SwingDancer - Let me get this straight, you LEAD by, and LIVE by, your "feelings?"

Forget commitment, love, and everything else unless you "feel good?"

I'm sorry, but you exhibit NO concept of what marriage is, and if your current lover had any brains, he would see that too and run as fast as could to another woman. Of course, given that your standard for fidelity is marriage is "until I no longer feel good and aren't happy," it will only be a matter of time, of when, before the next adultery is "justified."




No you wouldn't. You have made it very clear that the "standard" by which you value a marriage is "sexual perfomance," and that "standard" is whatever you want it to be. You are continuing to lie to yourself in order to justify what you are doing and what you have done.

You are "entitled" to a good romp in the hay and to feeling as though you are "valued" because of how someone performs sexually. You can try to say "oh, but it's much more than that," but that's just a self-deluding lie to rationalize and justify what you are doing and what you have already done, multiple times.

You decided the FIRST partner in adultery was a "moron," when you "finally came to your senses." What senses? You went back to your husband and still placed your marriage in the hands of a "sex therapist," (and withheld vital information)? SEX solves everything for your or justifies your behaviors, right?

What you don't understand, despite your reactions to the posts you have received, is that your "words" are meaningless. People around here have "learned the hard way" that your ACTIONS are much more revealing than what you SAY.

Your actions clearly "say" that you are self-centered and will find any rationalization for adultery, including making your current boyfriend commit adultery with you. Your actions clearly "say" that you will find any justification for doing whatever it is that you WANT to do, including blaming your previous husband for not providing you enough pleasure.

But we also know that trying to talk "sense" to a Wayward Wife who is lost in her "fog" will not do any good. It is a shame that you think your situation is any kind of "hope" for Betrayed OR Wayward Spouses here who ARE trying to save their marriages and recover their marriages.

May I suggest the TOW board to you as a place where "like minds with yours" gather and they will be supportive of your continuing your adulterous lifestyle.

TELL you boyfriend about all your EA'a and PA's and your requirement of a "studly" guy, moron or otherwise, as the "guarantee of fidelity" FROM you to him. Your wedding VOWS will be as meaningful this time around as they were the first time, and HE needs to know the "complete package" he is considering yoking himself to for the rest of his life.

Swingdancer, I hope that you paid attention to Orchid's post, particularly this part:


The reason I say that is because you seem to believe that the reason for your infidelities lies in the behavior of others. Your first H was a poor lover, so you strayed. He did not demand accountability from you, so you strayed.

Do you see the problem here?

Now you are saying that since your fiance is much more skilled in the bedroom and pays attention to who calls you on the phone, you will be able to be faithful.

As Orchid so wonderfully pointed out, faithful behavior is your choice, your action. Only YOU can guarantee your faithfulness. (Kind of like smokey the bear and forest fires.) Cheating will occur until you decide not to do it, until you demand accountability from yourself.

Oh, and to expect a Plan A from a spouse who has just been told about your affair? I'm wiping the tears of laughter from my eyes at the moment. I like to say that when I revealed my affair to my H, I got Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Look to yourself. Look for your own flaws and weaknesses. Address them before you marry. Otherwise I fear that we may see you back here in five years saying something like this:

My H was so possessive! He would check up on everything I did! It drove me crazy not to be trusted and to be hounded so much that I had an A with a co-worker.

Take care.

PK

Though I'm hit the same way the other BS's here are by the OP, I would like to request that we tone down the attacks on her a little. It is important (to me at least) to read the type of (ir)rationalization a WS uses to justify his/her actions. It helps me deal with my situation a little better. This board is 99% BS's - this is a rare opportunity to see inside the mind of a WS. It looks ugly because it is - and we all knew that before we read the post. But it's these finer details that I need to see - to put all the things that happened to my M in perspective.

SwingDancer, I'm glad you posted your story and I hope we don't scare you away. You can learn a lot here to help you in your new R and we can learn from you as well. Just be prepared that from our perspective, reading your post not far off from reliving the pain we've experienced.

