SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I could magic myself back in time to before you met OW and ask if you would ever commit infidelity, past you would probably be extremely certain that you wouldn't.

I would agree. But, back then, I'd have told you that I'm not a cad & that's how I know I won't ever commit infidelity. If you had interviewed me when I first met my OW, I'd have said the same thing. I'd have added: And she lives an ocean away from me, so there's no risk at all!

Today, I am also saying: I would never commit another infidelity with my OW. But that's where the similarities end. The reasoning is totally different today. There will be boundaries... safeguards... transparency (i.e. monitoring). In addition, I am conceding that I am every bit as much as a philandering scoundrel as anyone else on planet earth--so I actively need to police my behavior. Importantly, there are two goals of that policing: (1) Protect the M (the obvious goal); (2) Protect the friendship (because a meaningful violation here would--I grant--cancel the relationship for life). So... even if one thinks I am lying about my dedication to my M (and why would I be when I am enduring the agony of NC for months ad nauseum), WTF would I let myself slip up when an error would kill the friendship? Now... there is a potential exception for some WSs: to get one more roll in the hay with the AP. That rationale doesn't apply for me--but not because I'm "too good of a soul for that." It doesn't apply because my OW lives in Poland, I live in the US, and neither of us really travels!

This is why we recommend approaching infidelity recovery with patience and humility, and do the deep Work to fix what inside you made infidelity a possibility at all.

Humility and patience are important tools. Got it. Check. How do I connect any of the Deep Work disclosures of my recent prior posts to the goal of decreasing infidelity recidivism risk?

So: Explore likes and dislikes -----> ChatGPT ------> Self-love.

Is that pretty much "it"?

Your wife didn't ask or want to be betrayed. YOU did the betraying.

Agreed.

Losing OW is not a mean thing she is doing to you, it is a consequence of your actions.

It is one possible consequence, but not the only possible and effective way of making amends.

You think if she could just choose not to feel hurt by this and threatened by OW, that she wouldn't??

Nobody is saying there's a simple switch she just needs to throw to move past the wound. However, candidly, no BS is looking for alternative ways of solving this problem by different means because every BS is told that "permanent disposition of the AP is the cure for what ails you." And yes, I do believe there are alternative ways for the wound to be healed.

YOU put the two of you in this position, not her. Therefore it's on you to rebuild trust, accommodate her feelings, and prioritize her emotional safety, not the other way around.

I think we just have to agree to disagree on this point, whatever it means you think of me. Again, I believe my W shares a tiny bit of culpability for the infidelity, while I bear the lion's share of it. I also believe that spouses need to help each other through all marriage and immediate family problems--even infidelity.

If you said, "I need some time for myself; either the kids can do one less extracurricular, or we can hire someone to take them," I certainly wouldn't condemn you for it

I have been screaming that from the rooftops (figuratively and without really yelling) at literally every MC session for many months now. My W adamantly refuses change--and my kids want to keep doing their extracurriculars. So I consistently get out-voted.

You can structure your life however you want, long as your kids are cared for and the bills are paid. If you wanted to work less, you could find a way.

...

You could chit chat with the other parents for the extracurriculars you do go to.

Mostly, it's my W who takes the kids because she works only part-time (1 week of work, 3 weeks off, repeat), while I am full time. Two years ago, I asked to drop down at work to 91% Full-Time Equivalents to have more time at home. I was refused that request. This year, it was granted. But I am absolutely drowning over thinking so much about my W and or marriage problems and my OW.... It has consumed all of the extra time and then some! Could I work any less still? Maybe, but once I drop below 91% FTE, I get counted as "Part Time" and that restructures how much everything costs that's paid for mostly outta my salary: health and vision and dental insurance... Plus, we might hafta pull our kids outta Catholic schools and place them in public school and cancel tutoring for them. We don't want that, either.

