SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

It seems like, at least a part of you, had convinced yourself it was not as 'bad' as it was.

Oh, absolutely. It's pretty typical WS behavior to focus on the things that showed nominal integrity and/or "could have been worse." From there, it's a shorter jump than you'd think to airbrushing reality in your own head. No one wants to be the villain in their own story.

Be patient about the double post but I would really appreciate perspective on these questions:

Comparisons:

I think they are unavoidable.

---

When did you compare your Betrayed Partner with your AP (or APs)?

The comparison for the OM/OW "winning" when you fall for the affair is natural (at least in some moments / stages)?

Moments spent together, wishing you were with OM/OW or imagining how it could be with OM/OW?

Things you do together than you did in secret with OM/OW? What kind of emotions they elicit?

Does sexual comparison come up extremely often (in whatever extent, romantic or physical)?

Is it more intense before confessing / after confessing?

All those stories / lies that you said and maybe not confess yet, do they bring it up again?

Any regrets of things you did not have the chance to do with OM/OW that you are now stuck to do with your BS?

I wonder, the comparisons will never fully go away, whether you told the truth or not, there must be situations that bring it up.

The AP will always win after being chosen, for a period at least, or is permanent?

How does it compare to the sense of "freedom" you got from the affair?

How do you cope with your BS "knowing" or "feeling" there is, was, or likely will be (depending on the stage of betrayal), another person between the intimacy you and them share?

Regrets about moments who were better with either your BS / AP?

Last: if you manged to reconcile, does your BS stop comparing themselves to your OM/OW?

How long does it take (if it ever stops)?

- If you ever met by chance or heard about your AP, even years later, what's eliciting? And how about the above?

I only have half of the insight on these, can only speculate and that's always biased or ending up being blindsided

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 11:16 AM, Friday, March 13th]

Backfromthestorm, I did not compare the AP with my BH. My BH would have "won" on almost any comparison. I did compare how I felt with the AP to how I felt with my BH. I felt terrible around my BH, in some ways dead in the marriage, and around the AP I felt a sense of coming to life which I was not looking for, so the surprise of coming to life when I had unconsciously given up was part of the problem. Over time I learned how my own warped thinking created this mess and I was able to see everything much more clearly. Now, around my BH, I feel like a true version of myself and it feels wonderful. I know these are not answers to the questions you asked, but it feels like you are asking me what number is the sky. It's just not a question that makes any sense to me.

Thank you Pippin, is good insight.

Those are questions I mostly ask myself because I cannot make sense of.
Very possibly they are valid for some WS and not for others.

I am not sure how to express, I am kind of stuck on those questions.

Hi Backfromthestorm, I think it's extremely common for BS to compare themselves to the AP. My BH posted very little on SI and mostly in the beginning several years ago, but I remember one thread in particular where he responded to this topic. Here it is - perhaps you will find some solace in feeling not alone in your feelings.

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums/?tid=638170

In the book Why Religion, Elaine Pagels tells the story of the death of her child. He was diagnosed at birth or shortly after with a condition that meant he would not outlive childhood. She knew that from the very beginning and made every decision about his life with the utmost care and wisdom - where to go to school, how much to tell other people, how to spend their summers, etc. And yet, when he died in her arms at the age of 7, she was wracked with guilt and persistent, intrusive questions. Had she done enough? Should she have stayed closer to medical care? Should she have told him more about his condition? What could she have done to save him, or to make his life better or more meaningful? She was reflective enough to understand that this was her brain searching for a sense of control. Comparing yourself to the AP is a way for you to find a kind of logic in the situation. But it's a dead end road - there is an explanation for why this happened, but this is not it, and this direction will drive you crazy. There are ways out of this kind of compulsive, intrusive thinking. Hikingout (a wayward) describes the way she dealt with intrusive thoughts through OCD medication and the book The Power of Now by Eckhardt Tolle (see her recent thread The Work in the wayward forum). Maia's pinned thread Survival Guide is basically helping waywards deal with intrusive thoughts about their AP. Perhaps there are similar threads in the BS forums that I'm not familiar with, or in the healing library. I had my own ways of dealing with intrusive thoughts. But the main thing is, you have to realize that you need to deal with them. Not indulge them, not continue to think them, but say to yourself, these are intrusive questions and they will not help me. I need to stop. And use the techniques that you discover to help you.

