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hikingout post # 38 I believe:

It IS a why.

The why is she didn’t accept herself. Now she can productively work on that. You are only focusing on a snippet of what she said because you think it paints the ap in a better light.

It doesn’t. She is saying that she didn’t feel worthy of higher standards. I get that totally and it was one of my whys.

It's not a why though. So I disagree with you here.

What she said that tried to paint AP in a better light...That was a bit more than a snippet.

What is missing is why SHE GAVE HERSELF PERMISSION to betray her BH. That is a huge part of the Why.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 8:16 PM, Monday, November 3rd]

It is a why- she may not have it all untangled yet…

As I said earlier:

"But I felt very much like Ghostri described- I felt like I sort of had permission to be my worst self. I had always presented my best self to my husband prior to this, because I wanted to be worthy of his love. But that sort of hiding creates a cancer that is infected with the shame of not being worthy for who I am."

When two people cheat they always lower their standards for a reason. She is talking about how that felt, not justifying it.

I felt exactly the same way. It took some time for me to realize that it wasn’t just me that had low standards. My ap did as well. That feeling she is describing is real at the time, but you then turn to realize that the reason they gave you permission to be yourself is 1) they themselves are flawed in much the same manner and b) they want something from you.

It is common to cheat with lower standards than who you would date or marry. And for a lot of us we we see our spouse as better than us in many ways. All of this is skewed by our own self perception and is a result of not accepting ourselves. It’s all in the other parts of her post in which you did not highlight.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:27 PM, Monday, November 3rd]

I have posted several times, "There but for the grace of God go I."

And that, maybe I just have never gotten the right "tap", been in the right mix of circumstance.

Does that mean I share OP’s view that we are all capable of cheating?

Not at all. Not at all.

I’m just not sure about me.

I have traveled extensively my whole career, domestically and internationally. With groups of men and alone. I have had innumerable opportunities to cheat, with little chance of discovery.

I’ve been tempted, but so far, I’ve been a good boy.

I’m careful. I don’t go down to the hotel bar. I don’t give my admin a ride when she needs to run an errand.

The women in my office don’t much like me; I’m not very friendly. Would I like it if they smiled and flirted? Yup, but it’s better they don’t.

My advice to OP: be careful how much slack you cut yourself, lest you get careless.

hikingout post #42:

"But I felt very much like Ghostri described- I felt like I sort of had permission to be my worst self. I had always presented my best self to my husband prior to this, because I wanted to be worthy of his love. But that sort of hiding creates a cancer that is infected with the shame of not being worthy for who I am."

When two people cheat they always lower their standards for a reason. She is talking about how that felt, not justifying it.

Well but what this misses is that there is a VICTIM, at least the betrayed spouse.

A lot of people feel unworthy but not everyone who feels unworthy, feels justified in causing harm in others.

And...did the OP actually say that she felt like she had permission to be her worst self? That is not a nitpick. If I am recalling correctly, a detail pre-affair is that you had taken on more than your fair share of the household work while not expressing your true needs.

No one is saying her bh isn’t destroyed. It’s okay for her to talk about her feelings and sort through her thoughts both as an individual and in terms of a couple. In fact I don’t think any relationship can be repaired without fixing yourself first. I notice she asks questions about her relationship in reconciliation forum.

There is nothing wrong with someone writing here about their perspective and pain without constantly talking about their spouse. It’s inferred that if one gets better they will be better equipped to help their spouse.

I don’t want to talk that much about me but why do you think I didn’t express my feelings? Because my lack of self worth. I was always hustling for love. That’s what a lot of us do.

She may not have done it the same exact way as me. She is on to something and it will become clearer as time goes along of she continues to be able to express herself here. She needs to pull in that string more but for where she is there is some realizations happening here that are on track.

All she tried to express is being triggered by some of the comments in which she feels generalized in this forum l. That’s normal. She is reading what people say and trying it on so think she is just realizing she doesn’t have to try all of it in some of it doesn’t fit. And I felt a lot like her in that I would let it take up too much headspace, and it wasn’t always helpful to let that happen.

