to shortimenow #29

wow thankyou for sharing the remorse you carry,

infidelity is an awful act, it inflicts pain on the betrayed and creates danger of such for other family members
it also inflicts pain on the people that do it, only if the people are genuine and are willing to and can see the fallout from the act as it really is, that pain must be searing, i am sorry that it still burns so for you

the fact that burns is also the reason that the burning should stop. it burns because you can grasp how it burns for those in the fallout, since you feel for them and yourself, it is time to soothe the burn

accept your remorse, apologize to God, you spouse, yourself, the OM spouse, kids yours and his if they know, then let it go

you'll still have to put the work in to reconcile then build the marriage (so should your husband)

as for letting it go, God calls us to live right, we mess up, God still loves us and wants to hear the call, God wants us to acknowledge our mess ups to him and ourselves - make tings right, THEN God wants us to not carry regret and remorse like a cross

shortimenow you are a genuine person, you acknowledge the depth and breadth of the mess-up, you are working on the clean up, It is wrong to continue to beat yourself up, put down that cross it is Gods hope for all of us

Refurb, those are wonderful words. Yes, we all (CS and BS and our support friends around us), suffer great loss when an A occurs.

Those who come out the other end are those that know you can't carry it forever.All any of us can hope for is a better tomorrow.

As far as I'm concerned women who become involved with married men suffer from issues of self esteem. Why would you want to be validating a married men is beyond me. Men who need to be validated constantly are very needy. I would not want any part of him. The male is living out the fantasy part in his life. You are living out being left out, being 2nd on his platter and all the disgusting things a mistress can possibly get. Anyhow, that is my opinion

I can see the thought process but do not agree with it. It would be interesting what feedback the show was given by the General public after that episode aired.
If they are feeling needed and wanted by a mistress then they have an emotional connection with their mistress. If this should be the normal way ina relationship then both partners should agree to the open marriage/relationship concept not be doing without the knowledge of their partner. In some countries that's acceptable so why not move there then a H can have multiples W to met there every need.

I will always have a problem listening to people who say:
"my affair DID help my marriage."

to me, that is like saying:
"my cancer DID help my overall health."

your marriage was in trouble and you were able to salvage a version of the relationship after the affair. by reinventing your relationship. because if things do not drastically change after an affair, the relationship will not be satisfying for both parties. had these people reinvented their relationships WITHOUT an affair, it would still be a better marriage.

their marriage improved "in spite of" their affair. affairs are never good. i made the reference to cancer above, due to one of my dear friends, D. D found out this year that at only age 40, she had very invasive breast cancer. she's now undergone a total mastectomy, and due to the type of cancer being a strong precursor for ovarian cancer, she will soon be having a total hysterectomy as well. she's struggled with her weight, diet, and other modifiable factors of her health for years. her cancer was a wake up call for her to start exercising, eating healthy, taking care of herself in general.

BUT she will be the first to tell you: she could have done these things all along. She has inspired others, WITHOUT cancer, to get their health on track. I would never say, nor hear her say, she's glad she got cancer because it gave her a wake up call.

some people can turn their affair into a stepping stone for rebuilding. good for them, truly. however, that does NOT ever ever ever make an affair a "good thing." that is why usually it is the CS who says how "good" the affair was for the marriage: it partially lets them off the hook. had they put the effort into their marriage in the first place, their marriage could have improved without the affair. affairs are always bad in my mind. period. regardless of the aftermath. i have more respect for the CS who can admit that fact, rather than call it "good."

I want to be clear...I see where you are coming from....only 3 years ago....I despised cheaters. My friends and I would gossip about them....men that were pigs and women that were whores.....I WAS the church lady, the room mom, the soccer mom, the charity auction mom, the mom who planned birthday parties and double dates with friends. We would say ALL the time...."he should just divorce her", "how dare she run on her husband like that", "how could he/she do that" "I would never, ever ever do that..." I, in fact, was VERY opinionated on cheaters....

I've learned to never say never..... In 2011, I would never in a million years think I would be in IC, MC, on this site.....nor would any of my friends or family......because I did it. I gave in.

Maybe in this journey of life...this was a lesson...because frankly, it is the most difficult thing I have ever had to overcome....

