It was a relationship that I thought would end my marriage with someone I had gone out with all through my teenage years.

After 30 years and 2 adult children you DO NOT throw out a marriage.

I confessed because my H asked me but I was going to tell him anyway.

So many, many people say that cheating is a deal breaker. They have never been through it. Like I say, 30 years you don't just throw away.

Re-evaluating? Good grief, we spent nearly 2 years re-evaluating after the affair.

Sorry, end of conversation.

You know nothing about what you're talking about.

I never said throw away the marriage. Sorry to burst your bubble but for some people its a deal breaker, like personally if my future husband ever hit me that is my deal breaker. You replied to me, do not tell me I don't know what I am talking about, I said I respected what you felt you needed to do and if it was more than just sex than yes coming forward was in my opinion the right thing. I haven't judged you, I shared my views but you are on some high horse telling me I don't know what I am talking about. You did what you had to and lucky for you your spouse was willing to work through it, others are not- my mother in law for example is divorced b/c of infedelity, so there you go she went through it and for her it was a deal breaker. Everyone is different and for someone with a 30 yr marriage you were very rude and immature to dismiss my opinion b/c you don't agree. You don't have to agree but have some dignity when you post and don't make a generalization that i don't know what I am talking about, b/c I suppose everyone mustbe just like you with your views on cheating...sorry not everyone has the same opinion.

lol, you're funny

that's not really a marriage lol

in my previous post where I quoted you it doesn't sound like you love your future husband

keeping your mouth shut about it is extremely disrespectful to your spouse

MBs definitely comes from a place of telling...radical honesty. But, b2b isn't coming from out of nowhere with her thoughts. There are professionals who are supportive of what she has said. To dismiss it or laugh about it seems disrespectful..or ignorant..to me. I see neither as being helpful.

You don't have to agree. You can share why you don't agree. You can share your personal experience of it. Why the need to personally attack someone who holds a different belief or opinion? While it's not a concept supported by MBs, this is a public forum. People can share thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc. that are not in agreement with MB principles. We can choose to agree or disagree as it relates to ourselves.

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everyone has a deal breaker so to speak and for some cheating is a deal breaker, meaning sorry end of marriage


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------that's not really a marriage lol

in my previous post where I quoted you it doesn't sound like you love your future husband

SP,
You lost me on these comments. Are you saying that if someone chooses to leave a marriage due to physcial abuse or adultry it wasn't a marriage? That B2B is being "funny" to make a statement about leaving a marriage if there's physical abuse or adultry? I think I missed something here.

I doubt anyone on this board would immediately jump and leave their marriage the first time physical or verbal abuse or adultery took place.


A more specific comment:

A "marriage" with a "deal breaker" is not much of a marriage, but more like a deal.

People make mistakes, people have problems, a "deal breaker" is an unrealistic and selfish expectation of a spouse.


You can't talk to someone who only speaks Spanish in English.

T2R,

Thanks for giving me, a BS, some insight into what may have been going on in my FWS's mind at the time of his A...He has fervently denied loving or being in love with the FOW. He has always said that he never stopped loving me and was never leaving me and the kids. He said that he did care for her, but it was not love. It was only for sex and became something that was convenient...It was a physical thing only which she agreed to in the beginning. As she got feelings for him and fell in love with him, she became making demands on him, and he started to pull back...But he would keep going back to her off and on over the period of 8 months.

His reason for the A was that he felt rejected sexually by me, and that I was not meeting his EN for SF and Affection...We were leading separate lives pre-A which allowed this A to start and continue. We focused too much on our kids and not on each other (just like Harley talks about, so I can see how this could happen). We argued alot because he was not home very much, due to working graveshift on the weekends, and I was feeling overburdened by housework and the kids.

He has said that he didn't think it would hurt me if I didn't know (I didn't find out until the A was over). He has said it was only sex for him. But I feel that it may have been more than that, because of the fact that he kept coming back to her. This A started in the early stages of my pregnancy and continued after the baby was born. We did have sex every so often during that time, but it was either a BJ or a quickie to fulfill his needs, not mine. (He worked graveshift weekends so our work shifts were opposite--rarely sleeping at the same time). Even after the baby was born and we were getting along better, he went back to her.

On one hand, I feel like he is embarassed to admit to himself that he may have loved her, and I think he is afraid to tell me that he did, because he is afraid of losing me...This was one of his biggest fears. He wants to put this all behind us and move forward, and he cannot understand why I continue to ask questions...He says that it was just sex and that I am giving this woman too much space in my head, and that he never loved her...

LowOrbit,

My FWS would probably agree with what you said about having it because you could...And he didn't think I would find out. In fact, he never meant for me to find out (of course not) and didn't think it would hurt me...Didn't think of me much at all...And your reasoning is similar to his...If he had only told me his true feelings that he felt rejected by me, I would have listened. He has also said that he feels that God has forgiven him and he hopes that I will someday. He understands what a terrible mistake he has made and is trying to rebuild our marriage to make it better than ever.