[This message edited by hikingout at 9:29 PM, Monday, November 3rd]

hikingout,

When two people cheat they always lower their standards for a reason. She is talking about how that felt, not justifying it.

I felt exactly the same way. It took some time for me to realize that it wasn’t just me that had low standards. My ap did as well. That feeling she is describing is real at the time, but you then turn to realize that the reason they gave you permission to be yourself is 1) they themselves are flawed in much the same manner and b) they want something from you.

I'm sorry, but I just don't see this in what Ghostie said. Are you sure you are not projecting? She said she was accepted and valued as she was, imperfect and all. She felt seen and heard and that was valuable. Really valuable, and still would be valuable. Ghostie, maybe you could add something here. Do you still see this as valuable? Is it something your husband could or should study and figure out why you felt this way? Because that is coming through in your post. As a BS, we should figure out our WS and what they went through and why they are the way they are.

And yet, I will still go with I don't see a reason to study why a pedophile becomes a pedophile and understand what goes on there. Why does that help? I'm probably being too harsh.

I don’t think k I am projecting. I will quote her:

. I think it might be because I have a deep need to feel like I’m a good person worthy of love and marriage, and there’s some insidious voice inside of me that keeps saying that isn’t true. It latches onto those negative comments online, amplifies them, and plays them on repeat, and I’m scrambling to defend myself and the last, struggling bit of self-worth I have

I felt good enough for him exactly as I was. That feeling is what I’ve been chasing from men all my life. But what I’ve come to realize is that it needed to come from me all along; that it’s self-acceptance and self-love that I need…

A I think that a lot of WS are needing that too, and that’s why many of them can’t resist the validation that their AP gives them.

And the reason it’s so important is because how do you change without being introspective?

She is digging, it will get deeper as time goes along.

You can’t work on yourself without finding what you want to fix, and that is the point.

? Is it something your husband could or should study and figure out why you felt this way?

God no. I have no idea where you would get that. It’s on her to figure out why she does it. That is what we are doing here in the ws forum- talking about what we are discovering about ourselves and how others managed these things. I don’t find it to be the spouses responsibility at all.

[This message edited by hikingout at 9:49 PM, Monday, November 3rd]

hikingout,

He participated in the fantasies too. He saw that I was capable of breaking rules and telling lies and doing something as bad as committing infidelity, and still liked me like that.

I felt good enough for him exactly as I was. That feeling is what I’ve been chasing from men all my life. But what I’ve come to realize is that it needed to come from me all along; that it’s self-acceptance and self-love that I need… And I think that a lot of WS are needing that too, and that’s why many of them can’t resist the validation that their AP gives them.

And so when people in these spaces go spouting stuff about how "good people" could "never" commit infidelity and "bad people" can and do, and other sentiments that amount to this false, unhelpful dichotomy… It all just amounts to greater shame and stunts the growth of WS that feel this way.

So it's this I guess. She still feels good about this from her post.

And this:

I think the other thing that is hard to let go of is that these places paint themselves to be supportive of both the BS and the WS, with the goal of surviving, recovering from, and stopping infidelity and its root causes, and the negative generalizations seem to be in direct contrast with that goal.

I need to be able to congratulate myself on my insight and feel proud, instead of having that "I told you so, didn’t I? But nobody listens to me!" and being mired in anger and the need to be seen as insightful by others, when situations play out that way.

I am in need, and the best way to help my husband rn is to meet my own needs...
[/quote}

I'm not right there now to look up the posts or quotes where Ghostie says something about how we (as BS) need to be reminded of how we need to look at it from a WS viewpoint and study it so we can underztand better. Maybe I totally misrepresented the whole thing. I'll look into that.

I am getting the sense that on some level she still feels good about her infidelity too. It is appearing to me that several of us had picked up on that too.

I am sorry hikingout but I still disagree with your take.

I feel like this is typical IC 101 stuff. In the beginning, they start talking to you about your whys and they try and get you to look at how your shame is condemning you into these mindsets that are not helpful for your healing. She is doing the very work we tell people to go and do.

