SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Even though it has been over 3 decades sense D-day and I consider our marriage has been restored to even better than pre disclosure, needling questions still linger.

For many years all enquiries I held concerning the "how’s, "when’s" and "why’s, whether voiced or internalized, were extraordinary painful. Those were dreary, dark days where I was prone to spiraling downward questioning my value. Back then, pre home computers and internet, I had nowhere to turn for people like here to advise me that I was looking at this all ass-backwards.

I was disoriented, a rudderless craft desperately trying to stay afloat amidst a tempest, where her explanations struck like lightning, repeatedly electrifying the mast, shredding the sails that once guided me. There were no clear skies or solid land with safe harbor. I felt like I was left with nothing but jagged reefs looming below to blindly navigate.

Eventually, after many years adrift, I did find dock and began to right the ship and do the repairs needed to safely head back out to sea. However, I was not trained or naturally skilled for this kind of effort, but I persisted, mistakes and all. Interestingly, reading posts and wise comments here at SI really point out just how unskilled I was. That lack of experience drug out the repairs for far too long.

The good news is, anymore, questions are more like a puzzlement with only a slight, but still painful sting. I find myself saying without a word spoken, "I just don’t get it!" I’ve listened to my wife intensely over the years trying to be open and fair to her explanations. I did so because, despite her terrible decision to cheat, I believed then, and I maintain now, she deserved both my anger and my compassion. I concede that empathy for the betrayer should never be at the expense of the betrayed’s wellbeing. However, I could see my wife was suffering from deep shame for betraying not only me but herself as well. I believe that she was more in shock to realize that she was capable of betrayal than I was, and I was stunned to the core. We were adrift in a briny sea of endless pain.

Not that I have any great wisdom to offer, just lots of water bailed, but I wish to convey for those who are early in the process of reconciliation that no matter the outcome, stay or go, happy or sad, successful or failing, stalemated or moving forward, you may find that many questions are unanswerable leaving betrays, like me, in a state of "I don’t get it!" and the fact that I will never understand is what I find most difficult to reconcile.

You can never make sense out of situations where emotions are at play and why people do what they do.

FWIW I have seen grown up adults still act like children when it comes to decisions and behavior. It’s like they revert bs k to the spoiled toddler and believe "they deserve to be happy" and "I want it!" Type mentality.

I figured out a few things regarding my H. It helps me UNDERSTAND but certainly does not excuse his lying and cheating.

I think we struggle to understand things we wouldn't do. I can't understand why people do negative things like take drugs, or steal, or are cruel to animals but I also don't understand risk taking behaviour like free climbing or extreme parkour.

I guess everyone is wired differently and I'm definitely the sort of person who likes a stress free, simple life so I can't imagine ever finding sneaking around and lying to have an affair appealing in any way!

Hello again The1stWife,

It is true that infidelity is an extremely selfish act. I will not attempt to say anything differently. However, my wife is one of the least selfish person I know, which makes her decision to cheat that more disorienting.

There is another angle though. She has one older brother and two sisters, one younger one older. Her parents, for as long as she can recall, had a silent, stay in your corner, relationship. She has said here and there, one of the things that drew her to me was how she witnessed my parents’ relationship. For as long as I can remember and right up to their passing, they were deeply affectionate with each other. Their love for each other is all I knew and kind of thought it was typical.

What I hadn’t really put together until now is that in a way, I might have been a means to an end. Not that it was intentional on her part, but she has, in the distant past, made the statement that she didn’t really want to marry me. (That would have been nice to know before we got married.) Of course, starting out that way would, more than likely, leave a person feeling unhappy. And for the 1st 16 years (breaks my heart) she was deeply unhappy. She never told me of her unhappiness until after the affair came to the forefront of our relationship. At the time of disclosure, she was, or at least she says she was, deeply in love with me. Try making that hat fit! Uggg!

To add to this equation, every one of her siblings had affairs, some multiple. All are divorced, all several times. I submit that there is more to her decision to betray me than she was selfish.

I do gain insight from your comments. Thank you.

Asterisk

Hello Evio,

I think we struggle to understand things we wouldn't do. I can't understand why people do negative things like take drugs, or steal, or are cruel to animals but I also don't understand risk taking behaviour like free climbing or extreme parkour.

So very true Evio, it is extremely difficult to grasp. On a side note....I free climbed for nearly 2 decades. So I get why a person would take the risk. :) I will admit, after my wife's disclosure, I climbed risker climbs and didn't really care about the outcome.

Thanks for your thoughts and support.

Asterisk

Asterisk—

However, I was not trained or naturally skilled for this kind of effort, but I persisted, mistakes and all. Interestingly, reading posts and wise comments here at SI really point out just how unskilled I was. That lack of experience drug out the repairs for far too long.

It sounds to me like you’re still being a bit harsh with yourself.

I think all any of us can do is act with the best information we have in the moment and go from there.

You got hit by emotional trauma the size of a bus, and you walked it off on your own —- even it took longer than anticipated to find some level of peace.

That’s bad ass.

There is no real guide book or handbook for any of this stuff — I think that’s why I appreciate this website so much. The members here are real folks going through it all trying to figure it out.

In the last decade, besides some IC, MC and countless stories I’ve read here, I read nearly three dozen relationship books, from how to build a healthy relationship to many different ideas what a healthy relationship actually is. In my case, we rebuilt a healthy relationship from the ground up. it took a while here as well, to know what it was and what it looks like.

My wife’s A was in a different state and was over by the time we relocated back home. Our original group of friends don’t know about the A, and her nickname with them is still Ms. Goody Two-Shoes. Perfect attendance, perfect grades, business leader, and all of my old friends hit on her at some point, but she turned them all away. Her drive, her perfection was all based on a very unpleasant childhood, and ultimately she had never seen or experienced a healthy relationship. She followed all the rules until she didn’t — the lowest day of her life and then doubled down on her fall from grace and it got worse from there.

No handbook for her type of childhood either and nothing I deserved from the fallout from her worst days and horrible choices.

No one is owed a last chance either, but I’m glad I offered my wife some grace and a shot at being her best imperfect self.

I did waste a few years trying to make sense of it, and I don’t think I ever will, because I didn’t make that choice.

I have better days now realizing the M survived adversity neither of us signed up for and we found a way back to proper love and care of each other.

[This message edited by Oldwounds at 9:39 PM, Tuesday, September 16th]

My old manager had a saying
"You can’t fix stupid" Didn’t Doctor Phil say "You can’t make sense out of nonsense." I learned that some questions don’t get the answers we want. And we don’t like that. They don’t fit in our sense of what the world is or should be. And we want the answers to simply "make sense" We’ll spend a day with an addict and tell me if they make sense. People in affairs are just like addicts.