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He said "It's like the Oracle in the matrix was on about..... you aren't here talking to me because you need help in making the decision. You are talking it out with me so you can understand the decision you have already made, even if you aren't willing to admit it to yourself. You need to Know Thyself."

I don't know, man. Maybe this is really deep, or maybe it's just a tipsy bro talking about his favorite movie. After chewing on this, do you think he's right? I'd say that, so far anyway, you've made the decision to stay... but you could make a different decision tomorrow.

Maybe you can explain how a WS is psychologically traumatized by having an affair?

I'm standing behind hikingout and nodding. Just read everything she wrote. No need for me to reinvent the wheel.

Isn’t the unacceptable ultimatum that’s been introduced in this marriage Mrs. AN’s ultimatum? The one where she insists that AN accept the conditions that she has unilaterally put in place with no regard whatsoever for the damage she has done to him and to the marriage?

I agree with BFTG with just a couple of tweaks:

I’d steer clear of sexual ultimatums or anything resembling a sexual ultimatum. I believe it would absolutely repel Mrs AN, or any woman for that matter, further away. It’s a turn off. Not sexy. Not romantic. It’s paying the rent with sex. It kills spontaneity. It’s objectifying.

I’d represent the conditions AN wants going forward, not as an ultimatum, and especially not as a sexual ultimatum, but rather more tenderly, poetically, lovingly and wholistically-as in mutual growth.

I’d replace crude references to SEX, the mechanics of sex, sex acts and,

"cake…I want my fucking cake", I want you to get your cake on and I want to lick the bowl…

with more loving terms such as:

"desire, intimacy, passion, specialness"

"Here’s what I want, for us, going forward. I want authenticity. I want the whole Mrs AN. I want the real Mrs AN, not a broken fraction. I want the best of all aspects of you. I want you to desire me more than any other. I want deeper more profound, more sincere, more forthright emotional and physical intimacy. I want us to make each other feel special, part of something special, special to each other. I want a Mrs AF who has a healthy, thriving relationship with herself, first and foremost.

That is what I want for both of us as we rebuild this marriage"

Something like that. Speak to her like someone you love and care deeply for. Not as a sex object. No woman would respond to some of the shit being laid down around here.

Second tweak:

As to the fact that my inner cake baker was awakened by another man, as CT points out, to R, my BH will have to find it in his heart to simply live with that

This is absolutely true, but framed better and more accurately as:

Mrs AF was awakened by her self-a self awakening. NOT by the AP. Nothing was learned from the AP. The AP is a nobody, a manikin, could have been anybody, just as Hikingout so very well explained many times here.

Come at her with crude sexual demands and she’s going to be repulsed further into repression.

Isn’t the unacceptable ultimatum that’s been introduced in this marriage Mrs. AN’s ultimatum? The one where she insists that AN accept the conditions that she has unilaterally put in place with no regard whatsoever for the damage she has done to him and to the marriage?

Yes, but seems more of a maladaptive response to toxic shame and, this condition would be exacerbated by AF’s sexual ultimatums.

They need to cut the ultimatum cycle of shit.

[This message edited by RealityBlows at 4:43 PM, Monday, March 20th]

I want authenticity. I want the whole Mrs AN. I want the real Mrs AN

That is what Mr. AN has at present.

The version of Mrs. AN in the affair was fake. Yet that is actually the version Mr. AN would prefer to have.

The real Mrs. AN, the authentic one, has made it crystal clear that her authentic, real, whole self means back to the status quo sexually. That is the unique factor here. Mrs. AN has repeatedly, emphatically, even sarcastically made her position crystal clear. And she has reinforced this with religion.

RocketRacoon’s line to AN is worth another look:

I think the crux of your issue is that you want your WW to want you.

For any R, I think this is a HUGE aspect.

I have a great M now, R is going really well, and I don’t feel like the last man standing — because my wife has left me zero doubt about being wanted.