I could describe my headspace in the affair too. I could say things like he listened when typically I would get shut down at home. I felt seen for the first time in years.

But I don’t sit here today with a shred of feeling good about it. It’s simply what happened. I was very wrong about all of it. I wasn’t being myself with him, nor did he have any reason to shut anything I said down because he wasn’t the one married to me. And btw there was a reason I was being shut down- I needed to communicate better so that all these big feelings didn’t come into the everyday conflicts that couples have.

She is realizing in those paragraphs what she had been chasing using clues from her affair.. And now she must look at how unhealthy that is and try to start giving herself what she is chasing.

I have to say regardless of whether you agree or not, I do think that I do understand and know the process a female ws is led through to get to recovery and all you are doing is making it all seem like it’s for nothing because it’s not the right answers you expect.

When in my opinion the right answer is the honest answer and through sitting and writing down what you truly think or feel you learn to reflect your truth back to yourself. And you get to say - oh this part here seems like a problem.

I am resilient and I kept writing here, and slowly worked through my thoughts in these forums. I often decided I didn’t like some of it over time as I would go back and reread what I wrote and it would challenge my view. Hell, I still do that sometimes.

And I the fact she is internalizing the things being said here but is trying to decide what is truly helpful is exactly how you should use this forum. And that’s the grace she is trying to give herself, I personally think that’s a natural way to start.

But what she is doing at the stage she is isn’t easy. She is simply stating what happened. The fact you think she is being completely positive about her affair when she is clearly stating she was trying to fill a hole and realizing she could fill it herself is so opposite to me. She is doing exactly what you start with you start to debunk what it was you were really getting out of it so you can identify the hole.

[This message edited by hikingout at 11:34 PM, Monday, November 3rd]

Hi Ghostie, I came back to check up on you and oh my goodness your thread has got long. I only read your posts, so I'm not sure what nuances are being discussed. If I remember correctly, you had a very negative experience with a different online forum (discord) and you are probably primed to interpret this kind of interaction negatively. I strongly suggest you use a stop sign. SI can be very helpful but people (BS, WS, MH, everyone) can also elicit interactions that they expect and/or fear. Just use a stop sign, and when you get to 50 posts, you can use private messaging which many waywards have found helpful.

I felt like my AP saw me exactly as I was, and accepted me. . . I felt good enough for him exactly as I was. That feeling is what I’ve been chasing from men all my life.

I also felt like this and it took a while to see reality more clearly. It should be an important goal to see the full reality of the interactions between you and the AP, and also to really understand (not just at an intellectual level) that feelings and reality are not the same thing and that feelings can distort, obscure, and twist your understanding of reality. Figuring out your whys is to some extent a process of figuring out why your reality was/is distorted and putting measures into place to make sure you see clearly in the future.

I found M. Scott Peck's work to be very helpful. Here's a bit about reality and truth: Mental health is a dedication to reality at all costs . . .For truth is reality. That which is false is unreal. The more clearly we see the reality of the world, the better equipped we are to deal with the world. The less clearly we see the reality of the world–the more our minds are befuddled by falsehood, misperceptions and illusions–the less able we will be to determine correct courses of action and make wise decisions. Our view of reality is like a map with which to negotiate the terrain of life. If the map is true and accurate, we will generally know where we are, and if we have decided where we want to go, we will generally know how to get there. If the map is false and inaccurate, we generally will be lost. While this is obvious, it is something that most people to a greater or lesser degree choose to ignore. They ignore it because our route to reality is not easy. First of all, we are not born with maps; we have to make them, and the making requires effort. The more effort we make to appreciate and perceive reality, the larger and more accurate our maps will be. But many do not want to make this effort. Some stop making it by the end of adolescence. Their maps are small and sketchy, their views of the world narrow and misleading. The biggest problem of map-making is not that we have to start from scratch, but that if our maps are to be accurate we have to continually revise them. The process of making revisions, particularly major revisions, is painful, sometimes excruciatingly painful.

