SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I have to vent a little today.

It will soon be 10 months since D-day, and I am feeling so hot and cold lately. I just don't know what to do.

On the one hand I get really angry about all the things she did to me during the affair, and after, especially after. After she was quite cruel, though I think unintentionally, but still the pain from that persists. Also she continues to blame me for the affair. Never directly, she is too smart for that, but indirectly she is blaming me. She says things like:

"I take full responsibility for the affair. Also I was not happy in our marriage, and there were things you did that made me feel unloved, and that caused a vulnerability that led to my affair. You need to take responsibility for your part in our bad marriage."

Of course I didn't here a peep about our "bad marriage" until after the affair. This leaves me very frustrated and confused about which direction to take things.

On the one hand, thinking about all the things she has done since d-day I'm growing increasingly contemptuous, and on the other hand, seeing her effort, her kindness, and willingness to fix things, I am feeling more hopeful about our future. I am trying to be patient, especially because of the kind advice I've received on this forum. But it's really difficult sometimes.

When I'm with her I love her and want to save our marriage, when I'm alone I get angry thinking about all the wrongs she has done to me and feeling unloved because of that. I love spending time with her, and I see her making an effort, but also I don't feel like she really understands what she did to me and what it's going to take to fix things. The duality is maddening.

How do I balance these two seemingly conflicting parts of myself?

Welcome to SI - the club no one wants to join.

You bring up some very good points about the pain and aftermath of cheating, betrayal, etc. Things the cheater never considered. I think too many cheaters just don’t think they will be caught and will get away with the affair.

So they don’t consider the discovery phase and the devastation it causes.

Regarding your conflicting feelings, it is eye opening to see what the cheater is capable of. The dishonesty, mean and cruel demeanor—all of it is devastating. My H planned to D me and I was the last to know. Literally. We didn’t even have a fight bad enough to warrant my ever thinking we were headed in that direction.

It is hard to reconcile the cheater with the person they were before the affair.

The acceptance of it all is one of the hardest things - whether you D or reconcile.

What has your former cheating spouse done to make amends? What is being done to help you heal? Are you getting the support you need? Are you able to communicate openly with your partner?

I heard the same thing from my wife the day everything exploded I never suspected this was going on, it literally knocked me to the floor when she told me.It’ll be remembered as the worst day of my entire life up until that day. I thought we had a good marriage to did everything together except she went to a spin class that’s where all of this happened. I’ve been reading so many stories about this since and it’s been the same response for majority of women who cheat they always say about not being happy in their marriage and look at a affair as way to escape reality.That’s been almost 2 years ago since then and I’m presently going through a divorce process.Good luck.

I don't really have any advice I'm sorry, but wanted you to know that you're not alone.

My situation has been very similar to yours in the behaviour of my WS, who kept saying I was not to blame, but would then inadvertently blame me when giving me his reasons behind his ONS. The problem he pointed out in our relationship that led to it was something that had been discussed and I won't go into it because I don't want to hijack your thread, but I also had issues in our relationship and I had never and would never allow myself to deal with it the way he did and find what I wanted from another person. Problems in the relationship are no excuse for cheating.

I also completely your understand when you say you want to work it out and feel good about the relationship when you are with her, but when you're not the anger comes back.
I'm just a little further along in this horrible journey, we've just hit the one year mark. Due to other issues, we've stopped discussing his ONS mostly, as our focus is needed elsewhere. He has started doing more work than he ever did, but it took him almost the whole year to start doing this. While I'm trying to appreciate it and take it as a good thing, I think not talking about it has led to a little bubbling quiet resentment. I also feel like he can never fully understand what he did, which he disagrees with, but I stand firm on.

I'm thinking about attempting MC with him again, I think it was too soon when we tried it before, but I think we need to keep the conversation going and I need to get my feelings heard by him, but in a controlled environment where someone can mediate so we don't get off track or keep going in circles. I haven't read your other posts so don't know if you've tried MC? I think it's good to keep the conversation going though. I find my feelings are a lot more balanced about it when we continue to talk about it, whereas when we don't, which we haven't been lately, I don't feel seen or understood by him. I fall into the trap of feeling bad about bringing it up all the time when he's trying so hard, but then I think well I have to feel this way all the time as a result of his actions so why am I trying to spare his feelings so much? He caused this, he needs to be in it with me to fix it, I can't struggle with it all by myself.