I made no demands, in fact, the AP was an on demand sex act guy and my fear was that my wife was okay being treated like shit, if being demeaned was somehow a turn on. It wasn’t, it was part of the bad trades she made. It was a very ONE way relationship based on what she described, and I don’t WANT that.

An important distinction, my wife didn’t offer AP unique acts — but those same acts were denied to me during the A (per AP request). Just to outline how much work we have had to do to get back to intimacy and vulnerability.

I only told her I was amazed with the effort and energy put into the A. Since then, she has been all in to help me heal the M.

So, I never had to outline any needs, we just worked towards building back something worthy of BOTH of us. Any relationship I’m in needs to have mutual care and respect (which takes a lot of time to get to after infidelity).

That is what Mr. AN has at present.

The version of Mrs. AN in the affair was fake. Yet that is actually the version Mr. AN would prefer to have.

The real Mrs. AN, the authentic one, has made it crystal clear that her authentic, real, whole self means back to the status quo sexually. That is the unique factor here. Mrs. AN has repeatedly, emphatically, even sarcastically made her position crystal clear. And she has reinforced this with religion.

I too am leaning toward this hypothesis, but if AN is considering R, he has to rule this out.

The only hope for R is that he’s dealing with a self injured WW who’s regressing back to her perceived safe place, away from her full potential. If she could take what she’s learned about herself on this misadventure and apply it to a new marriage, there is hope, but as you said, it’s a high risk venture with expenditures of precious time and little promise of success if she doesn’t move her ass.

At that point, if I'm the wayward and if I genuinely desire an opportunity to R with my BH, my high-odds play is to get my ass into the kitchen at home and start baking cakes at a frenetic pace. I bake every kind of cake the imagination can think of. I double down on studying recipes, techniques both traditional and nouvelle. I put every ounce of my being into not only making the best cakes my BH has ever seen or thought about,

Except:

You have never been a ws. You have never been a bs who tried to reconcile. I have been both.

Everything you write is based on a projection.

And honestly you waffle between agreeing that sex ultimatums are a bad idea to she better get in the kitchen and bake.

You say that I am trying to act like she has no thinking or deciphering skills. Yet, that’s not what I have written at all. I have written about my own experience, combined with what I have learned in six years of this being almost my entire life.

I don’t profess to understand the sexual repression. But I also didn’t marry my first sexual partner, live with basic sex. I did have an emotional affair like she did that became an addiction.

I can only tell you I went to great lengths in my sickness to not be abandoned by the AP who I barely knew, and had been only talking with with for two months. Forsaking the wonderful man I was married to. And destroying my life for the next many years. It’s illogical which you seem to not accept.

This is not a battle of debating minds, this is someone’s life hanging in the balance here. What you say actually would go against what any therapist would tell her.

For however long they were together, she has believed vanilla is who she is. And her husband accepted it.

She had an affair, whereas maybe, possibly she showed a true side of herself. Maybe not, I think those who have been through it have watched their ws emerge from a fantasy world not knowing what end was up. I am not convinced she learned anything about herself in the affair other than feeling shame over what transpired. And not wanting to repeat that shame.

I will say it once more: She is acting in alignment with what I know about therapy for a ws. Everyone wants her to self abandon. Without realizing self abandonment likely led her to the affair in the first place.

Why is it so unpalatable that someone might suggest, it sounds like she needs to sort that out with a sex therapist?

Please tell me why you believe she is not in there baking the cake?

You think she wants the cake so bad but is denying herself and him the cake? Or she is saving the cake for what?

Normal People do not deny themselves of sex they want most that is readily available in their marriage.

No one is taking his agency here. He can walk away, he can stay and see if it can work. What we are telling him is in this situation coercion is not going to be a strategy that works well for HIM long term. It’s not in HIS best interest.

Rideitout often talked about how he regretted the ultimatum, how the sex was always empty after that. Had they done this work under different guidance he might believe more in his wife’s sexual transformation.

As soon as the op. Rings it up he gets a transactional conversation almost underlining their genuine disconnect t.

