SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I don’t know how this will be received, but I want to talk about it anyway.

When I was much younger (17-19 years old) I had a lot of relationships with older, married men. I didn’t feel bad about it at the time; I rationalized that it wasn’t me who was obligated to remain faithful to anyone else. I thought that if someone’s husband was looking outside, there were obviously problems inside the marriage, and they weren’t my problems. That if I didn’t have relations with them, surely someone else would, so why refrain?

It wasn’t until much later that I changed my mind about it during a debate on social media. Obviously it’s very wrong to be complicit in someone’s efforts to betray their spouse in such a horrific way, and that we owe it to fellow human beings to do our individual parts in preventing infidelity, through saying "no." Sure, unrealistic to expect every potential AP will also say "no," but to be the one who does enable the infidelity is a moral failing.

One of the men for whom I was the OW has been emailing me periodically for the last 10 years, which I found out when I recovered that old email address. I hadn’t responded to him, as I’m married now myself, but back in April I did respond with "It’s been 9 years," as in like… "Why are you still trying?" But he didn’t seem to take it like that, as yesterday he replied "It’s been 10 years actually! Life goes by so quickly… how are you doing?"

I considered not responding, but in light of my current situation with my own recent infidelity, I decided to anyway. I told him, "I am married with children now. Please stop contacting me.
What we did to your wife and child was not okay. It’s one of the most horrible things you could do to a person and I deeply regret being complicit in that." (And then I went and shared the interaction with BH for transparency purposes, of course.)

I don’t know whether he’s still married to his BW today, though it’s really hard to imagine her staying married to him after finding out he was having sex with a high schooler downstairs on the couch while she and their disabled child were asleep right above us, or that he’d given her a (thankfully curable) STD after we’d had a threesome with another young woman. I don’t think I care whether he is still married or not; if he’s still reaching out, it’s hard to imagine he has any remorse for what he’s done. I thought someone ought to tell him he should.

But at the same time that I feel so angry for that poor woman we hurt, my shame about my own character has compounded. I have barely been functional today for all the sadness and anxiety and disgust with myself that I’ve felt. My BH has been so wonderfully supportive (Thank you. I know you’re reading this), but it makes me feel worse at the same time because I know he is hurting, probably a lot worse than I am, and that I’m supposed to be the supportive one for him. It just feels like I can’t stop being selfish and making it about me, and I hate it so much. (I’m so sorry, my love)

I need to figure out how to get it together somehow. This can’t go on.

I think you should feel deep regret for what you did. I know I would. For what it's worth, with deep shame, I can also say I was the "other man" once when I was 16. As an immature teenager who'd never had much attention from girls (catholic school, all boys), I became involved with an friend of a friend (of a friends) girlfriend. Everything blew up, and I didn't speak to her for many years. Then, wouldn't you believe it, we finally got together properly later. We had an 8-year relationship, bought property together, and then, wouldn't you know what happened? She ran off with my best friend.

You could say I got my karma. I could have relied on excuses like my age or naivety, but I don't. I acted like a piece of shit and got my just desserts. I've learned from this and would never do anything like that ever again. I personally believe consequences and karma helped my development. What consequences and karma have you experienced? I do think it is morally distinct from cheating, at least to my view, as cheating is betraying someone you love (have loved). Being the other person is about having empathy for people you don't really care about. It's a much more abstract emotional intelligence to develop. To my mind, cheating seems a far worse act that being the other person for those reasons. Though you could argue that this opinion is both controversial and biased. To expand on that, it's for the same reason I would judge someone far more harshly who stole from their friends or family than that of a stranger. It's clear to me though that both acts are highly immoral.

It's natural if you have a sense of morality or are working on developing one. The scenario you've described is one of the most heartbreaking and immoral acts one can participate in while still being legal. Every detail was like a blow to my view of humanity as I read it. The disabled child, the STD, the threesome, the age gap. Quite frankly its enough to drive the betrayed spouse to suicide. I hope very much that she's still alive and well. I can hand on heart tell you I'm not aware of anyone in my life who has done anything half as bad as what you've described. Though you read many as bad or worse here. So of course you have regret. I too have regrets.

I would steer you away from considering the married person in this scenario, though. You can only control your own actions. Don't worry about their remorse or lack thereof. Perhaps he's a sociopath and incapable of feeling remorse; that's not really your concern. In my case, I suspect the other party was a run-of-the-mill "monkey brancher"—when things got tough or boring, they moved on to the next person, not risking being single by keeping their partner around before making the leap.

The following is a psycho-analysis made from some basic observations. I'm in no way speaking with authority on the matter. Please disregard should you be uninterested in my inadequately informed opinions.

