I would not go the revenge affair route, but I can't believe some here are saying the the Cheating spouse should immediately divorce the Betrayed spouse, if in their confusion, humiliation, sadness, fear and pain, retaliate with a revenge affair.
It seems like the loyal spouse should give the cheater a second chance, but the loyal spouse gets none.
If what I've seen from the experience of others who had a RA is anything close to reality, for every BS who had an RA and were helped by it, there is another who rues the day he/she had one.
Oh and for those who believe that the BS will suddenly abandon his/her moral high ground attitude after he/she has a RA, think again. The RA may not be enough to satisfy the need for retribution - it seldom does - and may have other affairs to continue their punishment of the original WS. Resentment and bitterness are toxic but very addictive and thus very hard to let go off.
To me, this starts to get to close to other "traumas" to justify affairs. Men who have an affair because their wife is a shrew and has withheld sex and belittled them for years. Women who have an affair because their husband is a mentally abusive alcoholic who can't perform and has left them sexless.
The BS is certainly in enormous pain, but that does not give them permission to act in any way they see fit.
Some here are comparing apples to oranges.
Murdering someone in response to a murder is a crime.
Unfortunately, committing adultery, even financial adultery which could be and should be a form of theft by deception, is not a crime.
Of course one is not going to commit a crime in response to a crime. Who wants to go to jail for life for murdering a murderer. That's dumb and only punishes oneself.
Hence, perhaps if adultery in any form were a crime, the betrayed spouse would NOT be justified in a Revenge affair.
But since it is not, and the perpetrator does not get punished for adultery like a murderer does, the RA is the only form of closure a BS can get.
Divorce does not cause the same type of pain and does not deliver the same message.
I do agree that if the wife is a shrew, or the husband an abuser, divorce is the answer, not an affair.
Why would someone stay with a shrew or an abuser and choose to have an affair rather than a divorce. It says something about the person who has the affair rather than choosing to divorce.
As has been mentioned many times here, many cheaters gave no clue to their loyal spouse that they were unhappy. The blame comes later in a rewrite of marital history to justify the affair. The rewrite is usually fiction.
My Cheater husband does not want a divorce.
Yeah and I know why, too. I am gullible and gave him lots of freedom so he could pursue his cheating lifestyle. Also, I was a low maintenance wife, who was cautious with my spending. Yet, he spent plenty on the OW
some say he he moved back to his farm, Green Acres
others say he started a 50's malt shop in Wisconsin
I even heard once he was the former governor of California
Nice, but I wonder why he moved in with the Douglas family when he had a nice home with the Ziffels.
Or maybe he was that squeaky voiced guy , one of the gas station attendants who did battle with Jonathan Winters in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World(also the voice of Top Cat).
Or one of the top 10 golfers of our time(who also cheated on his wife, according to Bob Rosburg).
Regardless, I am sure we can all agree he sounds like he knows what he is talking about.
IMO, we would do well to listen to him.
I just do not understand how a cheaetr has objections to be cheated on. I would thimk the cheater would understand the effects of having cheated may include disloyalty from the BS.
And that is why many WS get jealous, they are afraid, and they know that it's a peace of cake to cheat and justify it too.
If what I've seen from the experience of others who had a RA is anything close to reality, for every BS who had an RA and were helped by it, there is another who rues the day he/she had one.
Oh and for those who believe that the BS will suddenly abandon his/her moral high ground attitude after he/she has a RA, think again. The RA may not be enough to satisfy the need for retribution - it seldom does - and may have other affairs to continue their punishment of the original WS. Resentment and bitterness are toxic but very addictive and thus very hard to let go off.
I agree, that likely some, if not all, loyal spouses regret having and RA.
Still, they are operating from a traumatized position in which they are not thinking rationally.
Hence the reason why I suggest forgiveness of it, as it is a common response.
As for not being satisfied by one revenge affair. Well, I am not sure your logic applies to all loyal spouses who have and RA.
Still, I am only saying ONE RA should be forgiven, not ongoing RA's.