Thanks for giving me something to think about. I have had a hard time coming to grips with the fact that this was just for sex, and how could he come home and live a somewhat normal life with me. I feel like my life during that time was a lie, and that even the happy times with him are suspect. He says, no those were just happy times...He says that I dwell too much on the details. That he really was happy at times with me during that period and he still continued with her.

Any comments to make on that question? Were there times during your A that you were happy with your wife? Did you treat your wife differently during the A in order to justify your actions?

Any thoughts would be appreciated. I"m not trying to badmouth any FWSs here...I truly appreciate hearing the other view and honest opinions because it is rare on this board, and my FWS has a hard time opening up to me. He doesn't want to hurt me, so he doesn't want to talk about it. I tell him that I can handle the truth, and that's all I want.

Thanks for your help!

Another question I thought of for Trying2Reconcile,

My H says that the big reason he cheated was lack of SF--not enough, not when he wanted it...he felt rejected by me, so a younger attractive coworker was flirting with him for a long time and he seized the opportunity...went home with her after his shift, had sex with her, then came home to me...this developed into an 8 mos long PA (see post above).

My questions to you are, since you say that your A was also because you just took the opportunity to #($@ someone else, was the sex with your wife not fulfilling? Do you compare the sex you had with the OW to the sex you have with your wife? My H says that he didn't compare the two, that it was just sex with her and making love with me, but I can't help but compare myself to her in my own mind.

As I said in my other post, I am asking these questions to try to understand my H, not to try to make you feel guilty.
Thanks,

Well, I am not a WS, but my FWH told me that he thought that he could have an affair to meet the needs that I wasn't meeting without it affecting any other part of his life, or our marriage.

The affair ended before I knew about it. Long after d-day, he told me that it simply didn't matter what the OW was like (In our sitch, she was fat, dumpy, needy, demanding, and unstable), that he came to the realization that he could not have a life with me if he continued with the affair, and that he had never even contemplated a life without me.

When I asked him, what if I can't continue in a life with you even tho the affair is over, he said he had never even thought things thru to the possible outcome.

I don't believe for one minute that he is being anything less than truthful. He really didn't think, he just acted.

Who

WhoMe,

I think my FWH just acted too...No thinking involved at all. It's hard for me to understand this, but I have to just accept that he did not think of the consequences of me finding out, because he never thought I WOULD find out about it. Therefore, what I don't know can't hurt me...in his warped way of thinking...

Yes I love him, I said to some people cheating is ad eal breaker and yes it is. I would never put up with physical abuse so hypothetically if my husband ever hit me thats my deal breaker. I do not see how that means I don't love him.

Thank you heartmending, I never claimed my opinions were perfect justthat they were my opinions and everyone but you has belittled me. To the person who said no one on this board would "jump ship" at the first occurance of physical abuse well that is your opinion. If you would stick around to be a punching bag that is your business, I wouldn't. Also again I find it disrespectful to say I don't love my fiancee b/c hypothetically ifhe hit me I would leave, sorry I would not stay and wait until I am in intensive care.

Or a vow or a commitment, or simply considering the feelings of the one you promished to love and cherish.....

IMHO, dealbreaker here is simply a term that means, something that is too much for a relationship or a marriage to survive for those involved.

WHen my FWH had an affair, I decided to try and recover our marriage. After all the pain involved getting into and continuing in recovery, I can honestly say that another instance of infidelity would be the "dealbreaker' for me.

Yes people make mistakes and people have problems and some people don't do anything to help themselves with their problems, they just make new problems for someone else and some people also keep making the same mistakes over and over. That doesn't change the consequences or make them any easier to deal with.

IMHO, I don't think that having an expectation of fidelity is either unrealistic or selfish.

Who

A lot of the time I was "happy" with my W. Of course, I wasn't happy enough to break off the A.

No, I didn't try to "set her up" to do something and then use that as an excuse for having the A--given my state of mind during the A, I could see myself doing that. But, really, the A wasn't about her problems, it was my problems.

It might help to break down sex into three parts: foreplay, intercourse, and afterglow.

(A) The foreplay was more intense with OW. The only way to describe is like being a horny little 19 year old.
(B) The intercourse was different. It was not better--it was different.
(C) The afterglow was *AWFUL*. I hated being with OW afterwards. I didn't like myself. I didn't like OW. I couldn't wait to leave. The guilt was unbearable.

I think when you are younger, you think of sex more as foreplay and coitus. So, from a "foreplay/coitus" point of view, the sex was better with OW. From a "coitus/afterglow" point of view, the sex was better with W.

From a "total sexual experience" point of view, sex with W was better.

After the A, my W and I worked (and still work) on our sex life to keep it fun and interesting. We have really done a lot to improve the foreplay portion, for both her and me.

You replied to my post but your post is full of quotes that came from someone else. Just want to clear that up.

Never say never and never say always.

This forum is filled with folks who all thought that infidelity would end their marriage. But then it happened to them and they discovered that just walking away was not as easy as they imagined.

I too would have thought that it would be easier in some ways if I never knew that my FWH had an affair. Since it ended before I knew about it, why rock the boat?

