SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Ink- I am glad you see what I mean. I do see the husband as a victim of his circumstances, just not the reason for his circumstances. Sometimes it’s easier to see from a gender difference angle. Adam Levine is married to a Victoria secrets model and claimed building a family is all he ever wanted. His cheating was not about her, they were a need to feed his ego and entitlement of his sexual appetite. Men can easily look at the situation and see he is acting out his own selfishness. It doesn’t make them question her femininity or desirability.

They may be able to concede their wayward wife is acting on he selfishness, but there is a remarkably different attitude about their masculinity.

I saw a post by a moderator on R/AsOne AfterInfidelity that echoed this. It was roughly a long the lines of: the two most attacked members of their community were woman who strayed closely followed by men who forgive them.

And so what is being said here plays into it. Early in my ws journey I discover studies show that men are far more likely to divorce over infidelity than women.

I think there is an interplay here. What? I do not know. I certainly can say the betrayed women here suffer a sexual wound.

My hypothesis is that it comes from some combo of the societal programming of males and evolution. I suspect the former is a bigger force than the latter but I do not know.

Men are primarily raised on being tough and not taking shit, not talking about feelings. while primarily women are raised to be flexible and pleasing and they learn about processing emotions from an early age because it’s "normal" for them to talk about them.

I am not insinuating betrayed women have it easier. I do not believe that for a minute. I am saying I do think on some levels the wounding and processing is different. I have noticed more males who come here stuck and it’s always surrounding the sexual aspects.

I have long believed that while both sexes value sex, enjoy sex, men on the whole value it greater.

It may be due to hormonal differences, it might be due to scarcity versus abundance.

Our programming and biology is different. And I think when it comes to affairs the work that needs to be done for a bw and a bh are fundamentally the same but we should not dismiss that there are some nuance differences that should really be brought to light. Not for competition, but because a ws understanding those nuances can assist in communication that transcends our differences.

I think the same happens in reverse, that male cheaters tend to not be able to resonate with some of the nuances his wife truly needs.

I think my husband started doing better when he could recognize that while I was his only sexual partner, I didn’t own his masculinity. It’s his. My lens of who he was doesn’t have to take away how he sees himself or how others see him. And why should it? I was out doing the dirty deeds while he was home or at work being a solid, upright man taking care of his business and commitments. In all reality, THAT is a REAL MAN.

The person that should feel emasculated is a man who had to poach another man’s wife in order to get his validation and selfish needs met. And that’s why when I look at Nicole’s affair partner in the movie all is see is a scroungy young man who needs to grow up who is making himself feel like a man by going after a woman who if she is wasn’t so unfaithful would be completely out of his league. I mean are we really to believe when you objectively compare the two men this young punk knows even a fraction about pleasing a woman as Antonio?

And again, I don’t think it was her affair partner taught her to like bdsm, she was already watching the porn. This was a fundamental kink she always needed to get off. She cheated because she couldn’t tell Antonio that’s what she really wanted was to be dominated!!! She wanted it far before some little boy tried to awkwardly give it to her. I mean I wanted to gag when he came out dancing to that father figure song! My reaction to Antonio doing the same thing for his wife would have likely been hot!

[This message edited by hikingout at 5:15 PM, Friday, February 14th]

Men can easily look at the situation and see he is acting out his own selfishness. It doesn’t make them question her femininity or desirability.

Well said.

Hmmm ... when will you take a stance?

I suppose when I hear a compelling argument that grips me either way. I'm happy to fence sit when I don't have the answers, I don't think that's anything to be ashamed of.

The person that should feel emasculated is a man who had to poach another man’s wife in order to get his validation and selfish needs met.

In an ideal world, this would be the case. Do you think this to be the general public's moral take away after watching this film? Personally Im less optimistic. I feel we are many years away from this being the commonly used definition of emasculated.

I think in the realm of the knee jerk reactionary wider world, Antonios character would get the lamest, overused, internet buzzword 'cuck' thrown at him. For rewarding his wife's poor behaviour, for not successfully attacking the affair partner and for generally not going nuclear. We can all have more nuanced takeaways from films and that's great and personal to us. The wider societal message is far more important.

If your interpretation was the intended message, I think this film was a resounding failure.

You couldn't exactly leave citizen Kane thinking: wow, I guess money can bring you happiness and fulfillment.

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 7:28 PM, Friday, February 14th]

If your interpretation was the intended message, I think this film was a resounding failure.