Tabby, I don't think what you are seeing is "pain from a BS," but rather outrage at her cavalier, entitled attitude towards honesty and fidelity. Decent people are supposed to be outraged by injustice and that is what you are seeing here, rather than some perceived "pain." Many of the posters on this thread are years into recovery, and I assure you, are not in "pain." One doesn't have to had been a victim of adultery to be offended by serial cheating and dishonesty.

I'm not sure what you think you can glean from fogbabble, but I hope you can benefit from it.

This is where marriagebuilders sometimes leaves me shaking my head....

swingdancer may be guilty as charged....
but so are all of us....

This post is wrought with typical common mistakes in marriage.....

lack of intimacy being translated in to bad sex.....

lack of immediate proper marraige intervention after the FIRST affair...

she stopped the first affair...
disclosed it to her husband...

and both thought they could just get over it...
typical typical typical...

how many people's stories here are similiar..

he/she had an affair...
we just tried to move on our own...
tons....

big suprise....
just sweeping it under the run didn't work...

resentment building building building on both sides...


here's the reality of this that I struggle with....

swingdancer...please forgive my great sweeps of generalization with you as my 'lead character'

but I can NOT read this.....and the responses without having flashes of

Jesus meets the Women at the Well....

and let me be clear without doubt...without a blooming doubt...

I myself have been will be and am...

the woman at the well....

all of us our as far as I am concerned.....

and Jesus's response to her is full of gifts....

inspite of her past five husbands and the one with whom she lives with and is not married to....

inspite of all my past and future transgressions...

****** the woman in the story meets Jesus at the well and doesnt hold a smidgen of remorse or insight that swingdancer does...

God, swingdancer pratically prostrated herslef here....
and again this flat screen forum lacks the ability to convey what ANY of us truly feel and exhibit in emotion...
cause what she said wasn't "good enough"

you guys know that I adore this site...
that I hold the value of peoples core worth...
as greatly as I can....
that I try to post with full knowledge of the limitations of my opinion....

that what I say is just that...an opinion....

be us here...WS BS FBS FWS...whatever the title....

the whole point of this site...is that people CAN and DO change...

and if that's NOT the core belief...then there is NO point to this site....

I am not trying to be preachy or judgemental...I am imploring you to use this post as the way to go deeper and past the blame.....and seek the good...

how can we tell BS to encourage the good things a WS does...
when we don't extend that to people that come here....
becasue we don't like all that they say...

for all the percieved bad in this post...
there's a lot of good...a lot...a lot if we seek it...

there is glimmers of change.....glimmers of remorse...
glimmers of struggle....glimmers of great failures...

more than I might be brave enough to post here about myself on this forum if I am honest...

so what's the answer marriagebuilders...

Can people come here.....as they are ...as who they are...
failures and triumph as we all have them...

and find a place like the women did at the well...

and this not to be preachy or just for Christians...
all of here no matter what path....
I believe should hold in our beliefs....that people can change...
I am grateful that I am not the same twit I was 5-10-15 years ago...that I have changed...and even better..I can change...

for are not the stupidest sayings in life around because they hold some...

ask not for whom the bell tolls...
as well as the Beatles I am the Walrus..

I am he as you are he as you are me
and we are all together (look up these lyrics..they are interesting...)

OK and heres the cheesiest part of this that I found in this journey

a stupid poem....
but I guess if someone was moved enough by this story to write a poem...then there might be some lesson in it...


wish I knew her name, Lord, the woman at the well.

She walks into my life nameless,

burdened by a history I shall never know.

Searching for love in ways and places I shall never visit,

stubbing her toes on broken hopes that cluttered the corners of her life,

just so much rubbish no one wants.

And always disappointed, Lord, until you came into her life. And into mine.

Disturbing with a love that digs up secrets, unlocks the truths I'd rather not remember.

Challenging me to face my failures.
Helping each one of us to look in honesty at what we were without you

and to show us what we can become with you. Our deepest selves.



Your judgement's only to restore and offer us a new beginning.

