SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Bruce,

AP, happy? I doubt it.

And, all things considered, who would you rather be in life, you, or your husband?

I’m guessing, you.

So, maybe feel a little pity for your husband, and then it won’t seem so unfair.

FPP, you’re right I know you are but sometimes it’s so difficult.
I am so grateful for the days I can see the positive side of things, then I have a couple of bad days and I'm in agony.

As for AP it’s nearly three years since she last had contact with my H, she’s now engaged. She had no problem in taking pride telling me everything she has done with my H, at times lying and torturing me, before the polygraph I asked her if she’d had PIV with my H at the Christmas party, she told me she was that drunk she can’t remember what happened on that night, turns out they barely even spoke to each other. The anger I feel towards her is unreal, part of me wants to do to her as she’s done to me but unlike her I’ve NEVER been tuned down by a man in my life. I could never lower myself to be such a scumbag in order to seek revenge but at times I wish I could, it feels like she’s had her little bit of fun chasing my H, ruined my marriage and now she gets to be happy without consequences. POS!.

I’ve actually thought about that just the other day FPP, I thought had I done the same to my H as he’s done, I came to the conclusion that I would have to leave and D. The guilt and shame would consume me, I would not be able to look him in the face nor go through what I’ve put him through or he’s witnessed these past three months with me, I’ve been a mess and to see him like that would kill me.

I do have pity for him but it’s short lived.

Bruce,

Your marriage isn’t ruined, but my goodness, it’s being tested.

If we weren’t going to be attracted to others along the way, we wouldn’t need vows, and promises, and ceremonies.

Maybe it was those vows, and promises, and ceremonies; your marriage, that kept him from upgrading his membership.

" I’ve actually thought about that just the other day FPP, I thought had I done the same to my H as he’s done, I came to the conclusion that I would have to leave and D. The guilt and shame would consume me, I would not be able to look him in the face nor go through what I’ve put him through or he’s witnessed these past three months with me, I’ve been a mess and to see him like that would kill me."

Yeah, it sounds like he wants you, a lot.

Bruce I know how you feel and I have anger towards the AP too but mainly pity. She was/is unattractive and desperate and if you read the post about 'affairing down' you're seeing you are worth so much more than her. I won't contact the AP for details as I wouldn't be able to tell if she was lying or not.

Block her, do not look at her social media, focus on you 💓

As for details, your husband probably does not remember the exact details like mine. It sounds like he's been honest with you as far as he can - am I right in thinking he admitted to having sex with sex workers before or was that someone else? If so, he has no reason to lie about how many times he kissed her.

Have you both looked into IC yet? Are you based in UK?

FPP, you’re right I know you are! It makes perfect sense and it’s staring me straight in the face.

Evio, yes that’s my H! Historical cheating with sex workers, 3 times the last being 2009 if I remember correctly. I do think I’m strange because of the fact that it doesn’t really bother me, they meant nothing to him it was just sex and with the last one he couldn’t maintain an E. how he absolutely sobbed telling me about these sex workers upset me more than what he actually did.
This recent cheating has absolutely floored me though and there was no sexual intercourse or oral sex, kissing and touching only on and off for over two years, he self corrected and stopped messing around with her almost 3 years ago and told me all of this NYE 2024.
He did not have sex with her and it’s absolutely destroying me, mental how the mind works.
She’s 22 years younger than me and still not fit to lace my boots but she still managed to divert my H attention and that hurts.
It’s the wanting to make her pay that bothers me too, why can’t I let it go? I get so angry I literally shake.

I’m not in IC but I’m receiving CBT and am being referred for counselling after completing the course. H and I have agreed he will go to IC in a couple of months, the reason being nothing seems to be going in for us both at the minute, I don’t think the CBT is helping at all I can’t even focus on it. We’re based in the UK yes.

I think the counselling helps things go in better than CBT. My counsellor has been able to challenge some of my negative thoughts, given me a placement to vent and helped me devise strategies for the tough days.

My Husbands counsellor has made him look at his behaviour and acknowledge the devastation he has caused better than my explosive angry or sobbing has.