I just posted about the book Stranger: A Memoir of Marriage about a BS who was left by her husband with no explanation. She wrote in a factual this is what happened way about what happened to her. I wrote out a novella about what I think set me up for the affair. I think that this kind of writing, whether you have an audience or not, can be intensely therapeutic. Not whys. Just whats. You might try that as a start for figuring out how to deal with the questions that are haunting you.

I feel like pippin. It was more comparing how I felt. But it was not because the AP was great.

It was because I didn’t have to deal with real stuff.

There is a lot of self adulation in affairs. So that feeling of being alive was because I was able to pretend to myself I was someone younger, sexier, more interesting. It was totally about being in the role I was performing.

We have talked about how I felt like my husband was cut from better cloth than me. Seeing someone that I thought maybe I had a little more upper hand than I actually did made me feel in control. It was false of course, but it was all performative.

I don’t agree with everything Esther pearl says about affairs or all her philosophies but many people have an affair to meet a different version of themselves. That resonates with me. The affair was more about not knowing who I was anymore now that I had reached what I considered the pinnacle of my career, my kids were raised and the blank slate in front of me combined with deep burnout, felt like a death to me. I couldn’t identify it as grief, or existential questions. It was simply a transition that I was blindsided and I was armed with emotional immaturity, lack of self awareness, and generally feeling like it was time to reinvent everything without motivation or even an idea of what a path forward looked like.

Seriously, most people who I have spoken to in the hindsight of an affair can see the AP could have been anyone. The emotional climate of an affair is not the same as dating and falling in love. It’s two emotionally unavailable people who aren’t really in the others life. I didn’t know his friends, his family, or anything that brought any real context that you have in a normal relationship. You aren’t dreaming of a future usually, you are mostly just in this push pull dynamic that is nothing but chaos. And you don’t have a plan past the minute you are in other how do I Lee getting the good feelings.

It’s the cognitive dissonance that causes all the distortion. You must feed yourself stories about what you are doing that justifies it to yourself. The it must be love, It’s all a big fat lie. You aren’t doing anything but using this other person as an audience and a validation that you still have prowess.

Versus at home where maybe you feel invisible because you don’t put the effort to connect. In my case, I didn't know the best paths towards connection. To me, it was always being pleasing to him so he would want me, but the more I played the role the less I was really there. And as a result, the less he could see of me. I expressing needs would have required me to identify them.

I didn’t feel emotionally safe with my husband to be able to express them anyway. Because when I did try, they came across as vague complaints rather than stating "I need more of this". And his response was what you would expect if you are trying to reason with someone only knows how to bitch about stuff. And then if he did it then I assumed he didn’t want to, he was just trying to appease me. So there was no winning for him, and I am sure that didn’t make him feel very safe either.

Over time this shut me down.

In comes the ap, it’s easy and fun and I don’t really need anything from him other than to feel like someone wanted to do those things. That I wasn’t just the domestic partner, who is obligated.

This is all distorted thinking. And most affairs are that.

After it was over, I definitely never compared. There was no comparison. The sex was always better with my husband for example, for me the truly knowing each other, the real form of love, the familiarity of each others bodies, sex inside a long lasting relationship can’t compare to awkward fumbling, being in your head about performance- and even after I would replay my own performance only.

Because again, this is about me being wanted, enough, validated. Not really about sex. I think often betrayed men can only imagine being in it for better, different or more sex. But when it comes down to it even most male ws when you talk through it a lot of it for them is about insecurity. Pain is often more of a driver of someone having an affair than any other motivation.

