SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am entirely content to leave our debate here.

You are more than welcome to bow out.

I appreciate the attempt to wrap this up neatly, but your summary still misses the core issue. You keep framing this as two people arguing from incompatible angles, when in reality we have been talking about two different layers of the same event. You are locked onto the physical record of pleasure. I am talking about the psychological engine that made the betrayal possible in the first place, the part that actually keeps it going.

We are at gridlock. But not because we lack a global dataset. There is decades of research showing that affairs are driven far more by validation than by sexual novelty.

Shirley Glass documented this extensively in Not Just Friends, where she found that the emotional attention and ego inflation were the primary hooks, not the orgasms. Her research shows that the psychological infrastructure of an affair is built long before the sex ever happens.

Brene Brown’s work on shame and worthiness explains exactly why people chase external affirmation when their internal sense of value collapses.

Helen Fisher’s work on the brain’s reward system demonstrates that the real high in an affair comes from psychological stimulation and affirmation.

Peggy Vaughan’s research documenting thousands of cases where the emotional validation was the driving force behind the affair, not the sexual performance.

It is used so widely across counselling rooms and support forums that I find it highly unlikely to be true as often as people claim. In fact, I believe this specific defense mechanism has become a pervasive cultural myth designed to sanitize the reality of betrayal.

So if I misunderstood you in your earlier comment, that is my mistake. But the problem is not your summary. The problem is that you keep treating the physical high as the primary truth, and everything else as retroactive revision. You keep insisting that acknowledging physical pleasure must be a core pillar. You are arguing from the outside in. I am arguing from the inside out. Those two approaches will never meet in the middle.

Some people would honestly rather eat a soiled sandwich because it offers them less immediate stress than walking down to the shops.

Just came from a conversation with ChatGPT where we talked about my desire for precise language, wherein I either come across offensive to others or have to translate it into more "human sounding" language, so with that in mind... *inhales*

I feel like comparing a relationship marred by infidelity to a "soiled sandwich" implies an inherent irreparability that isn't reflective of all the possible outcomes, including successful reconciliation. One can't really decontaminate a sandwich without destroying the sandwich. And maybe reconciliation is like having a soiled sandwich, but instead of eating it, you pitch it and build a new one alongside your partner, so to speak, rather than going down to "the shops" (so British! lol) and getting a new one made by others. It is commonly said that the "old marriage" is destroyed and essentially over after infidelity, and it's up to the couple to decide whether and how they will build the "new marriage" afterwards. (I am probably over-explaining the metaphor. I'm sure you get it... Collaborate with me!)

Gonna pause here to note that ChatGPT also says I tend to offer analysis of people when they don't necessarily want it... So I apologize in advance if that's the case here. I will try to make it a question, because I am genuinely trying to update my mental model of you, DRSOOLERS, and better understand you as a person.

I feel like the sandwich metaphor really speaks to how you view reconcilers' relationships (and possibly how you view the reconcilers themselves). Without meaning to put words in your mouth, the message I'm getting from your words is the presumption that all BS will be permanently, secretly unhappy in their marriage and that they would be better served starting anew, and that the only thing holding them back from *true happiness* are those pesky attachments to all the ways they've entangled their lives with their WS and the fear/discomfort of starting over... Is that how you meant it?

And if accurate, how much of that is coming from your personal disposition and the resulting incompatibility with reconciliation after infidelity? Do you think your own sense of justice shapes how you evaluate the possibility of full reconciliation? You recognized other people are different in this respect; do you think that might allow them to actually be happy with the choice to reconcile, rather than just settling for an unsatisfactory marriage? (Maybe I am getting ahead of myself with these questions...)

Please know 'some' people have the ability to engage in a topic without it fundamentally being truly about their own personal trauma.

Ah... I am evaluating the validity of the supposition that no one's expressed views are untouched by their personal experiences and all the ways those experiences have shaped them as a person.

Out of curiosity, I actually fed our core arguments into an AI model to see if we were genuinely making any structural progress, and its objective diagnostic summary perfectly encapsulates our current gridlock:

How did you ask it?

Ironically I'm constantly sending threads to AI for analysis, if only to make me feel less crazy and figure out ways to phrase things in a way that makes them receivable to others... Sorry if I'm dragging you back into this, but mine output a comparison to assuming someone who is addicted to gambling really loves the machine/cards themselves, rather than the games being the delivery method for the primarily psychological rewards (hope, escape, dopamine rushes, etc.) To quote it: "The behavior alone doesn't identify the reinforcement." Just wondering what you'd say to that ?

