SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I probably shouldn't share my reaction to the concept of inserting a tool into the relationship in order to monitor my spouse's actions, just so I can stay "safe," but I did want to share that my feelings on that haven't changed since 2002, when I discovered I'd married a SA. My reaction to that suggestion was, and still is: "If I have to do that to stay safe, this isn't a marriage!"

It also brought up a memory: I was such a tall kid that I outgrew my large tricycle, so when my parents got me a bicycle that Christmas, I was thrilled. To me, a bicycle was my ticket to transform myself into a winged creature, no longer bound to earth. My bike and I would go far, together. But trying to ride it, I was a little shaky on how to keep it from tipping over and dumping me on the street. My parents then bought a set of training wheels, to keep the bike more-or-less upright while I got the hang of it. But I found they weren't all that much help, anyway. I'd just fall off the bike more slowly; those training wheels didn't actually keep me from losing my balance, in the first place. What worked was when my father gave the bike a big push and sent me rolling rapidly down the street under momentum, so I could ride upright long enough to get the feel of balancing and pedaling it, working as a unit of human and machine.

Maybe that memory came back to me because I already felt humiliated having chosen a SA for a husband, I don't know. But early on, the concept of getting any third party involved (be it counselor, a sponsor, or spy apps) to monitor the other half of my "unit" simply drove home my husband's complete inability to ride this kind of "two-wheeler." To me, it felt like I was being forced to accept he wasn't able to move up from his tricycle, or something...that we'd always need those training wheels to stay upright....

Yet I also remember my intense need to feel safe from more of the trauma he'd inflicted, and so maybe the way to look at these programs is as a temporary "fix" until we can find that safety elsewhere in our life? To buy us time to compose our plans. I don't know....

Kicking butt on analogies, Superesse. Training wheels for adulting. That was suggested for my XWH as well, the covenant eyes and accountability partner. That scared me. It brought home to me the threat that I was living with. It slammed some clarity into me. He had seen what he had already done to me and yet might need to be tracked to prevent him from doing it again. I mean that made my blood run cold. There are a lot of moments with an addict that make us feel like we don't matter, and that was a top 5 moment for me. I could not have felt less safe if he were walking around with a gun and an itchy trigger finger.

Yes, Dee.

He had seen what he had already done to me and yet might need to be tracked to prevent him from doing it again.

I guess this was one of the biggies for me, too.

Black Raven, you asked the other day what recovery work my SAWH has done over the years, and I didn't know how to answer that question, partly because there has never been any support system around here either of us could find for people with his issues, including finding adequately-trained counselors. And partly because from the get-go, I had such a negative reaction to needing some program or another to "help him stay married to me." Or vice versa. As Dee expressed, needing such external supports it is a scary premise to build trust upon.

I guess I have a different attitude towards mental illness than some. “In S-Anon on we consider sexaholic behaviors to be symptoms of a disease — unacceptable actions taken by sick people who are powerless over lust.”

Do I find what my SAWH did abhorrent - absolutely.

Do I believe it is the result of childhood trauma and not the devil possessing his soul. Yes.

Do I think we’ll stay married, unlikely. But you never know.

However, since he is sincere in seeking treatment, as long as I feel safe, I will support him while he goes through it and attempts to fix the hole in his soul that he had been trying to fill with drugs and sex.

No matter what. At age 58 my life is irreversibly, traumatically , terribly changed. I have been betrayed.

There is the salary we aren’t getting while he is in rebab for 3.5 to 5 months. He will need to change careers and he is the breadwinner, so with or without D, retirement, vacations, housing, healthcare - it will never be as secure.

It is my hope that by approaching my pain with compassion, I can internalize that this wasn’t about me - and hopefully, while I try to recognize my own issues that allowed me to live in an unfulfilling marriage, I will also heal and move forward in a healthy way, and not live a life filled with anger or repeated patterns.

The BS who have someone monitor their WS electronics or have them submit to periodic polygraphs, that’s done after the SA recovery work (it’s not an effort to shame them into changing their behavior) so those BS who want to R can redevelop trust. Those BS I have spoken with who successfully R did it for a few years, then gradually stopped. I think as long as it’s an outsider who does the monitoring, it’s better than a R with no attempt to rebuild trust, since that’s bound to fail.

