I have seen too many threads where the BS is actually blaming themselves for their spouses affair! Why? Why? Why? How could you possibly think that your spouses selfishness could be your fault? That is soo not true, no matter what it's just not true.. you say you coulda shoulda done this and that differently...You need to know that you could be doing everything right, could be the perfect spouse but let me tell you it still would have happened. The WS is totally at fault because they are the ones that made the choice to break the vows. It could happen to anyone. Posted via Mobile Device
Yes, I do agree, but it's easy for some newly betrayed spouses to question their conduct and 'performance' as a spouse themselves. Especially when the DS tries to blameshift and minimise themselves as first and primary cause.
At my D-day I was given the whole unloving husband, bad tempered blah blah, and I did question some of what she was saying. And some of it was right - I did have some faults (as do we all), but then it dawned on me and I fired right back...
I'm not perfect by any means, but I didn't do THAT!
This line of thinking took me away from accepting any kind of blame and flattened the arguments outright.
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Yep I see what you mean because as a WS I blameshifted and was very defensive, full of excuses.. Now that I am out of the fog I can see that my thinking and choices were so dang wrong and just sickning Posted via Mobile Device
WSs can not admit to doing anything wrong at first and many never can. Since it was not their fault in their mind it must have been someone else at fault. And the closest person - BS.
It's so easy to blame yourself. You feel inferior and insecure. Your WS blames you and tells you that the OP is perfect. Maybe they don't come right out and say those things, but that's what you hear.
Your WS is looking for any way possible to not be the bad guy. You're the best scapegoat.
Always remember that you don't control the actions of other people. We all make our own decisions and control our own behavior. That includes your WS.
However... Once you stop blaming yourself and taking responsibility for the actions of your WS, it's easy to get a superiority complex. Because you didn't cheat, you feel that you have the right to put yourself on a pedestal and become the martyred BS. That's not a good idea, either. Sure you have the right, but it's just really not a productive thing to do.
You may not be responsible for your WS's affair, but most marriages affected by infidelity weren't perfect. It's important to take responsibility for your part in what caused the issues in the marriage. The next steps are to try to make improvements to yourself. This will serve you well no matter what the outcome is for your marriage.
Your WS is NOT off the hook. You are NOT to blame for their actions. But owning your part of the breakdown in your marriage is important.
Well in part because for one as the bs you cant think straight. Secondly, You NEED there to be a REASON. It really sucks feeling like you did all you could do(not perfect by any means)but you were giving your ws WAY more than they were giving you , clearly.
And the BS just NEEDS something to make some damned sense even if that means taking the blame yourself. THat beats this: He/she cheated b/c they could. B/c it was fun. B/C they are selfish and YOU never entered their mind. THAT is unbearable. So yes, its easier to say "maybe its my fault" "Maybe if only I had..."
From the very minuet that I found out I refused to take any blame this was totally his doing not mine.
However that didn't stopped my head from blaming myself for all of it.
Logically i know it had nothing to do with me and I must say 3 minuets into our first convocation I said to him don't blame me and he never has but still doesn't stop my head.
First - BS is in disbelief, shock.
Second - Helplessness.
Third - Blaming oneself for the trouble.
Fourth - Begging for marriage to survive.
Fifth - Seeking solution.
Sixth - Posting in TAM!
How could you believe, including myself at one point of time, that you are at fault when they are the ones to cause damage?
Ironical indeed.
It is their lack of morals, lack of boundaries, selfishness, pursuit of thrill of an affair, ego boosting,.....
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Re: Question
I also went down that road after D-Day (EA). Was even handed a laundry list of my "issues" in the marriage. I tried to put the entire blame on my own shoulders, couldn't handle it and emotionally unraveled. This only served to worsen the situation with her drawing closer to TOM for guidance and away from her gerbil husband. Love Must be Tough (A different spin on the 180) helped me to see how counterproductive I was being. As my confidence built the tables turned with her looking to me to get us through it. And when the ultimatum finally came with contact stopping and starting a couple of times I was confident enough to say end it or I will leave you. Confidence at two levels. One, that I was right and it was the only way to get the marriage back on track. Two, if she refused, I was ready to walk away from a 20+ year marriage knowing I'd done everything I could and would be fine without her.
However, when a spouse gets involved with another there usually are factors in the marriage and the BS that brought them there. I fully accept my part in making her vulnerable to the EA, but hold her accountable for getting into it and for her part in the problems in the marriage prior to it. Once we both got out of the blame game and turned that into empathy things became much easier.
I still think about things I could have done differently in my first marriage that might have helped. I used to think that everyone behaved properly so that meant to me if someone didn't behave properly, could that mean that I did something wrong.
But, mind you doing something differently is not to say, you deserve the poor treatment that you are getting.
Nowadays, that the concept of EAs are becoming more fully developed; I am also more confident about relationships and do not have problems cutting off people who behave inappropriately around me or my partner. In my expereince, they were usually women who thought of themselves as career girls who couldn't be bothered befriending a housewife (even though that was the only way they were to meet my husband)
It's just that in the olden days, the thought that a spouse took an affair had to do with the fact that the BS was letting him/ her down in some way.
These days I view more that someone is trying to have it both ways; they're hedging and so on.
Because these days, if you're that unhappy, divorce is pretty easy to get. My sister says a friend of hers got a divorce in 30 days. Can't remember what state that's in.
I admit I'm struggling with this. I don't think the A was my fault, and neither does my spouse, but it's a recognized fact on my part (and my spouse's) that I was a terrible spouse for the 1.5 years prior to Dday. I was a drug addict who spent much of the money and did much less of the work, both in terms of a job and around the house. I also was not emotionally supportive as I should have been, instead focusing much too much time hanging out with friends etc.
It's hard for me to know what the proper perspective is on my poor behaivor and her A. She believes it was only made possible (but yet not inevitable) because I had checked out of the marriage first. I stopped loving, supporting, and engaging her, and over time, when another guy came around and gave her that attention and support, she took it. She doesn't excuse the A or blame me for it. She states emphatically that it was wrong and is horrified that it happened, but she does also state that it never could have happened had not our marriage gone done the drain, which I admit was mostly my fault. So how to reconcile this factors?
I've been this woman for almost a decade, and prior to the A and our marriage going downhill she had always been very faithful and exclusive. Always made it clear to any guys that she was taken, always was conscious of her behaivor and loyalty etc...until this past year. She's not the "type" to cheat.
I don't blame myself but I don't excuse myself either. At the end of the day it's hard to understand what the proper or correct causal relationship is between my actions in the marriage and her A. At the end of the day I think it's a messy analysis and all I can do is try to take full responsibilty for what I did wrong, as she also does the same for her conduct, and both of us work hard, together, to forgive eachother and commit to eachother wholeheartedly.
broke- you can blame yourself for a crappy marriage and from the sounds of it, most of the onus was truly yours to own
that said, she had a choice
either stop putting up with your addiction and file
or
go outside the marriage to seek what she perceived as happiness
one choice is understandable and honorable
the other is not
now while your case may be worse than most, the truth is that ALL marriages have problems. But to me the degree of the problem doesn't matter, it only plays into whether or not if R is on the table if the marriage is worth being saved.
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