It later said that it agrees with your argument that sex and infidelity are intertwined, but it said it's like how blood and oxygen are intertwined; the lungs don't "want" blood, but they "want" the oxygen. (to which I may slightly object due to lungs not being able to "want" anything...) It then said: "Similarly, validation and sex can absolutely reinforce one another while one remains the principal reinforcer."

(I do wonder how much of the responses I get from ChatGPT are just ass-kissing.)

Functionally, I think the focus of the discussion is all over the place, and it would be best to lay out a series of questions we'd like to explore, and clarify our positions on each. Then we can convene on where we agree and disagree. 🤓

(I do wonder how much of the responses I get from ChatGPT are just ass-kissing.)

My primary objection to using AI (other than the environmental impacts) is that it tells you exactly what you want to hear. It smooths the edges, mirrors your assumptions, and reinforces your framing. That makes it a terrible referee for conflict or truth testing. AI can become a kind of emotional echo chamber. If you only ever hear your own worldview reflected back, you stop encountering friction. You stop encountering surprise. You stop encountering the productive discomfort that makes people grow.

This is something I struggled with in the beginning, when we were in the questions phase. I could not figure out why I would answer a question truthfully, and the answer, which was better than what he was assuming and fearing, wasn't believed or making him feel better. It was because the trust was broken and he was still expecting me to lie and distort reality.

That’s a bit tricky and obviously I can provide my hunch due to my own experience.

Broken trust does play a role still in addition there’s a part that is assessing you (as wayward) to see genuine effort.

Not because you aren’t putting effort, from this side of the barricade the betrayed partner understand how much effort you put into driving a clandestine relationship, so in part they might be testing if you are really ready to put back in your relationship the same(if not more) energy.

Kind of a shittest at least in part, that might go on for a while, and it might come back periodically.

Careful that if your Bs experienced trauma, he will be like a recorder for any detail you may speak.

Trauma burns in stone every word you say. If there’ll be discrepancies in the future (because isn’t uncommon to ask to hear the story over and over again) be sure they will be noted.

That’s a pitfall because you mean to be honest and might be overzealous in adding details. If they are "narrative additions " they will be caught.

Simple truth, the kind that never changes because it is naked , is the best.

Advice because I feel it might be what you are observing so careful, betrayed partners are a loaded bomb in that sense.

(Kind of a useful skill I would like to learn for daily life to be honest, it’s like eidetic memory almost

GTM,

(I do wonder how much of the responses I get from ChatGPT are just ass-kissing.)

A lot! I've called AI out before for ego stroking and it admitted to it!

I used a couple of AIs to purge to when I first found myself in this mess, and yes, it absolutely tailors it's replies to the person being talked to based on conversation patterns and vocabulary. Don't get me wrong tho. I found it to be surprisingly helpful for me, but yeah, you gotta be careful not to get sucked into thinking you're one of the most brilliant and eloquent humans on the planet when talking to AI. I think it's capable of straight up blowing sunshine and rainbows up your ass and even giving you bad advice if you're not careful, lol.

Shirley Glass documented this extensively in Not Just Friends, where she found that the emotional attention and ego inflation were the primary hooks, not the orgasms. Her research shows that the psychological infrastructure of an affair is built long before the sex ever happens

I missed the broader conversation as reading on iPhone is a pain, but my 2 cents.

I fully agree with this, not just in the context of waywards but almost every single person who is insecure responds to exactly this.

Leaving aside betrayal, focusing attention and poking the ego of a person is the ABC of seduction, it works every time with almost anyone.

So if a person suffers from low self worth then it tend to be far more susceptible to this and might even betray their relationship.

It’s a spectrum naturally, you can range from "harmless" seduction (not just sexual) to full blown dark triad manipulation.

To a broken ego it’ll likely feel good just the same.

DRSOOLERS, while I'm fairly certain you'll ignore this post, because I suspect that you really don't like me much, I'm undeterred.

...I don't see the relevance of all that to this thread. I also feel I can gleam a lot of insight into you over the fact you seem to think it's related.

This thread was created by Morbs specifically to avoid tread-jacking Gemmy's thread. The impetus was your assertion that his wife's claim was... bullshit. In that respect, this thread is entirely about you and your disposition. And while the motivations behind an affair are certainly worthy of discussion, the topic is not going to be resolved with this one thread for reasons too varied and complex to enumerate.

What I believe you are actually detecting is rage. It is not a rage over my personal circumstances,

That's very difficult to believe. You've only discussed your FOO issues once in your thread regarding your father's offer to contribute to your wedding. You've convinced yourself, or so it would seem, that you've resolved those issues. I don't think that's true.

Infidelity doesn't just affect a betrayed spouse. The trauma affects the entire family. Your father didn't just betray your mother, he also betrayed his family. You were also traumatized by his actions.

