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Newest Member: ConstantlyConfused

Wayward Side :
People's why

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 Patty21 (original poster member #78432) posted at 3:40 AM on Wednesday, June 16th, 2021

I want others to share their why's and why then had an affair. Mine was seeking the attention from another man and just that someone was nice to me. I didn't feel that I was put down and had someone there for me. I didn't have to ask for them to treat me a certain way. They just wanted to. Even though it felt nice I really wanted it from my husband but I couldn't. I did communicate and tell them what I wanted just it didn't get through them. I know I was wrong to not try hard enough or that having an affair wouldn't fix anything. my spouse tells me I'm blaming them. I am not trying to but I am working on what my why is. I still have work to do because these reasons aren't good enough. Being abused growing up and in one of my relationship it made me lash out and I didn't care. That's what happened this time. So I am working on that through therapy so I don't continue this pattern even if I stay married or have another relationship.

posts: 103   ·   registered: Mar. 3rd, 2021   ·   location: AZ
id 8667707
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DaddyDom ( member #56960) posted at 7:58 PM on Wednesday, June 16th, 2021

"Why" is a complicated answer that took me years to work through and understand, and it would take years to explain in any relatable detail. But I will try my best to nutshell it.

I grew up in a family that taught me that I have no intrinsic self-worth, and that my value as a person was measured by my ability to make others happy. I was loved when I told my controlling and narcissistic mother how wonderful she was. I was compared to my father, to my siblings, to others in the community, and always found lacking. My sadist brother used me to quell his need to hurt others, both physically and emotionally. He did a real number on me, and I learned that my sadness and pain made him happy, and when he wasn't happy, it got worse, so I learned to see my own suffering as good and appropriate. At school I was the brightest kid in class by far, however I was also the fattest kid, and the only Jewish kid, so I was teased, beat up, demeaned and embarrassed daily. When I was 6, I was repeatedly raped by a neighborhood boy, and when it came to light, I was called a liar and made to apologize to him. So I learned that my truth has no bearing on my value, again, my only value was in how I could please others so they'd stop hating me and hurting me. No one was going to protect me. No one was going to love me unconditionally. I was a commodity, nothing more.

I mention all this only to help you understand my why. I had no self-love, no dignity, no self-respect, no boundaries, and worst of all, I was 100% incapable of feeling good about myself unless there was someone else to fill that void, that need. When there wasn't someone else to provide value to me, it was as if my heart and soul turned into a black hole. I simply lacked the ability to feel good about myself, by myself, for myself. Without external validation and praise, I was meaningless, empty, and devoid of love and joy to the point where I was suicidal.

Shortly before the A, my wife had taken a new job that required her to move to another town. We didn't want to pull our daughter out of school (she only had one year left) and so she rented a place, and I stayed back with my daughter, and we did our best to make it work. I didn't know all this stuff about myself at the time of course, so when my wife moved away, instead of stepping up and taking charge of things, I instead crumbled. The lack of her love in my daily life was no longer there, and as a result, my mind twisted itself around like a pretzel trying to figure out how someone could possibly love me, when I felt so empty and unloved? (There was also complex PTSD and other factors involved, but that just muddies things more). In my head, she was no longer feeding me love and attention on a constant basis, so that meant that she hated me instead. Rather than reach out to her or leaning into her (because I never learned to do those kinds of healthy things) I instead resented her, and blamed her for not loving me the way I needed, and felt abandoned and alone. None of that was real or true of course, but my head wasn't capable of accepting that. To me, it was life as normal. Once again, I was unworthy of love.

So when the AP walked up to me at an event and started to tell me how interesting I was, and how talented I was, and then basically offered me a chance to be a KISA to her... I jumped all over it. Again, none of this was a conscious train of thought in my head, it just was. The AP spent every second making me feel special, and needed. And those were the magic emotions for me. I went on auto-pilot and did everything I could to please her, tell her what she wanted to hear and do what she wanted to do, because that's how I had been taught that "love" works.

In short, I filled a need for her, and she filled a need for me, and those two needs were so intensely fucked up and broken, but when you are that broken, you can't see it. You don't believe it. And you get pissed and defensive when someone tries to tell you otherwise, because that threatens the supply of attention that is needed in the first place.

It took years of therapy for me to even begin to understand all this, and even more time to learn how to build those feelings of dignity and self-respect that I had never developed in the first place. I had to learn how to see and hear and love myself first, before I could see, hear and love my wife. And that meant I could no longer use my wife as my own, personal "love battery". It is still a struggle, building new parts of myself that never existed, and doing so in the wake of the horror I caused. If there was ever anything to make a person feel shitty about themselves, it is being a cheater. And when you already feel shitty about yourself, and then dump that enormous load of guilt and shame on top of it... well, it's not good. Stick your head in the oven kind of not good.

What I learned from all of this is that most WS's share a similar history. That is to say, a person who has healthy boundaries, self-love and self-respect, dignity, authenticity, compassion, empathy... a person like that would never be a cheater because they have too much respect for themselves and their spouse to ever do such a thing. So it stands to reason that if you cheated, then you most certainly lack those qualities. That's my point of view anyway.

Attempting to correct this has involved:

1) Spending years digging into my own pain and history to truly understand who I really am, and why I did things I did.