Just my perspective. As they say in Al-Anon, take what you want and leave the rest.

[This message edited by BlackRaven at 12:15 PM, October 20th (Tuesday)]

Yes, I know my SAWH was wounded by childhood sexual abuse and for 12 years I believed with all my heart that his CSA was directly responsible for his problems. It helped me not hate him, in fact. Reading where Carnes found that 81% of SA shared that history was the very first piece of "floating debris" from the wreckage of my marriage I grabbed onto for some explanation after D-Day 1. I bought him every book on male childhood sexual abuse, of which there were not all that many published in the popular press back in 2002. He did read them all, however, the years I gave him proved that no amount of intellectual knowledge changed him enough to where I noticed; I recall reading that the spouse would see positive changes if they were working on their problem. I never noticed those changes.

Male child sexual abuse has historically been under-estimated because it is also under-reported. So many boy victims didn't consciously internalize what happened to them as "sexual abuse." It just screwed up their perceptions of themselves and life in myriad ways.

So anyway, I've been on this journey since 2002 and I realize my perceptions reflect how much time I wasted waiting for this particular SA to heal his "wounds."

To me, the disease model seems a bit light on the necessary personal responsibility I would expect of any partner. Because I learned in clinical psych coursework that even among incarcerated psychopaths, an element of "choice" or free will remains under their control - if they want to control their harmful behaviors. And that shows why the high incidence of recidivism has challenged court sentencing guidelines as well as family therapists. The research questions have been like: What kind of therapy can effectively reduce the problem behaviors? And unfortunately, even expert clinicians cannot predict this as well as they might want to say. (I did statistical research for such a therapist, and that was the question a local Judge wanted an answer to, to help decide sentencing lengths.)

In trying to research methods that will work with forensic populations (I can include my SAWH, as he just missed 6 months in jail for his sexual acting out) it has been thought that many widely-accepted cognitive-behavioral therapy approaches hadn't demonstrated a reliable outcome, since most of them expect a client's cerebral cortex to be fully functioning, which oftentimes, it's not! This strongly suggests developmental wounding, and yes, I do agree with that. They really were damaged.

In particular, did you all know that psychopaths and alcoholics tend to show a lowered level of electrical activity in their frontal cortex brain scans (planning and forethought)? They also tend to do worse than others on computer tests to identify others' facial emotions. They more often tend to judge any non-happy image of a face as an "angry" face.

But the kind of effective therapy to use for these issues remained unresolved 10 years ago, when I graduated. (Yes, I went to freakin' college to get a handle on WTF had happened to me!) One approach I recall that had some long-term success with tough-to-treat clients was called Reality Therapy. It got them to focus on the outcomes they wanted...because it was recognized that they didn't possess much developed altruism for other people. My point is, that if even incarcerated criminals make choices, surely a SA has some level of free will left. S-Anon seems to state that they do not, which is a rather dehumanizing generalization to my mind. Just a side trip through my psych studies, and to show where I'm coming from.

But regardless, I hope your major investment in rehab. will help your SAWH turn the corner, and that the whole process of it doesn't further traumatize you, Black Raven! And I do hope that your outcome will be better than mine has been. (We do tend to speak in general terms about SA on this forum, due to the nature of the diagnosis our spouses/Xs all have, yet we know that each case is unique in some respects, too.)

I'm sorry every one of us is dealing with this!

[This message edited by Superesse at 2:27 PM, October 20th (Tuesday)]

Hi All,

Just catching up as I was camping this weekend. It was amazing and beautiful. I got to paddle board again too.

I also finished the best book I've ever read on infidelity and I recommend it highly. Somber, I think you would really get a lot from it. It explains our reactions to infidelity and the prognosis using evidence-based research. It's not a bunch of pop-psychology/co-denpendency or religious stuff. It's science. I got so much out of reading this. I've had enough of co-dependency. If my lying con-artist STBX hadn't blindsided me with his SA, I wouldn't be pathologized as a codependent - I would just be a happily married lady.

