Infidelity Support Group
Any relationship in which one partner engages willfully in sexual relations with another outside of the partnership is considered to have experienced infidelity. This breach of trust is often traumatizing for the faithful partner as well as the relationship, and support is often needed to heal emotionally and to decide whether or not the relationship should continue after...
This is sort of a series of interesting observations...
ANGER is a prevalent feeling in situations of infidelity. It's no wonder, since anger tends to be a secondary emotion triggered by jealousy, desperation, fear, etc. How that anger is directed, and to whom, gets really interesting to me.
Some folks come on here raging at the other person/affair partner - that seems to be a common thread and one I can definitely relate to. What's interesting is that when someone jumps in with "the AP is a big ole poo head!" someone inevitably jumps in and says something to the effect of, "Oh no s/he isn't!! S/he didn't make a promise to you!! It's your spouse that's the doody head!!"
Wait. What?
As far as I know, it generally takes (at least?) two to tango. It takes two people to make a marriage. It takes two people for an affair. Why is the wayward spouse held more accountable than the affair partner? Isn't wrong, wrong? Aren't they BOTH responsible?
Another interesting observation: the wayward spouse is often angry and resentful towards the betrayed spouse. For... getting caught? OK, I get the whole, "S/he wasn't a good spouse," cos a lot of times, that may be the case. I imagine it's much like the case of blaming the other person, though... it's easier to blame someone else than take ownership of one's own part of the situation, and it's easier to blame a stranger than someone we love.
What's really fascinating to watch (from a distance, anyway... get too close and it just hurts) is when we turn on each other. We're hurting. We're desperate for solutions and answers. We have all come here for support, right? Yet we're all unique and our situations are all very different in a lot of ways. A situation ripe for conflict and anger that lashes out in unexpected and nonproductive ways. Definitely guilty of that on more than one occasion, myself. (Weirdly, in my case, toward other betrayed spouses...?)
Anyway... I guess maybe next time we catch ourselves seeing red, we might want to put the anger in check and see if there's a solution or if it's something we should just step away from instead of engaging in ugly ways.
ANGER is a prevalent feeling in situations of infidelity. It's no wonder, since anger tends to be a secondary emotion triggered by jealousy, desperation, fear, etc. How that anger is directed, and to whom, gets really interesting to me.
Some folks come on here raging at the other person/affair partner - that seems to be a common thread and one I can definitely relate to. What's interesting is that when someone jumps in with "the AP is a big ole poo head!" someone inevitably jumps in and says something to the effect of, "Oh no s/he isn't!! S/he didn't make a promise to you!! It's your spouse that's the doody head!!"
Wait. What?
As far as I know, it generally takes (at least?) two to tango. It takes two people to make a marriage. It takes two people for an affair. Why is the wayward spouse held more accountable than the affair partner? Isn't wrong, wrong? Aren't they BOTH responsible?
Another interesting observation: the wayward spouse is often angry and resentful towards the betrayed spouse. For... getting caught? OK, I get the whole, "S/he wasn't a good spouse," cos a lot of times, that may be the case. I imagine it's much like the case of blaming the other person, though... it's easier to blame someone else than take ownership of one's own part of the situation, and it's easier to blame a stranger than someone we love.
What's really fascinating to watch (from a distance, anyway... get too close and it just hurts) is when we turn on each other. We're hurting. We're desperate for solutions and answers. We have all come here for support, right? Yet we're all unique and our situations are all very different in a lot of ways. A situation ripe for conflict and anger that lashes out in unexpected and nonproductive ways. Definitely guilty of that on more than one occasion, myself. (Weirdly, in my case, toward other betrayed spouses...?)
Anyway... I guess maybe next time we catch ourselves seeing red, we might want to put the anger in check and see if there's a solution or if it's something we should just step away from instead of engaging in ugly ways.
GREAT POST
.PS. I AM NOT YELLING MY EYES HURT.
There are more examples. But when people say the cheating spouse deserves all the anger...I say bullshit. The OPs behavior is usually horrendous, appalling, and extremely nasty. And in these cases, they deserve the anger and disgust heaped on them.
you have a good point to step back and check it out before we get too far into the anger, and we need to help solutionize, rather than escalate the problem.
