Yes.

Actually I've run across quite a few repentant cheaters on CA and OOF. More than two certainly. As for the OP, there aren't many but the ones who are here seem like they're trying to make things right.

I guess thats the difference between seeing the glass half empty or half full. I'm a glass 1/2 full kinda girl...

Who the hell cares?

Each and every one of the whores (male and female) has made a conscious and deliberate decision either to betray the one who loves them the most or to cause someone to do it.

They don't give a shit about anything but themselves and the next bit of poon-tang they get.

fuck them.

I think mysterymoon was making a point. Whether it's 2 or more than 2, I get the same general impression that those who are truly repentant are vanishingly rare. Maybe rel8 is counting as repentant those whose posts signal an *awareness* and some specific sense of *regret* that their actions caused great pain. Unfortunately most of these folks tie on a litany of excuses (they consider them reasons) for their behavior. Some of my favorites (and I've seen some of these many times) go something like this:
I know I hurt my SO real bad and I wish I hadn't BUT (emphasis added)...
s/he wasn't showing me enough/the right kind of attention

WE (again, emphasis added) had grown apart

it just kind of, er, uh, happened; don't know how

we all make mistakes and deserve second chances

which members of DS can truly say they've not done anything they regret? (This has to be the worst possible cop out! Hello! I have probably done at least one thing every week of my life that I later regretted: I paid over $3 a gallon for gas one day only to see the price plunge 20 cents the next; every so often I forget to pull my car in from the street before I go to bed and my wife kindly pulls it in so I don't get ticketed; I forgot to call my dad this year on his birthday; I have an invoice sitting on my desk for $7 that I need to pay and should have done so a week ago...truly, who among us hasn't made a mistake? But really now, is driving a mack truck right through the heart of your SO just a little "oopsie" of weight roughly equivalent to going to bed without brushing your teeth?

I'm with you mysterymoon. For those that are truly repentant, I have a question. (And I only ask you folks because you're the only cheaters in these posts that seem to have truly grasped the horrendous destruction that your actions caused.) If you could empathize enough to understand the horror after-the-fact, why weren't you able to put yourself in your SO's shoes BEFORE you made that irreversible decision? I've been flirted with but can't imagine ever pursuing (or leading on in any way) any of these women - even though some were quite attractive. I don't understand...probably never will.

I particularly like the one "HE WASN'T SATISFYING ME SEXUALLY"

What the hell does that mean EXACTLY? He is your life partner. If this is really true, TEACH HIM HOW TO DO THIS. or at least try to before you rip his heart out and piss on it.

I can only give a mere mans perspective on this. I am sorry if I sound a lill bitter and twisted right now, but the simple reason is, I bloody am.

Hairy and Honest...
I do not consider my H to be a man-whore. Yes he cheated. He's not out constantly looking for poon-tang. Never was that type...

It's not black and white guys... If you only see it in black and white, there is no way you can rebuild your relationship. Are you saying that because they did wrong there is no hope? Every situation is different but talking about it and trying to sort out the feelings on both sides is rebuilding... Blaming the cheater endlessly and not moving past that blame stage is not.

Maybe you're not getting what you need from your spouse. Not every relationship works out. Take a close at what each of you are doing to rebuild your marriages. Hanging on to the bitterness is pointless if you want to rebuild...

In response to honestman's reply:

Your question for the truly repentent necessarily calls for an explanation of pre-affair events and conditions, which will be interpreted by some as an excuse rather than an explanation, and which will thus prove that the person who responded is not truly repentent. Therefore, the only proper course for someone who is truly repentent is to not answer your question.

As for people on DS who provide background details about their affair, I don't think they do it to provide a justification, per se. How can anyone here expect someone to discuss their affair without putting it in context? With zero explanation, where does the conversation proceed?

When your boss comes in (assuming you have a boss at work) and wants to know why you didn't pay the $7 invoice that you mentioned, you might simply tell him/her that you have no excuses. But if your boss says that you're fired, won't you try to put your lack of paying the invoice in the proper perspective? Such as, you were very busy with some other important project. Or, overall, you're a very good employee. You'll want your boss to know these things before you're thrown out on your ass, right?