The book is called, Cheating in a Nutshell. Be forewarned the authors are clear that all evidence points to divorce as the best option. However, it's gentle and thoughtful and doesn't pathologize those who wish to stay. I've never read a book on infidelity with so much research to back up and validate our experiences and their argument.

Superesse, congrats on having folks over. I think the trick with housecleaning is to have your house clean enough that you can be ready for guests in 15-20 minutes. The more you invite folks the more you'll get into a routine, but with a marriage that you're ambivalent over and so much riding on what you decide, it makes perfect sense that you aren't Martha Stewart at the moment.

The most healing thing for me?

Time away from my STBX and time spent with friends, especially doing new things like camping and paddle boarding. Healing with the SA in your ear is pretty damned hard.

[This message edited by skeetermooch at 2:48 PM, October 20th (Tuesday)]

I guess I have a different attitude towards mental illness than some.

I don't think that you're wrong at all. I think that you're likely a better and more compassionate person than I am in many ways. I can understand that my XWH is damaged and causes pain because he's damaged. I'm self-centered enough to be too outraged at being the one who suffered at his hands to have anything to offer him. I've had friends and family with mental health issues that I've been empathetic and supportive towards. There was something about this situation that I could not use my empathy and compassion for. I intellectually understand that my XWH probably can't help being the person he is and once I really understood that, my reaction was to want to not be around the person that he is. Compassion for my XWH leads to being used and hurt, so I had to shut that down in self-defense. I am too selfish to be the partner of a SA or supportive of an addict after I've been the victim of one. At a certain level of damage being handed to me, I cease to give a damn about their pain. It doesn't matter that he didn't do it with intent to harm me. What mattered to me was that I didn't matter enough to him to prevent it and now I had a boat-load of trauma to deal with because of his actions. I know it's an addict thing and I am ill-suited to deal with addicts. I cannot accept being collateral damage because (my personality flaw) I think too highly of myself to stand being reduced to someone's collateral damage. I pull inward and start looking out for myself and the damaged addict is cut off.

I questioned at first whether or not this was an empathy flaw that I needed to work on, and I decided that for me, I don't want to change that. I am okay with going through my life devoid of empathy for those who hurt me on that level. That doesn't make me right. That's just my basic wiring that I'm extremely reluctant to try and alter.

I just read that too, Skeeter. Pretty good book.

What mattered to me was that I didn't matter enough to him to prevent it

Dee, I hope you know it wasn’t about you at all.

Don’t give it that power.

Dee, I hope you know it wasn’t about you at all.

Don’t give it that power.

That's kind of the point for me, though. It wasn't about me. He could put me through something that damaged me more than being raped as a teen did and I was that insignificant in the whole ordeal. Had he been like "fuck Dee, I'm going to screw her over so hard" it would have hurt less. I would have mattered. I can deal with a lot of things, but not mattering to my spouse is where I cannot deal. That was the death blow to me having compassion for him.

It was a switch flipped with me, the understanding that I was irrelevant in the whole thing. That was where I hit "I'll show you not mattering" as I packed up the house and loaded boxes on a U-Haul. That was where the rage really rose up and carried me out of there.

I just don't have the personality for dealing with an addict. I really don't. Probably I have flaws with egotism, but I really cannot with being collateral damage. It just made me seethe.

[This message edited by DevastatedDee at 4:37 PM, October 20th (Tuesday)]

Hey all,

Each of you give great advice, tips and insight based on your own experiences. I’m sure we all tend to project at times as well but we have common spouses/ex spouses with the same addiction. All advice and differing opinions are welcome here I would say. Take what you want and leave the rest is a part of this support system.

I do agree with the mental illness side and Black Ravens views. My spouse was sexually abused as well and suffers from ptsd while self medicating with varying addictions. I agree that monitoring electronics, etc would make me feel safe and begin to trust again if that was possible. I also believe that it is a sad step to take in a marriage! I actually don’t really know if he would go for it which is a red flag obviously. I do appreciate the suggestion to survive the ‘now’ though.