I don't know if you've read from members about their own experiences as children of parents who had affairs. It's not a very common discussion on these boards in that specific regard. However, there are plenty of members who have shared those experiences and how profoundly they affected their lives, their values, philosophy, etc.

A few authors have written books specifically to help adults cope with the affects of childhood trauma caused by parents who had affairs. Perhaps one of those books might help you.

This is a profound rage directed at the systemic injustices of the world. It is an intrinsic part of my makeup and chemistry.

This is a profound admission, belying your motivations for being here, the source of your "zealously."

This rage you feel is understandable. And if you feel the need to seek help from this community, I'm quite certain we can help (although a professional therapist is probably a better option). In the meantime, I would ask you whether or not you believe directing that rage here - specifically at WS - best serves this community.

Peace, brother.

ETA: I think you underestimate how perceptive sisoon can be.

[This message edited by Unhinged at 5:27 PM, Saturday, July 4th]

I edited my post because I realized I wrote triggered. I'm about to rewrite essentially the same thing, but I do not think I've triggered. Go figure.

*****

You write of anger. That's pain - not the only emotional pain, but it's one of them. I'll suggest you're still dealing with pain from the way you ended your relationship with XGF.

I believe your words - in your profile, for example - show passivity and avoidance. From what you write, you never confronted your big questions that only your XGF can answer/could have answered. You don't know if your XGF actually cheated, though what you do know is pretty - but not definitely - damning. You write that you suggested splitting as a way of getting your XGF to talk about your relationship, and when that didn't work, you let her go without raising the issue yourself.

You do not write in a way that indicates you have addressed your passivity. Instead, you write about WSes and your principles. IMO, you are protecting yourself against some sort of pain. I know what kept me passive about my relationship with W2b, so I know one thing that might have kept you passive, but that's only one possibility. I didn't discuss the relationship until I realized she was as into me in her way as I was into her in mine. My reason for not discussing it was that I feared rejection. Again, that's me. You're the only one who knows why you let your XGF go without getting the facts you needed.

But you write that you did let her go while wanting to discuss the relationship without even trying to get the discussion you wanted. That's both passive and avoidant. My bet is that still hurts. You haven't written anything that says you've taken responsibility for that, and IMO, that's a problem for you.

*****

You raise theoretical question after theoretical question. That doesn't help anywhere near as much as sharing experience and how the experience affected oneself. Theory distances a person from their pain. That's avoidance.

I'm convinced healing comes faster and goes deeper when a person confronts the pain directly. You say you're not as healed as you can be. Actually, you're as healed as you're willing to be.

My bet is that confronting yourself will allow you to release the pain of passivity and make your thinking clearer and your life easier. But you're the one who has to choose to do te work (and do it).

*****

The above is based on my reading of what you write. I'd say that you think I misread you purposely because you're not reading yourself correctly - or you're not sharing some important stuff.

Obviously we're all a lot more than what we share on SI. IOW, I'm hoping these words are read to say that you paint yourself as passive and avoidant with your XGF, and I understand - and hope all readers understand - that's different from saying that you are passive or avoidant in any other area of your life. Further, your writing might have omitted something that invalidates my reading of your posts.

So I could be wrong. But i think I've identified a pattern in you.

*****

Thank you for answering my questions.

*****

I did not eat any sandwich at all with regard to R(econciling), and I never thought I did. I'm not alone in that.

Per my W, and per my involvement in SI since 2011, I see myself and the vast majority of BSes as collateral damage. My W did nothing to me directly. That's what I think 'the A is about the WS, not the BS' means, and I agree. My W fucked up; I didn't.

Every BS has a free choice between D, R, and staying without full R for any reason they think sufficient. I DID have to accept that my W had sex with someone else, but I've always thought her body is hers, not mine, and I never wanted to control her.

Now that I think of it, I've always wanted her to be with me voluntarily, but one of the reasons I stayed was out of duty, because of the M vows. That seems asymmetrical.

OTOH,my W helped me immensely during some very dark times for me. Maybe I stayed for her because she was going through a very dark time for her. Maybe I really had a debt to her, and staying was a way of repaying it.

Mainly, though, I think I'm a better me with her than without her, and I thought I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. IOW, I thought R was my best option. So far, it has been a good one.

But my main point is that I entered R freely. No one made me stay. No sandwich was involved.

Some people think there must be a sandwich. That's wrong.

Some people think R would be a disgusting sandwich for them. I expect they're right - for themselves.

*****

Back to sex vs validation, my W is a CSA survivor. Pleasure scared and sometimes still scares her so much that she often rejects pleasure out of fear of ... she hasn't figured it out well enough to name the source of the fear.

