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180

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 Molly65 (original poster member #84499) posted at 10:03 PM on Tuesday, March 12th, 2024

Sorry to bother the community, but what is the 180 that a few people have mentioned? Where do you find out about it? smile

Molly NEW LIFE

posts: 130   ·   registered: Feb. 18th, 2024   ·   location: USA
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HellFire ( member #59305) posted at 10:10 PM on Tuesday, March 12th, 2024

Go to the main forum page. In the top, right corner, are 3 small bars. Click on those. It gives you several options to choose from. The Healing library is one of them.

But you are what you did
And I'll forget you, but I'll never forgive
The smallest man who ever lived..

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The1stWife ( Guide #58832) posted at 10:53 PM on Tuesday, March 12th, 2024

The 180 is where you no longer act as a spouse or partner.

You stop doing errands or favors.
You stop being the cheater’s support team.
You stop doing the cheater’s laundry.
You stop cooking their meals.
You stop paying their bills.

In general you stop being nice and kind. You let them be solely responsible for their life in all aspects.

You put yourself first for once. You sit in the couch with a cup of coffee and read a book while the cheater dies their laundry.

You enjoy a long walk while they buy their groceries to make a meal.

You go out with the kids and don’t invite the cheater along.

You get a financial plan together just in case.

You get yourself a good counselor or therapist to support you.

You go to the gym 5x a week and leave the cheater home with the kids.

It’s called self preservation.

Survived two affairs and brink of Divorce. Happily reconciled. 11 years out from Dday. Reconciliation takes two committed people to be successful.

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Tanner ( Guide #72235) posted at 2:48 AM on Wednesday, March 13th, 2024

The 180 saved me, it was a pivotal moment in my recovery. Not just the detachment but the self improvement. 4.5 years later I have maintained my fitness / self care and the positive elements of the 180.

Dday Sept 7 2019 doing well in R BH M 32 years

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HellIsNotHalfFull ( member #83534) posted at 2:49 AM on Wednesday, March 13th, 2024

The 1st Wife nailed it.

I actually hate a lot of what the doctrine of the 180 is, and it’s preached here a lot. It has some good points, but a lot of it is crap when dealing with a cheater.

Statements like "the cheater will only speak in absolutes because they are hurting and scared" is a load of crap.

IMO, the 180 is exactly what T1W said. It’s applying the principle of the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s apathy. It’s focused on you as your partner has already proved they are disloyal and you no longer owe them loyalty. Not saying go out and cheat, but that the partnership of the marriage is gone.

No more do they get to have the comfort of a spouse appliance. No more sex, no more affection, split the finances etc.

Remember this above all else. Cheating is abuse, and the 180 isn’t a manipulation to wake the cheater up. It’s to protect yourself, to disconnect from them so that you can make a decision without being influenced by feelings, or sunk cost. Sometimes when the BS does a hard 180 the cheater realizes that they have messed up big time. A lot of times they don’t and take the easy way of the AP. That’s why it’s important to remember that it’s for you so that you can make a clear decision and do whatever is best for you

Me mid 40s BH
Her 40s STBX WW
3 year EA 1 year PA.
DDAY 1 Feb 2022. DDAY 2 Jun 2022. DDAY 3/4/5/6/7 July 2024
Nothing but abuse and lies and abuse false R for three years. Divorcing and never looking back.

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sisoon ( Moderator #31240) posted at 3:03 PM on Wednesday, March 13th, 2024

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/documents/library/articles/discovery/the-simplified-180/ is a better view of the process. The base 180 document has some internal inconsistencies.

fBH (me) - on d-day: 66, Married 43, together 45, same sex ap
DDay - 12/22/2010
Recover'd and R'ed
You don't have to like your boundaries. You just have to set and enforce them.

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Bor9455 ( member #72628) posted at 3:10 PM on Wednesday, March 13th, 2024

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/documents/library/faq/bs/

Scroll down it is question 11, although others have summarized it here.