I am not denying it is a shame she is so closed off. I am also not denying that her failure to understand this wound from his perspective is hindering this process and may understandably result in losing the marriage.

Think about the story you posted in the other forum about honoring your commitment. You were presented with a top sexual experience for most men. If sex was enough of a motivation, you would have gone there and maybe not been married today. But you didn’t. Not just because you had integrity, though that is important. It’s because you didn’t need the other things people need when they have an affair.

Frankly, you mean well but you have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to ws thinking. And even worse, you are trying to undermine someone who does. I don’t care if you believe the things I say, but it’s unhelpful to keep making jabs at it.

And the only thing I am trying to convince him of is not going the coercion route. I am not telling him to stay married. I am not telling him he is wrong for having this as a wound.I am not even telling him he is wrong to require sex therapy from her.

So ask yourself, what exactly is it I am saying that is so unpalatable you wish to undermine it with your non existent vast knowledge of what it means to be a ws?

[This message edited by hikingout at 5:28 PM, Monday, March 20th]

it’s a high risk venture with expenditures of precious time and little promise of success if she doesn’t move her ass

I'd rephrase it as: "... little promise of success based upon what Mrs. AN has stated, repeatedly and emphatically, to be her line in the sand."

And honestly you waffle between agreeing that sex ultimatums are a bad idea to she better get in the kitchen and bake.

No, I don't waffle between that, even a little bit. From the perspective of the BS, I have repeatedly said that making a demand, ultimatum, etc., is a lose/lose proposition.

From the perspective of a WS who actually wishes to R, I have said that the high odds play is to demonstrate your genuine desire for your BS as loudly and emphatically and frequently as you can. That, of course, presupposes that you actually do have desire. Here, Mrs. AN has unequivocally stated she does not.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 4:58 PM, Monday, March 20th]

From the perspective of a WS who actually wishes to R, I have said that the high odds play is to demonstrate your genuine desire for your BS as loudly and emphatically and frequently as you can.

Tell me two things. Because I think we are saying the same thing and I don’t know why you are being so litigious about what I have told him.

1. Do you think she is gatekeeping? Why do you suppose she doesn’t want to make the cake?

2. What is it about what I am saying you keep finding so unpalatable? You have called out my advice several times now. When I clearly state this would be hard for me to accept as the bs, and if she is unwilling to address it he will have to divorce?

I actually think for the most part we are on the same page so this is me being genuinely confused.

[This message edited by hikingout at 5:21 PM, Monday, March 20th]

I have a question for both camps here.
If Mrs.Asp comes to this forum tomorrow seeking help and advices from the members here,then what would you people advice her?

I have a question for both camps here.
If Mrs.Asp comes to this forum tomorrow seeking help and advices from the members here,then what would you people advice her?

I would tell her the path she is on leads for sure to misery and probably to divorce.

If Mrs.Asp comes to this forum tomorrow seeking help and advices from the members here,then what would you people advice her?

To initiate getting a new MC, and to understand why her husband thinks she is a co-conspirator.

To try and see this through her husbands eyes. How it looks to him.

To not self abandon, but go to the sex therapist and figure out this alter ego thing she has. I get good people prostitute themselves for sake of supporting an addiction, and that can cause her to carry more sexual shame. But shame is what is holding her back and her relationship.

She blew up the marriage is such a painful way that she is going to need to evaluate her repression and see if it can be overcome. Because now this as a preexisting condition he was unhappy with is going to be harder for her husband to get over.

I would tell her what old wounds said about a bs needing to feel wanted and to not get defensive when her husband expresses that.

A big piece of whether reconciliation will be given by the bs has a lot to do with whether they were happy with the marriage before, and also whether they are feeling seen and heard about their wounds. She should work on that accordingly. Listen, take him in, and try to understand where his difficulties are and see if you can address them together.

But I would encourage them both to work on their emotional connection. The type of intimacy he wants won’t happen until some of that is in place. Emotional connection will be part of healing this.