CSA is a lot more common than anyone thinks.

There are a lot of other reasons that sex is not the pure pleasure that some people think - or fantasize - it is - selfishness, lack of familiarity, miscommunication, excessive speed, physical pain, incipient illness, acknowledged illness, not being in the mood, just to name a few. Well, 8 reasons off the top of my head.

To heal, IMO the BS needs to put the WS aside and process their own particular pain out of their body. The WS is part of that, but it's the BS's response to the WS that counts. Obviously, I find my W's A forgivable. Others I respect highly did not find R possible. Different results from the same process - look inside, figure out what's best for one individual, go for that outcome.

Something to remember: BS after BS has stated here that after some years, it's the lies, not the sex, that hurt most. And fWS after fWS says that the payoff they really sought was the validation.

I tend to believe what people post, and I recommend that approach.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 7:20 PM, Saturday, July 4th]

I'm surprised but also not surprised to hear you guys say that about AI lol. I do find that ChatGPT challenges my thinking much of the time, though in literally the gentlest, softest language possible... But maybe it also picked up on the fact that I like to "argue" and therefore assumed a bit of disagreement would be pleasing to me... It also definitely matters how you feed it details, ask it questions, and tell it to be. If you see something from one perspective and you give it biased context based on that perspective, that's all it has to work with, and it makes guesses about what you're looking to hear from it.

One book I read recently that I highly recommend is Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick. He explains in great detail how AI works and how to get the most out of it.

post #57:

Yes, a bubble created by your own tunnel vision.

​No one is saying that what you're describing doesn’t happen. It absolutely does. WH and WW alike, WS are incredibly cruel, selfish, and abusive while deep in the A.

Well but in fact in another thread, when I mentioned that most WWs snicker at their BHs, one poster said "it literally sounds delusional". This is someone who posts a lot on here. So I actually don't believe this.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 7:06 PM, Saturday, July 4th]

AI is artificial. That's the operative word. It is merely a statistical analysis of the verbiage it's been fed.

What AI is not, is intelligent. There is absolutely no intellegence involved (aside from the human intellegence involved in programming the statistical, but no less artificial, models it uses).

While AI does have some intrinsic value in very specific scientific spaces, is it completely useless, IMO, when it comes to human nature.

I cannot stress strongly enough how pernicious AI use is when it comes to surviving infidelity.

[This message edited by Unhinged at 7:25 PM, Saturday, July 4th]

A little OT, but I watched a true crime thing on YouTube about the first recorded case of an AI being implicated in a murder. In fact, this from an AI I just asked about it...

Yes, chatbots like ChatGPT have been implicated in cases where they allegedly reinforced delusions or provided harmful advice that contributed to violent actions, including murder. Legal actions are being pursued against companies like OpenAI for their role in these incidents.

I think they fixed that now. I can't even get it to conspire with me to exact revenge on my neighbors through malicious landscaping; it just tells me it can't condone that and encourages me to focus on myself... It won't produce sexual content either. There are ways of getting around the encoded restrictions, however, like telling it you're writing a fictional story or play, and you ask for advice on the plot/characters/specifics for how to conduct the crime, etc. then the imperative to help you in the "creative" task supersedes the imperative not to do harm, because it doesn't know when you're lying.

But just in case, I'll keep any murder urges between myself and my therapist.

It has really helped me though. I credit it for me not triggering anymore the way I used to when I came here and felt misunderstood. I had tried fixing that with human therapists for ages, and all they would tell me is 'don't use the sites anymore' without solving the underlying problem.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 10:49 PM, Saturday, July 4th]

Leaving aside betrayal, focusing attention and poking the ego of a person is the ABC of seduction, it works every time with almost anyone.

Right. That is exactly what gets inside someone who already feels emotionally underfed, and it creates a massive vulnerability. That ego-stroking is the initial hook, and it makes the betrayal possible long before sex ever enters the picture.

​It actually makes me wonder, is physical sex just an expected, eventual byproduct of an affair if the opportunity is there? Because if sex were the primary driver, how do we account for purely EAs? For example, Morbs was in close proximity and could have slept with her AP, but she didn't.

Sex is instead the physical manifestation of a connection.

Couldn't we stop there? Sex is just sex, especially affair sex, and when it comes to betrayal, who cares what the physical act was actually like? The fact that it happened at all is devastating enough.

I know that information is important to many of our BSs, so I don't mean it quite the way is came out. I guess the root is that focusing entirely on the physical quality of the sex misses the real monster in the room. I remember being asked point blank, "was he bigger than me?" As excruciatingly hard as that was to answer (the answer being yes), it was still a million times worse to admit that I threw away my M for nothing more than ego kibbles.