I don’t know if I hit all your questions. Like Pippen, I sort of feel like what you are asking doesn’t connect for me with my experience. The last thing you asked is what if I ran into him. I would be horrified. My stomach just turns thinking about it. This is the man I was my worst self with, who did not deserve my body, time, and energy. This is the person who helped me hurt the person most precious and cherished to me. That would be a terrible thing to happen, and I hope it never does. This would not illicit anything in me but guilt , regret, remorse, shame, and horror.

[This message edited by hikingout at 9:35 PM, Tuesday, March 17th]

I guess those questions truly are because I wish I could reconnect with her.

I have no fears of insecurities towards her AP, really they are a complete different specimen. There is no competition.

But she chose them. With at least one she had sex. And after my "Betrayed fog"cleared, after an Ocean of pain lasting 17 years, she feels "tainted".

And I don't like that.
If I could enter in her head, really understand, I might be able to break the wall of ice that is forming in my heart.
We have a daughter, she needs us together and loving, not pulling away.

That's why those questions are coming up, I wish I could find the key.

I understand.

I don’t think there is a magical key. It’s not something you can force yourself to do. You can maybe give it time to see if she can give you what you need to know, but it’s not going to be something you can logic, it’s going to be something that rings true, and things have to ring true over and over.

Here is a way you need to start to change your understanding of it;

But she chose them

No she chose herself. She didn’t choose him or you.

AP’s tend to present themselves through two things: proximity/convenience and someone who is willing to cheat with you. That narrows it.

She at one time chose you as a free woman ln out in the world. As someone she could have her family meet, someone who can legitimately be in her life.

She chose him to be someone to fill a void in her she can’t fill herself. No one can do that for her but her.

That doesn’t give her a pass. It doesn’t mean it’s time to connect with her, and you may never again. But it’s not a switch you can flip back on. It’s something that doesn’t even flicker in the beginning.

But you can’t force yourself, and you aren’t the one failing everyone here. Take the pressure off. Either separate, or say okay I am going to eat but decenter her for a while and I will see where I am in six months. The reason that I say that is because as long as your focus is trying to squeeze feelings out that are rightfully and naturally there due to her actions, you will be zapping your energy that you could be using for yourself. She will have to learn to regulate herself in uncertainty, and so will you if you choose to stay for a period of time. But there is richness in that acceptance of path unknown that will crystallize a direction in time. This time of detachment will produce more objectivity.

[This message edited by hikingout at 2:10 AM, Wednesday, March 18th]

To the WS who were way more sexually adventurous with AP than BS…. What was your motivation to give to another what you denied your spouse?

My experience with my FWW was one where it seems nothing was off the table with AP sexually, but only duty vanilla flavoured sex was on offer for me (think starfish with lights off once a week or so)

It’s the one thing that still stings after all these years and I just can’t get my head around it…

Reasons given over our attempted R was "playing a role", "afraid AP would become bored", "encouraged by enabler friend", "that she didn’t respect AP enough to care what he thought of her" etc etc…

I wish I could understand how she could give those parts of herself to him, and withhold from me to play the chaste puritanical church wife with me?

Any clues???

I am sorry, there aren’t many of us here anymore and I can’t think of anyone who fits this description precisely.

However, reframing, during an "emotional affair" that is also physical I think most ws in this category are giving way more of themselves to the AP than the Bs while the affair is being conducted. I know that isn’t exactly what you are saying but in this framing I think I can provide some context or clues.

First, without making sweeping generalizations of all women, the vast majority of women who I have met through this site including myself cheated for emotional reasons. The refrain is they didn’t feel seen in their marriage and a lot of times it is because they lost sight of themselves. An affair often is the culmination of trying to experience themselves, or a different version of themselves, and there is a great amount of escapism. This is in essence why you often hear "playing a role".

