On assigning responsibility to an affair

[Prudence V]

22 hours ago, DKT3 said:

I always say bad marriage or spouses don't cause infidelity,  if it did there would be 100% infidelity in 100% of marriages.

Sometimes the marriage is only bad for one partner. For the “mean” partner, the marriage might be just great, meeting all their needs - even if it’s at the expense of their spouse. That partner wouldn’t feel the need to be unfaithful, since their needs are being met. Equally, they would t see the need for marriage counselling, since the marriage was just fine - to them. So why would they change anything? They wouldn’t respond well to their spouse asking for change, or counselling, or anything to be different, since it’s all great to them, and so any “issues” must be their spouse’s issues, and their spouse’s problem to deal with. 
 

For the unhappy spouse, this kind of pattern wears away at them over time. They try, and get rebuffed, their concerns and feelings minimised, their self belittled. If they have kids, they may feel a responsibility to “keep the family together”, even though it’s costing them their very soul. And let’s be honest, how many men who walk away from marriages like this don’t get portrayed as bad, selfish parents - “he walked away because his own needs weren’t being met - never mind his children’s needs!”. (Women tend to get a softer response - it’s easier to see a woman leaving a selfish man as somehow noble, but a man? He should just suck it up!) 

 

 

[Prudence V]

17 hours ago, pepperbird said:

I don't see how cheating could make them happy. How can someone lie like that over and over and not feel sickened by the person  looking back at them in the mirror every morning?

Sometimes the unhappiness that is caused by the cognitive dissonance of infidelity is wayyyy less than the unhappiness caused by the marriage - so relative to that, it’s a win. 

[Prudence V]

19 hours ago, DKT3 said:

You could put 10 women and men in the identical situation and statistically speaking only 2 women and 3 men will cheat. If it was the marriage that created it why wouldn't all 10 cheat?

Because they all have different backstories, and they attach different weight to different things. 
 

for example... My H needs PDA. Because of a bad first M, he needs the public reassurance that I still value him and want to be seen as being with him. Me, notsomuch. It’s nice, but I don’t get stressed if it’s not there. I didn’t grow up with PDA and so it’s kind of a cherry on the top for me, not a critical element of a R. But because his xW never wanted him anywhere near her in public, and always made a big deal of putting him down in front of others to make herself look good (not just him - she did it with everyone), how I relate to him in front of others really matters to him. If we went out and I didn’t take his hand walking down the street, it would hurt him. If he didn’t take my hand, I’d just assume he needed his hand free for something else, no big deal. 
 

 

[oldtruck]

19 hours ago, DKT3 said:

I think the point being missed is this is about why people cheat and not what's wrong in a marriage.  Those are actually two different things. 

You could put 10 women and men in the identical situation and statistically speaking only 2 women and 3 men will cheat. If it was the marriage that created it why wouldn't all 10 cheat?

It comes down to the individual,  I will concede that there are situations that may increase the odds that an individual will cheat, but never the reason they actually do. 

weak morals, combined with false justifications to justify getting side action from

someone else. 

[pepperbird]

32 minutes ago, Prudence V said:

Sometimes the unhappiness that is caused by the cognitive dissonance of infidelity is wayyyy less than the unhappiness caused by the marriage - so relative to that, it’s a win. 

If I had to lie over and over and over for months/ years  to get my needs met, I'd leave. My honesty, integrity and empathy would make it impossible. If you (general you, not you in particular😊) are capable of repressing your moral code/core, you're someone who can't ever be trusted. You believe the ends justify the means, and you will lie to get your needs met, and if you will lie to others, how could I ever think you wouldn't lie to me too?

To be fair, it sounds like you may have found one of those "unicorns" who was willing to do some work on himself post marriage so he could learn to be a better relationship partner.Interesting that he needed that counselling.. If it was all her fault, why should that be necessary?
 

[pepperbird]

31 minutes ago, Prudence V said:

Because they all have different backstories, and they attach different weight to different things. 
 

for example... My H needs PDA. Because of a bad first M, he needs the public reassurance that I still value him and want to be seen as being with him. Me, notsomuch. It’s nice, but I don’t get stressed if it’s not there. I didn’t grow up with PDA and so it’s kind of a cherry on the top for me, not a critical element of a R. But because his xW never wanted him anywhere near her in public, and always made a big deal of putting him down in front of others to make herself look good (not just him - she did it with everyone), how I relate to him in front of others really matters to him. If we went out and I didn’t take his hand walking down the street, it would hurt him. If he didn’t take my hand, I’d just assume he needed his hand free for something else, no big deal. 
 

