SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I can't make others understand what I'm saying if they don't want to.

For my understanding and to be able to try and give advice, who was your AP and did he also have a partner/wife? How did you meet him? I can't seem to find it in any of your posts.

GottheMorbs

I get your point. Makes sense to me.

Everyone feels and experiences and heals differently. That’s the point of this site.

We can debate points and analogies etc. but I can say that the best revenge is living your best life.

My H tells me he worries about us as a couple. Me — I’m just living my best life.

GotTheMorbs,

Heard and understood. Thank you for that.

I am curious and would appreciate your thoughts if you will indulge me.

Do you think I am intellectually incapable of understanding you and your responses?

Or do you think I am emotionally in a state where I am not able to respond in a logical and intelligent way to your responses?

What do you think is going on with me? What do you think my problem is?

I broke my toe or foot last weekend at my friend's mountain house by accidentally kicking her couch late at night. I've spent the week with my foot elevated and throbbing and trying not to move and sleeping poorly. I'm not in the best head space. Ha ha.

The WS can do their best to off recompense. It's the BS that ultimately balances the scales.

I'm not talking revenge affair, but only the BS can know what it takes in their relationship to feel equal again.

KitchenDepth,

Sorry to hear about your injury.

This isn't to say anything about your intellectual capabilities or emotional state. It just felt like we were having two parallel conversations and struggling to bridge them. I think two intelligent people can interpret the same words through different frameworks and end up talking past each other.

I'm trying to respond differently in those situations than I have previously and use a couple mantras to help me recognize when it's time to step away. I also don't want to take LonelyGuilty's thread further off topic, so I think that's all I'll say here.

Speedy healing.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 7:32 PM, Saturday, July 4th]

Thank you all for taking time to share your experience, views and thoughts.

A lot of different perspectives, from members who have reconciled for a while, members who divorced, and members who are more or less where I am now (in terms of time from DDay).

I am on my phone now, so I struggle to quote the parts that stood out more / resonated more.

Every angle is really insightful and I will need some time to absorb all of it. Thank you.

Lonely guilty

You can’t, nor you should aim to.
And I could spend a lot of words here but there’s a better way:

No answer is as elegant as it question

Ask yourself

What there’s to balance?

You already see it now.

It’s trauma, identity and reality destruction of a person who loved you.

It’s possible to "get even"?
Yes, if your partner’s goal is revenge, then he could work to make you fall in love so deeply that you will reach out to the happiness it always eluded you in your life, make you feel finally alive and at home, complete…

And then destroy you. Shatter everything you have, humiliate you and in the height of your suffering leave you for another woman while laughing at your traumatized face.

Build you up, while digging your grave.

That’s what would probably make a BS feel better about your betrayal. Revenge, payback, to throw you in the same dark place you and your affair partner threw them.

It will not heal you or your BS nor make either of you a better person.
At best it will make you feel it and understand what you did.
So probably you will feel even more miserable.

Then the books are balanced, once you lost any agency, hope, love.

Is it something worthy to aspire to?

I doubt, it is not worthy and this is coming from a guy who is pretty big on revenge.

If there’s any shred of love left, any good memory… just drop the revenge.

Don’t balance the books, it’s a mirage, a Fata Morgana, there’s only pain there.

You want to reconcile, balancing the books it can be done only by your BS if the goal is your annihilation.

Forget it both for this is what it looks like.

Live for today at your best and carry the wound as a memento of how you can fall. So both of you will never fall again, because you will be always ready to catch one another.

That’s the best you can do.

Balance the books is the furthest place from love there is.

Lonely guilty

At this point, I think it's best to listen to your husband and respond to his feelings. Other people can tell you how they feel. It might be helpful for you in seeing his point of view or not.

If your BH says it feels like a debt that can never be repaid, it's unhelpful and unempathetic to tell him that in 10+ yrs he will feel like he can write it off or that it's decayed.

There are plenty of BS here, particularly BH, that feel the unfairness or injustice acutely many years out.

GotTheMorbs,

I know you get upset at feeling misunderstood. What i'm trying to tell you is that there is a difference between understanding and agreeing. I can understand, comprehend, intellectually follow, or whatever adjective you want to use, a particular analogy. Still my feelings and experiences might lead me to say I don't agree with it. If your BH is similar, telling him that you've talked to many other BS further out, so you know what he will feel is likely quite unhelpful to him.

LG,

I tried to R for years and was on the lethal plain of flatness for most of it. As my tag indicates, my x became the man I always thought he was. Eventually I chose to divorce. It literally was no longer "fair" to both of us. I never made him try to balance any scale-that would be impossible.

In the end, the infidelity was a deal breaker. I’ve moved on, but as of this very second, I think he was likely the love of my life.

Good luck with your R, I hope the two of you are successful.

This is a normal "stage" line of questioning.

There is no way to do what is being asked, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.

What happens overall is both people will heal to a greater degree. The bs will typically have to confront the cognitive dissonance they feel in trying to stay. It is normal both people tend ro be outcome oriented.

But let’s say I was driving from the east coast to Alaska, I don’t know what the outcome will be, how I will feel, whether I will decide it’s too much and turn around. It’s better to focus on what is immediately in front of you because you can’t view what Alaska is going to be like. You can only deal in the now of the journey and try and to embrace the views as you go.

In the end, the first year really ends up being a lot of recovery. That healing is needed before you can get to reconciliation, which in itself takes a lot of time. Eventually I believe what happens is the debt is partially covered by a better relationship- with yourselves and each other-and the outcome question often comes from that—-the bs may not decide they can go to that step, and those who do have a firm belief somewhere in there that it’s worth staying for what has been built.

The other portion is covered by the bs providing grace. Until the individual healing happens and the relationship has improved through reconciliation it’s unimaginable to be able to give the grace.

But if you truly as the ws remove the barriers you have for love and connection and lead the way to a better marriage through consistency, reliability, and demonstrating love that is all you can do to try and earn the redemption and grace. A bs who decides to stay, decides you are worth staying for will eventually come to the conclusion there is no balancing the past, but can find it in themselves to engage the present and future with the person you have worked to become. That’s the grace.

There is nothing a WS or BS can do to rapidly even the scales.

True forgiveness arrives as a whisper, and this is not when the weight is balanced. This is when the scale is removed.

SL

This is when the scale is removed.

This.
You can’t make a wrong feel right, because it’s wrong. (you can only convince yourself through narration, but it is a lie).

Not even 2 wrongs will make it right. It’s just payback. From a place of resentment.

You can only start over on a new scale, where the wrong has no place.

If you want it to be from a place of love.