I wanted to be younger, sexier, more exciting than the woman on a hamster wheel drowning in the demands of a career and family life. I wanted to feel cherished (yes I realize how stupid this sounds now) and have this deeply romantic experience.

I think men sacrifice in marriage and family too, but many of us women carry a mental load (some of it self inflicted, some of it not) that is unreasonable and it makes us feel old, boring, like a robot. This escapism doesn’t work in a marriage because a) your spouse does usually know the real you, at least your baseline and b) it’s experimental - something you are trying on, it’s a fantasy life that subconsciously you know is temporary.

Our spouses are there at the end of our robot days where by the end of each day we are spent to the place that we are mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted. Also there is a lot more responsibility and conflict in a real relationship that often the ws isn’t good at navigating. In our affair we seeking to be someone different. There is a whole fantasy life being lived out that is not exactly just sexual in nature, though that is an aspect, but it’s not driven by it.

Often the truth of the matter, in that affair we often feel like we have the upper hand and using our sexuality can be part of that. We imagine being the ultimate to someone. The sad thing is we don’t see it’s as even more performative as some of our hamster wheel life.

Mind you I never longer see my real life as a hamster wheel but it took reviving and finding things that make me who I am and allows me to have a deeper connection with myself. Charging my expectations of myself and how I define me. Women are biologically and conditioned to be givers, pleasers, and many of us get so swept up in that we aren’t being true to ourselves. We eventually don’t even know what that means.

But we also aren’t being true to ourselves in our affair either. We are actually betraying our best interests. This is a desperate trade, one with no good payoff. It’s all based on a void that has been created by not putting ourselves first in meaningful and intentional ways that creates this self knowing and tending. And in that you end up as a person who doesn’t see the value in their life, they see the downsides, they are strangled by the weight because where their focus tends to be is they are drowning and noone is saving them. Yet they are swimming out of view and not calling out to let someone know they are even in this place.

It’s not intentional, it’s a collapse where one doesn’t feel they can change things. I remember feeling a hopelessness that was so deep that I couldn’t even articulate it. The escape presents itself and that’s what I began holding onto because it’s like a life raft has shown up. There is no consideration given that there is a pinhole in that life raft and it’s going to take you further out to sea and deflate. The swim back to shore is going to be far more treacherous and exhausting than had I just called out to my husband while I was close to the shore.

On top of it all, the affair is a very out of balance relationship. It’s not stable or sturdy, so we can be overly performative in ways (often sexually) that are inauthentic to ourselves because we are chasing an emotionally unavailable situation. We have gone from trying to be what the marriage needs to what the affair needs. Men are more often sexually motivated by affairs, and it’s in our innate understanding even if it’s not at all our own motivating factor.

For me, a lot of my work has gone into becoming more connected with my self and my needs and being able to express those things to my husband. We always had regular sex, mostly good. We did still have passion and there were always cycles where that would show up and take over again. I think just like everything else in our marriage there was a bit of ebb and flow where we had periods of routine and other times we might get reignited by getting frisky in a hike or a kayak trip or on a road trip where maybe we would find a picnic table in an empty park. So I can’t say I would describe all our time as starfish the dark, though that has likely happened.

Women are sexually stimulated by emotional connection, and it’s hard to always find time for that in the midst of raising a family, periods of grief or depression, etc. I would definitely categorize the year leading into my affair as depressed, overwhelmed and though I do not recall I can’t imagine our sex life was at a good spot at that time. I had been diagnosed with emotional exhaustion around the time of my affair.

The affair was light at first, a flirtation that sort of felt like a drink in the middle of a desert. Not at all my husbands fault, this was about me and my relationship with myself. The ap was overtly sexual and I found myself playing along for the emotional boost it was giving me. We were physically together a few times and I really found it mostly awkward and sort of like an out of body experience, but it was part of the romantic fantasy I had. I was chasing love I wasn’t giving myself.