I don't know if any of this is helpful. I'm sorry you're here, it's an awful thing to experience. I hope things start to improve for you soon.

The1stWife

What has your former cheating spouse done to make amends?

This is a good question. I'll try to answer below:

- She is the one who confessed to me initially. She said she wanted to preserve our marriage. I have to give her credit for that. It took courage.

However she also really struggled with the no contact thing for a couple of months, reaching out to him several times and not cutting off contact when he reached out to her. That only stopped after I seriously threatened D. (or at least I believe it stopped)

- She is going to IC and has been from the start.

I have zero visibility into her IC though so I don't know what is really happening there. I only have her word that she is actually working on herself. She wants to start up MC again, but I'm hesitant because I don't want to pay to sit there and have her indirectly blame her affair on me. Also I want to find a therapist that has real experience with infidelity. Our two previous therapists had zero personal experience with it, and were not even close to experts in this area.

- She often says she loves me, buys me little gifts, plans dates, wants to be close to me, hold hands, snuggle, etc. She planned a nice birthday celebration for me even though we were distant and having a hard time at that time.

This helps a lot. If she were mean or distant I wouldn't be able to handle it along with all this stuff I have going on inside.

- She installed a tracker app on her phone, and tells me about her plans for the day. If her plans change she seems concerned about how I would feel about that and calls me to let me know. This shows me she is trying.

Of course she could be continuing her affair in those locations and the tracker app wouldn't show it. Or she could be leaving her phone, and going somewhere else with her lover. I haven't seen any signs of her cheating again, but the fear is still there.

- She has said I can get on her devices, and look at her email, or messages, etc. That shows openness, at least more than before.

This gives me little relief though since when D-day happened she had throughly cleaned her phone of all calls, texts, emails, and messages between her and her lover. I literally found almost nothing at all.

- She periodically says she's sorry she hurt me, and thanks me for giving her another chance.

I think this is a positive sign of change, but it's also a double edged sword for me because of the things she doesn't say. She doesn't apologize for having an affair directly, or all the other rather cruel things she did after telling me. Maybe it's the part of the wayward healing journey that takes time, but I have never heard her say something like "I'm sorry I had an affair", or "it was wrong of me to break my promises to you and commit adultery" or anything like that.

- She is making plans for the future with us together, and doing things that align with those plans. This makes me feel like she really is committed to this process.

- She has (eventually) read the two books I asked her to read.

- She often listens patiently when I am venting my feelings to her.

This is also a double edged sword because she often listens intently, giving all the active listening queues, then sometimes comes back later and turns my words against me. When she talks, she complains that I don't do the same for her. I could probably learn better listening skills though so that one is not entirely on her.

I see her effort. I believe she is making progress in addressing her issues, though very slowly. It's a hard place to be in though not feeling fully convinced of her sincerity, and having her maintain the position that "we had a bad marriage" or "I was not happy in our marriage", and then blaming me for this bad marriage and saying I need to take responsibility for my part.

She NEVER blames me for her affair directly. She is careful to avoid that obvious mistake. But there has been many times where she indirectly blames me by saying she was not happy in our marriage, which left her vulnerable to having an affair, and that unhappiness is part my fault.

What you are feeling is a sane reaction to how your wife is viewing this affair.

Bs go through the stages of grief, and I think at month ten the shock along with bargaining, denial, and some of the sadness has been processed. Anger is the next higher vibration emotion and it’s useful in so many ways. It was in month ten my husband asked me for a divorce.

It took me a little bit to take the bridge if I was unhappy in my marriage and what my own accountability in it was. I didn’t communicate, I held it all in, and I gave up there was hope for change. There was a lot of resentment there that was unconscious.

What I learned is in marriage you just have to stay on top of what you want more of or less of and provide that feedback. No one should be expected to read minds. There is this whole mentality in society "if he/she wanted to they would". It’s bullshit, if you tell your spouse what you want and need and they keep ignoring it then maybe it’s time for divorce, not an affair.

