I heard it from their own lips. More than once over a few beers from some of them. Remember, I used to know all those adulterers personally, and some I still run into occasionally and unfortunately.

Two interesting points, at least, in there.

Of course, some adulterers may not do it again. Some will not have the right opportunity. Some may end up divorced, which makes it not adultery any longer. Some will be too afraid to face the consequences of getting caught again. Some will die before they can do it again.

Cost vs. benefit – what makes the world go around. We could apply Utility Theory, I suppose, to gauge when adultery should proceed. Would not matter though. The most rational data ever collected would not likely sway an adulterer before the fact.

Will some of them do it again anyway? Well, the floor seems to be around 25%. But I bet that is just the tip of the iceberg. I have seen studies that claim at least 90% of all adulterers in the world have done it more than once. In other words, if they are caught in adultery they either have already done it before or are likely to do it again. And I add: no matter what.


Maybe not quantify it, but I’d know it if I saw it. It is definitely not talk. Nor is it posts on a website. It is not lack of tangible actions.


They’re not? Damn.


I think you make part of my point. They are indeed addicts. And addiction lasts indefinitely. Once addicted always addicted. Shall we use the PC language of alcoholism? They have a disease. It can not be cured. It can only be managed. They are who they are.

This leads directly to my primary contention: Once an adulterer always an adulterer. They can manage the symptoms. They cannot cure themselves. Thus, do we want to have anything intimate to do with any of them ever again?


Perhaps integrity is like entropy. Or maybe like a ratchet. Once it dissipates or slips it cannot be brought back without injecting energy back into the system. More energy than the adulterers have in them in the first place. Otherwise they would have avoided it all together in the first place.


I am OK, thanx. I have an ethical plan.

So, you are defining people by their actions, but once they commit adultery you recomend disregarding or discounting their actions.

I just don't think its correct to say an action by a person is the quintessential expression of their character and then to say if they never take that action again their character has not changed.

Hey, JL and Appy!

I wish I could sit you 2 down over barley sodas and continue this conversation. Even include the other participants of this thread. I think it'd be interesting and enlightening.

I've met JL a number of times and spoken with Appy on the phone. Appy is no more bitter or cynical than JL, folks.

Surprised at that statement?

When Appy and I first spoke on the phone was just after we both found evidence of contact with the OMs - a year or 2 ago, I think. But we both surprised one another by our "tone" o'er the phone. We were talking about grody stuff - contact - but we weren't bitter or cynical at all. I'm not sure I can convey the right word here, it'll probably be selectively and purposefully misinterpreted anyway, so maybe I shouldn't try.

But I do find it amusing that people think Appy is bitter and cynical, and even that they're worried about his emotional health. LOL! He really is fine, dudes and dudettes.

Other thing I wanted 2 comment on was that "piece of paper" thingy. My W and I were both church-going Christians when we met and for a while after we married. But the marriage preceded the piece of paper by over a year. The key is commitment, not ink. "Renters and freeloaders" are labels that apply 2 people "playing the field", and I never played the field. If my W's affair had happened before we were married on paper, I'd have been as devastated as I was when she did, maybe more. And by cracky, there'd never have been a piece of paper, either.

I don't share a lot of the views that Appy is expressing here, but I can understand and appreciate them, because rather than snipping at him I find it useful for me 2 make the effort 2 appreciate the perspective. And I can even find useful tidbits of it that I can apply 2 my own sitch 2 make it better.

Life is short. 2 me, that's one of the major drivers for me 2 forgive, among a whole ton of other things I feel I need 2 accomplish before I take up residence in some bone orchard. My M was "hit" by an affair that lasted longer, though wasn't as "intense" as Appy's W's. It'll NEVER be the same as it was before the A. THANK GOD, and I'm an atheologist! We were young and ignorant back then, compounded by the fact that we thought we weren't!

Recovery is hard. DV is hard. Starting over with someone who's inexperienced re infidelity is unthinkable 2 me - perhaps as unthinkable as starting over with someone who's experienced but not recovered. Spending my August years alone isn't 2 frightening, ac2ally.

But given choices above (maybe there are others, I don't know), I'd have 2 say that even though I do see elements of Appy's descriptions of FWSs in my W 2day, I think the concerns I might have over that possibly merely-dormant addiction are far outweighed by the fascination I feel about the recovery process itself.

-ol' 2long

Aphelion has an agenda and his wife's back in contact again. I'd say it happened a few months ago judging from the change in his posts around that time.

2long,

I don't think Aphy has ever seen a FWW up close and personal and has no idea what one actually looks like. That is pretty clear from his posts of late.

Really? I have a different view. But I can appreciate both.

-ol' 2long

Well I suppose different views are OK.

BTW - I read that Pittman book "Grow Up" last week - what did you think of it?

People are effed up. They do stupid, hurtful things. Things that hurt themselves and things that hurt others.

Someone on here and I wish I could remember who, perhaps Mark, said that to repent is really to change the way you think.(whoever it was if you are reading, please come forward and elaborate on this). It is a complete change in your thought processes and how you view things.