I know everyone thinks doctors make a ton of money. And some do, admittedly. But you'd likely be surprised how little academic pediatric subspeciality physicians get paid. Working 15-16 hour days x 7 days per week, including some nights and weekends and holidays, I make much closer to $200k than $300k per year. And then... with the crazy long work hours, we have absurdly high living expenses. A laundry service. A maid service. A nanny (because our work hours are too long to accommodate a day care). Take-out meals. A lawncare service. A pest control service. I "get it" that lots of folks have to "make do" without such "privileges". What people don't understand is that what we're trying to buy with those services is time. And time is ultra expensive to buy.

If you did squeeze in a couple's activity and it didn't result in any friends, you could quit that one and try a new one.

True. And that may well be how we will eventually make acquaintances. But even for that shallow depth bond to form will likely take years! (My W is even more socially shy than me; she's misanthropic and makes me look like an extrovert!) Frankly, I don't give a rat's a-- about gaining the "privilege" of cocktail party chatter / banter with people I hardly know. What I need for thriving is 1-2 deep friendships.

I never made any friends slogging through hours of unenjoyable interactions in which I'm having to mask the whole time... I shudder just thinking about all that inane small talk!!

Love that thought. Completely identify!

You said you make time for playing video games and you met OW that way, you could meet more people there as well

True. And there may be further opportunities there in the future. Although my W has steadfastly refused multiple invites from me to join me in the game I play. Currently, my main account is stranded in a French Alliance because they were willing to let me park it there during a year largely off from gaming so I could focus more on family. (No, I don't really speak much French at all.) My OW and most of my old game acquaintances moved their accounts to the same group in a new server in the same game.

The light acquaintanceships I still have online are a delightful, but eclectic, bunch. I'm still Discord-acquaintances with a lesbian-identifying transwoman, a property manager for an apartment complex in New Jersey, two other physicians (a man and a woman), a guy who has a criminal record and claims to sell large amounts of recreational drugs in real life, and a nude model who lives in the UK and bounces in and out of psych hospitals. My W thinks my mix is hilarious because I am so plain vanilla in real life! (Yes, my W knows about the nude model. No, I have not gotten or sought photos of her. No, I do not condone recreational drug use. Nor have I ever used drugs recreationally. Nor--for that matter--do I smoke. And, yes, I drink alcohol, but so lightly that I have literally never once been more than minimally buzzed.) But none of us speak much anymore because I don't play the game with them any more.

Just letting you know, I no longer keep friends that believe infidelity is ever okay. Just part of my New Rules for Staying Safe Post-Infidelity. But this community and I will be here for you regardless.

Suit yourself. I am also hugely averse to small talk, but there's a difference between "meaningful talk" versus fessing to my W's CSA and our sexual problems. Having blabbed about the latter here, I don't think I could ever unmask to any of the SI community knowingly. But, I do feel a loose kinship of sorts with you here. I hope it's OK that I acknowledge that? It's not every day that I meet someone with AuDHD.

Fun fact: elderly people smell like that because of a chemical compound called 2-nonenal

Yes, I saw that article online too.

I'm hopeful for the new meds.

Good luck with them!

You will not die involuntarily, specifically as a direct result of not aiding OW... How's that?

Concur.

I'll pray that your rediscovery is swift and successful, or if it isn't, that God gives you the strength and patience to await that rediscovery.

Thanks!

[This message edited by Unconventional at 9:02 AM, Friday, October 23rd]

How have the last few days been, Unconventional?

All over the place.

Late last week, I recognized that--while I am grateful to be a child of God and therefore of infinite value--I do not see any way for that knowledge to tether me to life nor fully to fill my mortal heart. I don't mean blasphemously to suggest that God doesn't provide for His children--just that while God may provide me with welcome blankets, it's the warmth of my "little spoon" under the sheets that ties me to humanity. After all, I'll be just as accessible to God in death as in life! What I crave from others--particularly from my romantic partner (although not necessarily exclusively through her)--is appreciation--best for my personhood, but with "for what I do for someone" being a discounted, but still valuable, secondary currency. Chat GPT and I think those are both fine raisons d'être, just as they stand.