The point of the 180 is to give yourself some emotional distance to see things more objectively and to help you determine the best path forward for yourself. You are intentionally pulling back from your relationship with the wayward so that you can see them through more objective eyes. The person closest to you and the one you trusted with your heart has the obliterated that trust with their cheating. Your mind knows that this is a huge contradiction, but the rest of your body takes some time to catch up. Giving yourself some emotional distance to try and see things more clearly is important. You may very well see that for your life and situation that you want to offer the gift of R, which is completely fine and you may decide differently, which is also fine.

Another way it’s been described is that your spouse stops being your spouse and they convert over to being a roommate. I never had any opposite sex roommates in college, so I was never sleeping with my roommates, but we did have clear responsibilities, I was responsible for my dirty dishes, my own meals, cleaning up my bathroom, washing my own clothes, doing my share of cleaning chores around the place.

The 180 is important for both partners, because it does begin to separate the wheat from the chaff. As I’ve told you in previous posts, many waywards, myself included, respond to consequences. If a wayward cheats, ends their affair and comes home to a mostly unchanged home life, it sends a clear and unintended message, cheating is okay. I wish it weren’t that way, but it is a story seen here on SI over and over. If you implement the 180, your wayward is going to notice the behavioral change and the seriousness of what they have done. I think it is important to show the wayward all the ways that a BS supports them and their lifestyle because you are very deliberately and intentionally pulling back. You can pretty readily suss out in these moments if all the promises made by the wayward have anything backing them up or if they were just words said to placate you. If you do the 180 and you see your WS fall back into wayward behavior and thinking patterns, you know that you shouldn’t be as willing to offer R, but if you see them adjusting, doing the work and making efforts to fix what the broke, it tells you that their changes are more likely genuine and you can believe them.

Myself - BH & WH - Born 1985 Her - BW & WW - Born 1986

D-Day for WW's EA - October 2017D-Day no it turned PA - February 01, 2020

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 Molly65 (original poster member #84499) posted at 4:54 AM on Wednesday, March 20th, 2024

Thank you all for explaining the 180.

Personally if I had to live with any person but disregard them totally, I would rather go also physically somewhere else. It really isn’t for me!

This 180 does not make any sense to me. This is no way near a healthy way to stay in a relationship. And I cannot imagine anything more damaging in case children are there, too.

[This message edited by Molly65 at 3:17 PM, Wednesday, March 20th]

Molly NEW LIFE

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hikingout ( member #59504) posted at 5:07 AM on Wednesday, March 20th, 2024

I will challenge you on that Molly.

Is it really damaging for children to see their father do his own laundry and cook his own food?

Is it damaging to have a parent who can’t heal because their spouse can not do the bare minimum of the work to be a safe spouse for their mom?

You seem to only think it’s damaging if he suffers the repercussions of his affair, but not damaging when you do. I think that might be a position you might think about more.

Not everyone can afford two houses while on a temporary separation. Having in home separation, or just the bs feeling the freedom to detach can be healthy for both people. The bs can focus on their needs because not doing everything in the home frees up their time. The ws can feel what it’s like not to have their spouses unconditional support. It’s easy to take for granted if you don’t think you can lose it.

[This message edited by hikingout at 5:14 AM, Wednesday, March 20th]

7 years of hard work - WS and BS - Reconciled

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lrpprl ( member #80538) posted at 2:31 PM on Wednesday, March 20th, 2024

Molly -- The following is from the Healing Library... Articles. You will find in under Frequently Asked Questions for questions Betrayed Spouse's Frequently Ask (BS FAQ). It is Question #11. (My opinion is that it should have been edited before being placed in the Healing Library. I added the spaces to make it easier. I did not bother to edit the grammar).

Molly -- My personal opinion is that it should be employed if the affair is still ongoing and active. On the other hand, if the affair is over and the BS is of the persuasion to reconcile, do not use it. At that stage communication should be ongoing between the BS and WS with the goal of reconciliation in mind. If the goal of the BS is to divorce the cheating spouse, then communication between the two should primarily be of logistics going forward. That is my personal opinion.

