BS as "innocent victim"

[BetrayedH]

So... treating the spouse horribly, that's a marital issue, not an issue with the offending spouse. Ignoring the spouse, denying sex, emotional intimacy etc. is also a marital issue and not an issue with the offending spouse. But the infidelity, well dang, THAT is the fault of the offending spouse and the other things had no play. Wow.

 

Sure it's an issue with the offending spouse. And infidelity is the fault of the offending spouse. Spouses have an obligation to work things out with each other. That's the nature of the agreement. If one person isn't doing their part, they ARE to blame for that. But it doesn't cause or justify the other person in making poor decisions either. Everyone has own their own shi t. I don't own my wife's shi tty decisions; I own mine. Whatever I might have done or failed to do, I didn't cause or force her to do anything.

[inappfriendly]

Miss Bee, I appreciate your well-written and thorough post and am in agreement with the points you make except I originally posted this in Infidelity as WS not OW.

Just wrestling through some thoughts on deep seeded issues in my own M.

[MissBee]

I post in infidelity as well as the marriage forum from time to time and in all threads I post in regardless of topic, I do try to use reason and try to be fair and see all sides.

 

In the marriage and partnership forums there are people who come complaining about their partner but they're doing all kinds of crazy things, likewise in infidelity and I do not just blame one person or address one person. Especially in "revenge" threads where either it's revenge cheating or some effed up situation and this person now wants to do something bad to "even the score", my advise is most often that this makes no sense...you either fix it or you walk but you doing something equally or worse atrocious is ridiculous and you're responsible for that new atrocity now, regardless of whatever you felt "made you do it." When you do something just as bad or WORSE you lose the high ground to stand on. Period. It's all very immature.

 

I point out where both people are wrong and I tend to focus on the person in question who is posting the thread as they will receive the most help since they are here and not whomever they're complaining about. I don't really feel like it's a case as you say where no one ever says anything to the BS in the wrong, but her wrong is dependent on the situation and if we're just discussing the cheating, then the BS is the BS because in the cheating case they are the betrayed. Whatever other wrong they did isn't what is being addressed maybe at that time, and if any wrong is brought up, I will be the first to point out "But also...you nee to stop doing xyz" and I see others do so as well.

 

But it's like I'm still stuck at why that matters sooo much to the OW? That the BS is blamed for other things too? As I said, if you search for the threads of wayward spouses/MM/MW themselves you will be able to see that MAJORITY of them aren't complaining about abusive, narcissistic spouses. They have normal marital problems, boredom, inappropriate boundaries etc and cheating was their outlet, as clearly in most marriages affected by affairs it's not a case where both people are having affairs, in some cases yes, but in majority it is only ONE person who resorts to cheating. So for that reason too it doesn't make sense to me to try to blame a BS esp if the issues brought to the table do not say the BS is this way, why should I assume that about them?

 

Your question IMO and the attitude of lots of OW IMO isn't ever to ask their MM: "But honey, what have you done to lead to this? Well why did you marry her then? Well if you went ahead and married, isn't it on you too? What about counseling? Have you had a sit down? Maybe you should try again without me in the picture clouding things? Isn't there a way for the two of you to figure this out as adults?" ---LMAOOO of course not! I mean why would an OW care to mediate in a fair way? It is natural to want to take MM's side and to see him as either a martyr or only responding to a wrong first versus independently [or mutually] choosing badly and to put more of the blame on the BS. It is normal. You don't know her and you want/love him. I get it. But that natural tendency is why when OW bring these things up on LS any sane person has to factor this tendency in when listening to the laundry list of BS's flaws. Unless you were born last night you're gonna take it with a grain of salt and understand why self-interest may cloud the OW's ability to see both sides of the situation.

 

An OW cannot be both OW and marriage counselor. Period. To know all sides and be fair you most likely have to stop being the OW and actually sit MM and BS down and find out what's up with them both, not from through the MM filter. If you haven't done that don't assume the BS did something to make MM do it...nah...people choose cheating for whatever reason and that is never made even regardless of what the other person does and if you're worried about what the other person did wrong then sit them both down and work it out with them.

