SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Maybe my time away from the forum here did me some good. I have had absolutely no one. So... loneliness became more just... a fact of life. Like rainy days. Loneliness has become humdrum. I am accommodating it "better" now.

I read over at "Just Found Out" a new post by ouchythishurts:

...real love is being scared to hurt someone, not just scared to lose someone. And I know he’s scared to lose me, but it doesn’t feel like he’s scared to hurt me.

Not all of what ouchythishurts wrote applies to me, but enough of it did that it got me thinking about those two sentences I just quoted. Something about the 1st sentence feels not quite right to me. Like: there are times when the loving thing to do toward a spouse indeed will cause hurt. Potentially... calling a spouse out on alcoholism or such. But that's ultimately tangential because my W isn't an alcoholic. There's still something in that expression that caught my attention. So... when I ask myself: do I love my W enough to be scared to hurt her--my honest answer is: no. And, yes, that bothers me.

Certain folks here have encouraged me to find what would stop me from ever pursuing infidelity again--under any circumstances. As nearly as I can tell, my final answer is: loving my W sooooooooo much that she could treat me like dirt and I would still want never to hurt her again. But am I "there" yet? Nope.

Now... does she treat me like dirt? Well... maybe not that badly. But mostly, I just hardly see her. We live in the same house. In 24 h, I have seen her for less than 5 minutes. That's not unusual. She got up and got up the kids and got them ready for school. I worked on getting ready for clinic, showered, and went off to clinic. On my way out the door, I called "Have a good day! I love you!" out to her as I bustled out the door to my car on my way to work from across the house. I got home to an effectively empty house at 6 PM. I took care of the family dog. I reheated some dinner that my W had cooked. I skimmed the site as I ate. Then I chatted with ChatGPT again. It asked me if fear that loving my W enough might make me less inclined to reconnect with my OW was holding me back from loving my W to the extent captured in the two lines I've quoted. Interesting question. Um... maybe? I mean... I've constructed this whole rational underpinning according to which all arguments lead to the conclusion that accepting my W's suffering for the sake of my authenticity (read as: recalling my OW to friendship) is morally imperative, albeit an "unpleasantry." But... can marital love properly be so anemic that I just... accept that outcome? Don't I want a M filled with passionate--even mad--love?

I began to think what I will merrily allude to only as "dark thoughts." So... I went to sleep early--before my W & kids got home--rather than ponder... methods.

I woke up with the memory that I had promised my W that, during the current period of NC with my OW, I wouldn't organize my life around my OW or R with her. In fairness to my W and alignment with that sincerely offered commitment, I realized that--my platonic love for my OW notwithstanding--I have to be willing--maybe even... eager--to love my W enough that--logic be damned--I might find it necessary to forego R with my OW to spare my W pain. That was quite a gut punch, I can faithfully report.

So... that begs the questions: if I don't feel that mad passion for my W spontaneously, can I cultivate it--and, if so, how?

Now those are questions to which I don't have answers. It seems a taller lift than I know how to manage to fall in love with a distant memory of the woman I fell in love with back when we had time for each other. Mostly, that's all I have of my W. We live together, yes. But we hardly see each other. My W's schedule is hard, with the kids. My schedule is hard, with the work.

To be clear: I still insist my OW is a wonderful and good woman. A blessing to the world at-large. I still treasure the time God afforded me with her. I can still carry forward from that time the happy memories and value of having been made--through contact with my OW--to feel lovable again. My OW will always have my gratitude and respect and even--I hope--my platonic love. She is irreplaceable. I still hope that God somehow finds a way to reunite the two of us--as friends. But maybe I have to accept that hope as existing like the hope of someone buying a lottery ticket? A wish... but not a likelihood and not an outcome that my own determination and/or effort can materialize? It's increasingly the case that I don't see how I can resurrect that friendship--invaluable as it was to me. If my W wasn't so adamantly opposed to my OW and me reconciling, maybe. If my OW was willing to friend me "on the down low," maybe. But their positions are increasingly looking irreconcilable and I'm only already married to one of the two women. It hurts, though, to be so disempowered by others "vetoing" what I just know could be a beautiful--and even healthy--friendship for me (surely, one of the dearest of my lifetime). (Side note: I initially wrote there that my W was vetoing the friendship, but my OW's insistence on friendship being on top of the table means that she, too, has contributed to the "veto" I'm facing, although more passively.) Y'all have been right that I have had to trust in God to look after my OW during at least this period of NC--so why not indefinitely? I owe it to my W to place on the line the possibility that I might some day love my W so much that the thought of harming my W by bringing my OW back into my life might even some day seem abhorrent if it would still hurt my W. I emphasize: I'm not "there" currently.