 

Again, that his responsibility. It's his responsibility to tell you. He can't read your mind. If he never told you that and then started complaining that "prudence never holds my hand in public! Isn't she awful!", whose fault is that? His? Yours? His past?

Look, I get that it's upsetting to admit you love someone who has that little part of him that's not so wonderful. That little part of him that would go behind your back if he felt justified in doing so. Almost every BS  has/is stood /standing in that same place. One hopes that never rears it's head but the truth?
You can't control him. If he cheated on you, it would be because of him, not anything you did. He is an adult, has free agency and can make his own choices.

[Fletch Lives]

There are two main reasons people cheat:

1) Revenge - because their partner took them for granted, or was a poor partner in some way.

2) Lack of integrity - some people are just dirty lying cheaters.

Sometimes, it could be argued that the person wronged should have used their intuition in the beginning and not picked a poor partner....in other words, they should have seen it coming.

[Prudence V]

6 minutes ago, pepperbird said:

If I had to lie over and over and over for months/ years  to get my needs met, I'd leave.

I suppose some situations require that, but others don’t. Some marriages are so alienated that weeks go by without the spouses exchanging a single word - so no need to lie. 
 

Sure, there’s “lying by omission”, but it’s easy enough to frame that as “waiting for a good time to tell her / him”. 

[Prudence V]

9 minutes ago, pepperbird said:

Interesting that he needed that counselling.. If it was all her fault, why should that be necessary?

For the obvious reasons really. 

[pepperbird]

27 minutes ago, oldtruck said:

weak morals, combined with false justifications to justify getting side action from

someone else. 

Some liken affairs to an addiction they can't shake. Maybe that model is right?
I don't know if you ever saw it or not, but cheating puts me in mind of an old PSA I saw once that addressed drug abuse. It was sort of an extended version of the "this is your brain on drugs" frying pan/egg one, but instead of just frying the egg, the addict smashed the entire kitchen to show the impact addiction can have on an addict's family.
To me, that's a pretty good representation of what cheating really is much of the time. Self medication from pain, maybe to alleviate boredom, try it "just once" , even peer pressure or just feeling entitled to it.
The addict usually only sees themselves. They don't see the impact of their actions. If they do, they often  minimize them, excuse them or blame anyone/everyone else.

[Prudence V]

3 minutes ago, pepperbird said:

Again, that his responsibility. It's his responsibility to tell you. He can't read your mind. If he never told you that and then started complaining that "prudence never holds my hand in public! Isn't she awful!", whose fault is that? His? Yours? His past?

Um, I’m not sure what the point is here? He did tell me. I was using that as an example to illustrate how some things matter more to some people than to others - so some people would see them as not that big a deal, and wouldn’t see it as something worth stressing about, whereas others would. I very much doubt that lack of PDA would ever lead my H to be unfaithful to me or anyone else - he put up with it for decades from his xW without infidelity, for example - so it wasn’t a literal example of “lack of PDA leads to infidelity”, but more “this is minor to one person, but serious to another”, as an example of why ten people “in the same situation” aren’t *really* in the same situation, due to their differing backstories. 

[pepperbird]

1 minute ago, Prudence V said:

Um, I’m not sure what the point is here? He did tell me. I was using that as an example to illustrate how some things matter more to some people than to others - so some people would see them as not that big a deal, and wouldn’t see it as something worth stressing about, whereas others would. I very much doubt that lack of PDA would ever lead my H to be unfaithful to me or anyone else - he put up with it for decades from his xW without infidelity, for example - so it wasn’t a literal example of “lack of PDA leads to infidelity”, but more “this is minor to one person, but serious to another”, as an example of why ten people “in the same situation” aren’t *really* in the same situation, due to their differing backstories. 

we're going to have to agree to disagree. You have your views, I have mine. We are very different people, and that's okay. It  takes all kinds to make the world go around. We don't agree a lot of the time, but you do make for an interesting conversation, and with so much shut down these days, a little bit of a distraction from the monotony is  very welcome 😊

 

 

[Prudence V]

9 minutes ago, pepperbird said:

Look, I get that it's upsetting to admit you love someone who has that little part of him that's not so wonderful. That little part of him that would go behind your back if he felt justified in doing so. Almost every BS  has/is stood /standing in that same place. One hopes that never rears it's head but the truth?
You can't control him. If he cheated on you, it would be because of him, not anything you did. He is an adult, has free agency and can make his own choices.