I wish I knew her name,
OK so that poem is wrought with God...but there's also the part aren't we all made of failures...past present...future....
And it's not the salvation part of the poem that I am interested...
it is God's response to her....


Here's my other question...

If you to an AA or a NA meeting...
and spill your guts...

the good the bad and the ugly...and some of it's really really ugly....
and definetly on an journey of recovery...just begining...so it's these stories don't come out at first FULL of insight and remorse....they are laced with blame, victimization...etc etc etc

what is the reception you get from the crowd...
the stories we have and tell
aren't all good
and
they aren't all bad...

hers has it all...but so does mine...

so where are we at marriagebuilders called to focus..if we are called at all....

and again and again...I am asking this without blame...
for I struggle with this daily...and probably fail more than I overcome....

ARK^^ ( who is terrified to hit the send button)
AND who thinks that if one is terrified to post something on an annonymous board...needs a reality check..:)

Thank you Ark for providing much more clarity than I did of the value of this post. To personalize it a bit - why it helps me? Many things in the OP could have been direct quotes of what my WH said to me. And though I'm ashamed to admit it, many things in there also reflected my own thoughts on what was wrong with my M (before the A). Clearly WH and I had a similar communication problem. But the damage is done, he's still in the fog and not looking to come out any time soon and it will probably be way, way too late by then to try and make some sense of it all - especially when I needed answers yesterday. So even though the situation isn't exactly the same, I can almost see pieces of what WH might have and still be thinking. It doesn't make it forgivable and it doesn't make it hurt less. But perhaps I can learn from it for the future.

Aark - thank you for your post.

I was, in fact, trying to say exactly as what said. There is a formula to infidelity, and mine happened exactly as the formula. I confessed it, but we did not have a recovery plan, so I was "addicted" again within a few years, and ultimately our marriage failed.

I wanted to stand up and confess my story here in this forum, as you said, as if this were an AA meeting. But this is not an AA meeting, it is more like a MADD meeting (mothers against drunk driving) and so I'm afraid that I can't seem like anything except a huge monster to all of you.

I can understand this.

I would have been happy to talk about more of my situation, but I am being pummeled too hard - it is just impossible for me to address all of the heavy slams I am receiving. I will accept all of the judgements against me without trying to defend any of it. No one apparently will believe me anyway, no matter what I say (even saying I know all of it was my own fault, still doesn't seem to garner anyone's belief that I actually feel this way?)

My point that I originally had: I wish I had found MB after my first affair and I wish we had a good recovery plan. I wished I had been fully exposed and had to deal with that fallout, so that I would have learned. I wish my ex-h and I had found good MC and IC and could have had a chance together. This is not how it happened and I can't change the past.

If it makes any of you feel any better, my ex-h got the biggest revenge on me of all...he abandoned our son emotionally, physically and finanically. He apparently did this to punish me.

I'm going to leave this thread now, and maybe check it again in a few weeks. For those of you who had any compassion for me, I thank you. For the rest of you, I get it, I am the bad guy, I'll take the hit and no hard feelings to you. I apologize that my post sounded aloof or whatever. I just didn't want to try to minimize what happened or try to justify anything...which is I belive why it sounded so aloof. I came across entirely differently than I had hoped.

I want to say to all of you also, that GUILT will not make a person stop being wayward. It is a choice you have to make for yourself. All the guilt in the world cannot make you be a better person, you just stay the same bad person and do the same bad things and feel guilty about it on top of it all. What has to change is a choice you make inside yourself. When you truly make that choice and truly change, and you change because you want to do the right thing and walk the right path, then it becomes easy. Before that, you struggle and struggle, but you dont change. The day you make the right choice for the right reason, you can change.

My new fiance is formerly wayward too (in previous relationships) and we have discussed this dynamic many times. We talk about how we got to that place (as I said in my first post, he does know about some of my story, just not all the details - which I will disclose to him now as I feel you are all right that this is a necessary step), we talk about how neither of us ever really wanted to be "that person", we talk about how to safe-guard our upcoming marriage. But ultimately, it comes down to a choice to be and do right, and we are both making that choice.