[MissBee]

Miss Bee, I appreciate your well-written and thorough post and am in agreement with the points you make except I originally posted this in Infidelity as WS not OW.

Just wrestling through some thoughts on deep seeded issues in my own M.

 

Thanks. Saw this after I posted.

 

I only ever saw your posts in the OW threads so assumed you're posting from the perspective of the OW.

 

But my opinions still stand about cheating and how that relates to the BS and in particular how it's addressed on LS.

 

It's one thing for the WS to come to LS complaining about their BS and having an affair....but 9/10 times it's an OW complaining about what they heard about the BS and defending MM.

[goodyblue]

Sure it's an issue with the offending spouse. And infidelity is the fault of the offending spouse. Spouses have an obligation to work things out with each other. That's the nature of the agreement. If one person isn't doing their part, they ARE to blame for that. But it doesn't cause or justify the other person in making poor decisions either. Everyone has own their own shi t. I don't own my wife's shi tty decisions; I own mine. Whatever I might have done or failed to do, I didn't cause or force her to do anything.

 

I hope this is true. I really hope it is true for more couples than the few I see on here that do this. I'll put it simply. "Gee Harriet, what happened? I thought you were so happily married!" "Well Jill, what happened was Bob cheated." "That B@STARD!!". Not, "Well Jill, we had a lot of issues, we weren't working on them, we let our marriage fall by the wayside and he had an affair". Nope, never that.

[MissBee]

I will admit, that whether cheating or other problems here - we often get a one sided view from who is posting here. I have seen posts from BS only to find out later they cheated at one point as well or were terrible spouse .

 

It is very true that a BS may have been equal or worse in creating an unhealthy marriage. Won't get into the old debate this excuses or creates cheating - only that if a BS was contributing to an healthy marriage then yes they need to own that - and not avoid it after dDay - but it is separate "crime" from cheating and each needs to own and accept their unhealthy behavior and the damage it caused.

 

Perfectly.

 

Cheating is one crime, separate from the other marital crimes.

 

One crime doesn't even out or excuse the other. Adding cheating to other marital crimes just makes it a compound problem now.

[HermioneG]

I hope this is true. I really hope it is true for more couples than the few I see on here that do this. I'll put it simply. "Gee Harriet, what happened? I thought you were so happily married!" "Well Jill, what happened was Bob cheated." "That B@STARD!!". Not, "Well Jill, we had a lot of issues, we weren't working on them, we let our marriage fall by the wayside and he had an affair". Nope, never that.

 

Because.

 

The way you describe it is again- blaming the betrayed spouse.

 

Can't you see it?

 

No marriage is perfect. Thinking a marriage can be perfect is a big mistake. Bit affairs do happen in happy marriages, and that happens far more frequently than people would think.

 

Could I have done things different pre- affair? Yes. I could have stopped being so focused on everyone else around me- especially on my spouse, and taken more time for me.

 

But I never did anything that has ever caused my spouse- in the breakdown, to point and say we had a bad marriage, or that my behaviors drove him to it. He would occasionally say I was a better person than he was. But that was because of things wrong in his head, not our marriage.

 

I know you really really want betrayeds to take responsibility for the state of the marriage pre-affair. I get it. I do take responsibility for it. The problem is? I am taking responsibility for a marriage that even my spouse says was a very good one.

 

Not all marriages are broken. Not all betrayeds are the enemy. Sometimes? The enemy is the married partner who is lying to the affair partner about what really happened.

[Confused48]

My guy went through similar, even in his divorce. He lost a lot. But for him it was worth getting it over with. Of course we know that really, it wasn't okay to cheat. It was a mistake... but that doesn't mean that we can't simply see WHY it occurred. I'm not saying it happens ALL the time, but a lot of the time, there are reasons.

 

There are always reasons. Like needing external validation, feeling entitled, being selfish, thinking they will get away with it..... In a bad M or in a good M, these reasons will lead to cheating. Its not the quality of the M that leads to cheating.