I also believe that you can’t play the victim all the time to minimize your wrongs. At some point he needs to choose to get better, chose to control his harmful behaviours. There is a lot of help out there. I’ve learned there is no book or suggestion that I can throw at him that will make any difference. He is in therapy intermittently which I know is the bare minimum to recovery. Likely why I don’t overly feel safe I guess. Consequences and enforcing boundaries are necessary; however, I have failed at both of those.

I’m so completely overwhelmed. I thought I was doing okay. I really feel healthier burying my head in the sand, living in denial, hoping his words are true, pretending everything is going to be okay, compartmentalizing it all, etc. Dangerous ya I guess! A messed up, unhealthy way of feeling comfort ya I guess that too! My head just hurts and I don’t have much else to add right now...

My heart goes out to all is you ❤️

Somber,

Have you done any grounding work? That was the first thing that my betrayal trauma therapist had me do. I thought it would be nonsense but it really does help bring me back when I'm feeling so overwhelmed. (Unfortunately, it doesn't stop the pain, at least not yet. But it does help me hold my shit together.)

I also believe that you can’t play the victim all the time to minimize your wrongs. At some point he needs to choose to get better, chose to control his harmful behaviours. There is a lot of help out there. I’ve learned there is no book or suggestion that I can throw at him that will make any difference.

These words are 100% true. I've been thinking a LOT lately about the drama trial, and in fact, when I spoke with my WH tonight, I called him out on sounding like the victim as he talked about some things that had bothered him today. (though I used my 'talking boundary' so it was a non-threatening way to get across the same message and I'll be darned if he didn't respond well to it instead of defensively - this time at least.)

He certainly played the victim a lot of the time in our marriage, (easy to do because I'm a rescuer), and I suspect he did it to justify his acting out.

And no, they won't even begin to recover until they have hit their bottom and own it. I have a lot of issues with some of the 12 step language, but not with the part about us being powerless over their addiction. WH was ordered into a 90 day drug treatment plan about 2 decades ago, got out, and as I recently learned, switched to sex within weeks. (I think I preferred the drugs). When I nagged my WH to go to meetings or a shrink cause he seemed so irritable he just lied to them. This time, other than telling him to move out in April, I have been completely hands off. It's his sink or swim time but I'm not playing lifeguard. Hell, I'm not even watching the pool. I'll see him when he's done and dried off.

It's very hard to turn your back on the love of your life/partner/father of your kids. I know it's a mental health problem, that he didn't ask for it and came by it quite honestly through his horrific childhood.

I may always feel empathy for him. He's not fit for this world. He doesn't have enough normal in him to do the very hard work recovery would entail. It sucks to go through life that way, but I've got to save myself. As Dee pointed out a month or so ago - nothing is gained by sacrificing my life for his. It absolutely won't heal him and it will only destroy me. (Dee you say so much that helps - thank you!)

I hope I didn't say things too harshly in my earlier email - I'm very triggered by the codependency thing. It just doesn't ring true for me. We are all flawed, all too tolerant or not tolerant enough. We could all be perfected and improved, but none of that has anything to do with the unfortunate luck of marrying an SA. We could've just as easily have married normal people in my view. I can't heal from his abuse by focusing on my flaws. Maybe later, I'll want to do that. I don't know, but right now I want to be extra kind to myself.

No one who behaves the way our spouses did is mentally healthy. We all agree on that. I think we only really differ in how much of ourselves we can give after the fact. Some of you have more to give than I did. We are all strong, as it takes strength I don't possess to stay and it takes strength to leave and let the chips fall where they may.

It sucks to go through life that way, but I've got to save myself.

Amen to that.

And I agree with the codependent thing being bull. You can’t enable what you don’t know.

As I understand it when SA counseling was first a thing, many women were attacked as codependent, but it’s completely gone in the other direction now. Not a label for us.

That said, I AM codependent in some relationships (my elderly father) but not so much with my WH.

[This message edited by BlackRaven at 11:28 PM, October 20th (Tuesday)]

Good morning ladies! Skeeter, tell us about the camping!

