SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I tend to agree that we are all capable of cheating. That doesn’t mean I have to carry the burden for something I haven’t done, but it seems like it is sound judgment to notice the line between choosing right from wrong is slimmer than I used to believe. That allows me to have some level of empathy for my wife or even for others in my life who hurt me.

Most cheaters will blame ANYONE or ANYTHING they can.

Do you think a cheater is going to say "yeah I’m an idiot and I made a mistake and thought an affair would ease my pain"?

Even when my H came home that fateful Dday night and ADMITTED he was with the OW that night, he still lied about the details and intentionally avoided answering questions.

I was just too blindsided to address it at that time.

WS tend to have a lot of unmet needs. Because they frequently are unable to self soothe when upset, and expect their needs to be met by others.

Adults meet their own needs or decide to leave.

We chose them, though, so I always think that needs looking at.

Yeah, I have to disagree with the "we are all capable of cheating" thing. That's a slippery slope. If we are all capable of cheating, then why should we judge? I mean, by judging the cheater, aren't we condemning ourselves?

So not to be crass, but since there are pedophiles, aren't we all capable of pedophilia? Yeah, that logic thread falls apart pretty quick.

People confuse possibility with probability.

Even in the famous Milgram experiment, there were those unwilling to cross the line.

[This message edited by Justsomeguy at 3:55 AM, Tuesday, May 9th]

@Bigger: Thanks for sharing those justifications; makes sense. She did share concerns (ie. more sex); at first, I wasn't comfortable talking about it, but after reflecting I came up with solutions that we would try once, she would be really happy, but then we/she would not try again and fall back to our routine of cuddling/watching shows (which she now tells me how much she misses). However, she said she was happy with us prior to the affair and didn't tell me how much of a dark hole she was in mentality.

@Sisoon: The help for me is just realizing 1. I didn't cause this (what I did/didn't do as a partner) and 2. I'm enough for someone. I will say I believe this for the most part, but I do have moments when something triggers me (a song, seeing a place we would visit, being in the house alone at night, etc.) and I get these thoughts.

@3yrsout: That's exactly her problem - lived off external validation, always chasing what was "next". When she got fired and lost that validation (status, high salary/role), she spiraled. I understand why, but to me, there is no chance of R when she was still seeing her AP after telling me and seeing me completely break down for two months, yet still lied, blamed me for the affair, and became angry when I told my parents. I told her her second chance was the moment she told me what happened.

Warning. What I am about to post could be offensive to some.

"My point is I don’t care WHAT the cheater’s unhappiness or issue is - there is no excuse to cheat. Period"

I agree with Firstwife
The solution to one's unhappiness is not not to break vows, endanger the person we committed to's mental, physical, spiritual and financial health and go sticking out body parts on or in....well you get the picture

#notunmetneeds

I had a lot of seriously unmet needs in my 30 plus year marriage to wh and my body parts stayed where they belonged because to my knowledge I was in a one woman (me) one man (him) monogomous marriage (well I was wrong about this but just imagine I was right and behaved accordingly).

Children have impulse control issues. Grown moral people honor their agreements.

Being unhappy may contribute, but where that unhappiness is coming from and what needs to be done about it is the stuff of grown people discussions and agreements.

If I can walk in a chocolate store and keep my hands off the merchandise unless I pay for it, I can also keep my panties on and my body parts off of others if I am already in a monogomous relationship.

If we are all capable of cheating, then why should we judge?

That's it exactly - we're not here to judge. Besides, we're all imperfect. My bet is that all of us have fucked up in one way or another, several times in our lives.

I was a road warrior for several years. Never cheated - but is that because of something especially good in my character, or is it because I never met anyone who got under my skin enough to enable me to cheat? Cheating is not abnormal behavior. My bet is that I'm pretty much like everyone else, so my bet is that cheating is somewhere in my DNA. I think that's true for virtually all of us.

I'm not offended, Shehawk. I think your post should be read and taken to heart. I do my best not to judge, but expecting decent behavior from my fellow human-beings seems entirely reasonable, for the reasons you state. And the vast majority of human beings do act responsibly most of the time.

What Shehawk said!

Bump:

@Bigger: Thanks for sharing those justifications; makes sense. She did share concerns (ie. more sex); at first, I wasn't comfortable talking about it, but after reflecting I came up with solutions that we would try once, she would be really happy, but then we/she would not try again and fall back to our routine of cuddling/watching shows (which she now tells me how much she misses). However, she said she was happy with us prior to the affair and didn't tell me how much of a dark hole she was in mentality.

@Sisoon: The help for me is just realizing 1. I didn't cause this (what I did/didn't do as a partner) and 2. I'm enough for someone. I will say I believe this for the most part, but I do have moments when something triggers me (a song, seeing a place we would visit, being in the house alone at night, etc.) and I get these thoughts.

@3yrsout: That's exactly her problem - lived off external validation, always chasing what was "next". When she got fired and lost that validation (status, high salary/role), she spiraled. I understand why, but to me, there is no chance of R when she was still seeing her AP after telling me and seeing me completely break down for two months, yet still lied, blamed me for the affair, and became angry when I told my parents. I told her her second chance was the moment she told me what happened.

I'm not sure if you can always see red flags because not all cheaters display them. Many cheaters aren't horrible people with lots of issues... Sometimes 'good/nice' people simply cheat because an opportunity presents itself for a quick ego boost & cake eating and they take it thinking no one will find out. Nothing more, nothing less. You could never spot that before it happened and you wouldn't necessarily have even done anything to make them feel like doing it. I'm trying to keep the belief that there are genuine loyal people like myself out there who would never cheat because we have very strong morals & beliefs. I thought my husband was the same as me, however I got that wrong, but that's OK - I'm still a positive person who looks for the good in people because that's just my personality & I don't want to change that about myself 🙂