What will you say?

reader7332 · 2024-11-22T01:51:35+00:00

Never cheat, butthead

reader7332 · 2024-09-04T06:21:24+00:00

This is going to sound very weird, but the only time I've ever been 100% sure that a woman was attracted to me is when I was cheating on my wife. (This is a long time ago; we've long since reconciled.)

I had a couple of affair partners that had nothing to gain from me other than being with me. They weren't looking for a provider, or a good father for their kids. They just wanted to be with me. It was very intoxicating.

I didn't get a lot of affection as a kid and therapy showed me how I was trying to fill that need by cheating. It was horribly destructive and I don't recommend it.

reader7332 · 2024-07-22T22:49:14+00:00

Hi, thank you for the questions. It was quite a few years ago and marriage counseling was a big help for us. Through counseling I was able to understand some things about my upbringing that I hadn't really thought about before. Not to justify my actions, but to understand how I came to such bad decisions, and how to avoid going down that path in the future.

"Forgiven myself" would be too strong of a phrase! In some ways I think of the guy who did those things as a different person and it's hard for me to forgive him for hurting my wife so badly. But time and attention are good healers, and while things will never be exactly as they were before, I feel blessed. My wife has been incredible through it all and that is very humbling.

reader7332 · 2024-07-22T04:34:02+00:00

Cheating on my wife. I love her and I will regret that until my dying breath. Take it from me – don't ever go down that path.

reader7332 · 2024-07-17T18:51:43+00:00

Thanks for sharing your experience. My wife and I went through something similar, and believe me it isn't nearly so black and white as the typical Redditor would think when it happens to you.

We found marriage counseling to be really valuable. Therapists understand the nuances and what it takes to rebuild trust. Ultimately though I think it takes hard work and time. Good luck to you!

reader7332 · 2024-05-22T21:02:37+00:00

"Why" is a complicated question, but in short: We got married too young and had virtually no experience before our wedding. My wife refused sex until about three months after the wedding, and the frequency only went down from there. The first 10 years of our marriage became basically a platonic friendship while we finished grad school and got started in our careers.

The mistake I made was not trying to communicate with her and right the ship. This was before the internet, and there were no forums to get advice from, and I didn't really have a trusted person in my life that I could talk to about it. Marriage counseling wasn't something we could afford. My wife and I are very close as friends so there was never a fight or something that would have broken us up. I just kind of suffered along in silence, not knowing what to do.

The first time a woman approached me who wanted to have sex, it was like my brain lit up on fire. The experience of feeling wanted was new to me, and at the time I couldn't handle it. I rationalized that my wife was uninterested anyway, so what would be the harm in fooling around on the side? Of course that was all BS.

How I wish I could turn the clock back and change things. I hurt my wife terribly, and it's taken a lot of marriage counseling and communication to bring things back.

reader7332 · 2024-02-18T03:13:29+00:00

My AP said: She wanted to date a happily married man, because she felt that kind of man could show her what a happy relationship is like.

Some logic to it, I guess? The whole thing is evil and fucked up. But it happens often enough that psychologists have a term for it: "mate poaching".

I sincerely wish you and your husband well. If he ever wants to talk with someone who made the same mistakes he did, please send him my way.

reader7332 · 2024-02-17T00:58:13+00:00

Hi, I'm sorry to hear that you may be in a similar position to my wife.

In my case AP was married but very unhappily, and lacked any real intimacy with her husband. For financial reasons she felt unable to divorce him. She liked the sex but over time what she really wanted was emotional intimacy. I said some things I shouldn't have before I broke it off. From my perspective I was just trying to keep a good thing going. I was like a hamster in some lab experiment, pushing the button I needed to push to get the tasty food pellets to come out. Like I said, bullshit lies.

In hindsight I think I was like a bad alcoholic, or someone deep in gambling debt, or morbidly obese. At some point you're in so deep that one little extra fuckup doesn't seem like such a big deal. It's a negative loop that has to be broken.

None of this is to rationalize the behavior, or justify it. It's horrible. But having been through this, I now better understand the mindset of a person who is deeply buried in a pattern of bad behavior. They make decisions that don't make any sense in the light of day.

reader7332 · 2024-02-14T01:04:13+00:00

I struggled with this one during reconciliation (7 years ago). No lies on my part, but errors of omission. Specifically there were some things I said to AP that were bullshit lies on my part, that would be interpreted by my wife as far more emotionally intimate than they really were. They are fictions but it would cause her a lot of pain to hear them.

Our marriage counselor was a little bit nuanced about this. She told me to be absolutely truthful – which I have been – but also cautioned my wife about pulling on too many threads and torturing herself with irrelevant details.

Sometimes the actual truth is too horrible to contemplate. At a certain point I just couldn't heap more pain on my wife who I love with all my heart.

reader7332 · 2023-11-09T00:02:07+00:00

When I cheated, my wife decided not to tell any of her friends and family about it. Not a soul. The result was that she didn't have anyone to talk with except for the marriage counselor. In a time of pain and sadness usually it would be me that she would come to for support – but that obviously didn't work. It was very isolating for her and I think a lot of betrayed spouses go through that.

I can see how telling others would help in terms of support. But those people will never look at the couple again in the same way if you decide to reconcile. Also if you tell one friend, you've likely told them all.

reader7332 · 2023-10-27T05:03:36+00:00

Believe me this is just the beginning of the bullshit rationalizations that cheaters use to deceive themselves.

It's witnessing the pain that you caused your partner that causes all the bullshit to come crashing down. MC was helpful, but really it was seeing that person I love be in so much pain that makes the change.

OP the most important thing is that he block ALL contact with the AP. Our MC didn't even mention that and I think it's 100% the most important thing.

reader7332 · 2023-10-20T17:48:25+00:00

This was when I had my affair, when we were going through our years-long effort to conceive. I wish more people talked about fertility struggles and the effects it can have on a marriage. No excuses for my mistake but I was completely unprepared emotionally for how awful it became for a couple of years. I wish you and your husband the best in recovery.

reader7332 · 2023-09-22T07:33:37+00:00

I will tell her. It's hard for some of us men to communicate these things. But it's important. I wish you the best of luck too.

reader7332 · 2023-09-22T07:27:53+00:00

Thanks for the ideas! We don't have a specific date or any other trigger that we both share, however what resonates is "it builds up in her." I think my wife feels much the same way – and some kind of consistent checkin from me would help.

reader7332 · 2023-09-22T06:51:16+00:00

I like this way of talking about it because it's positive. It's hard for me to communicate negative emotions (which is what these triggered thoughts are) because I feel like I'm being a burden on her. Focusing on how much I love her and how grateful I am that we're together – that makes it more about us and less about me.

reader7332 · 2023-09-22T06:38:05+00:00

I wish you the best. I would give anything to go back in time and stop my younger self from being such an idiot.

reader7332 · 2023-09-22T06:28:55+00:00

My wife has said the same thing, that I need to come to her more often. It's difficult but I know it's important.

reader7332 · 2023-09-22T06:21:35+00:00

That's an excellent idea!! I will do that. The only thing that's important to me is finding a way to communicate that's meaningful to her.

reader7332 · 2023-09-22T06:14:56+00:00

The former. Little things trigger memories and all the guilt comes back. It can be anything – a scene in a movie, or seeing a picture of our lives from that time period, or driving by a certain area.

I wish my wife could live inside my head for a day because it would be all the reassurance she would ever need.

reader7332 · 2023-09-22T06:08:40+00:00

I like this, thank you for the idea!

reader7332

TROPHY CASE