SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

It’s been a while since I’ve been here but have a question…

If after infidelity (despite reconciliation going well), in an argument, the WS says that they are an adult and won’t be told what they can and can’t do and also tells you that they have been making a conscious effort not to flirt with others, how would you respond?

hockeymom1

Answer: Just shy of flabbergasted!

jeez - wondering does he have to make a conscious effort to not wet his diaper?

My thinking he is still in the teen-pre-adult way of thinking.

Will be interesting to see what the more loquacious posters will say.

My thoughts exactly.

How this transpired was us being at an event and my WS tapped a female friend of ours on the side of leg as we walked up to them. She gave a hug and we all chatted. Her spouse was present. It was innocent and no one was bothered by any of it. A short while later, another "not close friend" commented that what he did was rude and disrespectful. We all were a bit shocked, words were exchanged and a while later, I told me husband to just keep his hands to himself as at that point I was mad over the entire situation becoming a thing. My thought was that the comment was most likely made because people are aware of my spouse’s emotional affair and it triggered me.

That’s what led to my post….

I’d want to have a deeper conversation with cooler heads.

We are 11 years out. And I was triggered by something in a movie a couple of months ago. I was absolutely unprepared for it and was shocked at the extreme rage the trigger catalyzed. JM was thrown for a minute too.

But then his response was “I am so sorry that my actions caused this. Im sorry that even this many years later what I did can hurt you so much. How can I help?” When I said I didn’t even know, he just held me and let me cry and turned off the damn movie.

That’s remorse, and that’s what you need to see from him.

While I agree your WS's response is super disappointing and implies that he has regular compulsion to flirt--yet "makes a conscious effort" not to--I also think it's worth a private word with the "not close friend."

After checking with your female friend to verify how she felt about your husband's approach, you might ask the "not close friend" to stay out of it.

From how you describe the incident in your second post, it seems like no one (including you) had a problem with your husband's interaction with your mutual female friend. It was only after a third party publicly called your WS out that it became a problem.

Sometimes we have to assure others who know about the affair that they don't need to come to our "rescue." They need to be assured that we've got this.

Or does the third party view your husband as a creep who preys on women? Was he "protecting" your female friend? If so maybe he needs to hear that all parties were okay with the interaction and he doesn't need to decide it was disrespectful when no one else (the woman who was touched, you, the woman's spouse) thought it was anything but a friendly interaction.

Maybe he needs to be privately told to stay out of it.

Do you think it was an innocent thing or his inability to keep his hands to himself? I am of the opinion that the person who made the remark is probably inclined to say things like this without thinking. What my brother told me one time was that I was making something into a tempest in a teacup. I would let it go if it was simply friends greeting each other. No one likes criticism and this was done by a busy body so his reaction would have been mine and I haven’t cheated.

Infidelity or not, I believe one should generally keep their hands off members of the opposite sex whether they are friends or not. Touching a woman's leg could easily be interpreted as forward, flirting etc. In fact, I think it is exactly that in most circumstances, even if the guy doesn't realize it conciously. You don't normally have to touch someone to get their attention and if you do, a quick tap of the shoulder would be better.

So a question for him is "why do you feel the need to touch a woman's leg? Why that method of getting her attention? Is that being conscious of not flirting to you?"

As far as the 'I'm an adult" comment, well, he's right. But my reponse might be "As an adult you absolutely can do what you want. But adults realize their actions have consequences. And adults also should have both the ability and desire to moderate their behavior for the benefit of others".

His response is disappointing and shows he's not fully embracing the atonement he needs to do to make you feel safe.

As a woman I bristle when a man makes an excuse to touch me - it's always a flimsy excuse, only vaguely plausible - we know it, they know it, everyone watching knows it. I don't agree with someone calling it out on your behalf, but she's not wrong. These kinds of "innocent" touches are always done in settings where it would be awkward to say anything, so we just brush it off. You're 100% correct - he needs to keep his hands to himself.

I was I the car with my daughter and a song came up on the radio. I think it was called "Take a Drunk Girl Home". I'm certain that the artist thought he was being clever with the misdirection in the title. The basic just of the song is that a guy sees a drunk girl at a bar. She is obviously suffering some emotional thing and hitting the bottle. He drives her home, puts her on the bed and leaves, placing her keys on the counter.

