Every time I sit down to write I decide I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to write whatever might come out of my head. Most of the time I write I don’t have a plan I just sit and write whatever comes to mind or has been on my mind. You can probably read this in the randomness of some of my blogs but it is oddly therapeutic. So now I am avoiding writing because there is a lot in my head that I think should stay there rather than let it out. I will probably keep a lot of it in for now. Maybe sometime soon it will make it’s way out but I never know once I start writing.
The last post I had was ranting somewhat about the thought that I needed to be 100% into keeping this relationship but my wife, who used to be 100%, is only 98%. I got a lot of comments about how this is actually a positive sign because of how quickly she got there and I can never really expect her to get back to 100% ever again. She will always be a little guarded because of what I put her through. I think what got me about this was the insistence that I needed to 100% all the way committed in order to make this work. I understand why she is at 98% and while at the time I felt like it was a slap in the face, I now think it was more like a bucket of cold water dumped on my head to wake me up a little. Honestly, maybe we all should only be between 95-98% in all our marriages. Why? Well it will make us stay cognizant of our partner. It will keep up working to please them and work to be the person you want to be for them. It helps the effort put in the marriage at the beginning be sustained throughout the marriage. What I am thinking (or rationalizing) is that 98% may be a very good thing, not a bad thing at all. I know the fewer bad things I have in my life the better off I am.
Here is some other interesting news that has thrown me for a loop. My The OW got married on July 2nd or 3rd. That is right, she got married. She has not even known this guy for 6 months and she got married. When I first met her she was dead set on never being married again. She thought that marriage was for suckers and she did not want to go through all that again. This guy has 3 or 4 kids added to her 4 kids from 2 different marriages (3 of which she hardly sees) makes for quite the mess. This will be her third marriage. At first I did not know what to think. It really made me wonder, which I was already doing, if what I (in my delusional fantasy land goggles) thought what we had was even the least bit real. Does it really matter? That is the part I was struggling with because in one instance I wanted it to be somewhat real so I was not 100% feeling like I got played and risked everything for nothing but in the other instance it just reassures me that I am glad I saw through the fog to come to my senses (although just a bit too late). I now feel like I really missed a bullet with her. I do have my own theories about why she got married but I will keep those to myself for now as they really don’t matter. In fact none of this really matters in what I have going on in my life now. And just to cut off all the comments about me following the OW, my wife actually found out on July 4th or 5th that she got married.
So now what? I have emerged from a horribly long week filled with setback after setback and I struggled to get out of bed some days. I am getting better but am always on the lookout for another setback. In all this, one of the things that I learned is that this will never go away. This will never end and I have to be strong enough to learn how to drag this burden with me. In counseling this week we went over a few things that I knew were coming but I did not want to talk about. I dreaded talking about them, but I went through with it anyways. Did it help? Not really. I still feel the same about myself as I did before, actually worse because every time I have to talk about it I feel like I go right back to the beginning of all this pain. My wife and the counselor keep trying to tell me that the shame I am feeling, the thoughts that I am not a good person, a bad husband, a horrible spouse, a selfish egotistical man are not real. I am not those things. They think that I am a good person who has made a mistake, albeit a humongous one, and I need to see that in myself. They also recognized that I am the only one who can change that perspective. It won’t matter how many times they tell me that, it won’t sink in. My wife got it because I constantly tell her how good of a person, mother, and wife that she is but she does not ever believe me. This has always been how she has been.
I really cannot see myself in a positive light in regards to this. Do I do a lot of good things? Sure, but just as good people can do bad things can’t bad people do good things? So I compartmentalized myself. I am a good dad, well I used to think so. I am a good…….. nevermind. I cannot think of anything off the top of my head. I can’t be a good husband. That is an obvious one because I cheated and was selfish. I hurt my wife worse than any other way I possibly could have hurt her. I diminished her self-esteem to zero and I have made her doubt everything she ever knew in life. So that one is pretty clear. Am I a good dad? Nope, I have ruined so much of my kids lives and I have done something that will affect them for the rest of their lives. Will they ever see me the same? I doubt it. Are they going to look at love and relationship the same ever again? Not a chance. Am I a good man? What kind of man forsakes the happiness of others, jeopardizes his livelihood, the security of his family for selfish reasons? I cannot say that a good man does that. So what does that leave me with? I am not sure.
