It seems like when a spouse decides to go wayward they start really playing the victim role. Everything from it was all your fault for the bad marriage to the exposure.

How many of them played the victim card regularly before an affair? Just somethign I have been wondering looking at all of the different threads and all the reading I have been doing.

Did your spouse have a victim mentality before going wayward?

Yes

Practicing alcoholics and addicts do the same thing. If one is blaming everyone else for their bad behavior, then they don't have to look at themselves. If they are not forced to look at themselves, they don't have to change.

In some situations there is a strange dynamic that Dr Harley notes, and that is the devastating effects of sacrifice on a marriage. For example, a spouse who engages in sacrifice [extreme giving] eventually reaches a point where resentment sets in when that sacrifice is not sufficiently reciprocated. When that happens, he/she becomes an EXTREME TAKER who feels entitled to TAKE: "by God look at all I have done for you - I AM OWED!!!" <-----this attitude can lead a person to justify lots of bad things.

That is an attitude that underlies some adultery. They believe they are VICTIMS of the BS because their sacrifice was not reciprocated. When actually they are only victims of their own behavior of extreme giving that led to RESENTMENT.

A sign of real recovery in a wayward is when they STOP playing the victim card. They stop playing that card when they begin looking at THEMSELVES honestly and taking responsibility for their crimes.

Curious. Does he still? Did he have to wrestle with that ro re-commit to the marriage? Anything else?

Therapist told WW yesterday that she is really bad on the victim mentality and I read a little about it and look back now and see it. WW played it good, her whole young life fostered that and it has been a recurring theme in her life. It seems to acually have been the biggest negative in our relationship.

Ah, see there was another part of my question. If the wayward was this way for a LONG time, do they have to first work on that before they can the marriage just like an alcoholic?

I see many women with this mentality. They are taught to believe there is empowerment with victimhood and embrace this attitude as a way to avoid growing up into big girls. Victims are emotional children because they never learn because they NEVER take accountability for themselves.

What was your wife's response to this?

No..

She got a little bit miffed. The counselor has seen us a total of 5 times and he told her that yesterday after she told about our argument on Christmas eve, which was all my fault, and then lied to the counselor about owning the affair. I came right back with the fact that she made me out to be the bad guy and all(like they all do)when she left and that I had to expose to everybody. He sat there for a minute and started discussing it with her and told her this would destroy every relationship she would ever have, blah blah blah.

I have actually google search for this exact thing!!
My W has actually told me I "emotionally isolated" her.
If I recounted her entire life here you can see some things that would look like she was the victim of.

Do you think that breaks some of the waywards from this? The big shake up they needed in life?

Very much so. If the washer broke down she acted like we were the first humans on the planet that had this happen to them.

My W would always make herself the victim of everything. People at work, her family, etc...then she would want me to comfort her. Turns out she did the same thing to me so that others would comfort her.

My W was emotionally abandoned by her parents when she was little and had Lukemia and was treated like the victim for years because of that. Her father always rode her for that and I was dumb and would comfort her from "mean old dad", etc...

No




H joined AA the day after D day.
He works the 12 steps - which is his magic anti-victim tonic.

He was still playing the victim for months after D day - but I was not playing his game.

Another Alanon casualty...

Thanks. Looking back, this has been the main cause of almost everything bad in WW life. MIL even said last night she remembers all the times a teacher would pick on her and all that and MIL would have to go down and talk to them. Her self esteem is very low and has caused her to have undesirable frinds off and on.

Looking back, I got tired of the victim role in the M without even knowing anything about it and actually started doing it myself. The A was my wake up call. lol

In order to successfully play the victim, I think one needs a willing target who goes along with the game.

And right now, that is her friends, father, step mother and her sister. Trying to shrink that list a bit.

Do you think this is how she got attention from her mother? By playing the victim?

I remember a little boy in my neighborhood who used to cry all the time that kids were picking on him. Instead of teaching him to handle it himself, hims momma would go knock on your door and tattle on the offending child.

She came to my door once complaining that my 8 yr old son made fun of her 8 yr old son for carrying a BARNEY lunch box to school. YEGADS! She trained that boy to be a whiny little victim by giving him all manner of attention and sympathy for playing the victim rather than teaching him to deal with it. She dealt with it for him which taught him he was incompetent.

Could that be why your wife has low self esteem? Victims are not very esteemable. I have no esteem for unwarranted victims.

Yes. He takes fully responsiblity for his A but will still occassionally try and use the victim or I can't do anything right card when we disagree because he has no rational support for his argument or thinks his opinion is fact vs just an opinion. I don't engage him when he gets this way. He been better but he still does it and I call him on it.

That is exactly how it is. Her mom would protect her from "big bad dad" and then throughout her cancer she was the victim and babied.

I would tell her to stop with the poor pitiful me stuff whenever something wouldnt go her way.

Just thought I would see how it correlated with others here.

Thanks