My heart is very heavy and angry right now. I have been flitting around the computer, and I stumbled on a thread on the Christian forum where I post. It was made by someone whose H cheated twice. There were several encouraging posts about him being honest and needing accountability, etc.

THEN this guy posts this long diatribe about how nobody ever bothers to find out WHY cheaters cheat and how usually both spouses are responsible because something that the BS did or didn't do can CAUSE the cheating spouse to HAVE to cheat. Then he went on to the whole what if you got no attention or affection and lived in constant sexual frustration, and that his own wife was unfaithful to HIM in this way and he was dying of loneliness yada yada yeah yeah.

I responded with a play by play of my choice and what was going on in our marriage and how infidelity was still not justified, and how I was the one who had cheated. That my BH real or imagined shortcomings in no way mitigated my responsibility for breaking this most sacred vow. Comparing DH's busy and distant neglect to my sharing a bed with another man....is like comparing driving 55 in a 45 zone to driving my car drunk through a daycare.

I am not sure who I am writing to. More to BS's, even though I am not one. Don't believe the lie that an affair is your fault. Don't believe that if you had done this or that different;y it never would have happened. Marriage is made up of two imperfect people, but neither of those people get to deal with that imperfection by "rutting" - as Mel says. If you're reading this as a BS, yes, you are a victim. But because you are reading it here you are an EMPOWERED victim. You have a team of people who have run and are running the race. You are in good hands. And one of these days YOU will be those good hands. You are strong. Many people cower and cry in their rooms, never telling another soul for fear of embarrassment or shame. You found these forums and bore your soul. Some of the advice seems crazy, but when you argue, they set you straight. If you wimp out, they 2X4 you. But you still come back. You are in boot camp for an army nobody wanted to join. But an army who can be That friend, that relative, that colleague, who helps someone else through their adultery.

As I was ticked off by the doofus' posts, and as I was firing back, it occurred to me. This is one of THOSE things. This is a passion. Waking people out of the fog, holding their feet to the fire. I feel like one of those ex-drug addicts that they send out to schools to tell kids not to do drugs. I wish I could talk to foggy people before they take that awful, reversible step.

It makes me sad, really. I try not to watch movies involving adulterous directors (Avatar comes to mind) or who have cheating stars...so I have to miss a lot of movies. It's depressing. It's EVERYWHERE.

BRAVO to you, lurioosi2, great post! You are one of the fighters in the trenches and I am glad you are here to help fight for marriages where we don't take "lie down and die" for an answer!

Congrats lurioosi2

You have truly earned your "F" in FWW

For what it's worth, I am proud of you!

Big ditto on that, Luri .......Wonder whos WH posted on there...prolly mine..

luri, this was excellent. Thank you for posting it.

Luri,

That was an awesome post. And it's all true.

But I think you know that it's not how it feels to BS's.....and especially to me.

I know that her decision was not my fault -- she's told me that numerous times, that it was all her.

But I still want to go back in time and b!itch-slap that idiot that I was 40 months ago. If I had been taking care of business on my end of the street, with personal changes that were truly simple and oh-so-minor, I could have headed this off at the pass.

For many that post here, that's not the case. But for me, what she did was so unlike her, so against everything she's ever stood for, and so far outside her basic character, I know deep down that this never would have happened.

My confirmation for that feeling comes from the way D-Day happened. About a month before the big confession, I sat down and told her that I felt we were losing touch with one another and needed to go do something fun. I suggested a trip to a popular tourist spot that she'd always wanted to go to -- and that I'd never found the time to take her to. She agreed readily, and we went and had a good time. And we did -- in all ways.

A lot of walking was involved, up and down centuries-old stone staircases, and up lighthouses and such. Oh, yeah, I should mention that I was scheduled to have hip replacement surgery due to disintegrating cartilage three days after we got back. I didn't complain about the pain, and just kept going and made sure we both had a good time. And we did -- in all ways.

The confession came three weeks later, and she never actually had physical contact with him after that trip. See what I mean? If I'd woken from my personal slumber in time -- who knows?

Of course, the What-If game is guaranteed to cause insanity. I know that. But, truthfully, it's hard not to indulge in it. I dwell on it less and less as time goes on, but I know I'll never escape that feeling, and that realization, that I could have stopped the train from going off the tracks.

Yeah, she made the decisions, and that's all on her. But I made my own stupid decisions, and that's all on me.

I'm making it my life's task to make sure that option never seems to be attractive, ever again.

A therapist told me a very wise thing: it's not your job to make sure he is faithful. Not the last time. Not if it happens again.

I tried to stop the affair. All it got me was a broken arm. The affair hurt worse, and I needed three surgeries for that arm.

Over the years, and it has been years, what I have learned is that he did not guard his heart. He did not lead his heart. Instead, he followed his heart.

Cherished

thanks for the post............ as a BS......... I also think that we sometimes think if we had only been a better spouse they wouldn't have strayed.....my logic side tells me that I'm only responsible for my decisions and what ever my husband did or thinks is his responsibility...
The fact that they chose someone else to love and have sex with is very hurtful. We always think that we weren't good enough, pretty enough.......A lot of self doubt goes with the way we think now....
I think it's a very pointless, hurtful way to end a marriage......why would anyone want to put this kind of hurt on another person.......
what ever happened to Respecting one another......what happened to honoring someone else.......
Thanks for telling your side and trying to make us BS's understand it really wasn't about us......

Jeremiah 17:9 (New International Version)

The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

Thanks for posting that ML.......I just think that, hell, soooo many of my needs were not being met also, I wasnt jumping for joy over my M....I was busy taking care of a toddler, while WH was out with OW....Cheating never even crossed my mind, I stupidly assumed this was just the way marriages were after you had a baby...I just thought it would get better when DS got a little older....

Cherished, I am so sorry that happened to you. We just seem to be living in the era of Judges where "everyone did what was right in his own eyes."

I know exactly what you mean in your posting. Most betrayals are not initiated by the clash of cymbals, but more like the build-up in Ravel's Bolero. They begin incrementally, first crossing one faint boundary, then a darker one, then eventually the most severe and supposedly rigid ones.

I thought about this long and hard as my fWW and I were agonizingly enduring the worst periods of the reconciliation/recovery process. I'm not the type to join causes ("Nuke the Whales" or whatever) but I do care very much for my family and circle of friends, and would not want any of them to have to walk that painful path if I could prevent it. So, as a start to my own "Think globally, act locally" campaign, I sent the following e-mail to my daughter and son-in-law, with the attached admonition that neither my wife nor I would answer any questions about its genesis.

They are bright people, and I hope they realize how valuable, wise, and loving, those words can be to their future lives.

That is a very interesting analogy.

There is a story that at the primier of Bolero in Paris a woman in attendance declared Ravel insane. When he heard that he commented, "She understood the piece."

You are absolutely right, so let me rephrase my earlier post just a bit:


I'm making it my life's task to make sure that option never seems to be attractive, ever again by taking care of my side of the street. From what she's shown me, that should do the job nicely.

I knew I liked Ravel! Us insane people like each other! And I like y'all, so guess what that makes you!!!!

My bet is dollar to dounts that this guy is/has been wayward himself.

I got something similar after I did exposure from a friend...just found out recently that he was wayward himself...big shock.

And I like you.... .....Wait a minute does that mean im insane too? I KNEW we had a lot in common.

If the smiley fits......