It's the same with the people who had affairs. I've had people on DS ask me how I could tell my wife that I loved her and fuck another woman behind her back. Well, the fact is that I didn't tell my wife that I loved her during the affair. See the assumptions people make? Knowing in advance that people here will make assumptions, people feel a need to explain what happened to them in detail. This is especially true for people who are still dealing with the raw emotions of a recently-ended affair and the wounds to their marriage are still fresh and bleeding.

My affair ended 14 months ago, and I came to DS within a couple of months after that. I tried to be very detailed about how my marriage got to that point, and was scolded repeatedly for "justifying" the affair. But 14 months later, I don't really care to go into the details so much. That doesn't mean that I've forgotten the pre-affair issues in my marriage - they were quite significant - but the how's and the why's aren't so important to me anymore. I want to move forward in my marriage and create something positive, new, and free of affairs.

If it's all so clearly black and white and there is no excuse - why are you still there?

Millstar: Even good people make bad choices. If a good person makes a poor choice, but then is willing to take responsibility and learns from the situation... forgiveness is possible (but not guaranteed). If the person made a poor choice and refuses to learn from it, or take responsibility for it... what is the betrayed to do but walk away?

Hmmm...Honestman and Mick, you two have a good point and Alyosha, what if I told my tale of years of sexual rejection by my husband, not to mention all the other emotional abuse he has subjected me to, the constant lies, the deep pain I have felt throughout my marriage? His refusal to change, my now non-existent reasons for staying

Does that sound like the reasons Cheaters give? But, guess what, I didn't cheat and I will remain a faithful and good wife until I leave him.

Why? Simple, because that is what I promised and I keep my promises because that is the kind of person I am!

Alyosha, why didn't you get divorced?

mysterymoon66,

If you were to tell me that tale, I would understand why you would break your marriage vows and have an affair. The fact that you have remained faithful despite terrible mistreatment - I don't know what to say other than that you're morally superior to your husband (I'm NOT being sarcastic). But perhaps you could have an affair and still be morally superior to him. I don't see things in such black and white terms as some other people. Not that I'm knocking you or people who see the world in that way. Who knows? Maybe we're better off as a species if we have a mix of people who see things in black and white, and people who also see the gray.

This is a very interesting topic to me. I'm not sure what the right answers are. When I was in a bad situation, and the ow approached me and made it obvious that she was interested, I sought refuge in the companionship of another woman. Yes, I broke a promise. But my wife was breaking marriage vows left and right, just not THAT marriage vow. Am I less moral than her? Are we equally immoral?

And at what point, if ever, does a spouse not have a right to expect that the other spouse will honor those vows? If I physically abuse my wife, threaten to kill her if she leaves me, and generally treat her like crap, is it reasonable for me to expect her to be faithful? In that situation, maybe I'd be more of an asshole to expect fidelity.

To use a different example of a promise, suppose I promise to mow my elderly neighbor's lawn once a week. But several weeks down the road I find out that my neighbor is - I don't know - stealing from me? Am I an immoral person if I stop mowing his lawn? I'd be breaking my promise, right? But is he worthy of that promise?

You asked why I didn't divorce. My wife is not a citizen. I know she wouldn't want to live here if we weren't married. I was seriously concerned that staying in the US under those conditions might actually psychologically harm her (sounds too weird to be true, but you don't know my wife). If my wife left the country and I kept the kids, I would feel very guilty. And this too, I worried, would psychologically harm her. And if she left the country and I let her take the kids with her...I just couldn't imagine giving them up like that. And then there is the financial upheaval that a divorce would bring. And just the fact that I'd be breaking up my kids' family made me feel like I couldn't handle the guilt that I felt would come with it. And it's extremely difficult to look at my own situation objectively. Maybe my fears weren't as realistic as I thought they were, but they were real fears. And I really didn't know what to do.

But considering the fact that I really believed that my wife didn't love me any more, and I felt no love for her, I decided that I would have an affair if the opportunity allowed. I was craving love and affection. Feeling wanted by someone. So when the ow approached me, I thought, "Why sit around like a dope being faitful to a wife who doesn't appreciate me, anyway? Not only that, but makes me feel that she really hates me. I might be able to experience some sense of connection with someone from the opposite sex, if even for a short time."