[This message edited by hikingout at 5:42 PM, Monday, March 20th]

@hikingout:

Tell me two things. Because I think we are saying the same thing and I don’t know why you are being so litigious about what I have told him.

1. Do you think she is gatekeeping? Why do you suppose she doesn’t want to make the cake?

Well, but from the perspective of AN and a lot of us, she is like a lot of WW who DO want to make the cake, just not for their BH. It reads to me that AN's WW is using AN for the security of marriage but she wanted to have hot passionate sex. She wanted to be a whore for someone, just not her husband. Sorry to put this so crudely but that is how I am seeing it.

All these long-winded explanations trying to assert otherwise make my head hurt.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 5:47 PM, Monday, March 20th]

Won’t be fooled again.

Fair enough.

[This message edited by hikingout at 5:47 PM, Monday, March 20th]

All these long-winded explanations trying to assert otherwise make my head hurt.

All the simplified "She's just not the into you" comments make my head hurt. Like it can't be any more complicated than that. But, of course, it CAN, and it probably is.

WontBeFooledAgain: but what if WW here doesn't want to make and eat cake for anyone ecer after her affair? If her Ap reaches out to her now or in future, and gives her a perfect opportunity to eat the cake without consequences, will she take it? What if she won't take that opportunity? What if she truely don't want to make and eat the cake ever again with anyone? Will "she wants others but not you" theory still holds true in her case?

HO:

Re-reading our colloquy, I probably have been overly litigious and for that I apologize.

AN's predicament reminds me of a friend of mine from way back. The death of a thousand cuts. There is an insidious process when one is married to somebody who has a lot of neuroses, but isn't technically mentally ill. My friend was always socially active in his single years, caring and empathetic, but after he got married (no kids, by the way), he gradually faded out of existence. What I came to learn is that she clung to him in an unhealthy way, guilting and extorting him to spend virtually every non-working moment at home, catering to her small but tightly choreographed universe of acts of physical sustenance that were structured in grotesquely Byzantine, almost military rigidity. At one of the rare social events they attended (almost required -- the funeral of a good friend), there was an almost regal display of him fetching her "medicine" -- pills and a vial of liquid to wash them down -- which I later learned was a placebo, sugar tablets, one of the several she requires every day. His existence by then was reduced to being essentially an appendage to his wife, like the body assigned to carry around the quasi-fetal Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter. I felt so sorry for him. Even moreso when she later divorced him, after his retirement pension had vested and, under state law, her rights to it as well. She inherited some money from family, used that (her separate property) to purchase her own home, and moved there, living off half of his pension. Leaving him alone and bitter, having long ago severed most of his friendships and such.

To answer your question, yes, I think Mrs. AN is gatekeeping, and has been gatekeeping their entire marriage. I have not seen a poster for whom I feel more strongly, at a visceral level, the need to say "don't set yourself on fire to keep another person warm." In my heart of hearts I want him to wake up and run screaming. Otherwise, he will find himself aged 80, alone (either via widower status or divorce), having let his entire life pass him by serving unhappily as her chambermaid.

Thus, voices encouraging him to be patient and loving, etc., to me are telling him the wrong thing. The A could be the best thing that happened to him, the wake-up call that exposed her as the selfish user she has always been.

On a few smaller points, I'm completely mindful of Rideitout's later sense that he got the facade, but not the structure, via his hard-line demands. I do agree that a BS loses the minute he utters demands. I routinely tell BS's to eschew "if/then" gambits, "setting boundaries", anything like that. My voice is never joined in a "set boundaries and let her know there will be consequences if she violates them" chorus.

As to my own anecdote, sure, in that moment, I was guided by the promise I made to the woman I loved. It wasn't a case of the big head ruling over the little head. It was a case of letting my heart be my guide. In that case, neither head was asked for its input. Which sort of gets to my point. Cheating isn't logical, but actually neither is fidelity in some ways. In actuality, had I gone through with the lesbian threesome just days after agreeing to be exclusive (she was, after all, also breaking it off with her several FWB and casuals, and it's not out of the pale to assume there were some fuzzy edges to some of those encounters), my then-fiance would probably have shrugged it off. If I had used logic, I'd have considered the "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission" and gone through with it.

