SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

First time poster, long time follower of many of the stories on this forum.

My wife cheated just over 4 years ago and had a very short couple of months affair. I have been struggling ever since. Things haven’t got any easier, they have just changed. In fact everything about my life and about my marriage has changed.

One of the things that has stuck in my mind and I can’t seem to get away from is the fact that she had sex with another man.

For the people that are in the same posistion, how did you allow you mind to move away from the fact that they have stayed, they have said they are sorry, but they still have been else where. How do you feel less stupid while the affair was going on, but just as stupid for trying to accept it and forgive knowing what you know.

I look at my wife and she says she loves me but some where inside my mind keeps reminding me that she was with another man. It’s like he was better, he was more fun, she desired him sexually.

Im never going to be as exciting as an affair. But all I think of is she is making do with me. Im not what she wants.

How do you move past the feelings and not let is destroy what you have left or what your trying to fix?

Bose

Many betrayed people have those same thoughts that you view her differently and it never will change or go away entirely.

I also had the feeling that my WW came back to me for all the wrong reasons. I was second best or less to her sexually and romantically, but the other aspects of what I provided added up to more than OM.

I had the feeling too that all the nice things she said to placate me were empty as her view of me had changed due to her affair.

Bose

I don't know that I ever will.

Just this week I've struggled with the thought that for a time I wasn't worth his honesty, love, faithfulness, commitment and respect. I was worthless to him. How do you switch it back on? Can you?

When these thoughts bubble up I have to make a real effort to switch gears. If it's a song on the radio I'll turn it off. If it's a bad dream I'll get up and read a book. It doesn't make it all go away, but it does calm me down.

What you share is very common.
Other than not cheating what have you two been doing to reconcile?

There are some things we consider as "truths" regarding affairs.
For one – they cheat despite us, not because of us. She did not go have this affair because you were lacking, but because SHE was lacking. It reflects more on her than you.
Then there is the truth that his sexual abilities weren’t known to her until AFTER she had cheated. To put it bluntly: the affair happens way before the first button in undone.

A hard thing for me was the fact that from 7:00 a.m. till 3:00 p.m. my wife could be the fun flirty vivacious sexting woman that I always wanted but she had no interest in that with me but was more than happy to do it with a married coworker

From 3:00 p.m. till 7:00 a.m. I got the boring responsible dutiful wife :/

He was fun, I was dependable. He made her feel alive, I made her feel secure by busting my ass to provide for our family and saving money for our dream of one day retiring in Tennessee.

Each night she would carefully lay out her clothes for the next day making sure everything was perfect. She said it made her feel prepared for the day but in hindsight I recognize she was doing it all for him. Then she would spend an hour in the bathroom making sure everything was perfect and then she would grab her coffee that I made for her every morning, kiss me goodbye, say I love you and then she would race to work to get her excitement fix

Now I think that when 3p rolled around she would begrudgingly delete their sexting history and drive home to her boring Dependable reliable faithful husband :/

When we fool around she is all into it and saying things that I love to hear and moving and acting in a way that would make any man think he's doing a phenomenal job but in the back of my mind I still wonder if part of it is just an act to make me feel secure and I don't think that will ever go away for me

We don't sext. I told her I loved doing it but it died with the affair.

I tried to reconcile but divorced years later. I couldn't ever get over the mind movies. My ex had mu oldest daughter out of wedlock so she was not a virgin when we married. She no longer felt special to me. My youngest daughter felt something was wrong in our relationship and wished we had divorced earlier. I also wish I had divorced earlier. It is a hard decision to make. To me forgiveness means you no longer hold it against a person. It doesn't mean you need to continue to have a relationship with them.

Short of dementia, I don’t think I will ever fully "get away" from the mind movies and overall injustice of the betrayal.

I use the analogy of buying a flooded car with a salvage title. The car looks OK, runs OK no one else knows it was flooded. But when I sit in it alone, I smell rotting fish. It’s "tainted".

In many ways, my marriage also has a "salvage title". How good was it pumped out and cleaned?
Still working on it daily.

Truthfully, it sometimes feels futile and I fear that "dead fish smell" will last forever.

How do you move past the feelings and not let is destroy what you have left or what your trying to fix?