Here is the 180:

Q:

What is 180 and how does it work? Submitted by Making It

A:

180 is a list of behaviors from Michelle Wiener Davis, the author of Divorce Busting, that will help your spouse to see you moving forward as a healthy person. I would highly suggest that any new BS begin these behaviors as soon as possible. I am convinced that if I had implemented them, I would still be married. In retrospect, I did everything besides 180. I looked pathetic. No one wants to be perceived as pathetic. 180 makes you look strong. Strong is attractive. (Making it)

So here's the list:

Don't pursue reason, chase, beg, plead or implore.

No frequent phone calls.

Don't point out "good points" in marriage.

Don't follow her/him around the house.

Don't encourage or initiate discussion about the future.

Don't ask for help from the family members of your WS.

Don't ask for reassurances.

Don't buy or give gifts.

Don't schedule dates together.

Don't keep saying, "I Love You!" Because if you have a brain in your head, he/she is at this particular moment, not very loveable.

Do more then act as if you are moving on with your life; begin moving on with your life!

Be cheerful, strong, outgoing and independent.

Don't sit around waiting on your spouse - get busy, do things, go out with friends, enjoy old hobbies, find new ones! But stay busy!

When home with your spouse, (if you usually start the conversation) be scarce or short on words. Don't push any issue? No matter how much you want to!

If you're in the habit of asking your spouse his/her whereabouts, ASK NOTHING. Seem totally uninterested.

Your partner needs to believe that you have awakened to the fact that "they (the WS)" are serious concerning their assertions as to the future (or lack thee of) of your marriage. Thus, you are you are moving on with your life? with out them!

Don't be nasty, angry or even cold - Just pull yourself back. Don't always be so available? for anything! Your spouse will notice. More important, he/she will notice that you're missing.

No matter what you are feeling TODAY, only show your spouse happiness and contentment? Make yourself be someone they would want to be around. Not a moody, needy, pathetic individual but a self assured individual secure in the knowledge that they have value.

All questions about the marriage should be put on hold, until your spouse wants to talk about it (which may not be for quite a while). Initiate no such conversation!

Do not allow yourself to lose your temper. No yelling, screaming or name calling EVER. No show of temper! Be cool, act cool; be in control of the only thing you can control? YOURSELF!

Don't be overly enthusiastic.

Do not argue when they tell you how they feel (it only makes their feelings stronger). In fact, refuse to argue at all!

Be patient and learn to not only listen carefully to what your spouse is really saying to you? HEAR what it is that they are saying! Listen and then listen some more!

Learn to back off, keep your mouth shut and walk away when you want to speak out, no matter what the provocation. No one ever got themselves into trouble by just not saying anything.

Take care of you. Exercise, sleep, laugh & focus on all the other parts of your life that are not in turmoil.

Be strong, confident and learn to speak softly.

Know that if you can do this 180, your smallest CONSISTENT action will be noticed far more than any words you can say or write.

Do not be openly desperate or needy even when you are hurting more than ever and are feeling totally desperate and needy.

Do not focus on yourself when communicating with your spouse. It's not always about you! More to the point, at present they just don't care!

Do not believe any of what you hear them say and less than 50% of what you see. Your spouse will speak in absolute negatives and do so in the most strident tones imaginable. Try to remember that they are also hurting and afraid. Try to remember that they know what they are doing is wrong and so they will say anything they can to justify their behavior.

Do not give up no matter how dark it is or how bad you feel. It "ain't over till it's over!"

Do not backslide from your hard earned changes. Remain consistent! It is the consistency of action and attitude that delivers the message.