🤣 Not sure what that’s about.... but no, it’s very unlikely he’d “go behind my back if he felt justified in doing so”, and I’m certainly not worried about that. Is it possible? Of course it is - it’s always possible someone might be unfaithful in a relationship, though TBH it’s far more likely to be me than him, since I’m the one who is less wedded to these kinds of mores. I’m certainly not losing sleep over it - if it happens one day, it happens - and will be the result of whatever choices whoever made, in whatever circumstances they made them. I’m a social scientist, I understand structure and agency and the effects of context. That’s my job. 
 

And I don’t think that translates as “a little part of him that’s not so wonderful”. He is wonderful - to me. We’re very different, but it works. His faults and limitations were always apparent from the start - we didn’t do that whole “limerence” thing, we went into this with our eyes wide open. We know each other’s weaknesses and strengths, and we treat those with honesty and respect. So I’m not quite sure what the point is here....?
 

 

[MilaVaneela]

11 hours ago, heartwhole2 said:

Frankly I think our tendency as a society to assign blame to the betrayed spouse makes this a larger leap for WS. Everyone knows that alcoholics need to be sober and need to be in AA to stay healthy. There's not similar messaging for affairs because they're portrayed as personal journeys of self-discovery or whatnot. By their fear of being caught cheaters acknowledge that affairs are wrong . . . otherwise they would just confidently announce, "Hey, since you are such a subpar spouse, obviously I am going to get my needs met elsewhere FYI, as is my right." And yet when they are caught, it's off to MC to examine why the marriage was so unfulfilling. People point out the flaws of the BS as though A led to B. It's tiresome and it keeps people stuck in mediocrity because they don't have to take responsibility. I'd almost rather we be a society like some where mistresses are par for the course and marriages are prioritized and protected, rather than this mixed messaging where affairs are idealized when they're convenient and then blamed on the victim when they're not. 
 

Many times it almost reads like a script, doesn’t it? “I cheated because my wife is crazy/a bitch/doesn’t put out/got fat/is stupid-boring-lazy-whatever” or “my husband works too much/ignores me/got fat/isn’t good in bed/can’t read my mind/is boring-stupid-lazy-whatever”.

The problems in the marriage are the responsibility of both parties to try to come to a solution, or to get out of the marriage. Cheating  is 100% the choice of the cheater.

Maybe it’s my personal experience but I find it just as repulsive to blame the betrayed for the wayward’s cheating as if someone were to suggest that a victim of domestic violence deserved it because they were “annoying/fat/stupid/crazy/whatever” (and yes, I experienced that as well, the suggestion that X used to use me as a punching bag because I “brought that side out in him”. Not cool and not fair.) Marital problems, yes, but either attempt to repair the problems or end the marriage. 

[Zona]

There is a reason they call it the cheaters handbook, because the justifications are predictable, as is the likely trajectory of the affair. Let me first say that my interest is in why women cheat. Men can be awful lying cheaters too, but I don't care to look into the reasons for that because my relationships are with women (who have cheated on me).

In any case, an extremely common scenario is this. Marriage and sex life become routine. The wife begins to build up resentment over time in regards to perceived wrongs the husband is committing in the marriage. Not being as loving as during the courtship, treating wife as a slave, not doing enough housework, playing video games, watching porn, watching too much sports... the list goes on.

This resentment is the seed that grows into justification for accepting romantic attention from other men. That of course is especially easy for women if they are even modestly attractive, since there are always interested men around who won't care that they are married (since they are likely married themselves). All if takes is flirtation from a coworker, or an ex reaching out and it starts. As the women gets deeper into the affair, she gets distant from her husband and (usually) cuts off intimacy. Once she develops feelings for someone outside of the marriage, sex is inevitable. Once the affair is consumated, the woman will be trapped in a spiral of guilt, fear (of being exposed to family and children, loss of financial stability, loss of good reputation), as well as having feelings of excitement, pleasure, and feeling validated and desirable. The affair will become an irresistible addiction.