I know what you mean about the sex verses the kissing .. my husband had a serious of quick shags with his AF (with her kids asleep upstairs 🤢)rather than emotional intimacy but I hate the fact they sexted/texted as it feels more intimate in a weird way 🤷

I want revenge too and I'm not sure why, she didn't cheat on me, my husband did! I guess I just want her to realise what a lowlife she is but then I'd be lowering myself to her standards. We mustn't stoop or we'd lose our crowns, let's hold our heads high 👑

Evio & FPP,

Thank you both for your positive, uplifting words. I can’t imagine what life would be like without SI especially on days like today when my emotions get the better of me.

I’m in pain today, yesterday wasn’t good but I managed to get through it, today I’m hurting.

How do you accept and move forward with something that you don’t understand?, I don’t understand what made my WH cross that line, he tells me that ‘she was there and flirting with me and also lack of boundaries’. This answer doesn’t make sense and I think the answer is he wanted her and it crushes me.

How do I accept what he tells me about not being able to stop. From the first time he kissed her 6 months went by before there was another incident, then almost a whole year later another incident, then 4 months later WH entered AP house and ran off, then a whole 7 months passed again until the last incident. He says he couldn’t get away from her, couldn’t tell her to F OFF because he was afraid she’d tell me that they had kissed and touched, he says he was also afraid she might report him at work and accuse him of sexual assault, he said she was always flirting and tempting him. These are just excuses and I think the answer is he wanted her and it crushes me.

How do I accept that when he transferred department in Jan 22 he had no contact with AP for 3 months then saw her at the bus stop after her shift and stopped to give her a lift home, he said because he hadn’t seen her for a while and wanted to chat to her about work, I can’t accept this and I think the answer is he wanted her and it crushes me.

How do I accept that when I ask if he had any feelings for AP he tells me no, nothing. He tells me it was about how she made him feel and not about what he felt towards her he said it could have been anybody. So why wasn’t it then? Again I think the answer is he wanted her and it crushes me.

I keep coming back to days like this when I feel so hurt and heartbroken and I tell myself the reason he cheated is because he wanted her, he didn’t stop because he wanted her and went back for one last go because he wanted her.

Ouch.

I think that you'll find permission to accept all of that if you look inside yourself. If you give yourself that permission, I suspect that you'll take a step forward in deciding what's true and what's not.

It's so hard to understand and accept betrayal when you're not responsible for it. For BSes who have built the necessary boundaries, IMO it's impossible to imagine not having boundaries, and Shirley Glass said that As happen in good Ms when the WS lacks boundaries.

I suspect that your WS had a limerent experience. Limerence is a compulsion. I'm susceptible. When it hit me, I very much did NOT want to be in love, so the 1st thing I did was invite my limerent object out for coffee in the hope she would turn me off. The opposite occurred, but at least I had started getting to know her and letting her get to know me. We've been married since 1967.

In our 11th year of M, I got limerent again when I was away from home for a 14 week class. That was awful, because we all ate lunch and dinner and partied together. I went home for the weekend 4 weeks into the class and my crush was over the instant I saw my W. (My LO hooked up with an instructor very early in the class, so my crush wasn't going anywhere outside of my head.)

I met a half dozen potential LOs later in life. Therapy taught me by seeing them as potential partners if I weren't already married to my W, and I kept my main boundary strong. (My main boundary is to say or do only things that I say or do with my W beside me.)

Limerence is a very powerful force, but it's not an EA. If it hit your H, I can see him reacting the way you report.

That's a possible explanation. Even if it's true, it's not an excuse. Whether you understand it or not is not important.

What IS important, IMO, is what you and your H do about it. I'd advise your H to get therapy and make one of his goals 'learning to control limerence with boundaries'.

My reco to you is to take the betrayal into account without excuses. Don't minimize. Ask yourself big questions.

Is limerence a valid explanation?

Do you want to spend the rest of your life with your WS if he doesn't learn to contain whatever it was that enabled him to violate boundaries

Will he learn to contain his limerence?

Does he love you?

Is he in love with you?

Another reco: let your answers and your experience determine whether you'll D or R.

*****

The agony you feel goes with love and/or limerence (he might be your LO, too). I think the more one loves, the more betrayal hurts. Feeling the rage, terror, grief, shame, etc. lets it go.

Have faith in yourself to heal. You really can heal yourself. A good therapist can help, but you probably know that already.