This morning the sun came streaming in through the glass door to my sunporch, cheering me up..making me want to get something done! But as soon as my feet hit the hardwood floor, what that sunshine highlighted is...greyish dog paw prints all over the hardwood floor, from here down the hall to the kitchen. So typical. Soon as I've cleaned the house, the dogs will be let loose by You-Know-Who, right after he has watched one of them run off leash and chase a deer into the next cornfield, say. All the fields around here are former orchard land, so the dirt has chemicals in it - like arsenic and lead...last night, he reported it was the 7 year old German Shepherd girl who ran off while he was walking them. The old dog used to do it sometimes, too, but nowadays, he knows he can't catch a deer and is too creaky to gallop away like that. (These kind of badly-trained working breeds tune out "Come Here" when they are in hot pursuit! We have done 2 courses of obedience training with her, but no reward we can offer competes with this kind of chase "fun!")

What has always annoyed me about this, is how this adult teenage man-child knows very well that the dogs he walked will have mud on their feet, yet it totally doesn't bother him that they are coming back into a clean house. He doesn't make the simplest connection between their actions and the consequences within a home that he "lives" in. Worse, the cleaner I keep the house, the more it seems he allows this sort of dog rampage through my house. (Maybe it happens a lot of other times too, but I just turn my eyes away, in defeat.)

Another example of what feels like Passive Aggression, but is probably freakin' cluelessness, is how he save his newspapers in the top bin of a stack of wrought iron bins I gave him for next to his easy chair, to contain his magazine and newspaper mess. (He used to dump them on the floor!) As he can't part with his car magazines and might want to re-read an article in the newspaper, he says, he lets all 3 bins fill up to overflowing. The kitchen is a commercial one, with stainless 3 compartment sink and drainboards (counters) and a 42 gallon commercial kitchen trash can sits under one of the sink drainboards. It never fails that as soon as I pull out the full trash can (he never notices when it's filling up) and change out the $ .50 a piece plastic can liner, I come back from taking the trash to the truck to haul to the dump site, and see that he has just decided to "have a clean out," too. I find a couple weeks worth of newspapers in the new, empty kitchen trash can...filling it almost a third of the way full, again. If he didn't notice the full trash can, how is it that he noticed the empty one and that told him to fill it? What is going on in that brain of his....

(Freud had a theory....it was called Anal Explosive, versus Anal Retentive temperament. Where Anal Retentives hoard, the Anal Explosive temperament will make messes! Supposedly Freud thought it develops from a baby who was excessively rewarded for his messy diaper with attention from Mummy. Or maybe it was the only attention the baby got.) So applying learning theory to Freud's theory, we can say that:

More poop > more attention > better consequences for baby!

Also from learning theory:

I clean the house > SAWH drags something into the house or dumps his stuff anywhere > I feel like cleaning always leads to more mess > I eventually stop cleaning!

Soon as he walks back in my house from making the big bucks, Mr. Dog-Walker will be handed a damp mop, since the ghostly dog paw prints already dried and wouldn't vacuum up. Besides, the dirt is contaminated so it shouldn't be disturbed by a vacuum, I was told by an environmental consultant when we bought this farm. Dogs will be dogs, I realize. But why doesn't he think to just quick-leash them at the kitchen door, where we have mats for that purpose and we have a 4 foot leash tied to the wall, then use the old bath towels hanging right there on a quilt rack, just for such doggy messes as he has to know will happen? Especially when it has rained and there's mud everywhere they walk. I think he just doesn't give a s###. This is what IHS still involves...which makes me think real hard so often about changing my life! (If he were at least a civilized house guest, it would make this much more tolerable.)

Thanks for "listening" to me, I know you will understand.

P.S. As I finished this, he came back from a customer's with a breakfast taco for each of us...that customer owns a nearby butcher shop, food production and distribution warehouse, and once again, I'm humbled by He Who Brings Home The Bacon - literally, in this instance! Still, I casually told him he had a little job to do, and pointed at the floor. Well, he damp mopped the paw prints while I chowed down on the tasty taco. Why do I feel that little twinge of guilt, ladies?

So I think I'll walk down to my barn and try to help get "his" shop space decluttered! It's my space, it needs to meet some safety standards, and the big reason is that next week, his former boss will be driving 100 miles out here, bringing a transmission out of a multi-million-dollar collector car for him to rebuild, 5 years after he was laid off from his well-paid job down in the city. So it's a great potential future business arrangement for him, and I know a business' first impressions are so important. Despite his great mechanical talents they are counting on, they don't know how terribly cluttered he keeps his workspace, it's just like he lives. Hey, at least he's consistent...