My W and I had a big argument in the car the last Friday. I took her out to dinner. It was nice. Between dinner and the place we were going to hit for dessert, I tried to ask my W to open up about her experience of my infidelity so I could better understand the injury I caused her. (Side note: I can't shake the aversive notion that such questions feel like I am mining for schadenfreude when I'm genuinely just trying "to do my homework" so I can atone for my waywardness because one can only get just so much information from books.) Evidently, my W understood me to be probing her CSA--which I swear I wasn't--and flew off the handle. It turns out she thought I had drawn all manner of suppositions about what did or didn't happen to her and she was hopping mad at me for telling our MC who did what to her--when I never did any such thing. All I ever had said to our MC was: Since we saw you last, my W spontaneously confessed to me a history of CSA. I don't know any of the details, but I know she told me that her CSA explained why she has never and will never experience love through sex. Full stop. So, I told that to my W and that cooled her off a bit. But, she continues to insist on describing her CSA now as merely "alleged," saying she doesn't remember any details and alleging (100% wrongly) that she merely misspoke "if" she ever didn't call her CSA "alleged." I can have no certainty about what happened to my W in childhood, what now she remembers, when in adulthood she first appreciated how her CSA was affecting her, or how much information denial is presently shielding from my W--but I pointed out (again) that she told me in the same or next breath that her (unqualified) CSA explained why she has never and will never experience love through sex--and that it wouldn't have made sense for her to make a logical leap like that if the CSA was specious.

So... I wrote her a 4-page letter telling her, in essence:

WIFE, your disclosure that you were sexually abused as a child and have never experienced sex as an expression of love shattered my understanding of our marriage and left me feeling that, despite decades together, I have never truly made love with my wife. I entered marriage believing we would share not merely sex, but a loving communion of body and soul, and I am devastated to realize how much of that life we may have missed. Yet your disclosure also gave me hope that we might finally understand and address what has stood between us. Your subsequent retreat into calling the abuse merely alleged frightens me because I fear we may lose our best opportunity for genuine healing. I love you, grieve for what you have suffered, and want to support your recovery wholeheartedly. I am not demanding immediate results, sexual performance, or certainty about the past, but I do need a sincere, sustained commitment to confronting what you disclosed and pursuing healing with qualified help. I cannot accept permanently surrendering the possibility of loving sexual communion without earnestly trying to achieve it, and my willingness to continue our marriage depends on that good-faith effort. More than anything, I want us to spend the years we have left discovering the beautiful, holy intimacy I have longed to share with you.

I emailed the letter to her on Sunday. She hasn't responded yet. She has been acting like she never read the letter, but I can tell she opened it.

Then, I went down a rabbit hole over what I will do if my W refuses to address her CSA head-on. The plan I came up with (which I hate) still seems half-baked, but seems to be at least as consistent with official Catholic Church teaching as any alternative I could draft, bizarre though it sounds to state. Please understand: the tentative plan I hatched hinged upon a document Pope Francis issued in 2016 (Amoris laetitia)--so it wasn't taught in my Sunday School classes growing up--and my plan included:

1) Announcing to my W (only) the end of our M and immediately starting LTR-directed dating (with no potential particular romantic partner yet in mind) while still living with my W,

2) Separating households and divorcing civilly if my W files or if I find an SO who I want my kids to meet and to meet my kids.*

3) Applying for nullification of my M ASAP once the divorce completes.*

4) Marrying civilly +/- (if nullity is awarded) religiously when I find the right woman.

*) Somewhere in phase 2 or 3, I would hope to begin a sexual relationship with my SO. I really dunno when would be the appropriate time. Certainly, sex wouldn't be around my W or kids.

To be clear: Amoris laetitia--which I had never heard of until about a month ago--doesn't outright say that the pathway I have outlined is sinless. The only sinless recourse I would have from marital abandonment is a celibate life of romantic isolation, lived away from my W--while bearing unchanged financial obligations to my still-W. Kind-of an "outta the frying pan, but into the fire" situation. What Amoris laetitia says is that Catholics who do what I have described in the above numbered sequence are guilty of a grave--but not necessarily mortal--form of the sin of "adultery" every time those Catholics have sex with someone other than the first spouse (even after a new civil marriage). However, such Catholics might--possibly (but: no prospective guarantees)--still be admitted to the sacraments and might--possibly (but: no prospective guarantees)--even be guilty only of a venial form of the sin of adultery. Anyhow: That just all seemed so bizarre that I tabled thinking about it any further. It just hurt my head. Although all Roman Catholics are officially obliged to accept Amoris laetitia as official Church doctrine, it remains a highly controversial document--partly because it seems intentionally halfway to endorse screwy plans like the one I laid out.