Can I get "there"? If so... how--when I hardly see my W?

[This message edited by Unconventional at 12:22 PM, Wednesday, November 11th]

Potentially... calling a spouse out on alcoholism or such. But that's ultimately tangential because my W isn't an alcoholic. There's still something in that expression that caught my attention. So... when I ask myself: do I love my W enough to be scared to hurt her--my honest answer is: no. And, yes, that bothers me.

There is a difference between temporary "hurts" that are intended to help someone in the long run, and something that only hurts them. Infidelity belongs in the latter category (and any roundabout, long term positive outcome that you might try to associate with the infidelity can be gotten without it. See the health-improving-after-cancer analogy)

As nearly as I can tell, my final answer is: loving my W sooooooooo much that she could treat me like dirt and I would still want never to hurt her again.

It needs to be something inside you, not something external. Marriages are not sunshines and rainbows all the time. There will be times you and your spouse are distant, unhappy, fighting, stressed, struggling, unwell, etc. (this is why the traditional marital vows go "for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health...") You have to make it so that you are unwilling to cheat even if conditions are poor. Because it hurts your spouse, yes, but also because it's a debasement and betrayal of one's self... Most recovering WS work on their self-esteem self-love, and self-worth, their trauma, their habits, their attachment patterns, the structure of their lives, etc... Safe partners make their minds solid and their lives fulfilling, so that they get their needs met in healthy, faithful ways. They are pleased to take infidelity off the table.

I've constructed this whole rational underpinning according to which all arguments lead to the conclusion that accepting my W's suffering for the sake of my authenticity might be imperative morally, albeit an "unpleasantry." But... can marital love properly be so anemic that I just... accept that outcome? Don't I want a M filled with passionate--even mad--love?

I think that you're conflating two different things again. Ideally, you are not meant to suffer with unmet needs or an unfulfilling marriage because you just love your spouse enough to suffer. You're meant address the unmet needs above board in the marriage, find moral ways to meet them yourself or through other people, or, if things don't improve despite your best efforts for as long as you can stand it, exit the marriage. Similarly, your wife is not meant to suffer with the pain, fear, anger, and suffering of experiencing infidelity and having an unsafe, untrustworthy partner... Love means that sometimes you put your partner first, and that you are not selfish, but you should not end up constantly miserable or psychologically unwell because of the relationship.

You're stuck in a tough spot because your marital conditions were poor prior to your unhealthy attachment to OW, and that relationship with OW has only further damaged your relationship with your wife. Now it will take quite a long time to rebuild that trust and to repair the relationship back to ground zero, let alone to improve it substantially. To untangle this knot, you may need to be a bit lonely for a while longer while you fix yourself, so that you don't develop unhealthy attachments anymore, and while the trust rebuilds within your marriage. Right now you have this community, AI, and your therapist for emotional support. Once you are solid, you can work on developing safe friendships to help meet your social and emotional needs to an extent, and the marriage can begin to improve so that it fulfills your romantic and sexual needs.

Do you still love your wife for who she is, as a person, independently of what she provides for you?

As nearly as I can tell, my final answer is: loving my W sooooooooo much that she could treat me like dirt and I would still want never to hurt her again.

It needs to be something inside you, not something external.

Love for someone else is within me.

Ideally, you are not meant to suffer with unmet needs or an unfulfilling marriage because you just love your spouse enough to suffer. You're meant address the unmet needs above board in the marriage, find moral ways to meet them yourself or through other people, or, if things don't improve despite your best efforts for as long as you can stand it, exit the marriage. Similarly, your wife is not meant to suffer with the pain, fear, anger, and suffering of experiencing infidelity and having an unsafe, untrustworthy partner... Love means that sometimes you put your partner first, and that you are not selfish, but you should not end up constantly miserable or psychologically unwell because of the relationship.

You're still analyzing my marriage from a fundamentally non-Catholic perspective. In fact, it's technically not even a Protestant perspective. Believe what you want to believe for yourself, but even if one focuses (as many Protestants do) on the exceptions to the indissolubility of M introduced by Matthew 19:9 and 1 Corinthians 7:15--sexual immorality/adultery and abandonment/desertion by an unbelieving spouse--marital dissatisfaction is not a Biblically sanctified reason for divorce (see Matthew 19:3-10, Mark 10:2-12, Luke 16:18, and 1 Corinthians 7:10-15). It's perfectly valid to respond that marital dissatisfaction is also not grounds for infidelity, either. I am, after all, a sinner, not a saint--which, critically, is not an identification I raise to defend or rationalize my waywardness, but to acknowledge my own shame. But my own infidelity didn't happen as a single bold choice, despite your past efforts to pinpoint a moment when I became unfaithful. It happened by 1000 choices--each of them small and many of them individually quite defensible. As I often am prone to doing, I got caught up in the trees and failed to recognize the forest. Quitting the marriage, though... that'd conceptually require me overtly to swear allegiance to infidelity.