When expressing your dissatisfaction with the actions of the wayward party, never be judgmental, critical or express moral outrage. Always explain that your dissatisfaction is due to the pain that the acts being committed are causing you as a person. This is the kind of behavior that will cause you to be a much more attractive and mysterious individual. Further it SHOWS that you are NOT afraid to move on with your life. Still more important, it will burst their positive little bubble; the one in which they believe that they can always come back to you in case things don't work out with the OM/OW.

I hope this helps you understand. In my opinion, it helps the Betrayed Spouse, whose soul has just been destroyed, to gain back some agency in her/his life... start taking some control over her/his actions to move forward out of infidelity. That is one of the purposes of this website. One purpose is to help the BS gain some agency and get out of infidelity.

Molly, again I would only employ it if the affair is still ongoing. While the WS is still deep "in the fog" and when you really do not exist much in their mind, whatever you say to your WS will probably go in one ear and out the other ear.

A slight steer away from your conversation. Most people say the opposite of love is hate or indifference. One definition I read is the the true opposite of love is Disgust. The reason is the a person can not love anything that disgusts them. The smell of cooked spinach totally disgusts me and makes me gag. I could never love cooked spinach. On the other hand I do like raw spinach.

I said all that about Disgust to say that many BS feels Disgust towards their WS. IF that is the case, then the 180 may help put a little distance from the situation and gain a small amount of Control over their emotions.

Molly, I hope this helps you. We are here to help you in any way we can.

[This message edited by lrpprl at 3:04 PM, Wednesday, March 20th]

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Bigger ( Attaché #8354) posted at 3:21 PM on Wednesday, March 20th, 2024

Be careful about one thing regarding the 180

It’s IMHO a temporary solution. One that can give you breathing-space to recover, to decide what you want and to discover what options you might have. I fear that if you are doing the 180 six months from d-day you are bordering at rug-sweeping and trying to find a way to live with untreated infidelity.

"If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone." Epictetus

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 Molly65 (original poster member #84499) posted at 3:21 PM on Wednesday, March 20th, 2024

Is it really damaging for children to see their father do his own laundry and cook his own food?

.

Tell me where I said so, because I didn't. It is surely damaging for children to see two parents completely blank each other and act as if they didn't exist. I understand it must be difficult to live under the same roof with a cheater, but why not ask them to find a temporary accommodation at a friend's home? I am sure that is not what I would apply. What do you say to the children in those situations?

[This message edited by Molly65 at 3:30 PM, Wednesday, March 20th]

Molly NEW LIFE

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 Molly65 (original poster member #84499) posted at 3:29 PM on Wednesday, March 20th, 2024

Molly, I hope this helps you. We are here to help you in any way we can.

I appreciate that very much and I am sure you mean well. However I could do those things only after explicitly telling my spouse " From now on, until I make some decisions about my life, this is how things are going to be..... because I need to put myself first"

Putting in place those behaviours without an explanation seems to me just a childish way to communicate without speaking and it is not for me. If I complained my husband was sweeping the dust under the rug and then I act as if this is what I am doing now, I am going down to his level, the cheater's level, and for me it is unacceptable.

You are obviously free to go ahead with that, but please accept some people may not accept this as a valid strategy to cope with betrayal-

Molly NEW LIFE

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lrpprl ( member #80538) posted at 3:45 PM on Wednesday, March 20th, 2024

I appreciate that very much and I am sure you mean well. However I could do those things only after explicitly telling my spouse " From now on, until I make some decisions about my life, this is how things are going to be..... because I need to put myself first"

Putting in place those behaviours without an explanation seems to me just a childish way to communicate without speaking and it is not for me. If I complained my husband was sweeping the dust under the rug and then I act as if this is what I am doing now, I am going down to his level, the cheater's level, and for me it is unacceptable.

You are obviously free to go ahead with that, but please accept some people may not accept this as a valid strategy to cope with betrayal-

Molly... Your Original Post:

Sorry to bother the community, but what is the 180 that a few people have mentioned? Where do you find out about it?