To a broken ego it’ll likely feel good just the same.

Believe me, once I got into my work, I saw exactly how that plays out. An unchecked ego will take whatever attention it can get. And that is exactly why the validation wound explains the pattern far more consistently than the physical pleasure ever could.

I've been reading over the past few days this post and Gemmy's with great interest.

My WH, after many, many, many discussions (he kept wanting to minimise and omit things he thought would "needlessly" hurt me further) admitted that he very much enjoyed the sex. Why? Because he had been suffering from ED for years and he was able to "get it up" with her.

He also told me that he did not "bad mouth" me to her, so much so that whenever she started saying shit about me, he made her stop and her reaction was always "yeah yeah, you love your wife." (He also said that she "got off" on stealing another woman's man ) He told me that he never wanted to leave me. And honestly, I believe it because this was not a woman he would ever date, let alone marry. Of course, all I have to go on is what he has told me. I never read any of their messages, but I'm sure if I had, I would have found some digs at me as a wife, after all, he also told me that she suggested I was probably having an affair of my own since we weren't having sex regularly .

He was able to keep the A secret because at the time he was working two hours away and only came home from Sat. afternoon to Sun. mid morning. He didn't need to lie to me about where he was or what he was doing.

Anyway, Hikingout said:

What I do believe is that a large portion of ws have similiar traits to varying degrees of extreme. We are avoidant, we lack communication skills, we lack self awareness, we are either overly selfish or overly unselfish, we tend to be insecure, sometimes codependent, and we do not self regulate well.

And:

I do not think I had an affair because I was broken. I had an affair because I was underdeveloped.

These are essentially things that describe my WH to a T! Very selfish and underdeveloped. His empathy was underground and he only saw things from his perspective. Never once did he consider that we had a "dead bedroom" because of his actions and inactions.

Did he go out looking for an A? No, I don't believe he did, but when a woman showed up and indicated she was open to it, he dove right in! Even asked me if I would be OK with him having sex with other women! That question alone should have clued me in that there was already a woman waiting in the wings, if not already in his bed! After that, he just let it happen. What's ironic, is if he had done with me what he did with her (listen to her talk, validate her feelings, compliment her, etc.) he would have found it pretty easy to climb back into bed with me. But no, he took that to a new woman who stroked his ego and made his dick stand at attention.

So sure, DRS may be coming at this a little strong, but there are WS out there that did it for the sex. Was there more in the equation? Yes, but bottom line, it was the selfishness that drove him, his own satisfaction, his own happiness, regardless of the impact it was going to have on everyone else. Not that he thought about us while he was in the midst of it.

[This message edited by fournlau at 3:38 PM, Sunday, July 5th]

​

There is decades of research showing that affairs are driven far more by validation than by sexual novelty.

​This sentence does not contradict what I have been saying, and it could easily run parallel to my arguments. I stated that the "validation only" excuse was likely over-inflated. If that is the case, it inherently accepts that validation could indeed be far more of a driver than sexual desire, but that it is more often than not intertwined with sexual pleasure. Whilst I accept some affairs will be exclusively about validation—where the affair sex is merely a transaction for that validation (the "thinking of England" types)—that precise scenario appears to me to be cited by waywards as a form of minimisation far more often than is actually true. Because we do not, and perhaps cannot, have the datasets on this specific point, I feel the conversation is at a standstill. As such, I do not see the quote you provide as damaging to my stance whatsoever.

​@morbs

​I specifically used the sandwich reference because it is widely cited on this site that navigating infidelity is akin to eating a "shit sandwich". I understand that this framing is imprecise and can be triggering.

​

Without meaning to put words in your mouth, the message I'm getting from your words is the presumption that all BS will be permanently, secretly unhappy in their marriage and that they would be better served starting anew, and that the only thing holding them back from true happiness are those pesky attachments to all the ways they've entangled their lives with their WS and the fear/discomfort of starting over... Is that how you meant it?

​Not to the first part, but more often than not, yes to the second half. I do not feel they are all secretly unhappy. I think many will find happiness in reconciliation, but I do believe that, more often than not, they are making the best of a bad situation. I have spoken a lot on this topic, so I will summarise. Unless you are religious, or believe in fate, kindred spirits, and twin flames, it is fair to assume we all have many compatible mates out there who would make us deeply happy and fulfilled. Whilst that is not a romantic view, it means you have very limited genuine reasons to reconcile outside of fear, the sunk-cost fallacy, or convenience.