Lastly, I have been working with ChatGPT to define what Internal Work I ought to be pursuing and how. It recommends:

1) Learn to distinguish legitimate marital grievances from permission to cross marital boundaries.

Develop a principled distinction between restrictions you may justifiably resist and boundaries you must honor, even under profound deprivation. That need not require abandoning your moral position about exceptional circumstances. It does require determining which limits you will not cross when your suffering is greatest.

2) Develop a workable model of extramarital relationship transparency to the marriage.

I accept that unrestricted scrutiny of your conversations by Elizabeth may be counterproductive. Your suggestion that a counselor review potentially problematic communications is worth developing. But I would distinguish legitimate privacy from keeping information from Elizabeth that materially affects her marriage. Agree on what Elizabeth reasonably needs to know, what can remain private between friends, and how disputed concerns will be evaluated.

3) Establish what you will do if Elizabeth will not permit Ume's friendship to be restored.

But this goal will have to await a healthier marriage to resolve.

On Wednesday afternoon, I have my first IC session with a therapist specializing in OCD. Ironically, over the past week, my ruminations about my OW have gone from constant to infrequent. I still think actively about my OW at times, but I'm genuinely worried I am losing the ache I need to justify recruiting my OW back into my life in an ordered friendship when weighed against the hurt doing so might presumably bring my W. I actually need to re-recruit some of that pain, and that's surprisingly hard. So... that's been distressing for me. n.b.: I still every bit as much want to have my OW back in my life--but wanting and getting are two different states. I will see how Wednesday's session goes. But... after looking over the Internal Work questions suggested by ChatGPT... I might need an individual marriage counselor (too?).

How's life been treating you, Morbs? Have AD/HD meds been "the bees' knees"?

You know... my older daughter is in her middle teen years. I have forbidden her to date until she is 16 years old. I had to pick her up from a friend's house after a homecoming dance at her school this past weekend--just as a party was set to be held there. My daughter was... ahem... displeased with me. Anyhow, she scares me a bit. She was like: "What is it that you're protecting me from doing, huh, Dad? You know, your prohibition just makes me want to do things more!" In fairness, that one has always been my daughter who likes to scare me, but is--in actuality--very meek. My younger daughter (who isn't yet a teenager) is the one who is frighteningly fearless. She will be a hellion as a teen. Ironically, she talks of wanting to be a policewoman in adulthood!

Anyhow, I picture you at 17-19 years old and I hope we're not in for that wild of a ride. At an age when some girls' "checklists" probably are about as long as "tall, dark, and handsome," yours were--so I've understood from you--"yes, but also: a rock-hard erection, a wedding band, a platinum credit card, a beard, and an AARP membership card."

[This message edited by Unconventional at 9:32 AM, Wednesday, October 28th]

Well, you know what they say: Man plans and God laughs.

Do you think your contingency planning might steal some of your heart and attention away from the reconciliation and marital improvement process? After all, both of you have your sides to be working on. I also worry that you're not giving your wife a fair chance to seek professional help.

What has your MC said about all of this so far? (excuse my nosiness)

----

I have not been given the ADHD meds yet, as I told my NP that I was experiencing depression symptoms and restarting my anti-depressant, and she didn't want to introduce too many medications at once in case one or the other didn't agree with me. We're due to re-evaluate in a month. I know she's right, but that sucks! I am trying to be patient with the process.

Anyhow, I picture you at 17-19 years old and I hope we're not in for that wild of a ride. At an age when some girls' "checklists" probably are about as long as "tall, dark, and handsome," yours were--so I've understood from you--"yes, but also: a rock-hard erection, a wedding band, a platinum credit card, a beard, and an AARP membership card."

