SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This is why I suggested that you take a big huge step back, let your WW know that you are stopping all MC and then find your own IC who can help you and you alone with what has happened to you and how you are feeling. You need someone who is only on your side and hears you.

The marriage, if it were to be able to be helped at all, will come later. Right now you need someone who helps you see much more clearly.

I hadn’t read the responses to your thread when I responded but I have to say this suggestion is stellar.

Affairs are commonly acts of self adulation. The role she felt she was playing is a real thing. In my escapism I (unconsciously) wanted to meet a different version of myself, and I was nothing but transactional with the AP. Sometimes consciously sometimes not. I don’t know that all affairs are that way but mine sure was and I have seen many that have been.

I knew I was manipulating him to play his role too at different times. But I was this other person, he was the audience validating my performance. So I do believe that whole heartedly.

I wouldn’t force the sex issue, because coercion is going to do further damage for both of you. For you, if you have to give her an ultimatum you will never enjoy the sex because you will never believe it’s genuine. And it’s approached as giving you the same thing, it will make mind movies worse. Coercion also will kill whatever is left of her sex drive.

Also a ws will sex bomb to keep the marriage but then that will go away. It needs to have some step by step rather than going all in at once.

Affairs are not usually about the ap or the spouse. It’s about numbing pain and other broken character traits. Many people who have not been a ws try and apply logic but nothing is logical in an affair. I was midway in a crisis at the time and depressed as well which added to the desperation and chaos that also added to some of the delusions.

So with that the worst thing you are being told is that there was something about the ap that inspired her sexually. We don’t know that. My sexual inspiration was more about the situation as a whole.

I agree with soul sister, she has got this mixed up in her head that when she was being bad it was very bad and when she is being good it’s very good.I also wondered - is there sexual abuse in her history?

I would do as others suggests and see a sex therapist or divorce as this is understandably untenable.

It would be a deal breaker for me too. Probably for different reasons though.

My feeling is that having an affair is the first dealbreaker. Maybe you would have put up with vanilla sex all your life. But in actuality you have never been happy with it. So at this point you get to decide the kind of relationship that you want and she may not fit that mold.

I agree with ff her saying you only want sex is an indication she has not taken in just how big the damage she has done is. Even if it’s how she feels she should approach this in a non-defensive way.

In my marriage I was perfectly happy with our sex life. The affair was a reflection of not being happy with myself. My husband and I do not have the same situation, we are well above average in adventures. And I crave him. During my depression there was a decline, but it was a reflection of not taking care of my mental health.

I am only telling you that because it is why I know that’s not what I was looking for. It was transactional and mostly a bad attempt at emotional intimacy that I was seeking. But it was because my depression had disconnected us. I wasn’t sharing my inner world. I was not self aware. I was a selfish asshole. And pretty stupid to go looking for that with a guy who so obviously just wanted to bang me.

I also went to counseling first and then told him. (I did it at home and not in the counselors office. It seemed too sanitary and he didn’t need an audience.) But, I will say the IC sessions prior were not about picking who won. I think that could be chalked up to how early it was in the process. It was I knew I was very confused, and she helped me see I had done a lot of brainwashing of myself. it wasn’t framed with choosing either man, but choosing myself.

What does she say about those sessions you weren’t part of?

You have to change your MC. No ifs ands or buts. You will not make progress feeling like she is a coconspirator. That is exactly how I would feel about that too.

Lastly, be aware the 18 month marker is perhaps a fragile time in the reconciliation process. The smoke has had time to clear and reality is staring you in the face. You are fatigued and there are still so many mountains to climb.

It’s exactly when my husband started his affair. So just know some of your feelings may be due to the fatigue and where you are in the timeline. When you compound that with the very real and difficult issues you are facing it may be why you feel like calling it.

When you know you know. I think you came here and posted because you don’t know yet but that is only my own hypothesis. I think you are right to pull back and get objective over whether it’s reconciliation by the numbers or not.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:31 PM, Thursday, March 16th]

Very good info right there. ^

I agree with soul sister, she has got this mixed up in her head that when she was being bad it was very bad and when she is being good it’s very good.