Reading in the OM/OW forum, you will see this repeated over and over. Most cheating wives will move on and divorce their husbands which brings some relief from the guilt, but almost always the affair ends in an unhappy way after getting stuck in a hellish limbo for years. In some cases the cheating wife gets caught and becomes remorseful, and reconciliation is at least possible, but getting feelings back for the husband after being in love with another man is unlikely.

Other reasons are personality disorders like borderline personality disorder, bi-polar, narcissism, etc.

There is a reason why women cheat more than men amongst millennials. It's OPPORTUNITY. It's easy to get close to coworkers, because you likely spend more time with them, than with your spouse. Also, Facebook, whats ap, email, gaming apps make it extremely easy to hide. Couple that with people being less religious and adultery losing it's stigma in the media (have you ever watched Grey's Anatomy??) and there you have it.

Edited May 7, 2020 by Zona

[elaine567]

58 minutes ago, Zona said:

. The wife begins to build up resentment over time in regards to perceived wrongs the husband is committing in the marriage. Not being as loving as during the courtship, treating wife as a slave, not doing enough housework, playing video games, watching porn, watching too much sports... the list goes on.

But are these perceived wrongs or are they just wrongs?

 

[mark clemson]

3 hours ago, Fletch Lives said:

There are two main reasons people cheat:

1) Revenge - because their partner took them for granted, or was a poor partner in some way.

2) Lack of integrity - some people are just dirty lying cheaters.

Sometimes, it could be argued that the person wronged should have used their intuition in the beginning and not picked a poor partner....in other words, they should have seen it coming.

I think this is vastly oversimplified and ignores the points that many others are making, including some BS's (I assume he's a BS) like @Zona above about the context of a marriage.

I also think the "dirty lying" language is unnecessary and insulting to a significant percent of folks who may be reading this and have cheated at some point. I think MANY folks cheat on BF's/GFs, particularly early in life like in their teen years, early 20's. Also, if you broaden this to other activities, I suspect most of humanity "lacks integrity" in one way or another, certainly at some specific point in their life.

Perhaps I could start peppering my posts with language like "psycho-b*tch, deranged, limp, sexless, BS" or similar. I'm sure I could think of all sorts of fun adjectives which would skirt the limits of what's acceptable on LS. Wouldn't that be nice of me?

[Blind-Sided]

23 hours ago, DKT3 said:

I think the point being missed is this is about why people cheat and not what's wrong in a marriage.  Those are actually two different things. 

You could put 10 women and men in the identical situation and statistically speaking only 2 women and 3 men will cheat. If it was the marriage that created it why wouldn't all 10 cheat?

It comes down to the individual,  I will concede that there are situations that may increase the odds that an individual will cheat, but never the reason they actually do. 

I agree.  Even when my marriage was falling apart, and the exW was yelling, screaming, and had no intention of wanting to work on things... I never once thought to myself that I needed to go find a new girl to take care of my emotional needs.  Heck, even months after it was 100% official, I had a hard time bringing myself to have physical contact with another woman... and the first time I was able to be intimate with someone... I was so worried, I started to have performance issues. (Thankfully, I was able to overcome that)   So @elaine567 because of that, the starving person analogy is wrong. (need food to live. companionship is extra)  It's apples to oranges.  A better analogy would be that I have a phone, but it's a little warn out, so I'm going to steal a newer one.    It's just wrong any way you look at it.

Since my divorce, I have had the fortune (as it were) to get the real story from 3 female friends, on why they cheated.   While the exact details are different, it basically comes down to 1) Not feeling special anymore in the marriage. 2) Feeling the marriage is one sided. and 3) Opportunity.

#1 is self explanatory.  After the honeymoon years are done, and it's just life... they aren't being treated special.  #2 is that all 3 of them... to some degree... feel that they are the only one putting the effort in.  BUT IN FACT... me being on the outside... I can say that this is the person they married, and nothing has changed.  It just becomes one of the excuses used to justify the A. #3... well... the OM was in the right place, at the right time... and said the right thing.  Sure, there may have been some time involved... but it doesn't matter.   