Thank you for your reply Sisoon,

I have spoke to him about limerance and he told me absolutely not a single chance on earth he felt anything even close to that.
He did tell me something I found weird one day when I was obsessing over feelings, he said ‘I’m telling you this to prove I didn’t have feelings for her, when I masturbated at the time it was going off I never even thought of her’. First thing I did was burst out laughing, I said how does that prove a thing, then he said ‘it’s not funny I didn’t even have a wank over her and you think I had feelings for her’.

When I tell him about the way he acted and it seems to me that he wanted her he always replies ‘why didn’t I let her give me a BJ then?, 3 times I turned her down’. Or he says ‘why did I not have PIV with her?, I had the opportunity, I didn’t want to it felt wrong’.
But why didn’t he stop!?.
I get so confused, upset, distressed when I keep coming back to things that I can’t accept because the actions and words don’t match.

I know how my brain works, if I can understand something then I can process and then accept it or maybe I’m not seeing things right or clearly because H says to me everything is there for me to see but I’m not seeing it.

When I tell him I’m not sure I have the whole truth he tells me we will go to get another polygraph and he’ll answer any questions I want.
He asks me you do believe that I love you don’t you?…..absofuckinglutley not!. The sadness in his eyes is awful but no I don’t believe you can love someone and destroy them, I believe that you wanted her, but you weren’t brave enough to go through with it because you didn’t want to take the chance with her when you had a good wife at home, reliable, convenient, comfortable, I believe you wanted her but knew that you couldn’t have her, you didn’t have PIV with her because you knew she would have told me and you would have lost everything.
Even if what I believe isn’t true, it doesn’t stop me from feeling like I was the second choice #No2, good old reliable, faithful, loving housewife that does everything for her husband.
I get to feel like I was a second thought for the rest of my life, who am I kidding second thought, he didn’t even think of me at all.

BS only.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:32 PM, Saturday, April 12th]

TheEnd,

Thank you for sharing your experience, this is more or less how he describes it to me the same feelings too, he says he got himself in to a mess he had no idea how to get out of.

Last night when he got home he was devastated when I told him what I was feeling and thinking, he got emotional because he said he doesn’t want me to feel like that and it’s all his fault and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

I feel completely different today, haven’t even spoken to him about the A, just wanted to enjoy our morning together before he went to work and we did.

I would love to know how I start to feel like I’m the prize, that I’m number 1, that I’m the one again. I have no idea how to get my confidence or self worth back.

Sisoon,

You are definitely right about the boundaries, H said this how it happened 100% lack of boundaries. It seems such a small word for so much pain and because my boundaries are bulletproof I can’t understand how H let his slip, more importantly how do I know they won’t slip again?, why did they slip?, how will he put them in place?, what if he lies to himself again?.
It’s all terrifying!.

Bruce123....how you start feeling like the prize TO HIM...is the amends he makes to you and the new life he loves which cherishes and seeks to share life with you on the foundation of TRUTH.

You already are the prize objectively. A woman who loved and wanted to be loved and a woman who is precious. I think you know you would be, could be, and likely are desired by others. And that is nice to know and keep in the back of our minds.

But the real rub is ...we wanted OUR SPOUSE to see us that that way!!!! And treat us that way. He must get on the wagon of making amends ..this will help you heal. And based on my experience....TALK MUCH. He needs to be open and available for you to express the hurts and waves of recovery. My wife has learned to do this for me. She learned to listen and address every bit of the pain I feel and bring to her....and it is helping me heal tremendously. Peace to you Bruce123. May the Lord guide you and comfort your heart. 🙏

