SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Farm from me to make you lose sleep over this Asterisk.

The thing is different for different relationships.

Philia, the love for friends (and background for any closeness and connection) is very solid, constant, consistent.

Loyalty stems from love but its roots are different in different relationships.

Eros is not lust (lust is an impuls that Eros may awake but isn’t driven by it), it’s passion, attraction, gravity.

And is the most powerful one as for intensity. When Eros is I. Place you are almost obsessed with the other person and there is just no space to introduce others in this frame.

Lust is self absorbed, Eros is two ways.

Unfortunately it’s also the one who needs nourishment to keep burning, it doesn’t fade, though we often may allow for it to fade.

Just the chemistry that awakens keeps you bound to the person that awoken Eros, you will be faithful as long as the flame is lit because it’s in everyone’s nature. If there is Eros there is an "object" who reciprocates and feeds that flame.

Very often when relationship break or there’s betrayal, is because the flame is no longer burning, other forms of love might still survive, but the craving of that energy might be desperately searched elsewhere.

Instead of rekindling it, someone allows lust to take over, the lust to feel that warmth again, and then you have the end or disasters.

Due to our human flaws we risk to leave the fire become embers by complacency, which they aren’t dead, just neglected we could nourish again.

But if we seek another fire, then the risk of killing the spark for good is high.

You need that alive to have the love being a gatekeeper of fidelity. The other faces may very well survive, but it’s not enough to gatekeeper a partner to partner relationship.

With friends or family, kids, you don’t need that, the love is complete without Eros because it was never present to begin with. You will not betray, philia agape and Storge are gatekeeper enough for those.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 12:21 AM, Saturday, November 7th]

LittleMonk,

I found mindfulness before I ever met my wife.
My username here, LittleMonk, is a riff on "Little Buddha" from the movie Peaceful Warrior. That movie was one of the things that helped shape how I think about control, awareness, and being present.

These concepts were introduced to me a few months after I arrived here, which was not quite a year and a half ago. I’ve investigated them from both the Stoic position and the Buddhist angle and have spent a great deal of energy attempting to retrain my brain. That is not an easy task, especially for a man in his 7th decade. I by no means have a deep awareness of these new concepts, especially the "being present" idea, but it is growing in strength.

Asterisk

Sisoon,

more than just one face of the gatekeeper.

I am beginning to see exactly that which is why I asked the question. What is so amazing is all of the new perspectives that people are giving me neatly summed up by your quote above. Though I have read some who do disagree, but I do not believe it is as simply as love is the gatekeeper therefor if one cheats they did not love their spouse.

From the outside, fear + empathy + selfishness look a lot like integrity, and I think that, in the sense of wholeness, is not inaccurate.

Sisoon, the combination laid out above caused me to pause and reread numerous times. There is an honest, self-examination here that I missed seeing in me. Thank you for enlightening a shadowed corner cleverly hidden from my awareness. I will spend time with this line you have presented me. I would like to ask you to consider creating a post with this theme. It is a thought that I believe should be seen outside of this thread.

But gatekeeping requires being vigilant when ones needs to be.

Great point. Vigilance over oneself is a much better, more reliable gatekeeper than love.

This0is0fine,

Thank you for adding to your original post on this thread. You point is well stated and I do agree that love can be misused to justify and I think it wise to recognize it. I do find I disagree with your statement below;

in short, love is far more frequently an anchor holding someone down to a bad decision, than a force propelling them in the direction of improvement.

I would go as far as that love is used to justify far too often but my experience is that love is by far a driver for people desiring to be a better version of themselves. It is not a point I can prove just my experience in life.

Love is just an arbitrary word for an arbitrary set of feelings around attachment to another person.

Well that’s not going to make for good, romantic poetry. 😊 Would you care to expand?

It's that the faithful partner doesn't want to violate their own character and ethics. It's not "I wouldn't do that to the person I love" it's "I wouldn't do that to anyone" or "I wouldn't break my promise"

Absolutely agree!