My advice to you would be to examine your relationship with your father (or perhaps the lack thereof) in therapy. I've got to say, you are exhibiting what sounds like a run-of-the-mill father complex. From the age-gap relationship you are currently in, to degrading yourself in threesomes with older married men, it seems very clear to me. You are so desperate to fill that father-shaped hole in your life that you are using unhealthy habits to bridge that gap. I'm always reluctant to suggest that "waywards" focus on self-esteem because it seems like such a cop-out. However, in your case, you need to be aware that you are worth far more than a figure who'll spread their legs. You are trying to replicate father-figure relationships and you feel the only tool you have to engage them is to sexually entice them.

Putting aside the father complex, the self-esteem issue also crops up in your post: Struggling to fix the "whys"

You yearned for adult companionship and because you think so little of yourself, you used sex as means to accrue it. I suppose this would all be subconscious. I'm aware you won't be actively thinking: 'why would he want to be friends with me? best offer him an orifice to keep him around' but I'm argue this subconscious self perception could have been a contributing factor to your affair. Once the sex begins, all the typical affair chemicals kick in and perpetuate the thing

With regards to fix this, no short cuts I'm afraid. Personally I don't think you are a safe partner yet but you can work on being one. Review this in therapy. Furthermore, I concur that female friends should be your target in the near future until this issue is resolved. Just for safety. Based off people with similar personality profiles as you, Is it fair to assume you don't have many female friends?

This is just food for thought.

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 10:29 AM, Thursday, September 11th]

Thank you, DRSOOLERS, for your detailed reply.

What consequences and karma have you experienced?

There's certainly been bad things that have happened to me, but I have a hard time seeing them as anything but part of God's plan to get me where I'm meant to be, and like you said, trials that develop my character. As examples: when I got SA'ed as a young and promiscuous person using sex to get what I wanted from men, it seemed like a sign to me that I needed to stop being greedy and start being more careful, as it certainly could have been much worse. It was like being pulled over for the first time and being let off with a warning... When I struggled with infertility for two years in my early 20s, it felt like punishment at the time, and I wondered why I didn't "deserve" motherhood. But on reflection it seems like I was probably not mature enough to be having a baby before 23/24, that I ought to have been enjoying those precious years of being child-free, and that being pregnant during covid shutdowns was probably for the best, as I don't know if I could have handled "normal" life during my pregnancy. I was among the first to get vaccinated, too, and my baby received that protection as well. It has felt to me that things usually work out in my favor...those are certainly thoughts that are helpful to remember right now.

As for consequences... There's obviously the devastation to my BH and to our relationship. There's the anxiety that one day he might leave me. It's hard, and I understand it's going to take a lot of work and time to attempt to repair the damage I've done. But there's no place I'd rather be than here with BH doing that work, since I can't go back in time and change things. (Of course, I need to get myself the f together here, and be a functional adult, for his sake.)

I hope very much that she's still alive and well.

I do too. I have the urge to find her and to check on her (and to apologize, but she probably would not like to hear from me at all), but I don't know if I could handle it if she wasn't alive and well. Probably not the best idea right now. I'll keep her in my prayers.

(This next bit is probably TMI, but I'm going to write it all out anyway. Will probably share with my new IC at some point.)

I do have some wounds from the father figures in my life. My biological father was married and on his second child with his second baby mama when he met and impregnated my mother. (Now he has 9 kids with like 10 different women, and 3 grandkids who are close in age to his youngest children.) He got her into drugs after I was born, and he was struggling with anger management, and so she took me and left him. We did not have contact until I turned 19, the age when my mother conceived me, and I started asking questions. Presently we only really have hollow interactions through text messages on holidays, though I've been in more regular contact with my paternal grandmother, who's a good person to have in my life...

My mum met my stepdad when I was 4 or 5, and while he brought structure and stability to our lives, he was emotionally abusive to me. I was an exceptionally accomplished child: I got straight As and participated in programs for the academically "gifted," I excelled in sports and eventually secured a nearly full ride to college, I won awards for my artwork and writing, I held a job and saved up a remarkable amount of money, I helped my family around the home... But he made me feel like it was never enough, that I needed to do more, and better. I think he meant well and was trying to push me into further success, but he didn't go about it correctly. That, in combination with the emotional abuse, really fucked over my self esteem...Combine that with puberty, high testosterone from PCOS, and Bipolar II (though I think a more correct diagnosis is probably AuDHD. Less well known at the time), and hyper-sexuality was a (probably inevitable) result. Cue young DBD96 discovering sex, seeking validation from sex, and figuring out she needn't slave away while she was exhausted after school for $7.25 an hour when older men would shower her with luxuries just for having sex she already wanted to have...