But what I’ve come to realize is that it needed to come from me all along; that it’s self-acceptance and self-love that I need… And I think that a lot of WS are needing that too, and that’s why many of them can’t resist the validation that their AP gives them.

Am I correct in remembering that you mentioned going to church, having a deeper understanding of God as a father? and you as a child in a parent-child relationship? Yes we are social creatures, yes we seek validation through other people, but a good deal of validation can come through this relationship. It is sturdier than any other.

I'm not sure flexible is the word I would use. I prefer to think that there is Truth with a capital T, but I am extremely wary of thinking I have truth and also very wary of others who say they have it. That doesn't mean it isn't there and I pray daily to know more of the Truth. It means that I come to my beliefs sincerely but I hold them somewhat lightly, prepared to listen to other people who are willing to share their experience (but not their list of rules and not their judgments).

Would you please put up a stop sign?

"I would never do that. Only shitty people would do this thing"

is neither helpful nor supportive, when something like

"I presently cannot see myself making that decision personally, but I’m open to hearing about situations that might put me or other people more at risk of doing the shitty thing, so that we can reduce the likelihood that people do the shitty thing and hurt others."

To me, this and other parts of this post sound like: you need to study me and figure out why I do these shitty things, so you can help prevent me from doing these shitty things.

Am I missing something here? That was my point earlier about studying WS to learn how we can stop them from doing it.

Ink - I would gently assert that at a few months out, you probably still hadn’t experienced the fully shattered illusion of who your wife was. Who I was at 3 month out. Who this person is. A ws who just chose to have an affair, then experienced the fall out of this can not be expected to have the point of view of a healed person.

It’s very tender to be here as a new ws, and awkwardly flail trying to figure it all out. It IS triggering to hear things here that your bs doesn’t say to you. What you may not realize is that just like you would have been appalled to read this from your ww, many of us aren’t hearing at home what we hear in this forum. I left for a while not being able to look at it anymore.

My words reflected honestly what I see in Ghostie’s writing, and the hard words were written in good faith. But if I was unwise in my timing and they were unprofitable to her, I can apologize for that.

OP, you’ve written about your experience with other forums. I think this one is intelligent and open minded on the whole. But anyone who has been impacted by infidelity is going to have a strong ability to recognize "fogginess", and some are better than others at managing the emotions that accompany it. I hope for you and your BH’s sake that you can move out of that stage quickly. I worry that you think you already have.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you're having difficulty empathisizing with Ghostie, then perhaps it's best to step away. I'm quite certain she didn't come here for ad nauseum debates on ethics, morality, character and whatnot.

I know how hard it can be to look beyond the fact that she's a wayward spouse. I struggled with this stumbling block for years. All of that changed when I found myself becoming... friends with a couple of truly amazing and wonderful women (formerly wayward wives). It all changed when I started to listen... to understand.

This lack of empathy and compassion has proven Ghostie's point about sites like this.

It's why DeeplyScared, the lady you see on the home page, who founded this site with her husband, insisted upon a separate forum for wayward spouses and the "stop sign."

hikingout is right. It's not easy, at all, to come here as WS. It's a far cry from the warm, friendly, compassionate embrace we betrayed enjoy.

So much of what ghostie and hikingout have written resonates with me so I do not want to be redundant. Monday is therapy day for both my wife and me and we often have pretty deep talks before and after. One of the topics that came up today was what I could have been thinking at the time. When I tried to explain what I can see in retrospect and what I was likely thinking at the time my wife had difficulty understanding what I was trying to say. Eventually we both concluded how difficult it is for someone who has not carried shame from their childhood / teenage years for decades compounded by the shame of the affair to understand how that impacts your actions.

I identify deeply with the notion of feeling like your spouse is so much better than you and the pull of an AP where you do not feel less than. Sort of a shame bond (pigs in mud is a good analogy).

None of this is an excuse, but even my wife would acknowledge that both of us understanding how my shame contributed to my choices has been helpful. To be sure, others with similar trauma and shame do not make the choices I did, but I firmly believe most WS have some damage that contributes to their poor choices.