I had read other posts by WS's whose stories were worse than mine, but for whatever reason, mine is the one that set everyone off and I appear (to you all) to be non-repentant. Other WS's seemed to get a slightly kinder ear than I have received...I simply don't understand this difference but will accept it.

I really am repentant and I can tell you that I have things to share about being wayward that would/will help you all understand and to safeguard. But I see there is sooo much pain and I am sooo sorry I came across the way I did.

SD

(great post ark^^)

SD,

Thanks for sharing your story.

More than likely it will have an impact on someone here.

committed

This is a good start, SD.

Will you also be telling your ex-husband about the serial cheating (years after your first affair) so he can make an informed decision for himself to get STD tested?

Jo

SD, From the beginning I understood the intention of your post.

Please do not be run off by those who make a choice to receive your post as insulting.

Stick around, utilizing the member ignore features built into this forum might also be helpful.

-JKT

Swing Dancer, I'm sorry if you felt my post was harsh. I truly did not intend for it to be. I thought that Orchid's post was a good one, and Just Learning can always be counted on to say something worth reading. I didn't read the other posts before I replied; I read only yours and then replied.

I'm a FWW and the last thing I want to do is throw stones. There's no percentage in it. I just want to impart some knowledge that I've learned along the way, and hopefully save you some grief.

SD, I do think that since you know your fiance has been unfaithful in his past, that you should level with him about yours. Start with radical honesty. Clear the air. Get some couples counseling, get some individual counseling. Don't rush into marriage until you are sure that you will not repeat the past.

SD, I hope that you will stay; I suspect that you will be reading, if not posting. Sometimes it's good to take a break, particularly if you're getting hammered. Just remember; this is cyberspace. The effect is not unlike roadrage - instead of cars being the buffer between us and other people, it's the monitor.

I have a couple of comments on the other posts - not the posters, the posts. First, what's with the trend of calling posters who say things we find objectionable and unpleasant trolls? Swing dancer was so obviously not a troll.

Second, this site needs more than BSs, IMO, just as a marital recovery requires both BS and WS. We need to see more than the FWS who has been in recovery for years and has a broader, more educated outlook. And personally, I'd rather see someone being HONEST, and REAL, rather than a FWS who can talk the talk beautifully...for years even, and then have been obviously stoking a flame for the OP.

Finally, why, on a forum about infidelity, are we outraged when a poster admits to being unfaithful? It's like a kindergarten turning students away because they can't read. Outrage should not be directed at posters, particularly when they first arrive and spill their guts, IMO. Rage is as inappropriate and dangerous on this forum as it is on the road. Feel free to disagree, as I'm sure many will.

PK

Great post Ark!!

I disagree completely. We should always be outraged at injustice; that is a sign of decency. The outrage was at the cavalier manner in which she presented her serial cheating and subsequent dishonesty. She has normalized and romanticized it. Rage is a very appropriate response to cruelty and justification of cruelty. It has nothing to do with "pain," it has to do with DECENCY. She needs to be exposed to the reaction of normal folks to her serial cheating and dishonesty, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

In fact, that is the powerful motivating force of exposure, when the WS sees the disgust on the face of others. The poster here has a very cavalier attitude to adultery and dishonesty, so I think the response was a very helpful wake up call.

I was responding to the insinuation that people here are biased and are only lashing out in supposed "pain" when it is no such thing. Even people who have not been victimized by adultery [or murder, or rape, etc, etc] are outraged when they see those practices condoned or minimized by others. I am outraged when I read about murders, but not because I am in "pain" but because I am DECENT.

SD,

I am posting my question again. If you are up to responding, we can have some dialog.

U R not the 1st Xws to post, some of the feeling here are highly charged. Know this and see it as a test of your true feelings.

Yea.... you have a lot to make up for. This could very well be a great opportunity to help you help yourself through this. The MB board does not like WS' but are willing to help Xws. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

L.