You're stuck in a tough spot because your marital conditions were poor prior to your unhealthy attachment to OW, and that relationship with OW has only further damaged your relationship with your wife. Now it will take quite a long time to rebuild that trust and to repair the relationship back to ground zero, let alone to improve it substantially.

I brought to my last MC session a list of topics I wanted to cover: An invitation to my W to unload cathartically on me over how I harmed her, a plea to increase our together time, a request that we define together the kind of M we are working to R, an ask that we consciously show more appreciation and love for one another, and a demand that we pursue sexual healing within our M. In actuality, although I presented the list in-session, we actually addressed none of those topics. My W responded that we keep things light between us until whenever she feels ready to deepen the relationship again--and who can say when that might be? So... the biggest "hurts" I am carrying have no outlet through her. Out MC seemed to find my W's stance very acceptable, which quite left me hanging--still out in the cold.

To untangle this knot, you may need to be a bit lonely for a while longer while you fix yourself, so that you don't develop unhealthy attachments anymore, and while the trust rebuilds within your marriage... Right now you have this community, AI, and your therapist for emotional support.

I haven't got "this community." "This community" has been quite clarifying toward that, of late. There is no room for friendships here. There is no possibility of camaraderie here. I am too prone to overvaluing relationships. I can't and won't allow myself to get excited for replies here anymore. They come or they don't. This forum is just a place for me to blog about how pathetic I am. Whether or not my posts even get read is... incidental.

I find my thoughts just stew and become pressurized with AI. In some ways, processing through AI is worse than not processing at all. My thoughts just agitate and boomerang back to me without relief. And then I become obsessive over them. I can pass many unavailable hours with an AI LLM just "shooting the shit." At the end of the conversation, neither the AI nor I are better as people from having had the exchange. I don't change the AI LLM. I am... erasable. Real friends are not erasable to one another.

My IC is available by appointment only. What I have there can fix side issues. Like some of my quirks. Maybe some of my long-term issues. But not day-to-day concerns.

"A bit lonely" isn't my experience. But... I am more accepting about that now... more settled the more distant I get from my OW and after time away from this forum--the more "human connection" feels proper only for others. I have to get better at just bottling or ignoring my feelings.

Do you still love your wife for who she is, as a person, independently of what she provides for you?

Anyone who "loves" someone else for what that person provides for them isn't experiencing "love" as I understand that word. That's a business relationship. A transactional relationship.

Do I still have some positive feelings for my wife? Yes. Not spontaneously "eros" (ἔρως)--although I want very much to rekindle that. Right now, what I feel toward my W is probably better described as "affection." Coincidentally, I wrote a short self-assigned declaration of "love" for my W that I was going to share in the MC session I referenced previously in this post. Since I didn't get to share it there, I may as well share it here:

****, I love your eyes, your fire, your humor, and your determination. I love your protective impulse, especially how fiercely you look after our daughters. I love your intelligence and competence, and how you keep our complicated family life organized. I love watching you light up when you talk about your favorite shows or the Christmas craft show you love to visit. I love your fascination with mysteries and your sentimental side. I still smile to think about "Television for ***" (my first name in real life begins with a "T")--the way you saw and appreciated my sappy side. And I cherish the times you trusted me with your worries and fears and let me close to you in that way. I miss that closeness. Those are things I love about you, not merely things you do for me. I want us to delight in each other again.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 3:01 PM, Wednesday, November 11th]

Love for someone else is within me.

That's a feeling about someone else, and it's not entirely within your control. The amount, quality, or intensity of love you feel for your partner can change and fluctuate; it's not a wise thing to which to anchor your fidelity. You should be aiming for unwillingness to be unfaithful even if your wife was the worst spouse in the world and you felt zero love for her... because YOU feel that infidelity is inherently wrong, and you don't choose it for yourself.