I’m still picking apart and analysing my H cheating but I wanted to go deeper in to guilt.
I had a long conversation with him about it and asked all the when, where, how, why’s etc.
NOV 2019
H said when they first kissed in the car, he pulled away and said that she apologised as did he, H said that the guilt and the stop sign hit a couple of seconds in to the kiss with a red flag in his mind stating ‘this is not my mouth’.
H said he gave himself a talking to in the car on the way home and for the next five months they barely spoke, the kiss was in the past and forgot.
MAY 2020
H said she started asking for a lift home and he would take her, not just her at other times he would take other colleagues too but when she was in the car she would flirt and talk about sexual stuff (H loves dirty talk) he said it was just banter for weeks until one day it went too far and then they ended up kissing again with sexual contact, again he pulled away, he said the guilt hit as soon as he ‘felt’ her it felt wrong, he apologised and said this is wrong I should not have done this I’m married, H said she didn’t say a word.
H said that he felt guilty but also fear now too, fear, she would tell people or his manager or even me but when he apologised to her again the day after at work AP said ‘ it’s no big deal forget about it’.
MAY 2021
Almost a full year passed by without anything else happening, H thinks that around midway through the year he believes she started actively trying to seduce him, so much so that other colleagues noticed she had a soft spot for him and even told her ‘leave him alone he’s married’. H told me that sometimes he enjoyed the attention but sometimes he wanted to tell her to F off because it was annoying. He would give her a lift home occasionally as he did with other colleagues and sometimes she would flirt and talk dirty to H, sometimes he would reciprocate and other times not but there was no contact.

12 months after the last incident just a regular lift home ended up in the dirty talk flirty behaviour on her part being too much for my weak H to resist and they ended up kissing, he pulled away and said sorry again telling me that the guilt pang got him seconds in to the kiss because it wasn’t ‘his’ mouth. Sadly though this guilt wasn’t long lived because the week after there was another kiss again with an apology but on this occasion when my H said I’m sorry I should not be doing this I’m married AP replied ‘yes I know’ with an attitude.
A couple of weeks passed and again they kissed but with sexual contact this time, I’ve seen the place where this happened, it was at the end of her street where he would drop her off, H pulled away (guilt again) and was a little angry with her and himself and said I’m sorry I can’t do this you need to get out I have to go!, she got out of the car and slammed the door. At work the next day H apologised again and said he was sorry and she said yes you can’t do that ( H said that she was angry because he pulled away, she wanted him to continue), he said yes I’m sorry it will not happen again, she asked him what they were to each other and H said we’re friends and work colleagues and the flirting already gone too far and will never go any further, H asked why? What do you want it to be she said nothing I was just asking.

The flirting and sexual innuendo talking only stopped a few weeks until she started talking to him again and asking for lifts home, some of the time when H would drop her off he would drop her off at the end of her street, every time he dropped her off directly outside her house she would ask him if he would like to come in for a drink, he would always say no, she would offer him a BJ, the first time she offered he said maybe another time, second time he said I have not got time and third time she offered he said I’ll let you give me one for my birthday, keep practicing. (How embarrassing 😳 cringe)
SEPT/OCT 2021
In sept/oct 2021 she asked him in to her house and for some reason that day he said yes, they went inside and she asked him if he wanted a drink he said no I’m driving, she walked over to him and started kissing him, took his hand and said let’s go upstairs, he pulled away and said ‘I can’t’ and ran out. H said the guilt was bad, he was angry with himself and he said he’s never drove home as fast in his life, all the way comforting himself by telling himself he didn’t do anything with her. The next day at work he apologised and said he was sorry and she laughed at him and called him a chicken.

At this point completely unaware of anything I remember him coming to me extremely distressed one day in the kitchen, telling me he’d had enough of his job and needed to get out, I remember being shocked at how upset he was and I hugged him, I told him we’d pay private for him to get the qualification he needed to get moved to a better department. (Little did I know he was wanting to escape the situation he was in with her) H told me he had gotten into something he had no idea how to get out of without him having a showdown with AP at work, losing his job or me finding out.

After the incident where he ran out of her house in OCT 2021 they treated each other like regular work colleagues and he didn’t give her any lift home and then he left for another department.
APRIL 2022
In H new role most of his time is spent on the road alone with no company, and in April he had seen her at the bus stop outside work, he’d pulled over a couple of times and offered her a lift home, he’d pulled said that he’d just wanted to have a catch up, there was no dirty talking or flirting just regular conversation about work until one day he’d given her a lift and she said stop talking about work and proceeded to flirt talking dirty etc H pulled over they started kissing with sexual contact and again H pulled away and said fu*k!, I can’t do this to which AP replied ‘you’re not a bad man you know, these things happen’ this made H angry and he shouted ‘no these things don’t Fu*king happen, I’m married I can’t do this’, AP told him to calm down and said it was OK and H said no this is not OK and this is never going to happen again, I can’t ever give you a lift home again.