[BetrayedH]

Is it really such a stretch to think that the cheater might have been the crappy spouse?

[anne1707]

Leading up to my affair whilst not a perfect marriage, I would have said I was happy. There were some minor issues but nothing that could be considered enough to cause major upset. Whatever problems we had were a joint responsibility in that it was either something we both did/did not do or something one of us did/didn't do and we both did not communicate about it properly.

 

The responsibility for me having the affair is absolutely 100% on me. There is no way my husband can carry any responsibility for something he had no knowledge of, no input into the decision and would have been totally appalled at the idea if he had known.

 

By me choosing to have an affair, I created a whole new level of problems for our marriage. Again that is 100% on me. My husband was desperately trying to figure out why our marriage had become so difficult at times but whilst he wanted to work that through with me, I made it impossible for him.

 

Thankfully at dday, he gave me a chance to reconcile. He never put me through hell. He never punished me. He never tried to make me feel guilty. Instead we started working together on our marriage and I started working on my failings that had resulted in my poor boundaries and decision-making.

[Trimmer]

Miss Bee, I appreciate your well-written and thorough post and am in agreement with the points you make except I originally posted this in Infidelity as WS not OW.

Just wrestling through some thoughts on deep seeded issues in my own M.

I empathize with your wrestling, and I acknowledge you as a unique human being struggling with your situation, and not just a label like "WS."

 

I think you may have started off on an unfortunate note in this thread, because in your attempts to wrestle with your issues, you cast the discussion as one about "how we treat BS on LS", and seemed to (I'm being careful here...) generalize your own issues to how BS on here 'always' get treated. It turned into one of those discussion about how we discuss, which I think often becomes a distraction from a discussion about a particular situation.

 

So either we read between the lines and assume (perhaps incorrectly) that the things you are saying about emotionally abusive BS's who you believe are largely responsible for a ruined marriage are actually code words that apply to your particular situation, or we don't assume that, in which case we end up not really being able to address your situation, and just swirl around, throwing out isolated hypotheticals, in the endless argument about how we argue.

[inappfriendly]

Trimmer, my apologies for getting my panties in a bunch earlier. Your points are valid. I can see all sides of the issue(s) being discussed here and agree that OP was maybe written in frustration/anger/hurt and did not come across as I intended. Thank you for taking the time to share.

[HermioneG]

Really????? Do you really believe that.......... crikey.... you are in for a hell of a shock

 

The affair has been ended for five years.

 

We are reconciled.

 

Do I believe in overbenefitted spouses cheating? Yes. So do psychologists.

 

Start with Frank Pittman and Shirley Glass if you are unfamiliar with the theory.

 

The shock might be yours.

[peaksandvalleys]

I agree it hurts like hell, but i do not agree that it is deliberate. It just happens and yes that is a cliche. It is not the ultimate evil, murder is!!! And far more other stuff.

 

 

I think I should get to decide what the ultimate evil in in my life. Don't you?

[Raena]

Actually I believe that after nearly six years of BS turning a blind eye and me believing that in their 29 year marriage, she would definitely have known, that SHE is to blame for my situation as much as I am for believing HIM

 

Are you serious? You seriously believe that the BS in your situation is at fault for YOUR situation? Do you not see that YOU are the cause for the problems in THEIR marriage? Or that her HUSBAND is to blame?

 

Do you know everything that was ever discussed between the two of them? Do you know for sure that she "must have" known about you? She may very well know absolutely NOTHING about you. It happened to me, I had no frigging clue because he was THAT good at hiding stuff from me while going on pretending that our relationship was good.

 

I'm just curious because it sounds to me like you are blaming the wife of the man you have been sneaking around having an affair with for the reasons why you chose to sneak around having an affair with a married man.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, I didn't go looking for your back posts to find out what your situation is, I'm only going by the above statement from you.

[MissBee]

Actually I believe that after nearly six years of BS turning a blind eye and me believing that in their 29 year marriage, she would definitely have known, that SHE is to blame for my situation as much as I am for believing HIM

 

Cherry, this is nuts.