Now, we have this saying in my family. It makes perfect sense unless you think about it. The song, at first blush, is a celebration of doing the right thing, but is it? I mean really? I asked my daughter what she thought about it and she concurred. So I asked her if she really agreed with the subtextual message. Look how much of a good guy I am, I did not rape a woman who was too drunk to give consent. You see, if not raping is the moral metric by which you measure yourself ethically, then 🤔.

What kind of world do we live in when we have to write songs that say, hey guys, maybe you shouldn't commit sexual assault...

Your WH is making a conscious effort not to flirt. So what's his metric. Trying not to flirt but still doing it? Doing it but trying not to? Maybe he should get to a place where it would never occur to him to flirt. Otherwise, it's just semantics.

Oh, by the way, she doesn't like the song anymore...yeah, ruined it by thinking about it.

I feel like it’s a little weird for a man to touch a woman’s leg; it seems a little red-flaggy to me, to be honest. But you know the context, and it sounds like only the person who called him out on it was bothered, and that they may have only called him out because they knew about his affair. Which is weird and meddlesome and not their place, but I don’t know that I’d confront them about it.

But it brings up the point that when a person has an affair and other people know about it, many people are likely to be harder on that person (verbally or silently) when they see behavior from them that seems flirtatious or points out a lack of boundaries.

There are a couple of lessons for your husband in this incident. First, there are plenty of people out there who see a man touching a woman friend’s leg as inappropriate. Second, there are social consequences to having an affair. People who know start perceiving you and your actions differently.

An actual adult would have taken those lessons and realized the best course of action is to keep his hands to himself, just like you said. Instead, he acted like a petulant adolescent yelling "nobody can tell me what to do!" It’s an understandable defensive reaction to a certain extent, but it’s not where he should be if he’s serious about making needed changes and reconciling with you.

Also, actual, mature adults don’t have to make "conscious effort" not to flirt. The fact that he sees it that way is another indicator that he needs to work on himself.

I take issue that he had to touch her leg to get her attention like he needed to get that attention and couldn't wait to just make eye contact and say hello

Since you seem to be ok with the interaction, I will keep my thoughts to myself on that.

His comments are immature and childish. "Making a conscious effort not to flirt"?! My reaction would have been "Oh wow! Thank you so much for being such an amazing person that has to work at following a basic expectation of being married". Seems appropriate to respond with sarcasm.

I would be angry and I'm angry for you. He isn't remorseful or at least, not to where he needs to be yet.

Tapping someone on the shoulder is one thing. The leg? Yeah..no. The friend was right. It was disrespectful of you,her ,and her husband.

He shouldn't be touching another woman. A handshake is fine. A quick hug, if the entire group is hugging each other hello,may be ok.But to walk up,and touch someone on the leg, to ME, is too intimate.

He has to make a conscious effort not to flirt with other women. That's a problem. There can be NO FLIRTING by a WS after dday. It's a huge violation of boundaries. Flirting isn't innocent. Sorry,it's just not. I know some will disagree. When you flirt, you are letting the other person know you noticed them. You are giving ego kibble. You are hoping it's reciprocated. It shows interest. A married man who has cheated on his wife,who is remorseful, shouldn't want to engage in Flirting. IMO, Flirting is often fishing.

If my husband said he had to make a conscious not to show other women he's noticed them, he would be a single man.

[This message edited by HellFire at 6:42 PM, Monday, August 8th]

HM,

You wrote, How this transpired was us being at an event and my WS tapped a female friend of ours on the side of leg as we walked up to them. She gave a hug and we all chatted. Her spouse was present. It was innocent and no one was bothered by any of it. A short while later, another "not close friend" commented that what he did was rude and disrespectful.

One piece of context missing is what kind of group this is and what the event was.

Sometimes an organization, family or other institution has been rocked by infidelity. Really good coaches have affairs with the Mothers of really good players, companies lose their productive workers, the threat of lawsuits etc. This can create a no tolerance atmosphere or policy.

There may be a history you don't know about possibly even involving your H.

Not trying to be an apologist for shitty behavior, but yes, if you have urges and habits to do something, it takes long term conscious effort to make a change. As a guy that has to make a conscious effort to be part of society I understand what he is talking about.

There is a thing called "ego depletion" and when you resist doing what you want to do, and instead do something else it causes some depletion. Eventually, to some degree, you have to go do something you want to in order to recover. As you become more ego depleted, impulse control goes down.

Anyway, that's just my 0.02 as it relates to non-infidelity behaviors I'm trying to improve upon.