I do a lot of that at work, but somehowe it is usually the last method i ever consider at home. Thank you for pointing it out.
2nd.The next objection came from a BS who was duped into being an OW by a cheater who told her he was single. She broke it off since then but is probably offended by all OW being lumped in the same category ( see point number 1)
I chimed in with my 2 cents because as a BS I don't blame the OW. I put it all on my hubby where IMO it belongs. I didn't call anyone out for calling the OW names - I just stated my opinion.
Granted I didn't have any of the problems mentioned by Lyra and that person does sound pretty crazy. Maybe if that was happening to me I'd feel different but at some point I'd have to ask the question who introduced crazy into our lives?
Some are innocent victims being lied to until deep feelings occur and fall into a trap of emotions.
Others just do what they want and truely don't think about their actions or how it would effect anybody else.
I beleive in my situation it was the third type of ow. I initially went through a hyper bonding phase so I invested all my hate towards the ow and my H family and friends. So many people were aware of his A and oc. They all knew the ow as she was his friends sister who grew up in the same town as his family.
I don't think I'm alone in my need to deflect some hatred off of my H so I could stomach being around him. I needed to blame anybody (and him) I could. Eventually as I face how angry and Hirt I was with my H I made peace with my feelings towards the others. I became indifferent to them.
I know many situations involve op that just lose it when the A is ending and they make life very difficult and put up a fight about losing the cs to the bs. They pull out all the tricks from "woe is me" to lies and manipulation. In those cases it would be hard to let go of the anger.
in my situation, hating the ow was a survival technique to save my H from me murdering him in his sleep.
No matter who you are angry with or feeling hatred towards it all stems from hurt and getting through those emotions and learning to make some peace of it all is so important. Functioning when your filled with so much anger is not easy. So my message in all of my rambling is that we all keep working hard to get through the hatred and work towards peace for ourselves.
In my case, I have two OP who are pretty much opposites. The first man seduced my wife and pulled her into the fog. Doesn't let my wife off the hook, but he was a serial cheater, saw nothing wrong with putting a marriage and family in jeopardy through cheating and actively went after a married woman so he could score. So while he left town to never be heard from again, nor have I ever met him, I have more anger toward him than the second man who has stalked my wife and keeps trying to make contact every so often. Mainly because I see the first guy as a predator, while the second one at least cared about my wife.
But it isn't an anger that has me spitting bullets or anything either. More of an anger at what he is doing to people's lives more than him personally. I don't hate either of them. But I think both need some serious help to avoid destroying their lives and those around them by the life they are willing to live.
I'm naturally angry that my wife had the affairs. But she has also responded correctly and done all she can to repair the situation. And unlike the APs, I love her. Always have, always will. That doesn't excuse what she did. Forgiveness doesn't erase the consequences. But she has stepped up to the plate, taken responsibility, and did what needed doing to heal.
All involved are 100% responsible. If any of them had said, "No," that affair would not have happened. They all said yes.
We're all wired differently. Some of us have more of a time dealing with anger. Nothing that I've done, but it is just not in my nature to show anger very easily. Yes, I've been called "Spock." But it is good advice to make sure our anger isn't taken out on the wrong people. It is easy to kick the cat because of what someone else has done. Some of us end up being cats to kick because of a disagreement. We all have our crosses to bear.
Yeah the other woman is terrible blah, blah blah.
They are out there lying and piling them on.
I don't know about all the OW chasing.... just know who has been chasing me.
You are welcome to your precious lying manwhores.... I don't touch them if I KNOW. Getting so I have to run a 75$ check on every single man....... But.. of course, if I miss one. I am a whore and he is somehow just fell on top of me.
Yes the OW is unbalanced in many cases, and your situations are sad. Too bad the cheaters created/allowed these situations and sought them out in most cases....
Yes, I'm mad at my wife as well.
I'm angry that she couldn't have said "I need help" rather than suck on some strange guy's dick, as if that would make everything better!
I'm mad that she didn't think about how this might affect her future, affect me, our kids as she straddled him!
I'm angry that a few minutes of sex will cause immeasurable pain for everyone involved. Yes, our marriage is better now, but it didn't take fucking someone to get us to this point!
I'm mad that I lost millions in earnings because I couldn't work for the past few years (and am still not able to produce as I was).
I'm angry! I'm just angry!