For me, I wasn’t super conscious to the idea that I was unhappy in my marriage. I just knew I was unhappy and the marriage seemed to be a likely suspect only after feeling so alive in the affair. When I got through really unwinding what happened, I could see that my marriage was just a scape goat for the things I was truly ignoring- the ways I was managing my life needed to change or I was never going to be happy with anyone.

This journey took probably more like 18 months. I do not know if your wife will get there or not. Or how long it will take. Nor am I suggesting that you put up with anything that you shouldn’t.

What I would recommend is for you to talk as plainly to her as you have to us here. She may not have the perfect response to it, but if she is remorseful she will try and work to understand your view and make adjustments. If she isn’t, she will ignore it and do what she wants. If it’s the latter, I would prepare by reviewing the 180, as a way to protect yourself against further hurt during her gap of understanding.

I think it’s an honest place to say "I was unhappy in our marriage", but there needs to be accountability over her own happiness because that’s the problem. Her solution to get happy was catastrophic in comparison to anything she could have ever experienced in the marriage prior. Our happiness is always our responsibility- and so the question she needs to answer is how come she let that happen? What could have been cues to take other actions? Why does she hold it in, how is she going to work on changing that?

Her solutions moving forward need to include how will she protect her happiness moving forward? How will she cope differently? What could she have done differently to get what she wants in her relationships? All her how’s and whys need to relate more to her responses and reactions to all of it and leave you out of that entirely.

And you need to feel comfortable to say things to her the way you have here. If she is hindering that, I would put that on the list for discussion.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:50 PM, Tuesday, February 18th]

How much of her effort do you feel is concentrated on help you heal and rebuilding trust vs her own self preservation? Put another way, do you think she is motivated by her desire to keep you or do you think she's simply afraid of losing the comfort and benefits that she receives from the marriage?

Those aren't questions you need to answer here in this comment thread but rather questions you should ask yourself. I think the best measure of a WS's sincerity is how they respond when "do everything right" but don't get the validation that they seek or want.

This is also a double edged sword because she often listens intently, giving all the active listening queues, then sometimes comes back later and turns my words against me. When she talks, she complains that I don't do the same for her. I could probably learn better listening skills though so that one is not entirely on her.

The above is precisely the example I'm referring to. If she's purely self-interested, she thinks being a good spouse is like putting a coin into a slot machine and winning the jackpot every time. But a truly remorseful spouse will be able to make peace with the fact that, at least in the short-term, she will be putting in a lot more than she gets back.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 7:35 PM, Tuesday, February 18th]

The above is precisely the example I'm referring to. If she's purely self-interested, she will thinking being a good spouse is like putting a coin into a slot machine and winning the jackpot every time. But a truly remorseful spouse will be able to make peace with the fact that, at least in the short-term, she will be putting in a lot more than she gets back.

Agree- 100%.

My observation on people cheating is based on scores of people with whom I work, but primarily my own spouse. So it’s gonna sound like I’m generalizing but maybe it is just him.

If the way he has acted is representative then….

People who cheat are DESPERATE to believe that they were uniquely unhappy in their marriage at this one particular moment in time when they cheated (for those who cheated just once). It makes them feel that they are really not so bad.

We discussed just this issue this weekend. I don’t believe it. We had some distance in our marriage for at least 5 or 10 years. There was nothing special going on at that particular moment in time. What was special was that this woman requested to be his secretary and over 12 months started to try to get him to turn against his family. When I saw what she was doing and tried to get him to get rid of her she fought like a feral cat to keep her job and her privileged access to him so they could keep making out at work. Thankfully he did get rid of her.

I think he was always somewhat vulnerable to an affair. Because of his avoidant personality, people pleasing, entitlement, obsession with material success. He has grown so much in the 9 years since this happened. I don’t think he is that guy anymore. I’m not sure if our marriage will make it because sometimes I think cheating might just be a dealbreaker. But he truly is a good guy and i don’t think he’d cheat on his next wife - if it ever came to that.