Now I am not here looking for people to tell me that I am a good person. Most of you only know me through the words I am writing here. You don’t get to see the hurt in the eyes of the people I love. You don’t get to hear the frustration in their voices as they have to go through something again. You don’t have to understand that they are not the person they used to be. They have a shorter fuse, they forget things they never would have forgotten before. You can’t see them be someone else, someone you cannot recognize at times. I get to see all those things. I get to look at myself in the mirror every morning and wonder who I am. I get to look at myself and hardly recognize the person staring back at me. I get to pretend that all is well and that I am not turning myself inside out within my head. No I don’t need reassurance that I am a good person because good people don’t change other people for the worse in their own selfish pursuits.
So now I look to solace in solitude. I can be by myself and think about all that has gone on and what to make of the future. I try and figure out what the best thing is for all the people that I have hurt. The best thing that I can do after all I have put them through is to figure out what is best for them and then go through with it regardless of what that means for me. I want myself out of most equations now because I have caused enough damage now. In the end I need all of them to be happy. I need them to be the best they can be with what is left because it is all I have left.
Keep your mind on your work. You just stay there, you two… – Dr. Seuss
Surviving the affair....the cheaters perspective 
So, if I understand you correctly, you have set your mind to continue punishing yourself and your family forever. Did I get that right? No matter how much she tries to tell you, convince you and reassure you that you are a good man, you will continue to disrespect her opinion. And, by removing yourself from most of the equations of your family, you wish to continue to tarnish their thoughts, opinions and memories of you. Did I get that right? I swear I am not trying to be a Bitch, but COME ON! You can’t possibly think that this self-destructive dialogue you have going is going to help ANYBODY. I understand you are still wanting to punish yourself for what you did, but when are you going to stop punishing everyone else. I can hear in your words that you are devastated by the pain you have caused and wish nothing more than to set it right. But, my friend, you seem to me to be going about it all Wrong. Good, Bad or Indifferent, a mistake was made, penance must be paid and forgiveness granted so EVERYONE can heal and continue living a good, happy and whole life. GET OUT OF YOUR OWN HEAD AND LIVE!
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In my (unsolicited) opinion you need to start practicing gratitude. You need to be thankful that your wife is still with you, that you are still surrounded by your family, in your home, and you need to stop wallowing in self pity. It must be very hard on your wife to feel like she has to help you pick up the pieces and make you feel better. She is a good woman to be so willing to try and help you feel better about all of this. Your negative self talk is only going to continue leading you down this negative path.
You will get better. You will heal. Your wife and your children will get better. They will heal. But not if you keep picking at the scab of the wound you caused. You must take care of the sound, you must take care of yourself and those around you. Be thankful for your second chance and move forward.
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Silly girl. The blog owner needs to stop wallowing in guilt (not the same as self pity). We don’t need more Entitled Princesses ™ or Pedestalization of Women ™.
Was the wife withholding sex? That’s typically why husbands go looking for strange. If she was withholding, then she is a cheater herself. In fact, wives who withhold sex have a greater sin than a husband who goes looking for strange. She took a vow, “to have and to hold”. If a wife starts chiseling on sex, then she is a cheater. (We keep a record of sexual activity in order to keep things clear for my wife. She is a lot happier now, too.)
It’s very common for wives to withhold sex from their husbands. Per the CDC, the longer that marriages last, the less frequent that sex becomes–and the greater the unhappiness of the husbands.
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Wound..not sound..darn typos
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If this is really what you want, your marriage that is, put your nose down and just stay on the clock.
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If you are chasing your woman, she won’t be chasing you. In successful marriages, the woman is always chasing the man. The man has to be higher value than the woman or else she will lose attraction to him.
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I am personally kind of scared of some of the ‘wife bashing’ in the comments…Let us all understand this, no one, one more time 🙂 NO ONE deserves to be cheated on. Not for any reason, please don’t try and blame the wife.
But the real reason I wanted to comment? Was to tell you, the writer, this…everyone makes mistakes, everyone screws up, and everyone deserves (If they want it, and are willing to work on it) a second chance. You can’t go around beating yourself up forever. It doesn’t help your wife…yes, let her see you are sorry, let her see you have changed, then go find your happy. Watching my husband struggle, and beat him self up? It makes me sad. You can move on with her, because it sounds like you aren’t the same man who cheated. Give yourself a break…
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I agree that no one deserves to go through the pain on either side. And hopefully people have had read my earlier posts they would know that while my wife and I had issues within our marriage I have never blamed her for the affair. It was a decision that I had to make. A line I had to purposely cross even though I feel I was somewhat disillusioned when I made it. Our problems were not deliberate and came about over time. This is not her fault nor would I ever blame her.
With that being both of us understand we have to fix the problems we had with our marriage or we won’t be successful in the end.
