My Affair Made OUR Marriage Great

[Reggie]

Well, I read this entire topic ,as the title caught my eye. I have many thoughts and will, most likely, forget some. But, here goes..

The first thing I noticed was that you seem to have a clear demarcation between what a woman requires in a marriage vs a man. I can't remeber this stuff verbatim, but, it seemd there were a few posts that made it clear you feel that a woman has certain needs that a man does not, like intimacy and the need to feel attractive and special. And, that taking care of these areas is solely the responsibility of the man. I'd venture that with this attitude(which seems very entitiled) your husband was not getting his needs met in these areas, as well.

This leads to my second observation, and it is one I commonly have in reading unfaithful spouse's posts. There is a pervasive allegation in your post that you were a perfect spouse and all the deficiencies in the marriage with communication and intimacy lay with your husband. You point to all your cooking and cleaning and running errands as evidence that you were all anyone could want in a giving, loving spouse. I rather doubt your husband was making no contribuiton to the marital enterprise. he may have been making his contribution in different areas, such as generating money. It seems unlikely to me that a man who is as forgiving and willing to work on your marriage after a betrayal like this was as completely a load, a bad partner, as you suggest he was.

Moreover, I also doubt that you were as good a partner as you portay yourself. I say this because, first, someone that has cheated is very, very invested in justifying their cheating. If she or he is fundamentally decent person, there is a huge investment in decieving him/herself. This is so incredibly common I've seen it in hundreds of cheating spouses' posts.

Second, the fact that you chose this route, cheating(considered by many therapists to be the most severe form of emotional abuse) is clear evidence that you were not as perfect and giving of a spouse as you claim. It's just common sense. It's like someone claiming to be an animal lover yet shooting a neighbor's dog for incessantly barking. Or, someone claiming to be honest, yet robbing a bank because of intenese finanacial pressure. A person in this day and age, with divorce readily available, and counseling options all over the place must have brought his or her own deficiencies to the marriage if they were willing to inflict this type of pain on their spouse.

Finally, as others have pointed out, you point to only the changes your husband has been willing to make to repair the marrige. I saw no mention that you have sought any help to help you understand why you were so abusive, why you felt this type of pain infliction was the way to get your needs met, or where you have failed your husband in other areas as well. Simply the proclamions about what a stellar spouse you have been,

In my reading, which has been pretty exhaustive, most experts opine that in the vast majority of infidelity situations, the betrayer, not the betrayed, was the person bringing less to the marriage in terms of investing. Yet, almost invariably, the betrayer is portaying him or herself as having been the communicator, the selfless spouse etc.

I feel badly for your husband not only because of the cruelty with which you have treated him, but because your posts show that you expect the marriage to be better based soley on his efforts. Yet, you have not taken a look at your own part in the pre-affair state of your marriage, instead insisting that you were the big time contributor and perfect spouse. Your affair belies that.

[Sup]

AMEN to that! Reggie, you sound a little like one of those Counselors, or Doctors on the subject! Yep, the peeps on here saw her crap as well! I hope her husband wakes up and drops her sorry butt!

[LoveDeluxe78]

How could you respect a man that can't walk away from you after that?

 

Is he that poor and desperate? Is that really the best he can do with his life?

 

Why... why should he stay with you?

 

 

Maybe they both suffer from low self esteem issues. She obviously stayed with him after that disastrous beginning, him being verbally abusive, possibly having cheated on her, and he has chosen to stay (for now anyhow, we'll see) after she has cheated on him. So the way I see it, they both chose to stay in rather unhealthy situations.

 

Note: I'm not saying everyone who decides to stay in a marriage after an A necessarily has low self esteem issues, it just depends on how much of it you have truly processed and knowingly and voluntarily decide to stay and work it out as opposed to someone who stays out of fear of being alone or not thinking they are good enough to leave.

[Gzus]

"ALl I can do is assure my H that I will never do nothing like that again, ever."

 

Heh, he's a ****ing fool if he believes your cheating ass. I commend the dude for loving you enough to try and work it out, its a shame you were so self centered you did this to your marriage. I positively guarantee you he's got nowhere near the respect he had for you at first.

 

I wish you good luck but you dont deserve it.