All I did was try to give you the information you asked for. My intent was to make it easy for you to find where it was located and to help you understand the 180. I am sorry if you thought my post was to try to get you to do something you do not want to do. I don't know you nor your situation, so I would never be presumptous enough to advise you to do something like the 180. I only told you my opinion of the 180. I apologize if you thought otherwise.

[This message edited by lrpprl at 4:35 PM, Wednesday, March 20th]

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 Molly65 (original poster member #84499) posted at 4:37 PM on Wednesday, March 20th, 2024

I am just highlighting how I feel about it. I don't know who I am responding to, I don't know your your story. I am just standing my ground about something I don't really like.

Molly NEW LIFE

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hikingout ( member #59504) posted at 5:56 PM on Wednesday, March 20th, 2024

Molly,

I think you missed my point. You do not have to spend time with the children separately, nor does the 180 have to look contentious to them.

To them, all they might see is daddy doing his own chores and mommy having more time to do what she needs to. For what it’s worth, i am not even suggesting the 180 is right for you where you are now. I mean I suppose it could be used to say, "look you are losing me here because you choose to continue to hurt me." As long as he is in contact with her he is in an active affair. Quibble over that however you please, but you will never convince me otherwise. It’s an emotional affair at this point.

What I am reacting to is how everytime someone explains something to you that is a tool in a bs’s tool belt for taking back their power in the marriage you find a way to make it sound like a horrible idea.

So the point I was trying to make is- by not using any tool and just letting him do whatever he wants in terms of his AP, you are still being abused. It’s still a less visible form of the acts of violence you describe.

So I was trying to say is your children can sense all sorts of things. It’s not better that mommy gets abused than daddy taking some accountability and doing what she needs.

Every single time it’s suggested he feel some consequences, you dismiss it. Yet you take the consequences and try and sit with them. This time you suggested it was bad for the children and I am just saying it doesn’t have to be, and probably isn’t.


Try and reread my post now in that context. I don’t know how to be more clear, and you are smart enough to follow it.

7 years of hard work - WS and BS - Reconciled

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MyFinalAnswer ( new member #83763) posted at 5:01 PM on Thursday, March 21st, 2024

I don't post often, because when I do, it's guaranteed to be a novel. laugh Take it or leave it!

Molly, I have been following your story and your threads. You are obviously in a tremendous amount of pain and feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place. I know that position very well.

What I am observing is, I think, a form of denial. Super understandable. Denial is the first stage of grieving, per Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.

You have come here to get help, because you really want it and really need it. I believe that.

I can see some folks frustrated by your responses, but I (as most do) understand them.

I have found in the past 3 years of therapy, and in the past 1.5 years since DDay, that I so immediately deny my rights to my own uncomfortable feelings (almost any complicated feelings-- even good ones!) that I have trouble determining what those feelings even are, let alone get a chance to feel them.

That is, almost before I even feel anger at my husband, I have told myself that I shouldn't, that I'm letting bitterness consume me, etc. This is a way some part of me is protecting the vulnerable me against feelings of pain and (productive!) feelings of anger, so that I never fully-process them and I can stay stuck in a miserable place... but a place which is at least familiar. That "place" is not only staying married to my WH, but putting the responsibility on myself to make it work, and not truly holding him accountable. That has always been our relationship dynamic, and it was slowly killing me... but only slowly! So I got used to it.

I have been with my WH since I was extremely young. In addition to "WH's Girl" being an identity I've held my entire adult life, when we got together, I was at a developmental stage where I partially attached to him (significantly older) almost like a child to a parent. I have done tons of work on differentiating from him, but that is a huge thing to untangle. Though I've made huge strides, and I understand intellectually I can live without him... of course it feels impossible or like a death if I were to permanently leave him. I imagine this is what children of truly toxic parents go through when contemplating cutting their parents out of their lives. (My husband may not be so impossibly toxic that I need to cut him out of my life, but I'm drawing a parallel in the process.)