I had to look at what was destroyed and figure out if rebuilding was worth it.

Ten years later, the only time I think about the A is when I sign in here at the website to share my experiences.

I had all the same questions.

Here are the things I figured out.

It was never about the other guy. He wasn't better than me, he was the guy who gave my wife the validation she required because she was the one with the ego problems.

Nothing about my wife's shitty choices reflect on me at all, in any way.

To rebuild, my wife had to show why she betrayed her own standards and ethics. She had to understand why she turned away from the M instead of toward the M when she was stressed out. If you wife isn't doing the work, if she isn't building back her likely poor self-esteem, then she is still someone who could fall into the same choices again.

The feelings? Well, I had to process them all. The anger, the sadness -- and that took me several years. To me, it sounds like you just chose to stay but you haven't worked on healing you or your relationship.

I think we should only ever stay if the M can be built back into something worthy of you and your time.

Counseling can help, but only counseling that holds your spouse accountable for her choices. The M can never cause infidelity. Infidelity is always a series of deliberate decisions. All of us have tough moments in relationships, not all of us choose to cheat.

Keep venting, keep posting, and whether you stay or leave, you will find a healthier path forward!

Welp. One thought I had in the beginning was that my husband was with various women before we dated. I thought about bodily autonomy. I mean, personally I cannot deny he’s fucked other women in general (I’ve fucked other men, not while dating him or married but I digress)

Our entire sex life has changed. I mentioned before that my H was a porn addict since age 14. I "allowed" it for like 23 years of our relationship? He’s now finally free of that addiction. The part it played in his A? I have some thoughts but I’m not a therapist.

This is one of the hardest hurdles and I’m sorry it’s affecting you. One day at a time. There is no right way to get through this pain I’ll tell you that. Hang in there.

I am on a similar timescale to you. For me, it got easier (with a lot of therapy!) when I fully internalised the fact that what he did? It was nothing to do with me.
She wasn’t better or more exciting or anything else. There is a post on here about how they "always affair down" read that! It might help.
In my case, that wasn’t difficult to accept, because OW was very easily old enough to legally be my mother and a truly awful person to boot.
Having an affair is a shitty, selfish, cowardly choice. There are a million different choices they can make but if that’s the one they choose? That is on them. There is nothing you or I, or anyone else in our god awful situation can do to stop them. They choose it and now they have to do the painful and embarrassing exercise of finding out why. Or they just run away and repeat the same patterns with someone else.

And, for what it’s worth. It took me a long time to get here but now? I don’t feel stupid at all, why would I? I have lived by my own values. He is the stupid one, and he knows it. She wasn’t worth the steam off my piss. He has done an awful lot of painful self reflection to understand exactly why he made such frankly revolting decisions. And me? I’ve found my self worth again. You can too xx

bose85, I'm so sorry you've been through this horrible thing. Like you I have read a lot of stories on this, and other sites, and I have to be honest. I don't think most people ever do get past this even if they "reconcile". Reconcile means different things to different people - there are some people who seem to re-create an actual marriage perhaps like the one they had before but hopefully with positive changes. Other people, like me, reconcile because of practical concerns like money, health, etc. I would include having small children in that too. Other people make limits on how involved they are with their spouse, some just don't have sex any more. We don't. I have no interest and I think he has little ability now. He probably doesn't have interest either, we don't discuss it. Is it what I wanted in a marriage? No, but it's as good as it gets at this point, especially at my age and social conditions. I think a of the problem is the gap between what we had, or what we wanted, and what we now have. What we now have is damaged goods. I don't fully trust my husband and never will again. It is what it is. And I think that's true of most people who's spouses have had affairs. Now you know what they are capable of, not only seeking out another partner, but the lying and deception. They can have a whole other life away from you that you have no idea of. I was floored when I found out about my husband's online dating activities. He never cheated physically - I don't think so anyway, but I was floored. He was the LAST guy I would have ever suspected of this and like most people, I found out purely by accident....trying to fix his computer one night. So now I know this is a part of him. Maybe he'd never do it again, I don't think he would but I know he's capable of things I would never have suspected.