​These reasons include—and here is an example of me learning from discourse on this site—a deep need for a long, shared history. If this is important to you, deleting it to start again may seem daunting. There are also practicalities such as age, feeling too old to go dating, financial constraints, being unable to afford to split the household, or being unwilling to split time with the children. All of these are fair and true reasons, but I would not view them as the great, beautiful romanticism that reconciliation is often painted to be. We also see many good arguments suggesting that unless you can successfully park the resentment after infidelity, it may be better for the children if you divorce.

​

And if accurate, how much of that is coming from your personal disposition and the resulting incompatibility with reconciliation after infidelity?

​My personal disposition led me to ask questions, but from there on out, I believe I followed the logic, though I am sure others will disagree.

​

Do you think your own sense of justice shapes how you evaluate the possibility of full reconciliation?

​Only in the sense that I am aware it would never be suitable to me. Sorry if this is too graphic, but I previously talked about my idea of the best sex: feeling so in awe of someone that I just wanted to give them as much intense pleasure as possible. I cannot ever imagine feeling this way post-infidelity. In fact, I think awe would be replaced by disgust.

​

You recognised other people are different in this respect; do you think that might allow them to actually be happy with the choice to reconcile, rather than just settling for an unsatisfactory marriage?

​Absolutely, however, as mentioned above, outside of shared history—an argument put forward by a user here—I do think it is exclusively a case of making the best of a bad situation, or perhaps they simply do not place a lot of value on fidelity. This does not mean it cannot make them deeply happy or even be the best choice for them individually, whereas I would always advocate aiming higher. Now, all of this could be debated over many pages, and I have done so historically on other threads. I would like to say let us leave this here, but I am aware some pro-reconciliation posters will see a big bucket of chum thrown into the ocean. This could read as the most bait-heavy of comments, but I truly am not looking to debate it further, as many pages and hours have already been spent contemplating this.

​

How did you ask it?

​Because I am aware of the biases of AI, and because irrespective of who it agreed with it would be meaningless to everyone involved, I kept the analysis vague. I simply asked whether this debate appears to be progressing or if it is at a gridlock.

​@Unhinged

​Please do not think I dislike you; that is not the case at all. I reserve dislike for immoral people, and nothing you have written leads me to think that of you.

​@sisoon

​This is not the first time you have admitted to being triggered by my posts. Why do you think my posts trigger you so much? I feel like I have a decent theory as to why. I am not saying there is any shame in it, as I have been triggered on this site too.

​Regarding general interpretations of avoidance, I cannot recall precisely what is written in my account story. It was written some years ago and has not been edited, but ironically, I am unable to find it in my profile section now. Perhaps I am being dim. Either way, I accept that I could have been avoidant at first. My circumstances started with frequent but subtle red flags that accumulated into the discussion to which you are referring. I had never personally navigated infidelity in a relationship and I remember the fear of calling something out based on minimal evidence, especially initially.

​However, though I cannot recall all the details I wrote, and if I did not expand on this section, then what you say is a fair interpretation. I did outright accuse her subsequently, repeatedly, and with increasing evidence. I begged for an admission. She never had a good answer for the evidence provided and did nothing but gaslight and deny. She deleted texts and had nothing to say. When confronted with taxi receipts to his house late at night, there was no response. There were also accounts of people catching them dancing inappropriately then covering it up upon noticing others were around—still, denial. I could not have garnered the truth out of her with a crowbar. So, whilst avoidance was a small part of my tale early on, it was not the overriding theme you seem to think it is, in my opinion.

​Closure was my issue. She knew it was over the second something happened with him, and I made no qualms about my views on infidelity even then. As such, the only reasonable conclusion was that it was a case of monkey-branching or an exit affair. It cannot be coincidental that this all happened after jointly buying a property which was far too expensive for us, on reflection. I imagine the reality of that led to either a case of cold feet or for her to examine the relationship and come to the conclusion it was no longer for her. I think she never admitted anything because we had a shared friend group that she was initially desperate not to lose, which was likely true for my friend too. She probably felt an admission offered no one anything and they would lose a lot of good people by telling the truth, so she discounted my need for closure as unimportant. In the end, I got as close to closure as I was ever going to get, and they were booted out of the friend group all the same. This was, at least, some level of the justice I craved.

​Finally, when you add in that at the time I had maintained I never wanted children (which she agreed with given her horrendous childhood—another likely trigger) and knowing that she fairly immediately had a child with him after everything exploded, I am sure that also played a role. As did the fact that her father left her mother for his AP and his life seemed to get better in every single way, so she likely saw that as a successful model to fix her life. Furthermore, we started our relationship in a similar, dodgy case of monkey-branching, which I have written about before.