But, my A DID very inadvertently make my M stronger. You can use the phrase "in spite of" in place of the word "did".....Yes, we did "reinvent" our relationship. Its NOT the same as it was before. To move on, you have to reinvent it, to change it, to PRIORITIZE it. I would have never went to IC to learn that, among a ton of other things about myself, that because both my parents had a history of infidelity, I learned that its not so taboo....maybe not outward, but that is what the child in me was inadvertently taught. I learned that as an ACOA, I have a tendency for infidelity, I learned sometimes sooo many factors come to play when one cheats. Everyone's cheating experience is different. Nothing is ever concrete. No one is infallible.

Many things happened in the years leading up to my infidelity. I remember telling my H I wanted to separate, I was unhappy...... He did not want to, nor felt we needed counseling......more life changing events occurred, to make a long story short.....Here I am..... Life is filled with should ofs/could ofs....should I insisted on counseling? Maybe. Did I really hit home how unhappy I was? Probably not. Did I look at solutions? No. Again, another life event happened and instead of readdressing the issue....I ran.....

I'm just saying I totally get that I should have never had an A. I agree with and believe all of you that I should not have done it. But I did.

I understand the cancer analogy also all too well. But another view point is: I had a cancer scare (I had a losing my H and my M scare)....but I didn't......so I began to stop smoking, eat correctly, lose weight, exercise daily, stay away from toxins......

With that said, its not suggested that because it helped my M it was a "good thing". It was not good in anyway, shape, or form. BUT...something occurred from it that made that very bad thing (my A) become annihilated by a very good thing (my M now, my sheer love, respect and devotion to my H, my journey, my work on healing and on myself).

I hope I make sense.

Its like saying "cancer will help my health"

Now while it seems like a crazy statement, many have been known to say similar things. Many people who have gone through cancer say that it taught them how to "live". What about the person who survives cancer and really wakes up? Begins to est healthier, take better care of their mind body and soul. What if they become more loving and spiritual because they had cancer?

That doesn't mean we should all get cancer because it will improve their lives. It just means "if" something terrible happens we should do everything we can to make lemonade from those lemons.

I don't agree with the concept of ow being "helpers" because they are screwing our husbands or that our spouses should seek them out to improve the marriage.

It would have been so much better if my marriage could have made the changes without him cheating but I can't unring that bell.

Shoretime I wrote my response before reading yours. You get what I mean with the cancer pushing people into a healthier life style.

I have never seen or heard of a situation where an A actually helped a relationship. There are situations where the CS tries to convince themselves that it dose and the BS doesn't challenge them on it because they don't want to rock an already shaky boat. That stage usually doesn't endure. Sooner or later the real damage begins to surface. My H was so overt in his belief that his A was a beneficial thing that he was completely blind to the pain I was experiencing. He just kept expecting me to loosen up and join the celebration of our new and improved marriage. He celebrated alone for a while to the sound of crickets. If I were able, I would go back to the time before he chose someone else over me ,but I can't and our marriage will always bare the scars of betrayal. That is not an improvement and it certainly hasn't helped our relationship.

I'm sorry for your situation Arrabella.

My husband had never celebrated that hiscA had helped. I think if he were to indicate that his cheating helped I would want to leave. He feels his confessing helped because he could be honest.

Yes, I understand and that's another thing, Pink. I would not use the word "help"...but we BOTH use the phrase...."it is stronger than before".

My H had plenty of opportunity to leave. Plenty. And he chose not to....for that, I am forever grateful.

aren't there are other ways to make a marriage stronger, to help a marriage , to reconcile a marriage in lieu of an affair?

There sure are.....and maybe I should have insisted we try them. But at the time, I don't think we were at the same place. We put band-aids on things.

I will say thinking I'd ever have an A was the very last thing I would think I was even capable of. I don't think either of us ever thought I had any potential to do something that could destroy us. No one that knows me thinks I would have that potential.

We've actually identified, both of us, at that time there wasn't an 'us'. It was each of us individually doing our own thing both feeling stuck.

Like I said it was a time filled with 'could ofs/ should ofs'.

Of course there are other ways. I think this thread is a mix of people responding to the original post and discussion that came of that.

I would love to have strengthened my marriage and not have to deal with the pain of an A. All I have to work with is what I have. I chose to giveit all I have and so has my H. We will always be a work in progress and we will always have bumps in our road.