No "solution" is one-size-fits-all, of course. But you seem unready or unwilling to accept any commonly-helpful solution offered here. Yet you keep coming back. And (mostly, though not exclusively) shooting these solutions down. There are certainly places on the Internet and in the world in general where people hold largely different view of infidelity. In fact, SI is fairly unique in its overall tone and conviction about some things which generally run counter to the "prevailing wisdom" of most cultures and most people.

Things like...

-Virtually no one is "driven" to cheat. They choose to do so. The betrayed spouse is not at fault, nor could they have done anything or much to reduce the chances they were cheated upon. Even if the betrayed spouse is absolutely horrible, there is no or virtually no justification for cheating, nor does cheating actually help a marriage or the cheating individual, overall, even if it is almost "justified."

-Cheating is not a victimless crime, even when it's never discovered.

-Infidelity causes real trauma in the brain and bodies of betrayed spouses.

-Healing from infidelity and drastically reducing the chances of recurrence requires deep, hard work on the part of the wayward spouse to determine their own motivations and to address their inadequacies. This is true whether or not they reconcile with their betrayed spouse.

-No contact with the AP (or VERY low contact if necessary) is required for healing.

-Full transparency and honesty is required for healing.

-Emotional affairs or online affairs are still affairs, even if there is no physical contact.

Etc.

These are actually not terribly popular or widely-held beliefs in the world at large! Some have more support in the general population than others, but likely no more than 1 or 2 of these propositions would even get agreement from more than half of people surveyed. Even in a place with greater gender equality and more relationship options and resources (e.g., the United States, or maybe like Sweden, IDK) where they'd be most popular.

So if you just want to find folks to tell you how you can live with your husband without being (justifiably) angry, without changing too much... You can find them!

And yet, you don't. Or haven't yet.

What I think I'm seeing here is a little of what I think my own mind does, nearly unconsciously, to itself.

It creates a sort of straw man, almost immediately.

There's a feeling in my body of, say, anger. It's neuro-biological. It can't be helped.

With that physical sensation, my first conscious thought is "I am being unfair to my husband by carrying around resentment, and is this just going to go on forever?!? I am making myself miserable. I need to get over it, or find a way to justify what he's done. Okay, not REALLY justify what he's done-- but explain my ANGER away with explanations that he is an addict, he has C-PTSD, Borderline traits, he is getting much better and doing lots of therapy..." All true things, by the way! But not things that make my anger invalid.

Remember, at this point, there's not even an action associated with the anger! I'm just feeling it!

So, to invalidate my totally reasonable emotion of anger, my mind IMMEDIATELY caricatures it. It makes it into a grotesque straw man. It IMMEDIATELY and reflexively turns "I feel angry" into "I am going to hold it over my husband's head for life, wallow in victimhood and never do anything with my own life, be nasty to him and make our child miserable, control and monitor his every move (which sounds exhausting)," etc.

See... I'm reasonable and compassionate enough to accept that anger needs no justification, as it is only an emotion, and even if it did need justification, well, mine is justified. I know this, intellectually.

But there's that part of me that wants to protect me from ever having to consider leaving my attachment figure (husband). And what it does is immediately and reflexively transforms (as if with a magic wand) my simple, reasonable feeling into a catastrophic series of destructive and indefensible actions.

So, now I am responding to what is actually just a feeling with a lot of self-flagellation and suppression. I literally feel tightness in my chest and flushing in my face-- the only thing I'm doing is feeling sensations related to anger in my body-- and I respond with "How dare I want to punish my husband for life?!" duh

THAT "PROTECTOR"/INNER CRITIC DOES THIS SO THAT I DO NOT EVEN REALLY GET TO FEEL THE ANGER. Nor do I have to feel the pain and fear, for that matter, which are what underlies anger.

And the more quickly it can transform the feeling into some unjustifiable action that it's not, the more I can treat that mischaracterization of my feeling as "the truth."

Which does a few things...