So I'm not going to bulldoze you with baloney here about how your marriage can be better after an affair because I don't think they usually are. I think you always have the toy with the dent in it. You'll always see the scratches on the cut glass or the tear in the great leather jacket, it's why I really don't recommend recon. You have to find other things that are more meaningful to you than those broken or marred bits, and I don't think most people do. Once the vase is broken, it's broken, and your eye goes to the crack.

What I would do at this point, because it really does seem to be bothering you....I'm more of an "eh" kind of person. I do look at his good traits and see them as far more than the bad....but I will always be wary. I can't get past that and I don't think I should. But what I would do if I were you, is talk openly about this with her rather than just let it fester inside. I would just say what you said here. However you would term it. I don't know how she would react to this, but I think you have a right to your feelings and the apparently permanent change it's made to how you view your wife and your relationship. Tell her that you have a hard time getting past her having sex with another guy. I think this is a very common feeling among BS, especially males. I think it's a biological thing....more women are willing to share a guy, than a guy sharing women. It is what it is. Don't have expectations about how this kind of conversation will work out but if you really want to have ANY kind of marriage, I think you have to have a base level of honesty about your own feelings and needs. I'd let her know and see what happens from there. If nothing else, it might be a relief to you not to have these feelings bottled up inside you anymore and to acknowledge them openly. She destroyed something basic in your marriage, it may or may not be rebuildable or recoverable. But you have to start with the truth.

I'm gonna be honest here and probably say something that's not going to be popular but I think it's true. I don't think the affair is always about some problem or lack within the WS....or the BS either for that matter. I think many people get married....because they think they should and they marry PLAN B. They marry the responsible person, the one who's reasonably attractive, who can provide a home and family or help create it, who we have some fun or get along with....but it's Plan B. Plan A is the person they have the affair with. This is not always true, but I think it's true enough. Plan A is the preferred person, the sexy person, the fun person, the person with the sparks, the person they are special for....maybe that could never work into a successful actual marriage, a lasting marriage but like Sam Spade said in the Maltese Falcon "it's the stuff that dreams are made of." We don't want to look at that, but I think it's often true. The spouse who gets up special and dudes up and looks good and better groomed and goes out to nice dinner places or romantic hide-outs....it's not just the lack in themselves. They often ARE with the person they probably regard on some level as Plan A. The reliable person at home who does the right things and builds the right home, IS Plan B. I am personally PLAN B. I know this. I'm the best he could do at his age and vice versa. He's Plan B for me too, although I'd never cheat on him because, I'm not duplicitous. If I wanted another guy....I'd tell him....I want another guy. That's just me.

So if you feel like Plan B, and you think another guy or gal got the best....that probably IS true. I'm not gonna lie to you or sugar coat it or make you feel better about recon because it is what it is. Are you okay with being Plan B? Maybe you're not Plan B anymore....maybe that dream died off, but you need to have that discussion about Plan A vs Plan B, so to speak, and not just assume there is a lack within the WS, because I don't think that's always or even often the case. Plan A probably IS the person they would have picked if everything could have worked out. Otherwise.....why bother? I'm not talking about quickie affairs, I'm talking about where someone really put effort into it. I would also consider even after "recon" that I'm good ole reliable Plan B....and in my case, I am.

So BE HONEST about your feelings and what you think and feel is going on. It's up to YOUR SPOUSE to prove to you in various ways, whatever they may be, that you are indeed PLAN A and that they would choose YOU over anyone else, and they have to make you feel that and believe that. We underestimate HOW MUCH THEY HAVE TO DELIBERATELY WIN US BACK - AND KEEP WINNING US BACK. And if they can't....well, there you are. Is this relationship acceptable to you?

[This message edited by BondJaneBond at 7:42 PM, Sunday, August 31st]

My answer is about the same as Oldwounds's answer.

You need to have reasonable expectations of your WS and yourself, and you need to do a lot of work on yourself to heal.

My two cents is that perhaps if the pain is too much and it’s not something you can live with, maybe it’s best to D instead of trying to Reconcile.

Then again if R isn’t meeting expectations then D or S might be the better choice.

I recognize it’s not that easy to choose between those options, but I think often life is too short to be miserable.

JaneBond,

Plan A vs Plan B.

That’s exactly it.