This makes more sense. While in affair, she knew what she was doing was bad. Intentionally or unintentionally, she went all bad by doing sexual acts that she always considered as BAD. Now that she is out of her affair and has confessed to you everything and did many things she was supposed to do as a remorseful WS, she considers herself good and intentionally or unintentionally she is trying to be too good by not performing those sexual acts which she always considered as BAD.
.

The thing that keeps coming to my mind as I read your thread is this: what would you do if I could promise you if you divorced your WW you would find someone else who not only remained faithful, but also had the kind of sex with you that you want? As others have mentioned, the acts you describe her not wanting to do with you are not particularly adventurous, all I would describe as pretty vanilla.

I think that's a really important questions because if your answer is you would still want to R with your WW, you know what you should do. If your answer is you would start D proceedings immediately, it seems like you might be staying with WW out of fear of being alone or not finding someone, rather than genuine desire to mend the relationship.

Really good to hear Hikingout’s insights.

Probably the best perspective you’re going to get outside of your WW’s own.

Wish we had more WS input here, especially regarding tricky matters such as this.

I think BallofAnxiety hit the nail on the head.

Personally I would never stayed married to a WW that denied to me what was freely offered to their AP. The humiliation and emasculation to a man are bad enough when an affair occurs. However, since you now know that she did those things to your friend, but withheld them from you. That would be a total deal breaker to me. But I am not you and you are not me. We each have our own reasons for doing what we do.

I might have missed it, but has your wife given you the written results of a clean bill of health from STDs and Venereal Disease? If not, I would insist she do so.

Also, it seems like your discovery was an ambush carefully planned by your wife and her counselor. I am glad you found out what she had done, but to find out in this manner where you can't freely react and express yourself. Not sure how I would react to that. How did you actually react at the time?

I wouldn’t force the sex issue, because coercion is going to do further damage for both of you. For you, if you have to give her an ultimatum you will never enjoy the sex because you will never believe it’s genuine. And it’s approached as giving you the same thing, it will make mind movies worse. Coercion also will kill whatever is left of her sex drive.

Hiking out, I respect you immensely, but I differ here. He is at an impass. If he doesn’t force the issue he is destined to a life of unsatisfying sex. This is exacerbated as he will always know she was an enthusiastic lover to her AP. Sometimes you need to force an issue in order to generate change. He has no other alternative.

The other side of this, is once she gets used to it, and sees how the OP responds, it may give her pleasure to see his. It may not be genuine in the beginning, but it could become that

What’s the alternative to coercion? A marriage that is right back where it was, only blown up by her affair. As I said in my previous post, she couldn’t have been happy as she emotionally and physically cheated for a year and a half, and he has suffered with shitty sex. Not much to go back to

You may have skimmed my post. It happens a lot because I write long posts. And people think they know what I am going to say, not realizing that there is always evolving perspective. You are reading that in isolation of what I was actually saying. You are the third person who did this in the last two days. I need to stop writing books.

What I mean by this is, what I say later in the post. I wouldnt place an ultimatum. I would either go to sex therapy or I would divorce her. I am pretty sure if you go back and read the whole thing you will see I am not suggesting he live with this.

I am suggesting she come along on the journey willingly or he will have to make a different decision. If he says you have to give me all that or we are getting a divorce Anything that follows is coerced. But if he said we need sex therapy and she balks then I would call it.

You can’t fix a marriage if she isn’t even willing to try.

[This message edited by hikingout at 10:42 PM, Thursday, March 16th]

Struggling a bit today guys…

Last night WW and I talked things through a little more. She said that her comment about everything being about sex is because she is feeling cornered by everyone (me, IC and MC pushing her for more "disgusting" sex) and AP was not in her mind at all…

She definitely sees that a wife should be prim and proper, and that only "wh—-s act like she did".

She then went into a (sounding rehearsed) monologue about what do I want from her? How she is trying really hard to make up for things, that she has returned to her faith to help her follow the "right path" and why can’ti accept it?