It protects me from feeling very scary, very difficult feelings. Definitely a temporary relief.

It makes me feel impossibly stuck and without options, or impossibly tired because I've placed impossible demands upon myself to "fix my thinking" (about an incredible betrayal done by someone else, to me!)

That can sometimes lead to passive aggression from me (the feelings are real and have to go somewhere)

And THAT can lead to the outcome I am fighting against-- e.g., being nasty to my husband, not getting other things done for myself.

Which only justifies the function of that protector/inner critic-- that voice can tell me "SEE, you DO want to be nasty to your husband, you want to punish him forever, etc. That feeling you had was BAD and WRONG."

Aaaaand... repeat forever until I'm dead.

I absolutely do not know if this is what's happening with you, but what I think I see is...

You are upset-- angry, scared, sad.

On whatever level, you don't want to have those feelings or don't feel justified in having those feelings, or fear what you might do/"have to" do if you act upon those feelings. All understandable-- I have just detailed how I relate. Plus, it can act as a denial that your spouse could have really done something so heinous. I can tell you that realization is the worst for me, and I still fight it in some ways, every day. It makes me feel so worthless, my love and care so wasted-- no matter how much I understand it's not actually about me, and I'm not at all worthless. (hug emoji-- if you'll take it-- goes here)

In order to protect yourself from those upsetting feelings, you come to a place filled with people who are almost guaranteed to tell you to do the things you don't want to do.

You ask questions you are pretty sure will give you the responses you need to rebel against, in order to suppress your bad feelings. You even sometimes ask them in a way that is intentionally challenging. More of a comment than a question, not exactly like, but in the spirit of... "I think people who [follow standard SI advice] are just fooling themselves. I, however, am more evolved. Prove me wrong."

You have now found an "acceptable" and less scary target for your feeling-- anger.

The more "wrong" you can make those people and their ideas, the more you can justify not doing the scary things you (understandably) don't want to do, starting with feeling your feelings.

You can paint the advice as an impossible standard that you can then rebel against. After all, it's impossible to meet!

When people explain how the standards are not impossible to meet, how they practice them, that they don't have to mean taking some extreme action, that they know that their practices don't guarantee any specific outcome... you can tell them they're lying or fooling themselves.

You can twist things back into straw men, saying they claim things they do not. For example, after all the details of the 180 are shared, defining it as "liv[ing] with any person but disregard[ing] them totally." And when people say, "Wait, not doing their laundry and taking better care of yourself is disregarding them totally?" you double down and say that you are not saying that, but saying your problem is when the 180 calls for "two parents [to] completely blank each other and act as if they didn't exist." You say "Tell me where I said [it's damaging to children not to do the wayward spouse's laundry, etc.], because I didn't." A fair response would be to gently ask, "Okay, Molly, tell me where the definition of the 180 says to act as if the other spouse doesn't exist?" ...ah, and I'm (me, MyFinal Answer) being drawn in. Let me stop.

When all else fails, you can demand they do work for you (like what I started to do above!), which you are likely to reject anyway. You can lash out at them for the way they talk, the acronyms they use... anything to make them wrong, silly, unaccommodating, unreliable, not worth listening to.

When people actually do get angry and defensive, because you are attacking them and their ideas, you can use that as proof that they are all just... wrong, silly, unaccommodating, unreliable, not worth listening to.

You're expending energy here that should probably be spent dealing with your feelings. But it's a great temporary relief from that awful, awful "stuck" feeling I described above. That is terrible. For me, it makes me feel like... not exactly killing myself, but lying down and never moving again.

In being angry at an "acceptable target" you don't actually have to even consider leaving your husband (not the only option-- but a great straw man, because it's pretty much the most extreme).