My outrage about SD's post comes from many things, but the MAIN ones are quoted above...Her EXBH STILL has been left in the dark about much of his victimization...He deserves the truth about his life, however horrible that truth is...And like Jo brings up he needs to understand just how important it is for him to be tested for STDs...I pray that he doesn't have one...

The overall tone that her BH somehow owed it to her to pursue her...but he didn't, he gave up, and SD's post seems to indicate that the failure of the marriage now belongs to him because of that...Sorry that rubs me the wrong way...She can change her tune now all she wants, but I'd argue that her true feelings were indeed revealed in her original post...Only now when she sees that others didn't dig that does the story change...Convenient, imo...

Further this new man that SD is involved with is one of her OMs and I find that to be VERY offensive and just plain wrong...That is now and will forever be an adulterous relationship...Great that she is now claiming to have changed her stripes, let's see her put in into action by giving up the ill gotten goods(OM)...The command was "Go and sin no more"...I, for one, don't think you can "sin no more" when continuing the adulterous relationship...

Mrs. W

I can only speak for myself. I’m outraged because she hasn’t told her exH about the years of serial cheating.

I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but unless any of you have experienced non-disclosure of such important health related info resulting in cancer, I don’t think you’d understand the gravity of not being told.

Jo

The outrage was at the cavalier manner in which she presented her serial cheating

I would argue...that part of the blame lays with the flatness of the forum...the nature of the beast...

I would also argue that several times she apologized for the tone...and tried to ammend...

It was a long post....hard to go in to the multitude of feelings with each affair...but notes that not one of them fullfilled, fixed, or helped her feel good....
NOT one...one after another...affair after affair...and still no peace...no rest...from the emptyness...

isn't that what WE say all the time....

She has normalized and romanticized it

eee-gads....we normalize EVERYTHING in our world...

we normalize sweat shops out of communist countries in the name of free world trade...

we normalize the outlandish belief...that in marriage...children....bills...home improvement are natural reasons for the breakdown of marriages....and immediately equal the change of a husband wife relationship...

we normalize neglect to husbands from wives who are too tired to be intimate with their husbands....and feel validated and supported in using sex as a weapon....

we normalize the emasculation of men round the watercooler at work...

we normalize the abuse of Gods gift of human sexuality in our sitcoms....


we all normalize a lot of things....to fit our worlds....

It has nothing to do with "pain," it has to do with DECENCY. She needs to be exposed to the reaction of normal folks to her serial cheating and dishonesty, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Where does it end..

when young and of drinking age...
barhopping...

I engaged in horrible activities and behaviors...

I was at times indecent....
I am sure times present I am indecent to others....

she is not serial cheater now...where is the gift of forgiveness....

society on many many levels has rituals and laws to hold us accountable...

to survive we humans need eachother....and to prosper we need the boundaries...the consequences....and then the forgiveness lest we break down all of society in to fortresses of aloneness...and then our own demise....

I don't think that compassion equals condoning
I don't think that compassion equals indecency
I don't think that compassion minimizes the reality of the awfulness

that's my struggle Melody....

this poster here....said how bad it was....

acknowledges.....mourns the lack of tools for both a marriage and it's breakdown....her issues are and were global...


look at how people suggested she disclose her past NOW to her partner...

her response...

yep...now that you guys put it that way...
you're right...

you and I both know the number of posts going on and on and on and on about the need to disclose....
often to active WS let alone FWS....

blah blah blah blah we powerstruggle on and on......

often to be told...too dayum bad..I ain't telling....

and here it's suggested...
processed
and taken to heart...

isn't that what we believe in....

ARK^^

resilient..
I would never ever diagree with that point...

I agree she should disclose to him...
I think that is an excellent point...

and you are correct...until people are faced with such grim realities...it is NOT the first thing they even think about...

lets hope she does....


ARK

With all due respect to Ark (who I really like) and her post, and to those who want to be "accepting" of someone who is not sorry for her actions, and only somewhat "sorry" about only the results that were of her own making, I saw nothing in SwingDancer's posts that indicated an acceptance of the Lord or turning from her ways, and I still don't.

