Cheaters and Betrayeds Helping Each Other Community Group

This is a group where cheaters and betrayeds can come to try to help each other better understand infidelity from the perspective of the other side because understanding can often lead to healing. Members can ask each other questions, share experiences, and provide insights and opinions without judgments or animosity. If you have a chip on your shoulder, an axe to grind,...

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neednhelp27 03/26/2013

So I guess this is as good a place as any to get some honest opinions. So I (the wife) am the cheating spouse. Though he has cheated as well, i'll get to that. So we got together young, 15, high school sweethearts. Over the course of our almost 15 years together, I have cheated w/ 28 other guys, though I don't count 8 of them because we were in an "open relationship" when those happened, but since he couldn't do it himself, he counts them towards me. He's only cheated on me twice that I know of, but fooled around plenty, so he's no saint. Yes, i know, we got together too young, should have done our own thing but its all in the past now, its the present issue i'm dealing with. About 8 months ago, he got into motorcycles. He's always liked them, but we finally got to a point we could get him one and he loves it. a few months later, he starts to want to join a motorcycle club. ok. no big deal. till i start hanging out with them too. I see what they do when i'm around, makes me wonder what they do when i'm not. the men there cheat on their wives, stay out all hours of the night (till morning light and that's early). So a few months into that, he tells me he wants to do another open relationship, i'm bi, so we can both do other girls (no men at all) and to come up with rules (which is why he counts the ones from the first time we tried, we didn't set rules). So i came up with 10, and I don't think they are that bad. basically, not in our house, not in public (they aren't bf/gf, its just sex) always use protection, she can't ride on his bike with him, that's my seat, he can't spend money on her cept for condoms, if feelings arise, it stops, our time is our time, he can't talk to her when he's with me, and a couple more i can't think of at the moment, but he can't follow them. He has an issue with each one. He's like what if i get fixed and she's on birth control? i'm like there is still diseases, hes like well what if i get drunk and forget? i'm like then we aren't having sex till you have been tested for 6 months.... he has an issue with money and public, he thinks he shoudl be able to go to lunch, breakfast, movies, whatever and buy her things, i'm like no, you don't even do that for me. but yeah he has issues with all of them. and he's broken a few already, he talks to other girls while we're together and he's spent money on another girl. so i'm like wtf? i feel cause i cheated on him so much, i owe it to him to let him do this but i can't stand how he is now. he's changed. he's such an ass now, hes acting like the guys at the club, going to strip clubs not calling me staying out all night, just like a bachelor but his wife and 6 yr old son are home with out him. he works nights, so i look forward to his days off so we can spend time together, but on his days off he's always out with the club. i guess what i'm trying to get at is, should i let him do this so he can "get back at me" (even though he says he's not doing it cause of my past cheating, i've asked him multiple times to stop yet he continues, so what else woudl it be?) do i not have a say in anything in our relationship because i cheated? idk what to do. i feel like i'm going to lose my husband. our fighting has gotten alot more frequent and so much worse. you can read my past couple journals to get some more insight. sorry im kinda all over the place. i just don't know what to do. opinions are great, give me some outsider insight, just no bashing please. we're all here for the same reasons.

deleted_user 03/31/2013

good questions fiberjunkie

deleted_user 03/31/2013

I'm just thinking about other sensations that feel like bring 'in love'. The heart going pitter pat can come with fear. That queasy, butterflies excitement is similar to being hungover (snicker). It can be easy to get positive/negative mixed up, or love/hate, fear/excitement.

But if you think about intimacy as closeness, comfort, trust, knowing and being known....Into Me See.... are there negatives that correlate, where one might misinterpret their own feelings?

It's possible to have that feeling of being in love while actually being in an emotionally damgerous place. But there's no mistaking the warm safe feeling of intimacy.

deleted_user 04/01/2013

I so wish that my flesh loving husband had realized that, and not taken the vulnerable warm body that satan presented to him....now the safety is gone, the security gone, the intimacy gone...and yet we are still bound to each other, because what God puts together, let no man(woman) tear apart....I don't know how long....the pain is overwhelming, and so far from what we should be living, but like a broken bone, it has to heal before you can start rehab, you can't walk on a broken leg, and you can't love on a broken heart :(

deleted_user 04/01/2013

I get you on commitment and "for better and for worse", but once he knows that, wow, all bets are off. Once a person feels like someone is there for them no matter what they do, they become less and less attractive. It's not sexy or respectful. There always has to be a line somewhere in the sand, or you become a total doormat. If you read about the 180 its this total counter intuitive thing. You disengage from a bad marriage or situation to make yourself stronger, take care of your needs, and stop the madness and it often has the counter-intuitive force of bringing a wayward spouse back. Not always, but often. It is not about manipulation. Often the same fog that allows a cheater to totally disregard their vows, goals, rationality hits us too, and we do anything and everything to try and keep our spouse, and in the process we actually push them away because we lose our selves, compromise our integrity, our morals and goals, etc. Then we become unattractive and less desirable, all the time trying to honor our for better or worse and love and nice them back to us.

pinkpony66 04/02/2013

This is complicated because you started while you were still children and created very very blurry lines and both stumbled around in a "kinda, sorta marriagish" relationship.