Unhinged,

I know there are cheaters out there who are simply shitty people, for all sorts of fucked-up reasons. I also know there are cheaters out there who are generally good people who simply break. It happens.

Thank you for saying this, unhinged. My wife falls into the "simply broke" category. As she has stated, she felt trapped by a belief system that did not fit her personality which left her feeling desperate and broken, then she rebelled. Not against me as much as against the prescribed way she was taught to live. In many ways, I was a bystander that was injured by friendly fire.

DrSoolers

Clearly, you are an extremely intelligent, articulate man. A man who is not here seeking understanding but to dispense your version of a black and white truth that has needs no new information. Sense you have falsely predetermined the mind of my wife and all wayward spouses for that matter exacted from your experience, then stamped on the chest of every wayward, I see no more reason to engage with your well-articulated, but overly-simplistic reasoning.

Asterisk

LittleMonk and DrSoolers,

An affair lasting eighteen months isn't a lapse in judgment; it is thousands of conscious, sequential decisions to lie, cover tracks, simulate intimacy, and gamble with a partner's mental health.
One night stands ALSO require hundreds if not 1000s of decisions. You don't magically transport from the bar to someone's bed. Its a series of decisions, actions, steps, and negotiations.

I do not disagree with either of you on this and I do not challenge the importance of it, however, it is off topic. I am not seeking to blame but to reframe my understandings.

Asterisk

BackFromTheStorm,

I really appreciate your expansion in the concept of the "faces of love" and their impact on gatekeeping. There is far more there for me to agree with than not to agree with but I will admit it does hit a tender spot. My wife had zero Eros love for me from the very beginning. As I mentioned our biblical teachings as teenagers beginning to desire sex we were taught that eros love was lust and not to be given room to exist in reality or imagination. In my 19 year old brain, I thought that once one was married then lust towards one’s wife was free to be expressed. But in my wife’s 18 year old brain, she sacrificed her purity on our wedding night and grieved the loss until her affair. (Yes, is see the irony and it hurt like hell!) So your point that eros love needs to be present to assist in gatekeeping does give me pause. However, I think you might agree with me, that there are millions of marriages that have allowed the eros aspect of their marriage to grow pale but neither choose to cheat. There is something more at play.

Asterisk

Most people have no idea how hard it hits.

Ain't that the truth.

I grew up as the sexual revolution was brewing. We came back to the US after 21 months in a Viet Nam war R & R site (lots of prostitutes and found fellow grad students talking about Open Marriage (the book). I read some of The Canterbury Tales. Infidelity was part and parcel of books and movies. I had learned to live with a normal amount of loss and disappoint. I KNEW infidelity was about the cheater, not the cheated.

I thought an emotionally healthy BS should get over the betrayal in 6-12 weeks. Recovery should be easy.

Yeaaaaah ... no.

*****

I think we need to distinguish between giving and receiving love, in addition to distinguishing between the femotion and the action.

I can believe my W thought she loved me during her A. As I wrote, I can believe she loved me, based on reasoning that I know made sense but which I've forgotten. But her love didn't get across to me.

Giving love is an action. So is receiving it.

The love language paradigm is one hypothesis about that. The theory certainly helps some people (it helped W & I), but it apparently hasn't been supported by experiments. Even so, I know that gifts don't move me much. Physical touch does, though. Pre-A, touch both moved my W (she liked my touch) and terrified her, because it triggered feelings she knew from CSA.

She, OTOH, showed love by cooking for me. I didn't value that much at all, since I knew I wouldn't starve if I were on my own.

IOW, I could give love, but it terrified my W. She could give love, but I didn't experience it as such.

Before the A and after recovering, we could sit next to each other silently and feel loved.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:32 PM, Saturday, November 7th]

Clearly, you are an extremely intelligent, articulate man. A man who is not here seeking understanding but to dispense your version of a black and white truth that has needs no new information. Sense you have falsely predetermined the mind of my wife and all wayward spouses for that matter exacted from your experience, then stamped on the chest of every wayward, I see no more reason to engage with your well-articulated, but overly-simplistic reasoning.