Probably true. As has been discussed, there seem to be biological and culture reasons why this is. But we aren’t talking here to convince the whole world, we have the luxury of just thinking about our own benefit within this community of (sadly) infidelity experts. I for one think HikingOut is entirely persuasive, even to a man who has been deeply traumatized by first hand experience. Wherever society goes with its prevailing winds, we have a chance to think better and more accurate thoughts. And from there we can heal and support others who come after us.

I don’t think there was an intended message. It was a movie that in my mind had many interpretations.

And you touched on something that I think is at the heart of what I was trying to get at.

Toxic masculinity.

Who calls men a cuck? Other men.

Somewhere in the depths of locker room talk or frat boy houses emerges this toxic idea of what a man should be.

I honestly have never heard a woman call a man a cuck, at least not in the slanderous way it is used.

There is such thing as toxic femininity too. The rules are just different.

It all boils down to an overreaching expectation society has of either gender.

You are right, We can’t control it but we can control how we react to it by realizing it’s kind of backwards. Reclaiming that masculinity would maybe instead entail rejecting these perpetual ideas as being true and instead working in a deeper sense of self.

[This message edited by hikingout at 1:57 AM, Saturday, February 15th]

Ink we cross posted but definitely you are in my same page. There shouldn’t be shame heaped in a man who is already suffering. Especially when that shame is based on highly illogical thinking.

This week I had a 30 minute phone conversation with a 80+ year old semi-retired male farmer, who has also lived a professional life as a younger man. He was telling me about a young man who used to work for him whose life was just one disaster after another, with work and everything else. The narrative included two times when the young man’s girlfriend of the day cheated on him and he was a mess. He seemed a mix of compassion and amused at the cheating. I just said well that’s a bad thing to happen to someone.

This was the sub-text I think, from this man’s perspective. A good man works hard and in a consistent fashion in a sensible way which is likely to be productive. It is likely to produce a beneficial result. If it doesn’t you take stock and make a change. If you don’t it’s your own fault and you deserve a mix of compassion and scorn for your weakness. If bad things keep happening to you, including being cheated on, or not pulling your socks up afterwards, it says something about you and the company you keep.

I mention it because this man’s attitude is older than red-pill internet stuff. The word cuck wasn’t used. But clearly in this man’s zeitgeist, you keep your house in order, and if you do not it is a moral failing.

I think that’s the kind of real world response Anthony Banderas would face. They would make pus in boots jokes until he showed some sign of strength to get his house in order, but there would be some tolerance about how that strength would manifest. Depending on how he acted, they might say the cheating women was bad news and he was an admirable guy. If he acted like a sook, they would say he was partly to blame for the whole thing.

[This message edited by straightup at 8:24 PM, Friday, February 14th]

But clearly in this man’s zeitgeist, you keep your house in order, and if you do not it is a moral failing.

Makes me think of the story of Job. I’m certain you know how that all turns out.

It seemed to me that the view was somewhere on the same continuum as the cultural practice of ‘honor killings’, where there is a perceived need to ‘do something’ to address a perceived slight, and re-exert control, even if the external action isn’t very likely to have a desired beneficial effect.

Job hey. I’ll be ruminating about that all day now.

I’ll be ruminating about that all day now.

And so what is being said here plays into it. Early in my ws journey I discover studies show that men are far more likely to divorce over infidelity than women.

I think there is an interplay here. What? I do not know. I certainly can say the betrayed women here suffer a sexual wound.

It doesn’t surprise me that studies, especially older ones, has the female bs staying. I’m not so sure that isn’t due to family economics where the WH is making more that the BW and she just can’t afford to leave. As to the betrayed women suffering a sexual wound, I believe that 100%. Just like I felt that my EX got the excitement of having sex with a much younger fitter guy, a 45 year old women has to feel the same way picturing her WS having sex with the 22 year old nanny.

I mean are we really to believe when you objectively compare the two men this young punk knows even a fraction about pleasing a woman as Antonio?

He obviously did. Antonio spent 20 years giving her unsatisfied sex, while the young guy got her off every single time. She was willing to lose it all just to have sex with him. With all that she had, multiple homes, big job, a husband that adored her the sexual pull had to be incredibly strong to risk it.

I think where we differ on this is, and I’m making a jump here, you put much more emphasis on the mental attraction. I think you have talked about that your AP wasn’t much to look at and was actually older. The super strong sexual pull, the kind that has you coming back for more like Nicole and my wife, wasn’t the driver for you.