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Totally agree that both sides have to work on marriage to make it work. Both have to stand back and look at what was working and what was not, and change it if needed. I have worked on myself, I know I wasn’t perfect…I also know I didn’t deserve what was done to me by two selfish people. My husband has changed, I’ve changed and we are moving on together, as a family. I hope the same for you.
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Thank you, you have always provided me with hope.
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Lol, silly girl. The booger man will getcha if ya don’t watch out.
Women cheat their husbands all the time by withholding sex. Wives deserve tons of blame. Don’t go blaming cheaters if you are withholding sex. And if a husband was “cheating”, first check whether the wife was withholding sex. If she was, she has no cause to blame her husband. None whatsoever.
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Alright, let’s set something straight here. Marital issues are not the cause of affairs. People deciding to not fulfill their commitment to each other is what causes affairs. There are so many other avenues that could be explored rather than breaking your commitment to your spouse. The easiest to choose from is to leave the relationship.
As I am too familiar with cheating is a selfish route to fulfilling individual needs not the needs of the relationship. If their are problems in the relationship they need to be dealt with and that can lead to a happier relationship or the end of one depending on the outcome.
I have a post half written on this that I will finish and post later today. Because there is so much that goes into the leading up to affairs (at least mine and a lot of other commenters). The funny thing is most of the people I have interacted with do not believe sex is usually the issue that led to the affair. But as I said I will post in it later today.
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Marital issues are typically bigger problems than affairs. Withholding sex is a bigger problem than an affair.
A man who won’t hold his boundaries becomes unattractive to his woman. Hence, because he is unattractive, she withholds sex. So, simply by making such a big deal of the affair, you are making yourself more unattractive to your wife. If you held her feet to the fire, she would respect you more and find you more attractive. Instead, by supplicating to her, you are disgusting her. No offense intended, you need to understand how women see these things. All these other broads are telling you this same thing, but you aren’t getting it. Be the man. Set the boundaries. Make sure your woman respects your boundaries. I hear this over and over from women–that they don’t respect men who will let women walk all over them.
Women have flaked on dates with me. I do platonic dates and expect women to keep them. One flaked and didn’t have my phone no. so she couldn’t notify me. She apologized and asked for my phone no. No problem.
Another broad flaked, lied about why she flaked, was snarky about discussing it, then told me not to text her, and said that we didn’t need to dance together anymore. Previously, she would ask me to dance half the time.
I ignored her for a couple of dances after that when she asked me. This broad kept trying to get my attention by standing in my field of vision, bumping me with her arm as she danced past me, etc. the next two dances. She greeted me warmly. I ignored her. Last time she smiled coyly at me over her shoulder as I passed. Following that, she overtly stared at me as I passed, with her eyebrows raised, signaling that she wanted me to approach her. She is a married broad and didn’t care who saw her. I ignored her.
These women both respect me because I hold my boundaries. Some women don’t like me because of that, but they still respect me. Others, including the two who flaked, also like me, tho the married broad is conflicted.
My wife likes it that I hold my boundaries and she is never too tired for sex. Sometimes I awaken her early a.m. for sex and she is enthusiastic…this after 30 years of marriage.
You are the man. You have the d1ck and vastly superior strength. You are likely smarter than your wife. You are likely more sexually “on”, which women find interesting. You can tolerate risk better. You are taller, most likely, are more muscular, and weigh more. To women, most men seem like demigods,
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Holy hell….I think that is all I can say at the moment. That and I think you have a very antiquated view of women.
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Yeah, cuz women have so changed, lol. No way I can persuade you that you have believed a pack of lies. Probably not until you’ve had your @$$ handed to you by an ex-wife. That’s usually when a lot of men wise up.
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Biology is soooo antiquated, lol. Women like strong, confident, dominant men. Even women who are feminists, heh. You might as well try to stop tidal action as ignore biological reality.
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My only reply to your comment will be this…booger man? is he married to the snot woman? And people with your perspective on affairs is why Hollywood and Harlequin Novels have heroes who are actually narcissistic assholes…but everyone deserves an opinion even if it is that ” cheaters have a reason to cheat it’s all on the wife, she wasn’t giving it up 24/7 because she was at home raising your kids, taking care of your shit and being a “wife”…and with that I respectfully disagree and am going back to my delusional blog where I think cheating is a choice, and a really bad one for a marriage and family….I was just here to let bac4sccr know I really do sympathize with him and his struggle.
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Shaming and reframing, typical silly girl.
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Hi I hope you are feeling better about yourself and your marriage now.
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