Her husband abandoning their son is not right, neither is the apparent cause of his emotional devastation. Blame shifting at best and a not so subtle plea that "her previous marriage was so bad that she just HAD to commit adultery to get her needs met," and besides, recovery is slow and HARD work.

How about going back to her ex-husband, is that not a preferrable course of action?

Where did we read anything about her husband abusing her or having his own affair because she wasn't meeting his needs?

No, what we read about is her husband not meeting her "needs," and that was not only justification for her affair, it was justification for her divorce.

What did her husband feel and do when she told him of her adultery; "He had a feeling it had happened and although he was horrified, he "forgave" me and we tried to move on."

He didn't beat her or "kick her to the curb." One of the most severe trauma's that someone can inflict on the person they are supposed to love, cherish, respect, and protect, and he forgave her.

What was her response? "So all during this, I eventually started having other EA's and PA's. Regardless of all the guilt I had been through previously, I still needed that feeling of being desired and having desire. I truly wanted it to be with my husband but it wasn't forth coming. Finally, I just basically said "oh well" and sought it elsewhere.

I still felt guilty, but this time I definitely did not fall in love with any of these people. There were approximately 6 EA people and 3 PA people, not including the first guy."

She used at least NINE more people for sex and need fulfillment. TEN if do count the "first one."

Perhaps they were all single, perhaps not. But the issue is simple, she USED people to get what she thought she wanted, just as she is attempting to use good people on this system to get what she wants, absolution (which only God can give her) and acceptance of her next conquest. Oh ya, THIS one she supposedly loves.

But wait, he was an Adulterer too. And not just "once" either, "(in previous relationships)".

IF she really wants the "best advice," it would be to return to her ex-husband BEFORE she marries again and this time, REALLY do the long hard work that it takes to rebuild a marriage and grow the the type of love. It would be to turn her life over to God, through acceptance of Jesus Christ, not through the seeking of her wants and desires.

What did the woman at the well recognize? It was Jesus. I, for one, have seen no similarity between the woman at the well and SwingDancer other than multiple partners, and SwingDancer has the woman at the well beat by sheer numbers alone. How much is "too much?" Is it repentance or "I'm sorry" without the true repentance? Hard to tell, but there is little that sounds like repentance.

I guess it depends upon one's "worldview."

I guess it depends upon whether or not we support the sanctity of marriage.

I guess it depends upon the forgiveness of sins as we are forgiven through Christ and not on our own "merit."

I guess it depends upon how much we want to allow ourselves to "overempathize" with someone simply because we don't like to see anyone "hurting." Consequences of actions are not always pleasant. Acceptance of behavior is not a "right," especially when it flies in the face of common decency, let alone the face of God.

Does she want her pending marriage to be "successful?" I would certainly guess so. But asking people here who are dealing with, or who have dealt with, the devastation of adultery in their marriages to give her support for NOT returning to her previous husband and to "condone" her entering a marriage to which she has no biblical right, and which her boyfriend has no right, isn't right and is offensive to most if not all who are on Marriage Builders to SAVE marriages from exactly what she is proposing to do with another serial cheater.

I am NOT accepting of the rights of a child molesters to be anywhere near any children no matter how much they might be "another child made in the image of God," when that image is being perverted by their actions. And I am NOT accepting of this situation either for the same reason, it is NOT according to God's will, but according to her will.

I'm sorry if that is judgmental to some of the fellow members here, but, as the saying goes, Boundaries are boundaries and Standards are standards.

So what is the likely outcome of people here NOT rolling over and fawing over her in her current desire for "help;"

"Finally, I just basically said "oh well" and sought it elsewhere."

Did I mention leopards? Anyone seeing any spots before THEIR eyes, or maybe I've been out in the sun too long?

If it's compassion that is wanted, I'll stand ready to give it when anyone turns to the Lord in true repentance and acceptance.