It’s very complex, but it seems to align with your wife’s descriptions. Men can associate that with their wife loving someone more or being more attracted. It can be that, but more often the women I have spoken to have seen it more like I see it- the out of character stuff was driven more by dark desperation rather than anything healthy being ignited. After the sex was over, I have only been able to see it as humiliating. I traded some very intimate parts of myself chasing something that I learned to give myself in the aftermath.

I understand as a man, who has likely always been faithful, you see it differently, and I understand why you have difficulty connecting it all. I see my affair of a culmination of an existential crisis where I had become very lost and spent years afterwards putting myself all back together again.

However, if you are still in a situation where your sex life has not grown, I think you should discuss that with her. You do not want the her that she was in the affair, but there is nothing wrong with wanting to have a more intimate and loving relationship that includes passion and excitement. You do not need to settle, and perhaps enough healing has happened this is a good time to work on the reclaiming of each other in a beautiful way. But do not compare it to her at the most desperate, depraved, time of her life when she was willing to be sexually inauthentic seeking what you can never find in an affair.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:45 PM, Wednesday, April 1st]

Thank you hikingout! That was beautiful!

I guess for my fww it it was the duality of the saint in the marriage, sinner in the A that was part of the fantasy and turn on….

In so many ways it is she didn’t trust me enough to share that side with me, so I only saw the saint.

Makes me wonder which was the real her though?

AN.

I don’t know if she didn’t trust you to share that side of her. I think that side may not even truly exist. I didn’t do anything sexually with the ap that I don’t with my husband, in fact I have had way more adventurous sex with my husband. But I was in a role of a woman who did not exist. It’s all escapism and fantasy. I doubt it was a sinner saint thing, but more of a desperate way to keep it going for what the true pay off she wanted was. Probably some story in her mind about being soul mates or something along that line. The instability of such an arrangement will make you do things to keep it that aren’t really appealing to you. It’s performative. The appeal is in not being abandoned and having to give up the escapism. Because truly you are trying to avoid reality.

What I am trying to say is that in my affair, I was trying to be someone I wasn’t, because I didn’t want to be me. I wanted to be someone that a person would take risks for because I was desirable (midlife issues)

It wasn’t I didn’t trust my husband, I would say it was more so didn’t trust myself to be able to create change in my life a I saw him as part of that static self that I was trying to escape. I am not sure if that makes sense the way I am writing it.

I think affairs are mostly about self and self adulation. I felt powerful in ways that offset my hopelessness. I was seeking something in it that I should have been giving myself. It was a void I was trying to fill but being someone different.

My vote is you have the real her and always have. She probably lost touch with who that is and went looking to find her. It very likely wasn’t even about sex but using the power of sexuality to control an uncontrollable situation. Does that seem clearer?

How are things now? Is she more grounded in herself? Is she open with you?

I will also say that if she has SA in her background it can feed into being the good abiding girl rather than the one covering the acts. When you have been groomed as a child to equate exchanging sexual energy for getting positive attention it can reemerge in adulthood. I think that was a bit at play here for me.

[This message edited by hikingout at 7:53 PM, Wednesday, April 1st]

I didn't do anything with the OM that I didn't do with my husband, but the principal reason that I went as far as I did is that I wanted to make an impression. As Hikingout has said, I loved the version of myself that I saw through the OM's eyes. That person wasn't real; she was a Cool Girl who made no demands, her attractiveness amped up by the usual brain chemicals that release when seeing someone new. I can understand how someone would do things they don't really enjoy doing -- or even discover that they don't mind doing them -- when motivated by that fantasy. But that's all it is: fantasy. It doesn't demonstrate genuine superiority of the partner or the connection.

Hysterical bonding can have a similar effect. My BH and I experienced it before we found SI, and we were surprised to learn that it's a typical reaction to betrayal. That fire has calmed down between us since, but we're the same people with the same bedroom talents we've always had. It's the circumstances that changed, not our inherent value.