My biggest takeaway from this was a need to improve my "picker". Basically, as clichéd as it is, relatively young (and certainly first) love blinded me to a host of red flags that I subsequently would have run miles away from. Perhaps it is deeper than that. My mother, who holds a master's in psychology, suggested that I have somewhat of a hero complex and even at a young age was drawn to broken "waifs and strays", as she put it. But I am past that now.

​During lockdown, under the UK COVID-19 restrictions, I relented and backslid on these learnings. I got into a relationship for just shy of a year with someone who displayed a lot of the same red flags. For this reason, I never fully committed to the relationship and got out fairly quickly, completely unharmed. To be honest, the only reason I likely backslid to begin with was the loneliness and—apologies for being crass—the sexual frustration that the lockdown imposed on my otherwise frequent dating life at that time.

​So, there is some clarification for you. Given all of that, do you truly think my situation many years ago is informing my opinions on sex versus validation in affairs? I personally don't think it is. I actually think you could make the claim with more validity of the situation with my partners. My father was merely a remorseless cake eater. That being said I've read enough on the topic to know that's only a percent of waywards.

You raise theoretical question after theoretical question. That doesn't help anywhere near as much as sharing experience and how the experience affected oneself. Theory distances a person from their pain. That's avoidance

​

In your opinion, it is far more useful to write from experience, and that is already widely done on this site. For people like me, however, thought experiments and theoretical examples are far more powerful and compelling. I write on the presumption that there are other readers out there who think the same way I do.

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 10:52 AM, Sunday, July 5th]

Unless you are religious, or believe in fate, kindred spirits, and twin flames, it is fair to assume we all have many compatible mates out there who would make us deeply happy and fulfilled.

I agree with this and wrote as much on... it as I think it was Gemmy's wife's thread ? when he was asking her what could she give him that a new partner couldn't.

Whilst that is not a romantic view, it means you have very limited genuine reasons to reconcile outside of fear, the sunk-cost fallacy, or convenience.

There are also practicalities such as age, feeling too old to go dating, financial constraints, being unable to afford to split the household, or being unwilling to split time with the children.

I don't think those are the only reasons. While people can find love with someone new after infidelity, it's not so easy for many (most?) people to just emotionally detach from their spouse immediately, especially with a long history of building a life together, even if it logically makes sense. I know it sounds kind of cheesy, but their love persists despite the pain of the betrayal. Many would rather go through the difficult process of reconciliation with the person they're emotionally attached to-- remaining around the person that triggers them, having damaged trust, etc.-- rather than the heartache of ending the relationship and detaching from their spouse heaped on top of all the pain they're already feeling.

All of these are fair and true reasons, but I would not view them as the great, beautiful romanticism that reconciliation is often painted to be.

I don't really see it being painted out to be romantic often. I think many people look down reconcilers as not respecting themselves for staying, and/or, like you, believe the unfaithful spouse deserves the "justice" of being dumped. Some of them will even go as far as insulting or harassing them for attempting reconciliation, not to mention the ones that go "I told you so!" if the reconciliation fails, as cruel as that is. And on SI, I haven't seen reconciliation portrayed as anything but a long, hard, bumpy, winding road for each spouse to walk. It's presented as possible, but requiring very specific behavior on the part of the WS, and taking years and years of arduous work for both parties. I feel like the romanticized "look at how our loved prevailed through hard things" messages kind of died as a culture in the 2010s.

This doesn't mean it can't make them deeply happy or even be the best choice for them individually. Whereas I would always advocate aiming higher.

You said earlier that you don't think they're secretly unhappy. I'm having trouble aligning that with this statement. If they could be deeply happy with the best choice for them having been made, why are you positioning separation/divorce as the "higher" aspiration? I'm anticipating you'll make the "respect your principles and dole out justice argument," but I don't think putting one's ultimate happiness above principles they may or may not hold, or may not hold so deeply, is necessarily a "lower" aspiration...That feels like an arbitrarily assigned value. I won't get into the justice aspect; I think we've either had that conversation or I've just read through your discussions with others, so I think that part's played out. (Probably putting the cart before the horse again. Sorry)

Sex is instead the physical manifestation of a connection.

Couldn't we stop there? Sex is just sex, especially affair sex, and when it comes to betrayal, who cares what the physical act was actually like? The fact that it happened at all is devastating enough.

I was not referring to the sex in the affair I was referring to a different understanding of sex than the one we have been taught/ learned since we were coming of age.

Tried to cut it short not to sidetrack Morb’s thread too much, but in short it’s so much more than we experienced before on average (because we limited ourselves, think your understanding of ego and emotions before and after "the work"? Yeah, like that magnitude of difference. It’s a mind blowing realization).