Then the kicker.. the what is it you want from me….. I know she was using other words… like asking about my desired frequency, seeking parameters for my desired sex live with her…… but all I could hear in my head is

"what’s your price?"

Maybe I’m being unfair… but in the moment that’s how I felt..

I find that whole concept repugnant, and asked that we terminate the discussion then and there so I had time to collect myself.

So yeah… why do I feel like the bad guy here????? Arrrgh! So infuriating!

So yeah… why do I feel like the bad guy here????? Arrrgh! So infuriating!

You're feeling that way because she is managing you, as WWTL pointed out. For example, in this post, she asks you to enumerate what you "want" in the marriage, like a list of bullet points. In particular, she's trying to force you to demand that she perform a sex act she has told you she is uncomfortable performing. In other words, she's still trying to force you to say "give me a blowjob or I'll divorce you."

I concur 100% with Hiking Out above.

What I mean by this is, what I say later in the post. I wouldnt place an ultimatum. I would either go to sex therapy or I would divorce her. I am pretty sure if you go back and read the whole thing you will see I am not suggesting he live with this.

I am suggesting she come along on the journey willingly or he will have to make a different decision. If he says you have to give me all that or we are getting a divorce Anything that follows is coerced. But if he said we need sex therapy and she balks then I would call it.

Demanding that she add oral sex to your bedroom repertoire is a recipe for failure.

How she is trying really hard to make up for things, that she has returned to her faith to help her follow the "right path" and why can’ti accept it?

There is no "making up for things" after cheating. That's not a valid concept. The marriage is broken.

The "returning to her faith" bit, that's code for "What you're getting now is what's on offer. Take it or leave it." Again, this is consistent with her overall approach, which is to manipulate the dialogue to make you into the one who is leaving an intact marriage. Nowhere have you indicated that she has taken responsibility for herself having ended the marriage via her acts in connection with the A.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 11:32 PM, Thursday, March 16th]

You have every right, AspectNorth, to find staying married to your WW as is, to feel emasculating. And that you do not see a way forward for your marriage from her actions.

She got to have her fun with OM and now she wants to get to be the prim and proper wife again, and so needs you to get with the program? I don't think so!

Please do not feel like the bad guy. I would be extremely dissatisfied if I were in your position too.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 11:21 PM, Thursday, March 16th]

It's perfect reasonable that your answer is simply,

"I want nothing from you anymore. It's become clear to me that we are not sexually compatible. I've been reluctantly accepting of your boundaries until now. Your choice to break those boundaries with someone other than me was the ultimate insult and betrayal to me. It's my deal breaker. I want a divorce.

As my dad would say, this issue is "deep and snaky." I would listen to hikingout on this. I think she's got some terrific advice.

I am suggesting she come along on the journey willingly or he will have to make a different decision. If he says you have to give me all that or we are getting a divorce Anything that follows is coerced. But if he said we need sex therapy and she balks then I would call it.

I think what I would do is take a break from this topic for a set amount of time. However long you like. Let the elevated angst simmer down a bit. No R talk, no sex talk, just some time for you both to decompress. You can agree to spend some time apart, or you can agree to hang out with boundaries that there will be no romance or sex. Whatever feels right. Maybe talk this over again with your IC before you reopen the conversation with her. At the end of the break, I would ask her about sex therapy and see what happens.

Hey. I only read your posts and not comments. Are there specific things beyond vanilla you want from your WW? If so, I think you should explore your own desires in the bedroom and ask.

your lucky I think to have a WW who is doing all the things. Don’t focus on the AP guy… think about what you want.

On the other hand : wtf do I know.

It's great that so many posters are concerned about your Ww, I thought I may try looking after you. Your wife does not need a sex therapist, she didn't need one to do this things with OM. Her issue is clearly with you.

Please drop MC. Your wife needs lots of IC before you are even close to trying R. You should also spend time with an IC as well.

She has turned herself into a victim which needs to change before you can Think about moving forward.