I didn't expect that the ow and I would start falling in love (or whatever it was - there was true feeling there, but it was crazy romantic b.s. now that I look back on it). I didn't expect a fling to turn into something more. That it would begin spinning out of control.

The affair was a royal fuck up on my part. It was a fucked up move in response to a fucked up marriage. If I could take it all back, rewind to that day that the ow expressed interest in me, I would go straight home to my wife and say, "Do you know who just invited me to invite her out??? What kind of person would do that???"

When people talk about remorse and taking responsibility, I'm not sure what they mean because those words might mean different things to different people. The fact that I wish I could rewind my life back and choose not to have an affair, thus preventing so much hurt, I think shows remorse. The fact that I have been working hard to regain trust in my marriage, and, for example, allowing myself to be smacked with dish cloths and called "asshole" by my wife, with barely a hint of a complaint on my part, shows that I'm taking responsibility. If someone has a different concept of what I should be doing (and maybe I'm already doing it; I just threw out some examples but it's not a complete list), I'd like to hear their viewpoint.

Hi
I had to add my 2 cents here. I am a "betrayed" W. Most of the people here (cheaters)don't try to offer excuses. They here to understand why they hurt their SO.
You have to try to see the gray area in this at some point for your own sake. I know, I walked in your shoes. Just trying to help. You take it however you want. Good luck in your healing.

Hey, I want to have my two cents in here. What a great post!

Like you, I came here and was reading the posts and not really involved for a very long time. I took some time and noticed some things -- that being so hurt by this kind of betrayal was normal. That being this made at this kind of betrayal was normal (thinking of hairymick here). That having problems getting past that kind of betrayal, whether you leave your marriage or stay with it, is brutal and has to be one of the most difficult issues a person can ever run into. We're all in this boat at the same time.

I don't see all the excuses as excuses all of the time -- and here is why. I know, when I found out about my EX H's affair, that I had to sit down and really look at our marriage, and how bad it had gotten, and what we did wrong, and how our communication sucked, and our sex life was almost nonexistent, and how we were letting those little stupid arguments take on a whole life of their own...I had to do this and be honest with myself. You can't fix it if you don't acknowledge that it's broken, or what exactly is broken, or understand what it is that needs to be fixed. I don't see all these excuses as justifying affairs. I see them as People really trying to understand where they went off track and trying to back up the truck and fix it. It doesn't make the affairs right (and we all remind them of that), but it does let us all know that MARRIAGES NEED TO BE MAINTAINED OR THEY WILL GET BROKEN -- PERHAPS BEYOND REPAIR.

I thought that my situation was so very unique, but after being on here for some time, I see it has played out the same for virtually all of us. Have you all noticed that?

It's like this -- I can understand why, in the middle of crappy fricking day at work, you would want to just walk out the door and quit -- no notice or anything. Just say screw it and screw that job. But we're the responsible adults and don't do that. I can also understand why some, so unhappy in their current marriages would want to/end up having an affair out of the sheer unhappiness that they are living with, but out of RESPONSIBILITY, they shouldn't have. If they are that unhappy, they should either fix it, or have the courtesy to leave.

Are these people trying to make excuses and justifications or just trying to understand why it happened so it doesn't happen again?

Just my thoughts...

I read the most interesting story on msn, sort of about when's the best time to have that "I'm thinking about having an affair talk"

lol

This guy had fallen in love w/ this lesbian co-worker while his wife was nagging and feeling unsexy and hatefult to her husband. During their (I'm guessing the number) 10th anniversary dinner he springs the big news. I thought about having an affair and I'm in love with this lesbian.

She sort of left him temporarily but then they worked out together and she lost weight and a happy ending.

Alyosha, maybe you should have went home and told your wife and told her you were seriously considering taking this woman up on the offer.

Do you think things would have worked out any different?

Good question, pixie. I'm not sure what her reaction would have been. I've often wondered (I agree, pixie, I do a lot of thinking and wondering - probably too much) about that.

Her reaction might have been outrage, or it might have been a taunting, "Go ahead." My wife had told me in the past (spontaneously, no less) that she didn't care if I had sex with other women, as long as they weren't women from her home country (the ow, yes, was from her home country). Given our history together, your guess is as good as mine.