H tells me that he would see her waiting for him sometimes after work but he’d drive past her and he never stopped to give her a lift again. One day she waited for him after work claiming she had been talking to other people, H said she’d wait over an hour for him, he gave her a lift home and asked her ‘you weren’t waiting for me were you?’ She said no but he thinks she was, she also started work early on a few occasions H thinks to talk to him before work but when he would see her he would go in another entrance to avoid her.

When H tells me about the end and how he felt back then, he always gets emotional at this part, when I ask him why are you upset?, he tells me because he felt happy and relieved that it was over and he got rid of her without losing his job or his family, guilt and sadness at what he had done but he said he remembers driving home and the feeling of being content again, he hadn’t felt content in so long and said that it was a really nice feeling to be going home to my family.

My H takes full responsibility for his part in his cheating he makes no excuses but I can’t help be furious this whore poached my husband, one of her vidios saying ‘I’m done trying to get you, I’m done making a fool of myself’. Yes you made a fool of yourself alright you stupid bitch.

Reality is kicking in now and instead of things feeling better they feel worse, my husband cheated on me, it’s real, it happened, nothings going to change it and it’s part of my life now and I’m really struggling trying to accept that.

I love my husband but good lord I HATE what he did and I HATE her even more.

I spent most of yesterday crying because I’m terrified of accepting the story I have in case it’s wrong. I’m struggling accepting that my H was a weak pathetic loser. He tells me that 90% of MEN in his position would have had PIV with her and most MEN would have took the offer of BJ’s, he’s upset at what he did do but also glad he didn’t do PIV.

A few years after I had my second son i went on a girls night out, I’m the taxi que a man behind me asked my name, I said ‘I’m married’ he laughed and said ‘nice to meet you married’, proceeded to grab me and said ‘give me a kiss’ he was trying to force himself onto me, I drew back my arm, clenched my fist and punched him straight in the face!, I was shocked at my own strength as I had knocked him to the floor. Security picked him up and took him away.

No my darling husband, I think you’ll find I’m the MAN!, that guy could have got up and punched me back and I didn’t care because I was protecting myself, my marriage and what was yours, I only wish you’d have done the same.

Bruce,

I read the extended version of your story. Doesn’t change what I think.

There was a line for him. You wish he had drawn the line in a different place, and he probably does too.

But when he came up to his line, when he really had to confront what was happening, he righted his ship.

When he had to chose, he choose his marriage, he choose you.

In my mind, your story has a happy ending. Not many here do.

I still think he’s a keeper.

FPP,

I think he’s a keeper too but I don’t know how to make it better?, is it time?, is this a process I must go through?, is there something pro active I should be doing?. I have not got a clue what is normal and what isn’t.

My biggest fear is that I’ll feel like I feel now for the rest of my life and that terrifies me.

It’s 3 years since H had any contact with her and TBH, I don’t want the man back that I had before the cheating, i much prefer the one I got after. The man that told me my reality on NYE24, he’s the man I want to spend the rest of my life with because he’s given me his heart and soul.

I don’t trust this new guy though, I have not known him long enough and I don’t know if the old guy will pop back up again. Terrifying.

Another thing FPP,

I still can’t conclude what it was, 2yrs 4 months in that there was 8 kisses and 3 of those were with sexual contact. H had gave her many lifts home, he estimates over 120. the vast majority of the time nothing at all was going on, H said around 10% of the time there was flirting and dirty talking on the way home and less than that it got out of hand.
He kept putting himself in a very dangerous position I know but I personally don’t think this was an affair, I know it was cheating but because these incidents were so far apart it throws me.
A series of cheating?
Clusters of affairs?

I don’t think trying to put a label on it is helpful.

If he had been giving a male colleague a lift home, you wouldn’t think anything about it. Just a friend.

I don’t think spouses should have opposite-sex friends, and this is why. Not all share my view.

Was he hoping for extracurricular activity every time? His hit rate was pretty low.

Or, did he just want/have a friend, a friend who wanted more, and once in a while it crossed a line. Perhaps the extracurricular activity was the price he was willing to pay for the friendship, it wasn’t unpleasant, until the price got too high. This is the exact opposite of how most affairs seem to develop, where the man wants sex and the woman a friendship.

In any event, the price got too high and he refused to pay. I’m kind of proud of him.

Surely "Not Just Friends" by Shirley Glass has been read by both of you.