I never got there because my heart guided me. So, yes, I've not been a WH. But I know that it's the heart that mostly keeps people faithful. In the case of Mrs. AN, her heart left her marriage. To your point, perhaps it didn't go to the AP. Perhaps it flew off to a fantasyland of her own internal creation. In the end, I think the destination is irrelevant. What is relevant is where it departed from. Now she says she wants to bring it back, but the initial departure point doesn't exist any more. The marriage is broken.

I think AN would agree to re-build it with her if she would agree that, in the re-building, he has a say in at least part of its design. This is where the hangup resides. As far as I can tell, her steadfast position is: "we re-build exactly what we had, nothing more. Period." "But I wasn't actually happy in what we had. And now that you've shattered it, I will agree to re-build something that includes at least some elements to make me happy." "No. Period. Just no."

Really, that is where I see this couple at present. When I tell AN that what he has now is as good as it will ever get, I am sincere.

To answer your question:

Why is it so unpalatable that someone might suggest, it sounds like she needs to sort that out with a sex therapist?

I actually agree that this would be a salutary process for the couple, if she were willing to do it. Everything she has expressed on the topic (as reported by Mr. AN) is a hard "no" on this concept. My objection isn't to the concept. It is to suggesting to a man, two years out from Dday with zero progress to date, that he wait for a thing that his wife has steadfastly and resolutely said is an absolute non-starter.

I'm from the "Dazed and Confused" generation. I've been around a whole lot of 12-step. Step number one never changes. People can't be helped unless and until they acknowledge that they need help. Based on what Mr. AN tells us, Mrs. AN does not perceive that she needs help. To the contrary, she perceives herself to be right and just. She has invoked religion as a bulwark to justify her refusal to engage Mr. AN on improving their sex life. Given that she has deployed the r-card in this manner, I see nothing but a belligerent dead end at present. Therefore, I feel that telling Mr. AN to wait is sending him on a fool's errand. Wait for what?

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 7:38 PM, Monday, March 20th]

I, for the life of me, just don't get all of the coddling that AN's WW is receiving here. Like, how the F is SHE the fragile one after SHE did the cheating? OP is the victim here! If anything she has been shown to have a dominant personality that has driven a lot of this marriage.

Some of you guys got your thinking caps on backwards here. But that's how it's always been...as soon as we have a WW that did for her AP what she refuses her BH, we get pages and pages talking about bodily autonomy, coercion, transactional sex and even at times, rape.

It's literally the only thing I see consistently where the BHes and BWs disagree.

As for me, after having more than one FWW thank me for advising them to turn the nasty up to 10, all saying it was invaluable to their R, I'll stick with that line of thinking. Should they have never gotten the advice nor chance to do it? Or was it ok bc I said it and not their BH?

[This message edited by GoldenR at 7:06 PM, Monday, March 20th]

I, for the life of me, just don't get all of the coddling that AN's WW is receiving here. Like, how the F is SHE the fragile one after SHE did the cheating? OP is the victim here!

I'm a little astounded as well about the coddling of the WW here, too... especially from users who have successfully reconciled and have said that it's possible if the wayward is willing to put in the work and build a new marriage.

So is the whole "new marriage" thing really bullshit after all? Does reconciliation really amount to accepting the same shit sandwich as before, only with extra sauce?

Once again, AN's wife is demanding reconciliation exclusively on her terms-- both inside and outside the bedroom. She has literally said that she is the prize that AN "won." She has refused to take responsibility for her actions. Instead of trying to figure out why she was willing and able to engage in acts she finds disgusting and degrading with OM, she's shaming her husband for his feelings and desires.

The only manipulation and coercion that's happening in this scenario is the WW against AN.

We can go in circles forever AN, but there's really only one question that matters: Is this marriage acceptable to you?

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 7:13 PM, Monday, March 20th]