,
and quite a disfunctional family. I do have sympathy and
sadness for him since he never seems to be happy, seems to
struggle alot, and I believe, at times, really did try in
our M. Unfortunately, he is just not able/willing to do
more to help himself, and seems to be letting the issues/
addictions and some MLC run his life now. Don't know if
he is having actual A with one person, or if he is trying
to be a "player" and carrying on with more than one, but
we are seperated, and don't know how things will end up.

Ultimately, I think (and have told him) that it's not his
fault he has depression, OCD, etc. since it's an illness
like many other conditions, but it IS his fault if he
won't do anything about it, like go to therapy, get help.
Sure seems like he lives in misery and would want to get
help, but I guess it's fear of change, fear of having to
make an effort, fear of giving up the old habits and
addictions, and not wanting it bad enough to do it.
Very sad- for the person and everyone else affected, isn't
it~
Slammed