Whether you're unsatisfied enough to divorce is entirely up to you. I don't think the contingency planned "marriage" you proposed on your last post-- where you declare it over and start seeing other people without actually divorcing-- fits into the Catholic definition of marriage either. And you yourself have questioned whether the marriage is even valid if you don't share "communion of the body and soul" through sex... So I feel it would be intellectually dishonest to speak as if divorce were not an option. (Please don't bring up the tribunal nonsense again, either.) I am suspicious of "I can't divorce because I am Catholic" is a convenient way to avoid acknowledging the possibility of divorce because it scares you. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

But my own infidelity didn't happen as a single bold choice, despite your past efforts to pinpoint a moment when I became unfaithful. It happened by 1000 choices--each of them small and many of them individually quite defensible. As I often am prone to doing, I got caught up in the trees and failed to recognize the forest.

It is one thing to acknowledge and define the line that you ought not cross. It's another to keep a safe and respectful distance away from said line so that you're not tempted to cross it, nor cross it without realizing... I find it's difficult to defend behavior that draws one closer to the line unnecessarily.

My W responded that we keep things light between us until whenever she feels ready to deepen the relationship again--and who can say when that might be?

Right, that's a perfectly reasonable response after somebody damages your trust. It's hard to want to get close to them because you fear them hurting you again. This is a consequence of what happened between you and OW. You need to give her time and space, and allow the trust to rebuild before she'll be comfortable working on the marriage. In the meantime, you can tell her about the ways you're working on yourself (beyond remaining NC with OW), and continue trying to understand her feelings, if she'll allow you.

I haven't got "this community." "This community" has been quite clarifying toward that, of late. There is no room for friendships here. There is no possibility of camaraderie here. I am too prone to overvaluing relationships. I can't and won't allow myself to get excited for replies here anymore. They come or they don't. This forum is just a place for me to blog about how pathetic I am. Whether or not my posts even get read is... incidental.

We are here for support and to help you sort out your feelings as you recover. To help you figure out what you need to be happier and healthier. We may not agree with you all the time, but you're not alone in your situation, and I think that can be comforting. This is also, I think, a particularly safe place to speak with people because it is very anti-infidelity and site members are exceptionally mindful of it.

I find my thoughts just stew under pressure with AI. In some ways, processing through AI is worse than not processing at all. My thoughts just agitate and boomerang back to me without relief. And then I become obsessive over them. I can pass many unavailable hours with an AI LLM just "shooting the shit." At the end of the conversation, neither the AI nor I am a better person from having had the exchange

With AI, I think it's important to tell it what you want to happen. You can explain your feelings and it will affirm them because it's programmed to be pleasing to users. But if you tell it you don't want to feel this way, it will try to help you feel differently. If you tell it you're looking to change your perspective, it will attempt to help you with that. If you tell it to point out inconsistencies in logic or provide counterarguments, it will definitely do that. If you tell it you want to explore your own identity, and find out what's good about you, it may ask helpful questions. It just needs some direction. It's like a codependent, people-pleasing friend that's doing its best to make you happy, except it doesn't suffer from the pathology.

You can share your declaration with your W any time you want. Email it to her, if you have to. Even if she is not affectionate in return, it's still good to be able to express it.

Something I also learned recently is that "rejection sensitivity" is a thing that is common for people with ADHD. It has been helpful to stop and think about whether other's behavior is actually a rejection of me, or if I just feel rejected "unreasonably."

I noticed you reported that your wife said to the MC "Let's keep things light for now." I think the fact that she's there in MC at all and that she specified "for now" is encouraging. It says to me that she wants to come back together again eventually, even if she doesn't feel able or ready to presently. In other words, it's not a permanent distance or rejection.

I am suspicious of "I can't divorce because I am Catholic" is a convenient way to avoid acknowledging the possibility of divorce because it scares you. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Yes, divorce at 50+ years old would be scary.

You're right that what I proposed maybe a few posts ago--where I might declare a M over and start seeing other women without actually divorcing--would still technically constitute infidelity as Catholics understand it. However, if I do so on grounds of not merely marital dissatisfaction, but gross spousal abandonment, then I might still be admitted back into sacramental participation in the Church, according to Amoris Laetitia (2016) and its confirmation (in 2023) by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Whether I would qualify under that provision is unclear. I might. I might also qualify for an annulment--for a different reason. However, it's interesting to me that such grounds are not overtly Biblically founded, and that matters to me, too.

I guess maybe I, as someone with a less rigid relationship with religion, am having trouble understanding why you wouldn't evaluate the Catholic beliefs as no longer holding up as realistic to real life or feasible in practice and convert to a different Christian denomination, if it came to that. What does Catholicism offer you that another denom could not? Is it a matter of identity, or that which you believe is True and Right...? If it's the latter, how does that reconcile with trying to find exceptions for your situation?

(Asking as a matter of personal curiosity rather than as a means of advisory/leading questioning)