Feel free to engage or not; I've simply outlined my perspective on the matter. You either accept the logic I've presented or you don't. Either way, choosing not to engage is often a way of avoiding its potential truth, and some people prefer that comfort.

​For what it's worth, I don't think outlining a definition of love and explaining why it contradicts betrayal is overly simplistic—in the same way that rejecting a definition of boiling point because it occurs at sub-zerotemperatures wouldn't make sense. Abusers often claim to love their victims. I truly believe they believe that. It's just not what I define as love.

​But with that being said, with regards to your claim that I’ve used overly simplistic reasoning: in my line of work, using Occam’s razor is essential for cutting through noise to find the truth. It isn’t infallible, but it’s an incredibly useful tool—positing that the simplest explanation with the fewest assumptions is usually the correct one. So simplicity in reasoning is in fact an incredibly effective way of reaching the truth. It may not be as comforting as some psychobabble word salad, but it's effective.

​When you apply that principle here, the narrative that "she loved you while systematically betraying you" completely collapses under its own weight.

​To accept that she loved you during an 18-month affair requires massive mental gymnastics. You have to separate an internal feeling from external actions, effectively redefining "love" until it offers zero protection, imposes no boundaries, and carries no operational weight when weighed against an ego stroke or a bit of forbidden pleasure.

​The simplest explanation—requiring zero assumptions—is that she simply wasn't capable of true, mature love. Her capacity was shallow and conditional. She likely enjoyed the comfort, stability, and benefits of the life you provided—much like someone enjoys a favorite meal—but she wasn't willing to forgo self-gratification for it.

​When a choice had to be made between personal impulse and basic respect for you, self-interest won every time. That isn't a complex philosophical paradox about nouns and verbs; it's just a fundamental lack of character and integrity.

​If an emotion yields zero loyalty and zero protection over a year and a half of deceit, then by the law of parsimony, it wasn't love. She loved how you made her life feel, but she lacked the maturity to love you. She loved you like I love sushi. Which is nice but I'm not going to take a bullet for sushi.

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 10:06 AM, Sunday, November 8th]

However, I think you might agree with me, that there are millions of marriages that have allowed the eros aspect of their marriage to grow pale but neither choose to cheat. There is something more at play.

Yes there is, I can think of two situations:

One is the very common factor of "opportunity" and "availability".
I hear often from reformed waywards " the AP could have been anyone. It’s a matter how opportunity to find a pig willing to roll in the mud, who is right there, available ".

This is the case when the person is having the "cheater gene" but it just doesn’t cheat for they can’t find the perfect storm of opportunity + available affair partner.

I recognize this case as the one where it does fit: is not love gate keeping because it died out already (or wasn’t there). The gatekeeper is the lack of opportunity, available affair partner or the fear of consequences.

In my mind though (and this is my personal position, by all means) someone who has the "cheater traits" and doesn’t have an affair is still betraying their partner.

They are not abusing their partner yet because they didn’t indulge in infidelity, but even craving or fantasy is a betrayal in its own way.

It should be a red flag for the person to spot they have a deep unresolved issue that needs to be addressed, not rugswept until the tragedy and abuse happens (when there is finally infidelity and cheating), but confronted and resolved.

And by no means I mean force themselves to stand in a marriage where love is dead. They could very well accept it and leave the marriage to seek love somewhere else.
That’s heartbreaking, but is not abuse and no longer betrayal for it is in the open. It’s painful but clean and respectful.

The other one is when you accept your love is dead, you can name the emotions and see the flame has expired.
But for whatever reasons, personal conviction or value you don’t conside the Union you had with your partner (ex love) solvable by breaking up.

In this case though they stay for their own personal value but they do not desire an affair nor will indulge in one, because contrary to the other case, they respect themselves to much to allow themselves into indulging in infidelity and abuse.

In this case there is no low self worth or validation craving. There is a,so no love left for the partner that is gatekeeping here.