I know you see him as a punk, and obviously he was not a very good person, but he wasn’t stupid. He got to have great sex with someone clearly out of his league, and in the end got rewarded, by Nicole’s character with a huge job. How stupid could her have been.

I mean are we really to believe when you objectively compare the two men this young punk knows even a fraction about pleasing a woman as Antonio?

He obviously did. Antonio spent 20 years giving her unsatisfied sex, while the young guy got her off every single time.

So I have not seen the movie, but THIS 👆🏽 I know something about. You are saying that because the wife was not enjoying sex that it was the husbands fault, and conversely that once she was that it was the AP’s merit. I call shenanigans.

As already stated, my STBXW was sexually repressed. Only found out after D-day the things that contributed to that, but that left me for the better part of 20 years struggling to figure out why intimacy was so lacking. And then to find out she had a side piece And she was doing for him, not for me Sure, POSOM had experience that I lacked, as my sexually repressed wife was my only sexual experience. But pal, I wasn’t the problem. Her sexual trauma was. Her internal need to be the "good girl" was. Her unwillingness to let go of control was. (Edit to add clarity to the conclusion of this thought string). The affair was (as we often talk about here) her escapist refuge where she COULD give up control. Where she COULD be the "bad girl". Black/white, extremism disordered thinking in the betrayer leads to this shit. Not a lacking in the betrayed. I’m amazed how easy it is for even THIS crowd to get distracted from that. No wonder the uninitiated default to it.

From the descriptions of the movie given on this thread, the part that seems most untrue to life is the husband gladly learning these new techniques and proudly performing them. That just conveniently ignores the PTSD. But otherwise I can readily track with hikingout’s take here.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 2:32 PM, Sunday, February 16th]

Keep in mind that it is just a movie.

My hypothesis is that it comes from some combo of the societal programming of males and evolution. I suspect the former is a bigger force than the latter but I do not know.

I suspect the latter.

Paternity insecurity.

Never discount natural selection.

WwTL,

I understand your perspective and would not invalidate anything you have to say about your own situation.

However two things:

The advantage the young guy had was Nicole was honest with him about what she wanted. There was nothing special about the guy, he just discovered her secret kink. He wasn’t all that good at what he was trying to do, it was awkward often. There were several cringe moments. He was a boy and that would just come out over and over.

Second, no the physical thing wasn’t totally there for me, but for me, that’s always been less important than other aspects. The reality is I was terribly addicted to the affair and pined for this guy after. I do not remember that being part of your wife’s experience. I had him as my soul mate…. so I don’t think we can boil it down so neatly that I didn’t have extreme confusing feelings.

Generally speaking what ink just said is true- we are responsible for our own sexual pleasure. So if we aren’t honest about it, then again, it’s an innocent person being duped into believing a reality that isn’t true.

I suspect for your wife, it was more about her desirability that she was looking to reassure. In order to be that for him she had to be wilder but her behavior was more about her still having the ability to create lust in someone. And no matter what her husband did or my husband did, it got cancelled out because we feel you are just doing your loyal husband duties when you say how nice we look, etc. we do not absorb it at a time when we feel it’s untrue. That’s part of what the affair does- it allows us to pretend to be someone else. Someone more powerful in some way and instead of looking for evidence we just create our own narrative of what is happening and why.

Again, there is no blame on Antonio, he is a betrayed person. He was betrayed by her affair and also her lack of honesty of things she wanted to do sexually. But that does not stamp him as a man, a lover, etc. There is no blame on my husband for my own backwards stupidity, and there certainly is no blame on you. This was a situation where your wife acted immorally because she grew to have a toxic need to be validated by her desirability and sexual prowess. Which in the end only out her serving a man who only meant to demean her, that’s a sickness not a reflection of you or your marriage. I don’t see how that is a reflection of the innocent victim that is the bs in anyway. So I could never look at the movie and see Antonio as anything but a stand up husband who obviously loved her and was loyal to her.

I do think most real life bs would have an issue with the kink itself because it would be hard not to associate it with that betrayal. At the same time, I don’t think it’s inaccurate that something that is fundamental to one’s sexuality would be hard to ignore moving forward. My husband has something sort of like that so I am not immune from understanding the difficulties involved.

Keep in mind that it is just a movie.

Excellent point. Let’s all remember what this thread was started for…

*Dorothy has a meltdown similar to the "leave Britney alone guy"*

[This message edited by Dorothy123 at 4:49 PM, Thursday, February 20th]