Now for the bomb... 2 of the 3 girls... if they actualy got a divorce... they would find themselves single.  The guys they are with have no intention of sticking around.  The A is the fun part to them.  The third... well... she working on her D, and her OM is single.  I'm not 100% sure if that will last.  But I could say that if it was me in that situation... I don't think I could trust her since she now has a track record of cheating.

Oh... as a final thought... when the one girl kind of broke up with her AP... I was there to help her... but I told her point blank... "I refuse to me the OM" because I think it's wrong on all levels. Just get the D and move on.

[Zona]

1 hour ago, elaine567 said:

But are these perceived wrongs or are they just wrongs?

 

I think a mix. Some legitimate wrongs, and some exaggerated ones. When my WW was deep in her affair, she treated me like garbage and complained about everything I did including dumb stuff like just sneezing. Her affair ended when the AP lost his job because of a failed drug screen and had to move across the country to find work. After she came out of the fog she was as sweet as pie and all of a sudden those small things weren't bugging her anymore. I was clueless at the time about her affair and remained that way for many years. Her behavior at the time was very mystifying. She gave me the ILYBINILWY speech, she told me that she though she actually never loved me, and that our marriage was never legitimate. I was incredibly confused to say the least as to where all this was coming from. I just put it down to hormones or whatever, and rug swept it (yeah I know I am an idiot).

Obviously the wayward wife may only rewrite the marriage history after they find someone new and want to "branch swing" and blame the husband for it.

Edited May 7, 2020 by Zona

[elaine567]

21 minutes ago, Blind-Sided said:

Even when my marriage was falling apart, and the exW was yelling, screaming, and had no intention of wanting to work on things... I never once thought to myself that I needed to go find a new girl to take care of my emotional needs.

That is because you were still attached and emotionally invested.
As far as you were concerned your marriage wasn't over.
She blind sided you. 
You were quite happy in your marriage, you had not spent years building resentment like she had.
If anyone was going to cheat it was going to be your wife.

Edited May 7, 2020 by elaine567

[mark clemson]

13 minutes ago, Blind-Sided said:

So @elaine567 because of that, the starving person analogy is wrong. (need food to live. companionship is extra)  It's apples to oranges.  A better analogy would be that I have a phone, but it's a little warn out, so I'm going to steal a newer one.    It's just wrong any way you look at it.

I think you make some good points. Very respectfully, I would point out the "replacing vs stealing a phone" analogy has some flaws too. Replacing a phone is easy. As you well know, ending a marriage is not nearly so simply, nor painless, for all involved. Also an old phone is mostly an inconvenience. A difficult spouse, depending on the situation, can be actively problematic and cause issues - again, something you are familiar with.

I'm not saying these women aren't taking fooling risks with the structure of their lives, which they apparently like enough to keep intact. They certainly are. But if spouses were as easy to end things with as phones, we'd live in a completely different world.

[Zona]

26 minutes ago, Blind-Sided said:

Since my divorce, I have had the fortune (as it were) to get the real story from 3 female friends, on why they cheated.   While the exact details are different, it basically comes down to 1) Not feeling special anymore in the marriage. 2) Feeling the marriage is one sided. and 3) Opportunity.

You summed up my long winded post in just one short paragraph. The resentment is real, but gets greatly exaggerated as a way to justify the affair. 

[Timshel]

5 hours ago, Prudence V said:

For the unhappy spouse, this kind of pattern wears away at them over time. They try, and get rebuffed, their concerns and feelings minimised, their self belittled. If they have kids, they may feel a responsibility to “keep the family together”, even though it’s costing them their very soul. And let’s be honest, how many men who walk away from marriages like this don’t get portrayed as bad, selfish parents - “he walked away because his own needs weren’t being met - never mind his children’s needs!”. (Women tend to get a softer response - it’s easier to see a woman leaving a selfish man as somehow noble, but a man? He should just suck it up!) 

 

 

I have to differ on this assertion and projection Prudence.  In my observations, the woman most always takes the brunt of a failed marriage.  Unless there is physical abuse or addiction, women who initiate leaving a marriage (particularly when children are involved) are more likely to be socially criticized then men in a typical separation/divorce. 

'I left him because he is selfish,' is not generally viewed as sympathetic for the exit of Madonna.