Some people never repent, because as a rule humans avoid change at all costs, especially self change, so it takes an enormous amount of pain/loss to get to the place where it is more painful to not do this.

God says he brings us to the desert and takes us to our knees so that we can hear. I believe this is about repentence, and getting to that place where the pain is so great we have to change just to stop the pain.

Ap, if you believe that people are basically good, it is easier to believe that they can and often do get back to that goodness.

A recovered addict, if he experiences a complete change in thought processess and actually is recovered, is not always tempted, he in fact is never tempted. There is no temptation once you have undergone such a complete change in the way you view the former object(or means to the meeting) of your addiction. If it's the excitment of the affair you are addicted to and there has not been a complete transformation in your mind, you will soon be gambling or some other form of excitement/escape, etc, even if there is not another affair. I hold alcoholism in a slightly different light from all the other addictions, but that is a whole different discussion.

As to the threads' orginal question, I don't associate with someone I know is a liar and a cheat because what is the point? Where is the common ground? Not because it is hurtful to me or might get me into trouble, but what is the point? I tell them why though. It doesn't even bother me anymore in the slightest to say how I feel to someones face when they are a liar and a cheat. And I think it's important to do so.

Now give me a person who has gained wisdom from the mistakes he has made and I will gladly sit/be friends with him. But probably not at work, at our home, or in places like this.

I actually try not to associate with anyone at work anymore anyway in a personal nature. I just come to work, do my job and leave, keeping it professional. Friends are few, precious and far between in my life nowadays. But only because I don't have it in me anymore to be petty. Ever notice how petty the workplace is. Around here they leave the nastiest notes they can write, just because someone forgot to wash their own dishes. It's pathetic. Or maybe they are just lucky that life has been so good to them that unwashed dishes in a sink are more important than the human being eating out of them. And the backstabbing and talking behind someones back, yikes.

I have found him to be amongst the most kind, thoughtful and intelligent human beings I have had the pleasure of reading.

He sees through eyes that are his own and I have the utmost respect and admiration for his honesty and tenacity (sp) on this forum and from what I have read, in his life. I have never seen anyone work so hard to try and understand the mind workings of an active wayward.

Hi Ap, not talking about you as if you are not in the room or anything. lol

One of my favorites! (I like it a lot better than the Harley books, even).

I looked for quite a while before I found out it was the source of the "marriage isn't supposed 2 make you happy" quote. It's always frustrated me that the quote is seldom finished on line. By itself, that sounds pretty cynical. But all 2gether, the quote is pretty deep.

The whole chapter on marriage is first-rate.

-ol' 2long

Post deleted

I also found the chapter on divorce pretty good. It is also the source of his quote that long term marriages are generally only ever ended because of infidelity.

I actually purchased this book after you posted about finding it on Amazon - I've liked Pittmans work as well. I find Harleys work is still the most practical though.

What a pity he's changed so much of late and seems only interested in disheartening new posters with his cynical rants.

It's seems to me like someone who is trying to work through something in his own mind.

The newbies aren't helpless, mindless children who have to be protected from fellow BS's still going through their own understanding/healing process.

I find the nastiness towards fellow human beings to be far more upsetting to this site than the honesty of someone who sees things differently than I do.

WAT probably helped me me the most, but he was also the most negative towards waywards, from what I remember, and he did not recover his own marriage and still hadn't seemed to have healed from it.

As an aside BigK, I read Pittman as well and found it really helpful. I think WAT had recommended it when I picked up my copy.

And BigK, I am not implying that you have been unkind either. I hope we are still cool.

Sure we are Weaver.

Newbies are in a horrible emotional state and ***edit*** posts suck any hope right out of them. He HAS been directing them to newbies as well. That is my perspective and my opinion.

I would agree with you 2long, since I've had the opportunity to read **edit*** RECENT posts on another board...Where he has been posting reasonably helpful advice to both FWSs and ACTIVE WSs - even encouraging reconciliation...Wow, he is SPEAKING to adulterers! Even getting advice from the site owner, who is, admittedly, a FWS...So, no I wouldn't say he was necessarily "bitter" or "cynical"...Disingenuous seems to fit...I find it shocking and sad that he would post as he has here on Marriage Builders in recent months...His insincere words here are damaging and downright cruel, imo...

I do agree with BK, there does seem to be an agenda here...that's a real shame...

Mrs. W

Please don't take this wrong, bk and Mrs W, but my personal view is that it's paranoia that has folks believing that Appy is cynical, rather than able 2 appreciate his perspective.

I don't believe anything has changed in his sitch recently 2 cause this perceived change in his posts.

-ol' 2long

Well I've never been told I was paranoid before

I think your friendship with Aphy is clouding your judgement.

Well 2long, I'm sure you can appreciate why I, as a FWS, would feel as I do about his words here...

I just can't understand the Jekyll and Hyde posts between here and the other site...Just doesn't make sense to me...

Mrs. W

Probably is!

-ol' 2long