But there is self-love, as in self respect to never break your moral compass or betray your values, and consequently betray yourself.

I here I would say that love is still the gatekeeper in some form, though not the love for your partner, but the love for yourself: you are the kind of person who will endure and not steal, even given the opportunity to get away with it, even if your are having a hard time .

The first example is the person who doesn’t steal because they don’t get the chance or are afraid to get caught.
Is a very big difference, one is absolute lack of love, the other may have lost the lover’s love, but maintain self love enough to never lower themselves into the swamp.

(And I don’t try to make sophisms here, I know the example of a parent stealing for their starving children even if they would never steal for themselves. That’s a different scenario unfitting here, for infidelity doesn’t benefit anyone, but the mask that is the ego of a low self worth person. It only destroys).

I find both cases really sad in many ways, but plausible and possibly sadly common.

I grew up as the sexual revolution was brewing. We came back to the US after 21 months in a Viet Nam war R & R site (lots of prostitutes and found fellow grad students talking about Open Marriage (the book). I read some of The Canterbury Tales. Infidelity was part and parcel of books and movies. I had learned to live with a normal amount of loss and disappoint. I KNEW infidelity was about the cheater, not the cheated.

I thought an emotionally healthy BS should get over the betrayal in 6-12 weeks. Recovery should be easy.

Yeaaaaah ... no.

I love this. I was born decades after so I grew up with the "legend" of the sexual revolution in a full positive light as "sexual liberation"

This little bit give me pause to think that while it was a "revolution " it wasn’t really just about liberation.
It also gave a pass to people who were broken and flawed to become victims abusers without accountability.

So there is a dark and ugly side to it that I never considered.
We had revolution but still today we have not possibly reached a liberation.

Like every revolution, It’s just a different form of oppression masked like liberation.

Thank you, this a deep one.

Sisoon,

I thought an emotionally healthy BS should get over the betrayal in 6-12 weeks. Recovery should be easy.
Yeaaaaah ... no.

I would like to a thought (and a caution). I believed that once we reconciled and rebuilt a marriage that is delightful, warm, committed and loving that the intense pain of those early years were over. I had not a clue that a thought, not an action, but my thought, 3 decades later could create in me a new extremely painful doubt that I cannot resolve. So I am left with only one option and that is to accept what I cannot find resolve. The twist is that I am the creator of my own pain therefore it is my issue to resolve which is why I am talking with all of you and not my wife.

Asterisk

BackFromTheStorm,

This is the case when the person is having the "cheater gene" but it just doesn’t cheat for they can’t find the perfect storm of opportunity + available affair partner.

In my mind though (and this is my personal position, by all means) someone who has the "cheater traits" and doesn’t have an affair is still betraying their partner.
They are not abusing their partner yet because they didn’t indulge in infidelity, but even craving or fantasy is a betrayal in its own way.

Whoa, "cheater Gene" and even just thinking about cheating is a betrayal. That is a bold statement and a very high standard to place on a spouse. I couldn’t disagree more, but disagreement is not rejection of the possibility of it being true, only that I don’t see it but I am evaluating it. I do appreciate your thoughts on this.

To me, mental thoughts not played out (There are always options to cheat if one seeks it.) do not rise to the same level as mental thoughts played out. For example, after my wife told me about her affair, I found myself in an inner war to not "get even" by having my own affair. But there is more and this one goes to the heart of what I think I am hearing you say. I was in desperate need of sexual validation because my self-worth in this area (others as well) had been badly damaged. (Closed to destroyed.) But I didn’t. To equate my thoughts and even desire of infidelity that was self-halted (And not due to lack of options.) to my wife’s actions, feels like a miss. I simply find it difficult to find equality of the sin of the mind to the sin of the flesh. I chose not to cheat because I had another voice in my head warning me that cheating would not give me the validation I sought and would hurt not only my wife but myself and any affair partner I might have chosen to be involved with. I don’t know, maybe I had the "halt before you muck-up jean that my wife didn’t have at that time. 😊

,,, there is self-love, as in self respect to never break your moral compass or betray your values, and consequently betray yourself.