[heartwhole2]

In my experience, the fact that it's socially acceptable to blame the betrayed spouse for the affair, or at least a very common logical trap, presents unique issues for working through it. It's another layer of harm done to the BS.

My husband was really trying to convince himself that it was OK for him to have an affair because of my failings, but his cognitive dissonance was pretty apparent. As I've shared, on DDay he spurted out his grievances to explain his affair, and to my mind they are pretty laughable. 1) I didn't ask about his day enough. 2) I didn't spend the weekends walking about town with him any more (thanks to issues with orthostatic tolerance and fatigue I developed carrying our children). And these were from a person trying to paint me as flawed. What kind of mistreatment would I have "earned" if I'd actually been mean or uncaring?

But let's say my flaws were more grievous. Let's say I was passive aggressive or withheld intimacy or belittled him. Is there a threshold past which it's OK for others to mislead us, take from us, and risk our health? No. We all understand that people have many reasons why they make unhealthy choices. We all understand that everyone makes unhealthy choices from time to time. But none of these sanctify the unhealthy choice to cheat, and they certainly don't make it someone else's fault. 

Whatever you are not changing you are actively choosing, and that goes for unhappy marriages as much as anything else. You chose someone forever on your wedding day, and unless you discussed having no expectation of monogamy, then you continue to owe your spouse what you promised them. You don't get to decide that they deserve to be swindled because you feel dissatisfied yet unwilling to deal with that dissatisfaction in a healthy way. Again, I understand why an imperfect human being, as we all are, has difficulty making healthy choices and digging out of an unhealthy situation, but to say, "I made an entirely separate unhealthy choice due to the flaws of the imperfect human I chose to marry" is just pretzel logic designed to allow a fragile ego to maintain a positive self-image while causing harm to others in the pursuit of selfish jollies. 

I can understand that my husband was deeply invested in maintaining a positive image of himself. I can understand that he enjoyed the cascade of hormones he experienced in the affair and kept returning for more "hits." I can understand all of that intellectually, and thankfully as a person with a healthy sense of self, I did not internalize the message he tried to sell me on. But he so desperately wanted his actions to be OK, or kind of understandable, or sort of my fault. I could offer him a degree of understanding, some grace, some understanding, but I would not accept the blame for his inexcusable and terrible choices. I remember him saying, about two months after DDay, "Are you actually saying none of the affair is your fault?" with his eyes all wide and indignant. And I said, "That's exactly what I'm saying." Fast forward five years and he would never ever for one second presume to suggest that it was anything except one million percent his own fault. We ran off to MC far too early, as many do, but thankfully our incisive and no nonsense MC kept bursting his bubbles. He had spent months resenting me and he wouldn't listen to me, but this third party was not impressed with his "logic" and he was forced to let go of it and build up the resources to cope with hard feelings. 

For my part, I learned to be more assertive and to accept less crap from the affair. There were things I let slide and things I sacrificed that I realized didn't serve me or anyone. Because I could sense his resentment that my health problems limited what we could do, I spent all of my limited energy on the family and none on myself. Well, no more. I hope the irony is apparent to everyone, that this man who was "on a short leash" (a.k.a. a family man with a job and small children) and "unappreciated" gladly took on more responsibility after the affair. Life is a matter of our perspective. It's on us to live in gratitude. You can look at your sick spouse who's struggling and resent them for how your life isn't how you want it to be, or you can accept the lumps with grace and cherish what you do have and can do together. 

[heartwhole2]

1 hour ago, elaine567 said:

That is because you were still attached and emotionally invested.
As far as you were concerned your marriage wasn't over.
She blind sided you. 
You were quite happy in your marriage, you had not spent years building resentment like she had.
If anyone was going to cheat it was going to be your wife.

How could you possibly know this about a stranger?

I have a high school sweetheart who has sent smoke signals over the years (I always tell my husband). On DDay he had just ended a long term relationship. I distinctly remember thinking, "You know what would feel good? To hear ex-boyfriend say he wants me." I considered that for all of two seconds, and I determined that as a married woman with kids, I couldn't offer him anything healthy or worthwhile, even if he would accept whatever I offered. I wasn't really concerned about my husband in that moment, but the idea of a revenge affair, even with an unattached person, was repugnant to me because I care about other humans for their own sake and not as toys for my amusement. When you're a healthy person, you generally aren't looking to introduce unhealthy things into the mix.