(Side note: I didn't feel that the threesome was degrading; it was something I was also very interested in experiencing as a bisexual person. It was just really unfortunate that the other woman involved happened to be "hired" and gave us the STD... Another warning from God to exercise more caution.)

I settled down with BH when I was 19, but it took a long time to feel good about myself for reasons other than having sexual value. At the time of the A, I wasn't looking for validation from other men. I was feeling a lack of reciprocated sexual excitement from BH, and obviously it doesn't feel good to not feel equally desired by your spouse, regardless of how desirable you might think you are when you look in the mirror... And we weren't having much in the way of conversation at home. When I met exAP, I wasn't looking for any extramarital relationships, though I was desperately craving social interaction, as I don't have any friends, neither male nor female.

Along comes this person who seems to like me just the way I am, without me having to mask or change myself at all, and who seeks me out to talk for hours and hours at a time, whom I'm connecting with on what feels like a deep level, in ways that I'm not connecting with BH at home, outside of real life's dreary responsibilities... and naturally, I developed feelings for him. I failed to cut it off at the point when I realized this, of course... For me, at this point, sex is just something you do with people you like very much. It's about experiencing mutual pleasure with them, and, I suppose, a form of connection. It wasn't that I felt he wouldn't stick around unless things were sexual (and there were parts of me that really wished he wouldn't stick around, so that the affair would end on its own.) I felt that he liked me for me, no matter how weird I got. Though it certainly didn't help that this was a man who, I presume, wasn't having as much sex as he could ever want, and was exhibiting the kind of excitement about sexual interaction with me that I was trying to elicit from BH.

All that is just to say: I don't think I desire sexual validation from other men, at this point in my life; but I do still desire it from my husband, regardless of the way I feel about myself. (And I think that's probably normal to want?) ExAP was simply a substitute for BH's validation, and a poor one at that. I know now that if I have any needs like that going unmet in my marriage, that I need to communicate them explicitly and persistently to BH, and give him ample time to provide them... (After we recover from this betrayal, of course. It's not meant to be about me right now.) And I need, somehow, to make safe friends eventually, so I have people with whom to talk. (Hoping that exposure to normal platonic relationships will eventually take away that connection between conversation and intimacy that's all tangled up in my head.)

[This message edited by DayByDay96 at 2:49 PM, Thursday, September 11th]

I personally think the useful thing here is to see guilt and regret as positive emotions that guid us to align with who we want to be.

However, shame is not an emotion, it’s a core belief that we are bad.

I was sexually abused, emotionally and mentally abused and neglected. I can now trace all the ways shame shaped me that I had to work through and let go of. I would definitely reccomend therapy for that because it’s helpful to get guided through that. The book I just recommended to you in your last post "rising strong" by brene brown there is a lot of discussion about how Shem keeps us from having the types of healthy connections we naturally crave as humans.

I also think that for me, my affair had some themes around reverting back towards. Time I felt more validated as a younger woman but that validation (I was also promiscuous, not with married men- but using my sexuality to get attention) was unhealthy and that’s why finding healthier forms can be therapeutic.

I still work on tracing that sometimes. Recently I was put back in contact with one of my abusers. He was a relative that had moved off but returned for a funeral. I realized I had been excusing the situation all this time saying it didn’t matter nd it was okay. It was because I knew he had been sexually abused by his stepfather and it’s known that abused kids abuse other kids. But finally saying to myself you know what that effected me in these ways and it was not okay. And really understanding that the little girl who experienced that is still inside me and really needs to see that I as an adult would have and will protect her. It was a turning point for me on some of it. I have issues engaging my anger on my behalf and that has been why boundaries were always hard to enforce.

I don’t know if my example helps you. But the healthy thing to do here is really trace how you came to be where you were doing those things, how you would protect that younger version of yourself. Journaling, therapy, etc helped me regain my worth and self forgiveness.

When we know better we do better. You want to do better and that will lead the charge for you.

No Stop Sign

Dear Sister,

It is nice to see your self reflection. There is much there in your post that I would love to discuss, but one point is needful right now.

You mention in this discussion something to the effect of "God" orchestrating certain things to bring you along towards a new direction....

Please, please hear me....KEEP THINKING ALONG THOSE LINES!!!! 🙏

However, in another post of yours you mention to topic of swinging as a potential option for some excitement for you and your husband. May I ask you in love....do you truly think God is leading you to partake in such a thing? Do you think He will bless that? Does that represent something to hold marriage as sacred? I could go on and on with the questions....