(I actually expected as I was writing this that part of your response to me could be "what is a straw man, that doesn't even make any sense, I'm not going to look up your weird idioms that I know don't apply to me anyway." Of course, you probably do know what a straw man is, but just an example I'm basing on past responses. And I'll resist including a definition here, just in case you don't, because that is the kind of wasted motion I am talking about in your posts. I further expect you to make me a Wrong Person because I am being longwinded, taking too much time to write this and you could accuse me of not dealing with my own stuff... which I actually am doing by writing this. But that's cool. And it may just be my own "inner critic" saying that anyway!)

....

Instead, you could go to a place that tells you more of what you want to hear. And I don't mean that in a condescending way-- I mean a place that you would deem a better fit for you. A place where people will tell you mostly what you already think you know, which is that there aren't really any options other than keeping a stiff upper lip and staying married and doing relatively little else other than convince yourself it's all at least acceptable. Most important in this is the belief that better things are not possible. Maybe they give you some tips for how to achieve that detachment or how to overcome or un-justify your feelings?

But I think that would be unsatisfying to you. My hypothesis is that coming here instead serves a few purposes:

-To actually dip your toe into some of these concepts, which I expect you do think you need to understand, on some level. But more immediately...

-For you to have an acceptable target for anger, per above.

-For you to "prove" to yourself, with real-life examples, that "better things aren't possible." For example, those whose spouses do hard work, go NC with APs, who have their spouses' passwords... are just fooling themselves, unlike you-- and, hey, how about THIS-- are actually MORE likely to be cheated on again. Phew.

-To even perhaps occasionally comment on other threads with a "refreshing" opposing viewpoint to offer the original poster, so you can feel like your presence is needed here (unlike in a space where more people hold your views). You're doing SI a service.

-It's also true that places where people mostly say "As a betrayed spouse, you just have to accept it and mostly move on"... well, they kinda aren't going to be very active. By definition, they don't ascribe to the belief that there's much work to do. They're not going to be very satisfying. Like I said, maybe they could have a tip or two, some inspirational words to help you get through the day? But they aren't going to offer you, personally, very much.

SI does.

I've been speculating as to why, but I'm genuinely certain you have a better idea, or could at least reflect in order to uncover the reasons.

I understand this will all sound judgmental to you, and if I imagine your response based on your responses to others, I expect you to say I don't know you, I'm wrong, I am merely projecting my own misery onto you, who has it (mostly) figured out and doesn't need any of this advice or "patronizing" sympathy.

I'm okay with that.

I do wish you the best. This is incredibly hard. I see you trying to make sense of it all. As I am. Take care.

Returning under a new name. Doing my own thing after decades of doing his.

posts: 10   ·   registered: Aug. 20th, 2023
id 8829978
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hikingout ( member #59504) posted at 5:09 PM on Thursday, March 21st, 2024

If you go back to where my husband cheated on me, what you just wrote is very much relatable to my experience.

People here kept commenting I didn’t sound outraged, or they would tell me I needed to connect with my sadness and anger. And no matter how I tried I think part of me just wanted to accept my part in it and move on.

I don’t feel what I said above was because I was frustrated, it was more sometimes we need the illogical responses to be pointed out to even begin the work you are talking about.

I love your post, and I agree with it.

7 years of hard work - WS and BS - Reconciled

posts: 7604   ·   registered: Jul. 5th, 2017   ·   location: Arizona
id 8829980
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SacredSoul33 ( member #83038) posted at 5:44 PM on Thursday, March 21st, 2024

Terrific post, MyFinalAnswer. smile

Remove the "I want you to like me" sticker from your forehead and place it on the mirror, where it belongs. ~ Susan Jeffers

Your nervous system will always choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven.

posts: 1544   ·   registered: Mar. 10th, 2023
id 8829986
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emergent8 ( Guide #58189) posted at 6:33 PM on Thursday, March 21st, 2024

Wise words, MyFinalAnswer.

Me: BS. Him: WS.
D-Day: Feb 2017 (8 m PA with married COW).
Happily reconciled.

posts: 2169   ·   registered: Apr. 7th, 2017
id 8829997
Topic is Sleeping.
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