 

LMAO!

 

How can she be blamed for YOUR situation?

 

I can even understand the argument that the BS is to be blamed for the affair, albeit just as crazy, but I can squint and see how someone can argue that if they did xyz before it's their fault the WS cheated...but say what now? The BS is to blamed for your situation?? Do you mean for you getting involved in the affair or what?

[ComingInHot]

Cherrycake, your just kidding right? If not, please explain how You CHOOSING to have sex with a MM because MM decided he wanted to have sex with you, is the BS'S fault because you believe she "turned a blind eye or hid her head in the sand or MAYBE chose to stay M'd to Her H because she meant her vows for better or worse til death do us part?

 

What am I missing about Your situation as the OW where your choices were stolen from you by the MM'S Wife in Their M?

 

Sincerely now, if the two of them worked together and "did" something to you illegally without Your consent then you absolutely should see legal advice! Cause that would be sick and twisted on their part.

[William]

As we apparently had a banned member return, rather than delete a bunch of responses, most of which do pertain to the topic, we'll leave them with quotes which go nowhere. Please continue with topical discussion. Thanks!

[goodyblue]

Is it really such a stretch to think that the cheater might have been the crappy spouse?

 

No. And I'm not giving the WS a pass either. I'm just saying, we all have to own our sh*t as someone said earlier. The point is... A lot of people don't. And then we get an unbalanced view anyway. Not to mention that if you don't realize your part in the relationship, whatever it was, you will never get over it and move on, in whatever direction you choose.

[ComingInHot]

GoodyBlue, I'm really trying here so bare with me*

It would be, to me, quite a bit easier to deal with the issues in My M and with me in My M if a) I knew there were issues and My H shared with me what I was doing that was of detriment to Our Relationship and M INSTEAD of him blaming me (or the OW blaming me) as to his rational for For the cheating.

I'm having a problem disassociating.

[Raena]

I have to agree with CiH... it really is very difficult to fix something if you didn't know there was a problem.

 

There I was going along thinking things were fine. I didn't say great. I said fine. It was tough because of our working circumstances. It didn't change how I felt about him. It made it harder to spend time together and the times that we did have to spend together, he was busy sleeping. He didn't tell me he was unhappy. He told me the opposite. He told me he was tired all the time, but that he was happy. He told me he loved me. He brought the idea of us getting married (after 11 years together) up. I had no real indication that he thought there was something wrong.

 

Even after the fact, he still can't give me any one good reason. He made up stuff to be unhappy about to explain away his choice to cheat.

 

That's what HE chose to do. He chose to complain to some young chick at work about unhappy he was. He didn't talk to ME. Had he done so, we could have done something about it. He chose to get involved with her sexually with the idea that it would just be sex and if I didn't find out, it wouldn't hurt me. He couldn't account for what his OW chose to do. She forced the issue.

 

Now you tell me... what exactly did I do wrong to cause him to cheat? Did I force him to go crying into the arms of some sad little hobo? No... he CHOSE to do that. He could have chosen to do ANY number of things but he didn't. He CHOSE to cheat. I didn't abuse him, I didn't do things to piss him off. I didn't do a darn thing except take care of our child by myself all the time, keep the house clean, save him food from dinner every night so he could have it for lunch the next day, do his laundry, leave him little treats, tell him constantly how much I loved him and missed being in his arms every night, work on my graduate degree, focus on work to keep me busy when he wasn't home, play online games with friends when he wasn't home. The fact of the matter is, he wasn't EVER home and when he was he cut me off emotionally and physically. HE caused the problems we were having in our relationship and then used that as an excuse to cheat... because you know... we drifted apart because he WASN'T EVER HOME... and he wouldn't text me or call me from work (all with one excuse after another as to why).