Now let me be blunt. With affection in my heart, I am telling you going anywhere near that path of swinging will be devasting and lead to ruin.

God is leading you to HEAL your sexuality, making it more sacred, more meaningful. Any other push towards a different direction is from an enemy of your marriage and your soul. 🙏❤️

WoodThrush2,

However, in another post of yours you mention to topic of swinging as a potential option for some excitement for you and your husband. May I ask you in love....do you truly think God is leading you to partake in such a thing? Do you think He will bless that? Does that represent something to hold marriage as sacred? I could go on and on with the questions....

So, my response to this will not be biblically based. I have not ever felt that God looks down upon ENM, provided it is done carefully and correctly. I think He wants us to love our spouses and to be good and faithful to them always, but there are some people who can engage in ENM without any harm coming to their spouse, and without committing infidelity..

With regards to my specific situation... I also do not think we are in a stable enough place for ENM. I am taking a backseat with regards to this and letting BH decide whether he wants to meet with other couples, and whether it would just be for friendship or for more. But I am intending to bring it up to our MC to get her professional opinion on the matter in a couple of weeks. If it is truly something he wants to do, I'll participate, but I intend to keep a careful eye on his response to anything we might do, and to put a stop to anything that seems remotely triggering to him (whether he admits it or not. Sometimes he has tried to play it cool when something's bothered him in the past, to his detriment, and I can't let him do that again.) I think there is opportunity there to demonstrate faithful, trustworthy behavior.

I appreciate your input though.

I am sorry...so sad.

[This message edited by WoodThrush2 at 4:13 AM, Friday, September 12th]

Please do not be sad. ENM isn’t for everyone (it may not even be for us) and that’s okay. The good news is that you’re free to have whatever kind of relationship you and your partner want to have of your own.

I hope if we do decide to meet with other couples that it’s an empowering experiencing for my BH. If he is uncomfortable with anything, then we’ll stop or we’ll put down a boundary, and that will be that. I feel very confident that we can do that. I want him to know he’s in charge when it comes to that sort of thing, and that his feelings on the matter are of the utmost importance to me.

I also think you should reconsider ENM, but not for reasons of religion or morality. ENM works when all parties are enthusiastic about the benefits to them as individuals. It's a dumpster fire when one or more of the people involved are acquiescing to satisfy the needs of the other participants.

When I imagine the ways this could play out, none of them are conducive to healing. You've established that you're lonely, seeking connection, and have a difficult time separating affection from sexual and romantic feelings. What happens if you fall in love with one of your swinging partners? What's that going to do to help your BH's feelings of endangerment and inadequacy? Or let's say you put your emotions in a lockbox and use your body as bait to ensure your BH's sexual access to the other woman in the couple. How is that going to help heal you? As a WS, you have your own work to do with ensuring that your emotional needs are met, rather than people pleasing until the well runs dry and resentment sparks entitlement. None of that will be helped by going along for the ride on sexual interactions without full agency to self-advocate.

I'm a mad hatter who gave my BH a hall pass after my A. It's true that he found some validation from getting another woman to welcome him into her bed. It was, however, very damaging for us. I felt like I had evened up the score and was less willing to do my own work. He felt guilty about using and discarding another person just to prove something to himself and to me. True, this wasn't an experience we entered into together, but I don't believe that you can have a level playing field in swinging, either. You can't display (or even feel) your emotions or sexual pleasure authentically if you're fearful every second about the triggers.

I also understand that you're vulnerable to accusations of hypocrisy if you refuse ENM when you agreed to cheating. I'm not claiming it's fair. It's isn't. Nothing about infidelity or reconciliation is fair. These are debts that can't be repaid. You can do a lot of damage if you don't accept that reality upfront. Two wrongs don't make a right, and there's significant potential to traumatize each other further by inviting other people into the mix.

Let me explain a bit WHY it is sad to me. I have come to learn, that each human is so special and precious, and marriage is a venue...when protected and exclusive...one can safely explore and foster the depths of that spouse. In other words, there is SO MUCH more to know and experience of that one person...deep things, things they do not even yet know about themselves. Broadcasting cheap dopamine hits keeps one in a very shallow and empty state of living. And that is not even considering that eventually, most people who do this split up, or have lasting wounds.

These are just logical reasons. Spiritually, it severely mars God's original design of the marriage to be One on One forever, depicting Gods wonderful love for His Bride (Believers).

Anyway, yes of course, people are free to do whatever they wish. People are also free to cheat. Does that mean others who have wisdom concerning these harmful choices should not try to pursuade people considering them...? I think not. But I have tried. May God give give you understanding.🙏