I cackled at this

So, I was a straight A student from kindergarten up until my senior year, even taking advanced classes. I never drank, smoke, did recreational drugs, dyed my hair, or even wore makeup back then, because I had *principles* against such things. The only time I ever received disciplinary action was for "stealing" another kid's library book because it was the only copy and not-so-slyly trying to return it... Not to brag, but I was voted "most artistic," "most likely to go to the olympics" and "most likely to succeed" (and the yearbook staff made me choose between those lol!)

My days at 16 years old looked like waking up at 5am to work on my mountain of homework, shower once Step Dad got out of the bathroom, usually sprint across the neighborhood to the last bus stop because I missed it at mine (and if I missed the bus my mother refused to drive me, and I wasn't trying to bike 7 miles before school), attending up to 9 classes and then a grueling cross country or track practice starting at 3pm and ending around 5, catching a ride home from my neighboring teammates (who could barely drive themselves), closet-eating as much food as I could stuff into my mouth before I had to get ready for work (because Step Dad tried to restrict my food so as to maintain my most athletically advantageous weight), went to work at a shitty retail job from 6:30 to 9pm (or sometimes even as late as 10:30, around the holidays), came home, reheated a very healthy and low-calorie dinner, and tried to make myself do homework until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. In the beginning of the school year, we would often have an additional cross country practice in the morning as well, and my senior year I was exercising sometime 4 times a day, what with the doubles, a lifting class I took, gym, or skipping my lunch period to do cardio because I was stressed and movement alleviated it... On the weekends, I did chores, caught up on homework, and often disappeared for bike rides that were up to 50 miles long and took hours at a time, sometimes with friends. I would often say I was going to walk the dog, take him to our local baseball field, tie him up under a shady tree, and nap in the bleachers, because Step Dad would bother me if he saw me napping at home.

I had 1.5x the testosterone I should have had because of PCOS and a massive ovarian cyst that was secreting androgens, so that in combination with generally being a teenager made my libido insatiably high. And yet, I had the worst time getting anybody to date me. I wondered if I was ugly, though I didn't think so when I looked in the mirror. People spread rumors that I was trans because my voice was fucked up and I was super muscular from the extra T and all of the exercise... When I finally got a boyfriend, my parents forbid me from being alone with him. That didn't stop us from sneaking off of the cross country trail or me from biking hella far to his house for trysts when his mum wasn't home. Once Tinder came out, it made finding casual sex a lot easier for me, and I started quickly racking up partners. They scratched some of the itch and made me feel better about myself... One of the girls in my art class started showing up to school decked out in new clothing, expensive bags, and the latest iPhone, and when I asked how she afforded it, she said that she had started seeing a sugar daddy, and gave me the website she was using...

I quit my $7.25 an hour retail job and started sugar dating, and used the financial support to move out of my parents' house to a literal walk in closet in a couple of druggies' apartment in the worst part of the city during the summer I was 18. I didn't tell where I was going; I had just started renting the space, packed an emergency to-go bag, and one night after they caught me sneaking back into the house at midnight after sleeping with an SD, they said "If you're gonna live under our roof, you're gonna abide by our rules!" To which I said "Alright," and then promptly took my bag and wordlessly got back in an Uber... I wanted to be as far away from them as possible. When I went off to college that fall, suddenly it was like a buffet of people who were interested in me, and that's when I REALLY went off the rails with sleeping around. I didn't call my parents at all the first semester of college.

All that is just to say: too tight of control and pressure on your kids can drive them to start rebelling, and stricter rules can drive that rebellious behavior underground. On the other hand, my H's ex wife and her second husband were too permissive and enabling with my younger step daughter, and she now seems to be struggling with alcoholism which started her senior year and is now pervading into her freshman year of college. The eldest child had a rocky relationship with both parents following the divorce, but developed a better relationship with us before she went off to University, and she seems to be doing quite well (though she has some social anxiety and we suspect she may graduate a virgin.)

So I think parenting is a delicate balance, where you have to give your kids structure and boundaries without keeping them on a leash, hope that you've instilled the right values in them to be able to make good decisions, expect some bad choices (because they're teenagers; it's kind of inevitable), and cultivate a close, trusting, and supportive relationship with them so they can come to you when they're having problems.