Self-love as a gatekeeper. Yes. As I have read many of the responses I have expanded my concepts of what is the gatekeeper against infidelity. I am beginning to grasp that there is no one thing that keeps the gate locked. In fact, most likely, it is a combination of many of the suggested gatekeepers made in this thread. Mine, I think was the underlying belief system that I have tried to foster all my life which is "to strive to do no harm". I don’t always live up to it but I did lean heavily on it post D-day. I simply did not want to injure anyone like I had been injured. It wasn’t "self-love" that guarded the gate that day….I wish it were.

Asterisk

To me, mental thoughts not played out (There are always options to cheat if one seeks it.) do not rise to the same level as mental thoughts played out.

In the past I thought so too that it was too high standard, but it was due to a lack of confidence and need for validation due to my own unresolved issues that I considered it as such. Only pride kept me as an unbreakable boundary but it was felt and maintained, while once you come to accept yourself fully it just comes natural (no energy required to keep that boundary, self love does it effortlessly).

Calling "cheater gene" is an aforism for the character flaws of low self worth, validation craving and so on, that are at the root of betrayal and infidelity.

Of course there is no gene, is a self programmed meme that is a sum of our unresolved issues and resulting character flaws.

The way I see it thinking about infidelity is betrayal, because you don’t have a single valid reason to do so.

You may feel the need for a different relationship and maybe a different person, but that comes in tandem with "since I feel this need I must tell my partner that my feelings changed, and between us is over". That is change, heartbreak and Feeling guilt of failing in the relationship, but ain’t no betrayal as you call the need and act in the open.

If you desire to have an affair behind your partner back (thus keeping them in your pocket), it is to me betrayal. You are keeping secrets about the relationship you both are in. You betray the trust. Even if you don’t act upon, you know you do. And the energy shift will be felt even if that’s unspoken.

Desiring to move in is no betrayal. Betrayal implies secrecy and deception.
And there is never a good reason for it.

So it is betrayal, but does it raise to the same level of those thought being acted upon?

No of course not. You are silently betraying your partner, that feeling is within you. But you didn’t abuse your partner, not yet.

Betrayal is not already infidelity, and even infidelity and adultery are not entirely the same thing: each next one contains the previous ones among acting upon further abusing your partner - begins with trust, then follows with emotional and sexual abuse. They are parts of the same entity, but they are phases of the slippery slope.

What thoughts of infidelity (betraying with the mind, fantasy) should cause though, is ring the alarm bell on you feel such an un excusable need. It should be a red flag for yourself to tell something is wrong and there an unresolved issue that you must confront before falling down the slope (remember that infidelity is first of all self betrayal).

Why do I feel the impulse to cheat? That should be our safety alarm ringing, and pushing us to find what is the issue to resolve that gets you towards that thought.

So the mere thought isn’t necessarily bad (as it is, but is a alert of dysfunction and issue to confront), and is not nearly as bad as acting upon it, allowing yourself to turn the fantasy into abuse.

For example, after my wife told me about her affair, I found myself in an inner war to not "get even" by having my own affair.

That’s a different story altogether. You have been traumatized. Your self worth was down the toilet.

Trauma is a big issue and it’s not uncommon some BS think about revenge affairs.
The trauma causes you to experience the same low self worth as the WS, and you hope external validation might fix your pain.

It never does though, revenge affair end up making a betrayed partner worse than the infidelity left them to begin with.

You will only end up betraying yourself. You won’t get even, you will simply step as low in the same swamp.

A place of taint, not a place of healing.

But is natural that might happen, when you are lost and destroyed you become (hopefully temporarily) low self worth because you have been crushed and dehumanized, abused, humiliated.

And that’s a big part of what generates the "cheater gene" I mentioned above.
Fortunately, most bs will feel that temporarily and then bounce back disgusted at the idea of meddling with infidelity.

Never again a victim. But even so less an abuser.