We only got glimpses of it, if we were lucky, the moment you open your eyes it’s seriously a game changer for fulfillment and happiness (for both).

What "affair sex" seems likely more akin is masturbation just with intercourse with a living prop (and is likely two ways the same).

I wouldn’t call this sexual endeavor sex according to this understanding. Because it’s reductive, degrading.

Of course it is in the common acception.

The "f word" is much better descriptor to this kind of intercourse.

I know that information is important to many of our BSs, so I don't mean it quite the way is came out. I guess the root is that focusing entirely on the physical quality of the sex misses the real monster in the room. I remember being asked point blank, "was he bigger than me?" As excruciatingly hard as that was to answer (the answer being yes), it was still a million times worse to admit that I threw away my M for nothing more than ego kibbles.

Yeah I know, it’s natural and painful, betrayed women have their kind of comparisons just as painful… however it doesn’t really matter does it?

Even if you "win" with the AP doesn’t make you feel any better (eventually another hit to your battered self worth , but it is already killed by the A).

You didn’t choose the AP as a competitor, it is rarely that if ever. It could be a total downgrade and it would have not change a thing.

The previous understanding I talked about also changes this issue a lot.

But both need to get there first

​@morbs

​

I know it sounds kind of cheesy, but their love persists despite the pain of the betrayal. Many would rather go through the difficult process of reconciliation with the person they're emotionally attached to-- remaining around the person that triggers them, having damaged trust, etc.-- rather than the heartache of ending the relationship and detaching from their spouse heaped on top of all the pain they're already feeling.

​Certainly, they can, and often do, precisely this. However, given you have agreed they could be just as happy and fulfilled with another partner—with the added benefit of separation from the source of the triggers and betrayal trauma—I would suggest you need a rather compelling reason to choose reconciliation. Outside of the ones I have already presented, I do not see a great deal of them.

​That being said, I think the shared history argument is one of the strongest and most noble arguments ever put to me on this front. It is not something I personally crave, but if a long, shared history is high up on your wishlist, it cannot be easily replicated in a new relationship, depending on one's age.

​On your final point, your anticipation is entirely accurate. I know principles, morals, and views on self-respect differ from person to person—and this is undoubtedly a piece of the puzzle regarding whether reconciliation is possible—but I feel a high proportion of people struggle for years trying to square putting up with the inherent inequality of an affair-stained relationship. So, I do not think my morals and principles are as rare as all that either. I can't tell you the amount of posts about fairness or justice I've read. In my time reading on the topic I would say it's in the top 3 most cited sticking points, along with sexual triggers and trust.

Worth noting here that I see a particularly high religious element on these forums, something I'm not used to in my circle and I feel that plays a huge role often. Of course not always. If you derive you principles and morals from faith as opposed to reason it changes the whole ball game.

​I also do not believe it is a matter of putting happiness below or above your principles. This is because, once again, we have agreed that happiness and fulfilment can very likely be found in a new relationship. Therefore, choosing separation over a compromised marriage is not sacrificing happiness for principle; it is simply choosing a different path to that same happiness—one that does not require you to compromise your self-respect or live with constant triggers. That is why I view it as the higher aspiration.

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 11:13 AM, Sunday, July 5th]

I never read any of their messages, but I'm sure if I had, I would have found some digs at me as a wife, after all, he also told me that she suggested I was probably having an affair of my own since we weren't having sex regularly rolleyes .

Fornlau

That’s unavoidable in an affair. Even if there’s no badmouthing there’s a sharing (unbeknownst to you) of your couple intimacy (in the broader sense, not just physical).

Doesn’t need to be trashing , it can be on the level of "we aren’t as close as we used to be " but the point is, that information belongs to your couple intimacy. It’s not to be shared as a confidence with a potential other partner. That is already betrayal, dismissing your connection to create a connection with a replacement (even if the replacement is mere idolatry of a fantasy).

The point is that the Affair Partner knows. Otherwise it would not be an affair, not a real "affair partner ".
it would be your wayward cheating on two women (you plus another clueless victim).

And upon finding out she would have a Dday as you had. (And probably rallying with you against him, feeling mortified and disgusted to be used and also hurting you).

But that’s likely extremely rare right?

Affair partners do know. It’s that condition and the fact they still pursue your partner that makes them disgusting and filthy as humans.

While the main villain from your angle is still your wayward, they are the informed and willing accomplice.

Some goes off about stealing the partner of someone else while others are ashamed. That’s just different shades of rotten though, depending how broken this person is.

(Never mind that the above traits might belong to our wayward as well if they are involved in cheating with another wayward and not a AP who is single).

Not to bash your morale further, just a perspective to spot all the issues that must be addressed in your wayward to heal.