Now you ate looking to do the "real" marriage thing, the commitment, vows and promises. You ate willing to comprimise that desire just to keep him in some form even if it's just a small percentage of him.

What I see is you grasping at a marriage that may have run it's course. The concept of open marriage is beyond my understanding so it's hard for me to offer objective advice. All I think of with an open marriage is the idea of permitting cheating so as not to call it cheating. I'm not judging just truely not able to grasp the concept of it as a positive way to form a long lasting committed relationship.

Get counseling and decide what it is you want from your marriage and as somebody else put it, what you see your marriage as, in 5 years. If what you want, need and are willing to work very hard at achieving is not what he is wanting or willing to work at, then walking away may be your best option.

And the whole bikers club/gang thing, well that's another world I'm clueless too. Sorry.

Keep being that boys momma and take care of you.
Pink

neednhelp27 04/05/2013

yeah i've lost him. i'm at work and can't really get into it but once i'm home and drinking tonight, i'll post the text he just sent me. gist of it is, i need to deal with what he's doing and have no right to anything caues of what i did to him, if i don't like it i can leave. fucking great. i knew i was fighting for nothing.

deleted_user 04/05/2013

Sorry to hear that!

Have you ever read about the 180? I think that is what I would be implementing if I were you.

deleted_user 04/05/2013

Hey, need. It sounds like you're having a rough day, I hope you're able to get through it and to the safety of home. I know you were hoping to find some foundation on which to rebuild. It must be deeply disappointing to find that's not going to happen.

I think he's done you a favor, though, to be so clear in his intentions. I hope that will make it easier for you to let him go. It's one thing to forgive and work with you on rebuilding, that has potential for success. No guarantees, but potential. This deliberate choice to punish you forever makes rebuilding an impossibility. You can only do so much to make up for your past. And he's not making any concessions in terms of your future together.

I hope that you can forgive yourself and see that you deserve a chance to have something better.

needhelp62 04/16/2013

WTF??What are you two doing? This isn't a marriage. I don't know what to call it. You two are obviously going in opposite directions. You want to get closer to him, but he wants an open relationship.

I don't know what to tell you. Seeing him with other women is going to hurt. Why put yourself through that? Just tell him to go. Move. Go do whomever he wants to do. Enjoy his life, while you work on yours. This sounds like total chaos and NO way to raise a child. Let him go and be a bachelor, but this doesn't mean YOU have to stick around and watch. Tell him that....NOT to try to change him ( he will just cheat behind your back). Let him have the life he wants. When he is tired of that lifestyle, and IF you are still available, then talk. It sounds like right now, you have given him 'PERMISSION" to cheat, although that's not what you really want.

Let him go. if he comes back, the rules will be NO cheating. If he doesn't want that, then let him stay where he is.

neednhelp27 04/29/2013

love to me is unconditional, its always there, you feel it in your heart when he shows he's thinking of you, helps aroud the house, brings home your favorite movie, etc. Initmacy is physical, cuddling, sex, kissing, etc. def not the same as love. I feel like i love him. He throws tantrums, breaks things, yet i still try to calm him down and make him feel better and clean up the messes. I do everything around the house, and rarely get mad about it, but my stress level is beyond what any normal person should be dealing with so lately i've been more upset about it. taking out the trash, that is the only thing that i ask of him and he doesn't even do that, i even take it out of the can (cause its piled up over) bag it up and sit it aside, when it sits there for a few days, i toss it by the front door, then eventually i do it myself to the can since apparently he doesn't get the hint. but last night i came home after a terrible day at work and there was trash strewn all over the kitchen and living room cause the dog got into it. so i was very upset about that, having to go get my son after work from my moms, and extra 1 1/2 hr drive before i get home, then come home to that, knowing i still had to make dinner. that's alot on a person after 12 hours of work, and crappy work at that! so we fought and now he's not talking to me. I'll try to answer as many responses as i can. Yes it is hard becuase we have a son. he's the one i think about, how this will affect him, how its already affecting him. I think if we split, he'd never see our son. i'd move in with my parents and he would disappear. I'm looking into counseling now, but i doubt he'd go cause he's always right of course, why does he need it, its all me. thank you all for your replies. there is so much going through my head right now i can't even think straight.

deleted_user 04/29/2013

Some smart person once said it is better to come from a broken home than to live in one. It really sounds lkje you and your son would be better off if his father never bothered to see him. I tried to keep our eldest D's father in the picture for as long as I could after we split. When he turned his verbal abuse from me to her that was the end of it. I always felt it was important for he to have a relationship with him, that there would be aspects of her personality that came from him which he would understand better than I would. The cost to her of allowing him access became too great and we had to cut him loose.

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