2) Learning to build, for myself, those things which I was never taught. Learning to love myself.

3) Removing the roadblocks such as shame, remorse, grief, and depression. I was self-sabotaging constantly.

4) Figuring who I wanted to be, how to get there, and what needed to happen in order to make that a reality.

Honestly, there was no way to even begin any kind of meaningful or real R with my wife until I was capable of being an individual, with healthy boundaries and attitudes, and with a sense of self and of dignity. As long as I was broken, I couldn't build something healthy with another human being, not my wife, not my kids, not even myself. I had to learn to gain respect and appreciation for myself, and become the person I wanted to be, rather than crawling under a rock and feeling sorry for myself for all my past trauma. I had to beat the trauma, rather than the other way around.

I hope this helps to some degree.

Me: WS
BS: ISurvivedSoFar
D-Day Nov '16
Status: Reconciling
"I am floored by the amount of grace and love she has shown me in choosing to stay and fight for our marriage. I took everything from her, and yet she chose to forgive me."

posts: 1446   ·   registered: Jan. 18th, 2017
id 8667830
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 Patty21 (original poster member #78432) posted at 8:18 PM on Wednesday, June 16th, 2021

I agree. Growing up I was molested when I did say something to my mom she didn't believe me. It hurt to know no one was there for me when I was in pain. I was controlled by my step father and sexually abused and at times he had put his hands on me. The fact that my father wasnt in my life made me feel unloved and confused why he wasn't in my life. I did meet him later in life but he was in and out of my life.when he did pass away it put a void in my heart. I was in a emotionally, and abusive relationship. I was controlled and it really put me in a bad place.i had no self respect or love for myself. I continued to go back thinking he would change. I also got pregnant by him and was hurt when he wanted nothing to do with our son. I felt the pain that my son would not have a father. It took time until I met my bf who a few years later became my husband. Things were great until he started to put me down call me names and nothing I did was ever good enough for him. I once again felt hurt and controlled. So when I got close with my co worker. it felt nice for someone to pay attention to me. Constantly saying nice things about me. Never put me down and was there to listen to my work problems. I wanted him to feel good like he had did for me. Also smoking pot helped me suppress my feelings. It's hard for my husband to understand. when I tell him my why's. he tells me I'm blaming him.he doesn't understand that this person was kind and showed me attention without being controlled. I take full responsibility but when I share why I did it it's the full truth

posts: 103   ·   registered: Mar. 3rd, 2021   ·   location: AZ
id 8667832
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foreverlabeled ( member #52070) posted at 10:08 PM on Wednesday, June 16th, 2021

My why was pretty straight forward and my complete selfishness and conflict avoidance just paved the way for cheating.

For most of my life I have lived in a state of survival mode. Its fear based thinking and fight or flight is constantly engaged. So, when I felt threatened in my relationship my go to is to run away.

And in my survival mode, what I thought I couldn't survive without was love. It didn't matter what kind of love, and typically.. no, most definitely every relationship I've ever been in was toxic. So long as that illusion of love was there I would be ok.

So when my exBH and my relationship started to decline and his sense of love was no longer there, I panicked. My fight or flight response kicked in and I started making moves to exit.

But! Because my sole survival hinged on another's love I needed to secure that. Enter an exit affair.

That may sound like some blame on him for my cheating, and whew! when I first showed up here, my post was FULL of blame shifting. What that really is though, is a deficit I had within myself. It wasn't his fault I had a hole in me the size of Texas, it wasn't his fault my character was in serious need of repair. It wasn't his fault I didn't have it in me to ask for a divorce.

Because the obvious answer to my problem with him and our marriage was to cut clean and just divorce. I was too much of a coward to take that path. Have you thought about why you didn't just ask for a divorce instead of cheat?

While you are digging deeper than just "this guy was nice to me" multi-task and also start figuring out how you even let yourself go down that path to begin with.

posts: 2597   ·   registered: Mar. 1st, 2016   ·   location: southeast
id 8667858
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 Patty21 (original poster member #78432) posted at 11:00 PM on Wednesday, June 16th, 2021

Yes I have thought about why I didn't just ask for a divorce if things going bad. I was a coward I wanted my husband to fill those needs but it was easier for me to get it from this other person. It wasn't just he was nice. He cared to listen about my problems he compliment me, I didn't have to ask for anything he wanted to do these things. I have always been the more giving one and at times people take advantage of that. I know in a sense he did take advantage and didn't respect me but I was willing to get it from him and not my husband because how he treated me. I was angry and hurt. I became selfish and cared about my needs and not my marriage. I am working on digging deeper

posts: 103   ·   registered: Mar. 3rd, 2021   ·   location: AZ
id 8667867
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 Patty21 (original poster member #78432) posted at 11:16 PM on Wednesday, June 16th, 2021

When I have shared that I was selfish and this person being there for me. My husband just says that's not a why and that's blaming him. He knew about my past and for my husband to be cruel towards me busy opened a door and that made me go back to caring about myself. That's why I am working on love and respect for myself. If I don't then anyone can take advantage of me

posts: 103   ·   registered: Mar. 3rd, 2021   ·   location: AZ
id 8667873
Topic is Sleeping.
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