 

How in the world is ANY of that MY fault? I loved him with all my heart and soul, like I've never loved anyone else in my life. It wasn't good enough. The fact of the matter is, nothing I did was EVER going to be good enough. I personally think that the main cause of the issues in our relationship was in fact... his relationship with another female. THAT'S where the problem was. The more entrenched he became with her, the less he paid attention to me and the more he used that as an excuse to be with her.

 

Some people are just liars and cheats. It's what they do. They do it because they can or because they want to or because they have absolutely no self control.

 

Whatever the case may be... blaming the BS in some general sweeping statement such as that in the OP is just plain absurd.

[HermioneG]

No. And I'm not giving the WS a pass either. I'm just saying, we all have to own our sh*t as someone said earlier. The point is... A lot of people don't. And then we get an unbalanced view anyway. Not to mention that if you don't realize your part in the relationship, whatever it was, you will never get over it and move on, in whatever direction you choose.

 

The problem is- you want to believe that each partner owning their own part in the relationship ( which I totally agree with), automatically equals bad relationship, or equals the betrayed causing some sort of abnormal problem that results in the wayward straying.

 

That's the problem.

 

Maybe this therapist's explanation will connect with you in a way that makes sense to you. And may benefit your future.

 

 

Affairs Happen In Good Marriages Too | Lisa Van Der Merwe ? Alpharetta Licensed Psychotherapist

[underwater2010]

So I see this all the time on LS. BS always portrayed as the innocent victim. It is like an automatic given. Spouse cheated. Poor H/W. End of analysis. Well what about all of the sins leading up to the WS's A. What about years or even decades of lies, narcissism, emotional abuse or physical neglect? Why is BS miraculously baptized in the wake of infidelity? Not only does it seem like they get a free pass from the past, but moving forward are absolved from any further wrongdoings because WS will NEVER be right or worthy in their eyes again. If they ever were to begin with.

Oops...I was working two jobs and helping to support our family. Which yes looking back can make some a cranky ass at times.

 

 

Oops....I was dealing with money or family issues. Yep bills have to be paid...if life was perfect I could have quite and the bill fairy would have paid them all.

 

 

Oops...my father was dying of lung cancer. I should not have been distracted at all.

 

 

Oops...you chose to coach football and take what little time is left away from the two of us. Guess that's my fault too.

 

 

Oops...you came within 5 minutes. Guess I should have sucked a little more in bed.

 

 

Oops...I made a choice to set and stew rather than being the naggy wife. Should have bitched a little more.

 

 

I have owned up to my part of the marriage and so has he. But I never beat him, drank to much, denied him sex, no lies, no narcissism....just unconditional love.

 

 

What I will never accept is that it was my choice for him to cheat. He decided to try the "easy way", the path of least resistance with one screwed up MOW. It back fired...badly.

 

 

Does any of this make me a saint...hell no. Does it give me a pass to do whatever I want....hell no.

 

 

And just so you know....he is worthy....that is why I gave him a second chance.

[underwater2010]

Completely untrue. Do you think people are just soooo happy, sniffing the daisies, loving their spouse, life is easy, and they just see a 22 year old blonde and go "Oh man, I just gotta get me some of that". Please give me a break.

 

The two are completely related. It's just that people don't want it to be because that would mean facing the true issues, not just one mistake. All the others fall by the wayside, just like I said. It is sad.

Sometimes they do and sometimes it is a simple as "I wanted someone to wake up next to me"...."she/he stroked my ego"...."she/he made me happy".

 

 

And what do you consider "one mistake"....a ONS, a LTA or a short term EA/PA?

[Arieswoman]

This is an interesting quote from Dr Shirley Glass PhD.

 

Dr. G. Sometimes there is an over-functioning spouse and an under-functioning spouse. One partner takes on a lot of responsibility--and then resents it. The more a person puts energy into something and tries to work on it, the more committed to the relationship that person is. The other partner, who is only semi-involved in the relationship, is freer to get involved in an affair, because they’re not as connected to the marriage.

This is interesting because the popular notion is that the person who has the affair wasn’t getting enough at home. The reality is that they weren’t giving enough at home.

 

It sems to sum up the situation with my exWH very well.