But, in my mind it is just wayyyy too much of a coincidence that after 18 years together—generally fairly happy (sure some resentment, we both had them at times)—and this outside person comes in and truly targets him. And ALL OF A SUDDEN he’s unhappy in the marriage. I don’t buy it. She started flirting. He loved the attention. Wanted to keep getting it and maybe something physical too. He knew that would make him a total BAD GUY. In his mind he’s a GOOD GUY. Solution: blame the marriage.

We didn’t have a perfect marriage. Who does? But I really don’t think it was the marriage. It was him. He had never worked through a whole bunch of stuff. He was lacking in character and integrity. That had been the case probably for a while. After we discussed it he completely agreed. Is he people pleasing me now? Yes, probably. But he knows. He had normal marital grievances…they just became an "issue" because he was ready to cheat and he did.

[This message edited by Stillconfused2022 at 9:28 PM, Tuesday, February 18th]

By the typical definition on SI, your WW isn't truly remorseful yet and thus you aren't truly in R yet. Typical protocol in these situations is to present the wayward with consequences such as 180, initiating separation, initiating divorce, or exposing to family and friends. The idea is to knock them out of their wayward thinking and push them towards true remorse so that R can finally begin.

Is it possible that a WS that is only partway to remorse gets there by themselves? Sure, but this isn't the recommended route for a number of reasons. Just as healing isn't linear a WS's path to remorse isn't necessarily linear so it can be difficult for you as a BS to estimate how much progress they're really making if any at all. Part of being a WS is the inability to think straight and accurately assess pros and cons. When the consequences are imminent and apparent, it's fair easier for the WS to see the true impact of their actions.

There are countless examples here and elsewhere of WS acting the way your WS is acting, who then immediately come out of their wayward thinking and start R in earnest the moment that they are served divorce papers. Then afterward their BS comes and tells us "I should have done this earlier! would have saved so much time and heartache!".

Theevent, post #1 (him quoting his WW):

"I take full responsibility for the affair. Also I was not happy in our marriage, and there were things you did that made me feel unloved, and that caused a vulnerability that led to my affair. You need to take responsibility for your part in our bad marriage."

The "I take full responsibility for the affair" is in all likelihood what your WW's counsel told her to write or say. It is, however, what she said *after* the "Also...." in the above quote that is infact representative of where your WW truly is. She in fact, is really NOT taking responsibility for the affair, she is instead blaming it .... on her own unhappiness, which she says was due to .... YOUR actions. See what she did there, Bunky? OF COURSE you didn't hear anything before the affair about how unhappy your WW was. Right now she is still doing everything she can to not be the bad person in her story.

In any event I cannot help but notice that you went RIGHT INTO trying R right after D-Day. That basically NEVER works, it makes you look too easy/desperate for one thing. And you are seeing it--your WW is telling you (by trying to blame you for her affair) that she still does not respect you.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 11:25 PM, Tuesday, February 18th]

hikingout

What I learned is in marriage you just have to stay on top of what you want more of or less of and provide that feedback. No one should be expected to read minds. There is this whole mentality in society "if he/she wanted to they would". It’s bullshit, if you tell your spouse what you want and need and they keep ignoring it then maybe it’s time for divorce, not an affair.

This is really good. I heard this dozens of times after D-day. It always felt gross/wrong to me.

She would say things like

"If you really loved me you would have done this or that automatically without me having to tell you."

I would complain that I don't know what she wants until it's communicated to me and she would retort with

"this is common knowledge!"

or

"this is a normal reaction for someone who loves another!"

etc. I think she was comparing our relationship to her affair, and to romance books. (like I'm ever going to win that comparison )

What I would recommend is for you to talk as plainly to her as you have to us here.

This is good advice, and I think you are probably right. It's not doing either of us good for me to get on here and vent but keep it from her.

However this topic has come up many times in our discussions. It's where we fundamentally disagree, and it usually ends up adding fuel to the fire making those discussions extremely stressful. She won't budge an inch in this area.

I suspect she is so firm on this because she is being influenced by the typical unmet needs stuff that is bouncing around the internet, or from her close friends who almost exclusively have terrible relationship skills.

Either way I'm hoping with time (and IC) she will begin to change.