Because everything we would have had together for the rest of our lives together would have been based on lies. We would have continued not meeting each others needs and not having the fullfilling marriage we now have. That may not seem important when you are looking at a marriage before it begins, but it does matter. My question to you Bride to be, is if you can meet all of your own needs, why share your life with another?

You can bury the garbage, but it still rots even though you can't see it.

Who

Jimmy Mac,

I appreciate your comments. My H would treat me differently, try to provoke an argument as a reason to leave, etc. Now I understand WHY he did this, to justify the A. At the time, I could not understand why he was turning everything around on me.

As for the sex, thanks for the male point of view and your honesty. I expect that my H would say something similar. The FOW in my case was an attractive 25 yr old who had been flirting with him...he said he was having a midlife crisis and she made him feel like he still had it...

After the A, our sex life also improved greatly...I was always pretty insecure about sex, so the A only reinforced this insecurity of mine. My H was surprised, pleasantly, at the change in me...He had complained that I did not initiate sex, was always too tired, didn't seem interested, so I am working on changing that perception...He has also told me that the Frequency of sex with her was also the attraction--she was single, living on her own, with no children to get in the way. Basically she was willing whenever he wanted to do it. That was a big reason why it continued.

Mama -

My husband and yours seem like they are cut from the same cloth. Our timelines are almost the same, as well, except his lasted two months or so, D-Day in early November. In between this, he's had cancer surgery, and that has taken a toll on our sex life for now. Before the surgery, I was responding to the SF part of the EN list he generated, and he said it was the best he has ever experienced.

Anyway, we are on a different recovery track. Something probably to do with the cancer issue, I suppose. It makes things seem like I have to handle the problem faster, and get things in our relationship "fixed" (or what can be closest to fixed) on a time table that is not infinite.

My FWH has said that he just needed something different, didn't love OW, and never stopped loving me. He also said that it was just for sex. I had trouble understanding how one might separate the emotional part from the physical part of sex. After reading this forum, lots of short and long talks, and finally one huge wine-induced crying/pleading/begging session by me asking him to explain it all, I finally got it. And so did he, by the way. He was remorseful, begging me to give him a chance to change himself. He has done that, and more. Every day, his actions and his words give me more security, and a little more trust in him.

He said that sex for many men is very different (so do many men on this forum, BTW). For women, sex usually includes the emotional blend with the physical. For many men, the physical can exist alone. I would surmise this is why so many more men frequent prostitutes......... He was feeling that I didn't meet his frequency requirements, and that he was looking for something different and exciting and new. Combine that with the use of pornography, in which many of the videos portray men just happening upon a lusty woman who is not wanting any strings attached to the sex she offers, and voila, you get a nice little fantasy going. That started the fantasy for him, he drank too much too often, and along comes the OW. She talks to him about sex, wanting some "strange" herself, visits and calls a lot when I'm not around. Next thing you know, he says to himself, "Well, what my wife doesn't know won't hurt her. Besides, she's gained weight. And she was nagging me last month. And she doesn't give it to me enough." And so he was able to justify why it was okay, why in some weird way I probably deserved it (even though I didn't know I was being punished - this is the fog), and that I would never find out anyway, so what's to worry? It's only sex.

He affirms Jimmy Mac's statement that the excitement was in the chase, or the foreplay. The sex was different, not better, only different. But the afterglow was more like - hurry, get the he!! out of here because the sight of you is making me feel really guilty and crummy.

He was lost in the idea of sex in an exciting and new format. What he found was that he became filled with guilt, and wanted to stop it but couldn't help just getting it "one more time", and each time the guilt rang out a little more. And believe it or not, he said he quickly bored of it, because it never did fulfill the fantasy he had worked it up to be in his mind.

As for how he separated the sex from feelings of love, he said that the sex with her was like using a human body for masturbation - she used him, he used her. He didn't love her, care much for her, and basically found her conversation lacking. But, she was horny and so was he. That part worked for both of them.

Mama, I feel your pain. I also think I have come to understand that place our FWHs were in - a need for sexual connection to someone, the need for something different, and the true thought, for them, that sex can be just that - sex - and nothing more.

What I did was to show him that the best sex he could have would never stand alone as "just sex", that sex without the emotion doesn't hold a candle to sex with someone you love and who loves you. I was a lot like you used to be, inhibited, afraid to initiate it for fear of embarrassment, and insecure about the give and take of it all. But after his affair, I decided that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by mustering up every bit of courage in me, throwing down the shield of embarrassment, and seducing the man I love. As often as is humanly possible in the crazy 2-job life we live.

The change in me has created for him the fantasy-turned-reality, and neither of us ever dreamed it could be that way. Our communication is better, our lovemaking is better, our outlook is better. MB helped, along with some really tough introspection and in-the-trenches hard work.

Can I say we are fully recovered? Probably not. Can I say we have made it over the hill? Yes. I'm standing on the mountaintop, and it's going to be a terrific ride from here on out. The view is magnificent, the weather is perfect, and our life ahead looks to be everything we desire it to be - and it will be wonderful, because we are on the right track...together.