So me cleaning "his" shop now, after this vent, perhaps looks co-Dependent to you all. Ok,guilty! But I tell myself it's more like a symbiotic relationship...he operates his business here, he gets $, he buys me breakfast....right? Or how else to deal.....?

[This message edited by Superesse at 10:15 AM, October 21st (Wednesday)]

Superesse, it sounds like you're dealing with all the annoying crap of marriage without most of the good stuff! No wonder you're irritated.

I don't know Superesse - he's a fucking handful!!

If you can get your mind around having an adult toddler, who pays the bills, that might be one strategy. The other might be to give him new house-rules one at a time, so as not to overwhelm his toddler brain. Maybe give him a strict protocol on what he must do when he brings the dogs back from a walk. He has the option of leashing them to avoid the mud, but should he decide to unleash them, he must do x,y,z before entering the house. Maybe establish a trash day for when he dumps his trash in the bins? I guess I'm thinking about ways I deal with my young adult, disabled son. I can't change all the rules at once but I try to add a new one every so many months. I support him in learning it with gentle reminders or doing it with him until he's comfortable and then let it settle in before introducing something else.

Living with men is generally a shit show - they're dirty, they don't seem to mind clutter, they're often inconsiderate - at least the men I tend to attract. At least you got a taco. I would take a taco!!!

Camping was just what I needed - ended up just being two of us. We went to a forest area not too far from here - about an hour. We had a great campsite. Spent the first day under a tree reading. My friend is the consummate camper so he had meals covered - he cooked sausages and peppers over the fire. Then we made s'mores. The next day we drove to a lake and he kayaked while I went paddle boarding - really fun. I've decided to buy a paddle board. I love it and there are lakes not too far that I can go to anytime. Raccoons kept me up the second night so I was very ready to come home and get a good night's sleep last night. My friend also has a very hype young lab that likes to run from his tent to my tent all night - argh. It's better when all four of us go camping because the dog has other people to harass

We scoped out a gorgeous camp site situated on an island in the middle of the lake we visited so, that's our next spot. So, yes, that's the beginning of Skeeter's recovery - a new hobby. I'm pretty proud of that.

I still have horrid anxiety some days, out of nowhere, but I'm hopeful I'll work through it.

Skeeter! Wow, your camping trip sounds heavenly! And a male friend to camp with, how nice is that? I think that situation would make me feel safer than just 2 women out in the wilderness. Next, you will have to take up sky diving, I suppose....

Keep making those solid steps forward!

I did date a guy for a short time who kept an exceptionally clean house. Of course, he had it on the market, maybe that explained it. He had just gone through a divorce and was selling the big house he and his XW had built. It was sparsely furnished - like no dining furniture in the formal dining room, but he was neat and clean....but yes, I tend to agree with your summary of how most men are. I guess that's why they don't mind going down sewer manholes, and such. Somebody's gotta do it....

Then too, some men do okay keeping their own place in order, but when they move in with a woman, that old Mommy programming rears its ugly head. Mommy can do it....I had dated my current H for almost a year before one evening, we stopped by the pig sty he called his apartment! I told him that if I'd just met him and saw how he lived, there wouldn't have been any further dates! I meant it, too. Gosh, my one clue, and I blew it.

And I cracked up with your "toddler brain!" You've seen it, so you recognized it! Yep....very developmentally "stuck." I do try that "shaping" behavior stuff with him, but with little real change. Did you tell us your son was "on the spectrum"? Because this is what I think my SAWH is, and could explain the extreme talent in one area (mechanical) with woeful lack of ability in a range of other areas, such as: communication, planning, comprehending speech, spelling, writing....I frequently feel like a first grade special ed teacher. Tonight, he was texting that same customer he got the tacos from this morning, to compliment his company about their tasty new brand of sausage we cooked up for dinner - and he had to stop to ask me how to spell "sausage." Yep....

[This message edited by Superesse at 11:44 PM, October 21st (Wednesday)]