Her solutions moving forward need to include how will she protect her happiness moving forward? How will she cope differently? What could she have done differently to get what she wants in her relationships? All her how’s and whys need to relate more to her responses and reactions to all of it and leave you out of that entirely.

These are really good questions. Would you add anything to this list?

I wouldn’t let it get shut down, I would tell her this is honestly an area that can be make or break for your marriage. That you are looking to be with a safe partner that can offer security. Until she can look at this as wrong, and see that being unhappy isn’t a hall pass and she has some big things to own up to the it will be hard to trust that the next time she is so unhappy that she will just circumvent you again.

She hasn’t yet reached remorse over what she has done. It’s a journey in some ways because admitting how horribly wrong you were is difficult to go straight to. It’s like layers of an onion. Some people do not get there and you have every right to be concerned.

Until she can prove she is a safe partner it will be difficult for you to give to her authentically in the way she is asking. You can think of it as she might have had some scratches and bruises during the marriage but someone just shot you close range in the chest. You need some time to gain stability. The complaints she has simply doesn’t touch what has been perpetuated on you and pretending it does will never feel truthful.

You have to be brave enough to lose the marriage to save it, and for you I think there is some fear that getting too tough will maybe ruin things. I think it is only shielding the reality from her of this was a huge trauma she inflicted. What she is complaining about might have been disappointing to her at times, but it wasn’t traumatic. And that’s how we know she is not remorseful yet, she is seeing these wounds still as equal. She isn’t seeing that she had control of being able to communicate her issues with you- or even try to understand the issues differently- but you were given no choices at all she just left you mentally.

Theevent,

If you could wave a magic wand that would guarantee that your WW would never cheat on you again, would never even want to cheat on you again, would you do it?

I am going to assume that your answer is, "Of course I would!"

But then my next question: Would that be enough?

For some, it would be, I think. They want to hold the marriage together for the children, for finances, for religion, etc.

My sense is that you might be like me. That whatever "reconciling" might be, never being cheated on again is not the only goal.

Being loved is also part of the goal.

And just as being loved is not a guarantee of fidelity, fidelity is not a guarantee of love.

Might your frustration stem from sensing she no longer loves you?

I think she has left you emotionally, and her continuing to blame you suggests she is not coming back.

My WW never came back. Before I understood this, we had kids and I stayed for the kids. We've had mostly good lives.

But I love her, and she doesn’t love me. I don’t regret staying with her, because the kids are a very silver lining. But staying with her was a mistake.

If it’s love you’re missing, be careful. Don’t make my mistake.

OP:

Either way I'm hoping with time (and IC) she will begin to change.

Hopium is such a dangerous drug. It lulls the betrayed into inaction & passivity, and fails 99.9% of the time to do anything but prolong the pain & suffering. PLEASE listen to hikingout, and stop allowing her to talk out of both sides of her mouth. No matter the "I take responsibility" statement. NO SHE IS NOT. It’s the equivalent of you forgot to kiss her good morning one day, and she responded by pulling out her Glock 45 and blew a hole in your chest.

This one statement stands out to me.

She NEVER blames me for her affair directly. She is careful to avoid that obvious mistake. But there has been many times where she indirectly blames me by saying she was not happy in our marriage, which left her vulnerable to having an affair, and that unhappiness is part my fault.

It may well be she was very unhappy. And maybe you have done things (not on purpose) that angered her or caused her to be "dissatisfied". But it is not a reason to cheat. Period.

I used to ask my H WHY. His response was "we were disconnected". Hmmmm….he was the one that found many other women to talk to. His choice. He communicated less. I would hear him on the phone with a friend and hear a very funny story and would often think "I wonder why he didn’t share that with me".

So when I shared this with him, he realized he had no "excuse" or justification that he could tell himself. It took some time (years) before he fully grasped what the damage was to me and the marriage.

As I often say — it is not my job to make people happy. If my H was unhappy with me, his life, career etc there were things HE could have done to address it. Sadly he chose to cheat.

I hope one day your wife can say

she was not happy in our marriage, which left her vulnerable to having an affair

[This message edited by The1stWife at 4:50 PM, Wednesday, February 19th]