She’s toying with you.

I don’t understand the path toward in a scenario like this.

My wife did this self denigration bit and I couldn’t figure out if it was legit or a reverse victim offender ploy. It was frustrating. She’d pull this self-victimization shit and effectively shut every discussion down. Good therapeutic discussions that could have gone a long way to increasing emotional intimacy between us, shut down. She would just turtle up and withdraw into this "I’m just a whore to you now, what’s the point…you’re probably going to leave me anyway!" A self fulfilling prophecy of hers that she fostered to reality.

I would tell her, she wasn’t a "whore" while she was cheating, she was a cheater while she was cheating. THATS the issue. It’s not what she did while cheating it’s who she did it with.

She AND YOU, are both focused on the wrong thing, sex. It’s the cheating that’s the issue. The sex wasn’t wrong, it was who she did the sexual acts with. She wasn’t being a whore. She was being a cheater.

Stay focused on that, and the sexual issues should become easier to approach.

You guys, currently, seem to have a low level of emotional intimacy, more so now in the wake of the affair and with her now on the defensive and, playing this victim card.

By emotional intimacy, I’m talking about the ability for you two to openly, safely discuss ANYTHING, without fear, without lies and, more importantly, without the necessity to lie.

If she can’t reach this level of intimacy with you, physical forms of intimacy will be debilitated.

If she can’t come out of her shell, you’ll never get through to each other.

My WW also had a repressive religious upbringing with very shallow parents who never discussed anything deeper than the weather. Deep introspective, soul bearing discussions about sex and cheating…were beyond her. Just absolutely beyond her repressed mental grasp and it was ultimately frustrating and heartbreaking.

She was able to break free from that repression and self imposed inhibitions during her affair because, her affair provided an alternate reality, an Eyes Wide Shut mask for her to hide behind, an alter ego. Without the mask, without the fog and the glamour glow, in the garish bright lights of reality, exposing all of your flaws, you don’t feel sexy. You feel exposed, humiliated, and embarrassed and shameful. The absolute opposite of uninhibited and sexy.

I strongly feel that if you stay focused on the cheating while building emotional intimacy, the physical stuff will follow along in due course, naturally, genuinely, healthfully and, it will surpass anything given to the AP because it will be coming from a better place and a better person.

[This message edited by RealityBlows at 7:09 AM, Friday, March 17th]

HeyAspectNorth maybe it’s time that your unfaithful wife got this into her pointed little head:

That it is not your normal sexual desire for your alleged loving wife that is disgusting.

It is her dim-witted hypocrisy that is disgusting.

It was her slatternly unfaithful behaviour that was disgusting.

Time for her to stop making threats towards the end of your marriage, because

That marriage is effectively over. Her bad.

Now just a question of when and where to cross the T’s and dot the I’s.

If she wants to repair the damage it’s all on her now.

Time for you to go cold.

Do the 180.

Run silent, run deep.

I don’t know… for me reconciliation was only possible if at the end of it I ended up with a better “deal” than pre-affair. I knew pretty early that whilst I craved, physically craved, to go back to my pre-affair marriage, it was not possible and given what I knew post dday, I needed to either have a lobotomy or see massive improvements in my new marriage. Weirdly, our marriage was pretty good overall and I truly believe that without the affair we would have lived happily ever after.

In my case all my pre-affair marriage compromise resurfaced, things that in the past I would have thought "it isn’t worth fighting for this, he loves me, he is faithful, he is a good father, what else do I want?" suddenly blew in his face. Suddenly he had a wife telling him that if pre-affair marriage with an imbalance in his favour was not enough, he had to do massively better if he wanted to remain married.

So back to your story… I’m not sure how I would be able to move forward with a spouse that still expects me to compromise in key areas, areas which were easily offered to the AP. I fully understand the psychology behind it, but it is an impasse which I cannot see how it can be resolved. For me it would be a dead end.

I’m sorry you are dealing with this and hurting.

[This message edited by Luna10 at 4:08 PM, Friday, March 17th]