The fact that I love and loved her does and did not obligate her in any way to reciprocate love
I agree with you. Is this all that happened? She left you for someone else? if she left you for someone else that wouldn't be abuse. I'm not sure you could even define it as infidelity, depending on your view of marriage. If she removed your agency by carrying out two relationships simultaneously without your knowledge. Putting both your mental and sexual health at risk... That's abuse.
No one possesses the right to strip you of your agency and compel you to remain in a marriage you no longer desire. Wouldn't that inherently be a form of abuse? Therefore, in this specific situation, by concealing her other relationship from you, she effectively removed your agency. She kept you in a relationship you were unknowingly participating in, one you couldn't have consented to fully knowing the circumstances. The duration of her deception is irrelevant to the fundamental violation of your autonomy
Perhaps you don't want to frame it that way as subconsciously it makes reconciliation more palatable for you?
Perhaps it's easier to forgive someone who simply for a period fell out of love with you than abused you.
Most of the time, I feel it's fair to say, this is also accompanied by lying and gaslighting. All adding to the abusive package.
Ultimately, I want to avoid this turning into a back-and-forth of "you're projecting your hurt/anger" versus "no, you're projecting your insecurities about your life choices." It's too easy to interpret each other's viewpoints through the lens of our own experiences. There's no benefit to be gained from that; I truly don't think it's a personal bias clouding my arguments nor I presume will you think it's insecurities colouring yours. lets just let the logic of the arguments stand by themselves.
With regard to beatings vs. an A, that reductio ad absurdum does lead me to think emotions are driving you in ways and directions you either deny are simply don't see. If that's right, I hope that you will come to understand that as quickly as possible.
I'm not sure you're following your own logic. You outlined a definition of what you consider abuse to be. I used your own definition against another example of abuse and it fell apart. This isn't an example of reductio ad absurdum, it's simply outlining how your definition is clearly inaccurate. I wasn't equating beatings with affairs.
To restate this clearly:
I say: 'For it to be an apple it must be green and sour.'
Then as a tool to show the inaccuracy of my definition;
You respond: What about Red Delicious.
You simply stated:
Abuse implies to me a pattern that pervades the whole or large part of a relationship, so an A that took place over a large part of a relationship would fit my definition of abuse. A single A is more limited. My W's A was 22 weeks out of a 2350+ week relationship - less than 1%. I'm not sure where I place the cutoff, but it's a lot more than 1% for me.
This is just inaccurate. I can literally name dozens of noted forms of abuse that your definition as outlined wouldn't fit yet even you would agree is abuse. (I.e the physical abuse example)
I'm fine with you arguing that cheating isn't a form of abuse (though a little surprised in a forum like this, as I presumed it was pretty much a consensus) but if your only reasoning for this is it that cheating doesn't fit this incorrect framing of what abuse is, you need to keep digging.
[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 1:14 AM, Friday, April 18th]
