BetrayedH Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 No, of course it wasn't his fault. Whatever our problems, the decision to cheat was mine. I take full responsibility for it. I guess what I meant was that if I had really been happy, I wouldn't have done it. That's on me though. It's sort of a nebulous area between saying our marriage wasn't great and I wasn't happy...but no. It's definitely not my husband's fault. It was all about me and these unresolved questions I had. (And no, that doesn't make it okay.) I appreciate the gentle approach. And I have a lot of appreciation for your willingness to have open dialogue. Honestly, I just see it as an intellectual discussion and I'll hope for the best. I really don't have a dog in this hunt so it's rarely my intent to be anything but polite. If you don't mind continuing our previous train of thought... Let's forget blame for the decision and just talk about your happiness prior to the affair. What I have personally noticed is that some key characteristics of waywards are severe conflict-avoidance, an excessive need for external validation, or an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. Sometimes there's a combination. Is it possible that the latter two pertain to you? If so, is it possible that you weren't necessarily unhappy but really just wanted 'more' than what you needed or were entitled to? It's just that I commonly hear this argument that 'obviously one person wasn't happy in the marriage if there was an affair' and I'm really not sure it holds true. It's anecdotal but in my situation, our lack of marital problems is what prompted me to think that my wife's sudden interest in separating must have been caused by something else. I was right. She wasn't unhappy with me or our marriage but the fact that she was engaged in a selfish affair led her to use it as a rationalization. As mentioned previously, some folks endure far worse marriages and don't cheat. So it seems it's a very personal and internal decision, rather than one born out of the marriage. To say that you must have been unhappy in order to have cheated is leaving out your personal decision-making process. Your personal 'why' is a critical part of your recovery so I hope you explore it more than, "Well, I must've been unhappy." Link to post Share on other sites
violet1 Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 This happens more often than you might think. Waverly, do you think it's going to go away for YOU? I mean, some people are great at compartmentalizing but that doesn't really matter since it is you we're talking about here, you know? It's funny, I actually said the exMOM's name in my sleep. My H woke me up immediately and said, "who the F is xxxxx". I was able to lie my way out of that one, but he became suspicious and eventually caught me. Reminds me of the lyrics of a song, "I hear the secrets that you keep when you are talking in your sleep." lol Sorry for the thread jack OP. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
Author Waverly Posted March 7, 2014 Author Share Posted March 7, 2014 Let's forget blame for the decision and just talk about your happiness prior to the affair. What I have personally noticed is that some key characteristics of waywards are severe conflict-avoidance, an excessive need for external validation, or an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. Sometimes there's a combination. Is it possible that the latter two pertain to you? If so, is it possible that you weren't necessarily unhappy but really just wanted 'more' than what you needed or were entitled to? Sure. I mean, it's certainly not flattering, but I'll admit that some, if not all, of those apply to me to some extent or another. In a nutshell, I had feelings for this person for a long time. It all came to light, but (and I realize now how ridiculous this sounds), it was intended to be purely "informational". Like, hey, here are some things that we should each probably tell the other, rather than just continue to pretend that we're just regular old platonic friends. Hand on my heart, I never thought it would go further than that. But, and I hate to admit it, the more we talked, and the more wrapped up I got in this fantasy world with him, the more we both chose to cross those lines. I hate to say it, but yes, I felt entitled in a way; almost as though there was this alternate path that I never got to walk down (and we all have them, which is why I'm so embarrassed to say this), and I felt I owed it to myself to find out if that was a better path for myself. Again, not to blame my husband at all for any of this, but my defenses were low at the time because we were having some problems. Overall, our marriage was fine - like I said, we had issues, but who doesn't? - but there was a particularly bad few months with some deeper issues. There was a lot of resentment (on my part) and a lot of bad feelings (again, on my part) and yeah, I felt like he wasn't appreciating me, but hey -- all of a sudden here was someone who did. That is 100% unfair, so no need to point out how amazingly wrong I was; of course, my "life" with the xAP consisted of talking about what we would be doing on any given day -- and at no point did our descriptions of what we'd be doing at night consist of taking out the garbage or arguing about childcare. So, I felt validated by that, it enabled me to start to ignore my husband and our conflicts, and it let me feel good, because here was somebody telling me all the right things to make me feel good about myself at a time when I really wasn't getting that from my marriage. And no, I never really directly asked my husband for that, before somebody asks. It's just that I commonly hear this argument that 'obviously one person wasn't happy in the marriage if there was an affair' and I'm really not sure it holds true. It's anecdotal but in my situation, our lack of marital problems is what prompted me to think that my wife's sudden interest in separating must have been caused by something else. I was right. She wasn't unhappy with me or our marriage but the fact that she was engaged in a selfish affair led her to use it as a rationalization. As mentioned previously, some folks endure far worse marriages and don't cheat. So it seems it's a very personal and internal decision, rather than one born out of the marriage. To say that you must have been unhappy in order to have cheated is leaving out your personal decision-making process. Your personal 'why' is a critical part of your recovery so I hope you explore it more than, "Well, I must've been unhappy." I think I understand what you're saying. And you're right, it's all ultimately a personal decision as to whether one will cheat or not, not necessarily a reflection on the spouse or the marriage. My husband was fine; he didn't do anything wrong, or at least not more seriously wrong than any spouse does in the course of routine arguments and quibbles. And it's not to say that everyone in an unhappy marriage cheats; clearly that's not the case, which supports your point that it all really comes down to an individual choice on the part of the cheater. That's totally true. And who knows, if my xAP had come along and told me all of this at a happier time in my marriage, maybe I still would have cheated with him. I genuinely don't know. I do know that I always, on some level, knew about his feelings (and mine) for many years, and never did anything about them because I was with my boyfriend/fiancee/husband and made a very conscious decision to stay with him versus trying things with the xAP. I do think that we never would have had the conversation about what could have been and the subsequent affair if I still felt that strongly about my husband though. Does that make sense? It's all a bit twisted in my own head, so feel free to say no... 2 Link to post Share on other sites
Author Waverly Posted March 7, 2014 Author Share Posted March 7, 2014 It's funny, I actually said the exMOM's name in my sleep. My H woke me up immediately and said, "who the F is xxxxx". I was able to lie my way out of that one, but he became suspicious and eventually caught me. Reminds me of the lyrics of a song, "I hear the secrets that you keep when you are talking in your sleep." lol Sorry for the thread jack OP. No, no, I appreciate the levity (not in your story, but the song lyrics made me laugh. I'll add talking in my sleep to my list of worries... 1 Link to post Share on other sites
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