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If someone tells you after decades of marriage their affair partner is better in bed, maybe it’s better you are left to be able to divorce that person. They don’t love you.

I don't connect sexual ability to love. An ap may be more or less skilled than the BS, but that's just one data point among the many that distill into love.

One could view a statement that sex with ap was better as an opportunity to increase sexual pleasure (by, for example, analyzing how and why sex with the ap was 'better'). That's a good exercise whether the BS chooses D or R.

A BS who's considering R must, IMO, confront their most basic fears. The BS needs to learn to discern what kind of love exists between WS and BS. If sex is important to the BS (and it usually is), the BS has to determine whether or not the WS desires the BS (and vice versa).

The truth sometimes hurts, but every time I've been lied to, the truth has hurt less than the lie - usually a lot less.

I'm not saying you shouldn't ask a question unless you're ready for the answer.

I'm saying you need to ask questions, especially when you fear the answer.

*****

The lying hurts reconciliation (whatever that is).

Lying helps reduce-avoid-prevent conflict. R requires, IMO, getting the conflicts out into the open so they can be resolved.

I wanted to get any deal killer into my awareness ASAP; if I hid from the truth, I'd just waste my time and energy.

OTOH, a person who thinks a little lying is necessary to make life work will have difficulty understanding R, if R - and life - really require total honesty (as I believe). I could be wrong about the need for honesty, though.

*****

WRT the topic of this part of the discussion (that is, cases in which the WS says the ap is better in bed than the BS), what is anybody afraid of?

I doubt that anyone here considers themself to be the world's best lover. There's no way to know, of course, but even if one of us IS the WBL right now, they won't be WBL for long ... records get broken every day.

So why would anyone be especially broken up by hearing that the ap was better in bed when it stated as a fact and not as an attack?

There are too many variables that go into sex to obsess or compete over it.... Same people, same activity, same place often get slightly different results; at least that's my experience over a long period of time....

[This message edited by SI Staff at 9:13 PM, Wednesday, April 2nd]

I picked the wrong example to use for this. I don’t want to get off into the merits of affair sex.

I confronted my WW with what I thought was incontrovertible proof.

How did she respond?

She lied. OF COURSE SHE LIED.

I had not anticipated the "space aliens did it" defense.

Did I know she was lying? Of course. Did she know I knew she was lying? Of course. What she spewed was nonsense.

Why did she lie? Well, many reasons are proposed on this site.

But I like to believe that not wanting to hurt me, wanting to save our marriage, was part of it. Hopium? Maybe.

But that is what saved our marriage. If I didn’t believe she cared enough about me, our marriage, to at least try to lie her way out of it, we might not have made it.

(She clearly didn’t anticipate being confronted; she’s smart, and given some time, she’d have come up with a better story.)

And my post is not about me, it’s about other threads currently running, where people who seem inclined to reconcile can’t get past the truth, and can’t get past the lying.

I’m just saying, maybe there’s a silver lining in the lying dark cloud.

(And logic? Forgetaboutit.)

I specifically grilled the hell out of my H because I wanted any thoughts of sex with AP to be absolutely tainted by having to recount it to me. I wanted to be INSIDE HIS HEAD and looking through his eyes. I wanted to be inside that motel room, with a spotlight on my forehead and a pen and clipboard. We're going to dissect this shit like it's an autopsy, and you're going to be miserable AF doing it. If he had hedged and said I was better at oral sex than she is, I'd know he was lying. He chose to give me the truth because I asked for the truth, and because I had already been cautioned by the MC not to ask questions that I didn't want the answer to, and he had been cautioned to tell the damn truth even if it hurt. That's fucking real, and not everyone can handle it. That's okay. Just don't go there if you can't take it.

He was already dreadfully embarrassed and remorseful and regretful and truly damn near the model FWS. He stayed in the fog for a few months, like a lot of WSs do, and was feeling sorry for having hurt her. He didn't want her back, but his thoughts towards her were guilt for having led her to believe that they could be something, He just wanted to undo it all and go back to normal, but we all know that's not possible. Regardless, he says that he didn't/doesn't hold on to thoughts of sex with her because they're just so tainted with shame. He feels gross about it. I didn't need to grill him to taint those thoughts, really, I needed to grill him because I didn't want him - or her - to know anything that I didn't.

Honestly, if my H gave me an honest answer that he enjoyed sex overall better with anyone else (other than the threesome with professionals that he had in the Philippines before we got together), that'd probably be the end of it for me because I'm already so plagued by comparison. I'd rather ask and know than not ask and have it hanging there for all of eternity. That's just me. If the knowing is painful, then I get to decide what to do with that. Some people would rather not open that door, and I don't disrespect that. But if you DO, and you've told the WS not to lie to you anymore, you might get hurt.

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 9:32 PM, Wednesday, April 2nd]

I don't connect sexual ability to love. An ap may be more or less skilled than the BS, but that's just one data point among the many that distill into love.

Me either.

I am saying someone who is remorseful is not comparing it. They are disgusted by what they have done. Maybe instead of saying they don’t love you, I should have said "they aren’t remorseful and therefore not a great candidate for reconciliation"

I think maybe this can be hard for some bs to get because they have never had to sit down and look their spouse in the eyes while telling them all the things that they have done. The acts are distilled into disgust, shame, disappointment in one’s self through the act of reliving them while watching the contortion of pain in your spouse’s face. If you are someone who does that and still wants to make the sex any where near the category of comparison, they aren’t sorry. They probably do not love you.

And I definitely feel any sex life can be built between husband and wife. It’s like you are saying- decide what you want and ask for it.

[This message edited by hikingout at 9:31 PM, Wednesday, April 2nd]

Beautifully said, sisoon.

Former people person,

I hear you.

Gently though- you talk about what saves your marriage, and it was basically rugsweeping. But you state you are not happy with how your marriage is.

You are basically saying "let it go" but doing so leads to the road where maybe you can stay married and be satisfied with parts of it but it isn’t what you would have chosen.

Don’t you think that maybe the softer parts of your marriage could have grown back if she had just been honest with you, and then followed that up with some true contrition and change? I definitely believe that because you are still there even without having got to the bottom of it. Had you been able to though, the vulnerability between you would have balanced and grown.

I just wonder if you are aware that you find yourself unhappy due to rugsweeping but you feel this is the answer?? Do you see how that could be confusing?

I think what you're saying, h/o, is that if a WS is thinking of sex with the AP with any fondness, that doesn't bode well for R. I agree with that.

What I'm saying is that if the BS is the one asking, the WS had better tell the truth. We are PRIMED to detect bullshit and we will feel it.

I agree wholeheartedly, I believe in truth.