Probably a good thread for the stop sign.

Thank you guys recently chiming in for putting this thread back to right. I regret stoking the fires here. I simply feel protective of a ws who is willing to come here, ask questions, write where they honestly are and try and find a way to balance themselves better in the face of their recovery. You have admitted to some hard things since you have been here.

All I am trying to say is I think you are trying Ghostie. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect more than that. No one knows where they are in the process, clarity is a luxury of hindsight. I hope you will stay. Feel free to dm me anytime if you want.

I feel like this is typical IC 101 stuff. In the beginning, they start talking to you about your whys and they try and get you to look at how your shame is condemning you into these mindsets that are not helpful for your healing. She is doing the very work we tell people to go and do.

I could describe my headspace in the affair too. I could say things like he listened when typically I would get shut down at home. I felt seen for the first time in years.

Well, I will try to sum up what I said in a way that I hope is more constructive.

It certainly does no one any good for the WS to hate WHO THEY ARE. However, I think every betrayed spouse who would even consider R however, sure needs the WS to hate WHAT THEY DID. And this includes the WS being disgusted with their AP. The WS simply can't be viewing AP as the one person who got them, a few months out from the affair. The betrayed spouse....just aint got time for that.

Ghostie, your AP was complicit with you in hurting your BH deeply.

I said my peace so I'm bowing out of this thread.

This lack of empathy and compassion has proven Ghostie's point about sites like this.

I respectfully disagree. There are guidelines to the community and it seems like everyone is following them. She made a conscious choice not to use the Stop Sign. She’s gotten a lot of empathy and compassion. And she’s gotten some firm words. Both have always had a place here.

hikingout is right. It's not easy, at all, to come here as WS. It's a far cry from the warm, friendly, compassionate embrace we betrayed enjoy.

As someone who put about 90% of their soul on display on this website, it was not always warm, compassionate or friendly, even as a BS. Sometimes the softness helped, and sometimes a hard word jarred me unstuck. It’s hard to know exactly what will be the right thing for a person at any moment. I was always glad for people giving what they had. I could take what I could use, leave the rest.

I can say without a doubt that I hope for the best for Ghostie.

I'm quite certain she didn't come here for ad nauseum debates on ethics, morality, character and whatnot

Whilst I accept your general point that this conversation maybe devolving into something not helpful, it is absolutely essential to stay focused on the philosophical core of her post. I truly hope she did come here wanting such discissions. I'm sure if all one needed was a shoulder to cry on she'd have better options that this site.

When you declare moral flexibility as a survival trait and simultaneously refuse to see the direct link between that flexibility and your infidelity—especially when coupled with your sweeping view that everyone is a cheater in waiting—that worldview must be dismantled. Personally, I believe discussing these underlying ideas is the only way forward for her. If someone came to a forum and essentially confessed, "I live my life by the philosophy of doing things that make me feel good, I cheated, got caught and now I feel bad," the necessary, critical step is for others to start picking holes in that self-serving philosophy and expose how it directly led to the consequences they're now struggling to accept.

If you genuinely believe that healing and growth can be achieved by merely asserting that everyone is a hypocrite and that no one stands by their principles—a claim that is demonstrably false and clearly serves to minimize her own indiscretion—then we are fundamentally working toward different goals. My goal is true accountability. It's simply not true that everyone breaks their moral code or principles. I could literally spend on all day writing example after example of people who've died over their principles.

Feelings matter, we have many users who are far better at swaddling her with empathy than I but ideas matter just as much. Walking the line between challenging damaging ideas and provide support is difficult. Sometimes responses can be too harsh. Sometimes readers can be too sensitive but the key here is It's no coincidence that she has stated her philosophy of moral flexibility and has committed infidelity. That connection she must examine if she wants to be a safe partner. It's this or merely nihilistically wait with fingers crossed that such circumstances don't arise again.

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 9:04 AM, Tuesday, November 4th]

My goal is true accountability.

"My goal?" How did you arrogate this role?