I do not think it will become addictive and saying so negates your first paragraph in which loyal spouses claim to regret having a revenge affair.
I did not have one although I fantasized about a RA a LOT.
Why?
I did not want to use some poor unsuspecting single guy, who may want more than an affair, and would not go after a married guy because I did not want to hurt another wife, as I had been hurt.
But, most importantly, i felt it would degrade my own sense of morality.
Still, the pull to have one was strong initially because I was in a very traumatized state and as the trickle truth of more lies continued to flow, the trauma continued.
She took him back after her left. She chose R as did he. She didnt have to but she chose to R. She is now reneging on R by choosing to her own affair.
The marriage needs to end because they have a truly false R. Posted via Mobile Device
Again, I respectfully disagree.
Perhaps for some the Recovery can not seriously begin until the loyal spouse has leveled the playing field.
After the affair, my husband was obnoxious and full of himself because his ego had been stroked and fed but the manipulative OW. This fog and obnoxious state is a common theme on support forum. Some come out of the obnoxious fog, some don't'.
Seriously, some of the things she said to him in the emails anonymously forwarded to me were so smarmy I don't know how he could have believed them, but he liked it, and admitted to that. So, he likes phony manipulative women who use false compliments to lure him in.
So, if a loyal spouse whose ego has been decimated needs to have their ego stroke, so be it, and the original cheater should expect it and forgive it as the original cheater is hoping to be forgiven.
The true R can than begin.
It should end there though. No more affairs on either spouses part.
The crux of all this RA stuff seems to be the dissatisafction we as BSs have with the injustice of all this.
Essentially, what eats at me is the fact that there seems to be no commensurate suffering by the WS. In facft, the WS got all the fun and very little suffering.
Here are some things I think I have learned in researching this infidelity business:
1) Many times it is the lying vs just the cheating that destroys the marriage.
2) One of the biggest sources of resentment is the theft of our time. In many cases, we had options to upgrade but refrained. Meanwhile,our cheating spouse hit the ground running with a new relationship in place.
3) Society really, minimizes the trauma of affairs and glamorizes them.
4)Virtually no one who has not been through this has even an inkling of what it is like. They will be impatient with ongoing pain.
5) Again, folks who have not been through this seem to need to place blame on the BS to lmake themselves feel safe.
6) Claims like 85% of couples stay married and many have better marriages are inflated due to $$ incentive by companies or individuals who get paid for reconcilation services.
7) Most of the time, the cheater's family supports the cheater and abandons the BS.
I think I have derived the most benefit from talking to other Bss vs my counselor(who is a good guy),
Oh, and 8) I had no f'ing clue just how pervasive this cheating stuff is. Not even close. I see it all over now.
If what I've seen from the experience of others who had a RA is anything close to reality, for every BS who had an RA and were helped by it, there is another who rues the day he/she had one.
Oh and for those who believe that the BS will suddenly abandon his/her moral high ground attitude after he/she has a RA, think again. The RA may not be enough to satisfy the need for retribution - it seldom does - and may have other affairs to continue their punishment of the original WS. Resentment and bitterness are toxic but very addictive and thus very hard to let go off.
I think the vast majority of folks who have RA's regret it. That said, a truly remorseful cheater should realize that he or she damaged the BS so much that the Bs may be acting without a full deck.
We recognize that infiedlity trauma is a mitigating factor. For many years , in a large number of jurisdictions, homicide was even justified as an inital response to the stimuli.
So, even conceding that it is not a good idea, I am amazed by thise who put forth the idea that a RA is worse thatn the initial betrayal.
They seem to point to an allegation that a BS is now aware of the pain cheating causes and so is more culpable in bringing such pain because he or she knows the extent of it.
But, this is absurd to me. Clearly, a WS is aware that the cheating will cause immense pain. And, the BS is so damaged we need to cut him or her some slack if this is how he or she reacts.
The crux of all this RA stuff seems to be the dissatisafction we as BSs have with the injustice of all this.
Essentially, what eats at me is the fact that there seems to be no commensurate suffering by the WS. In facft, the WS got all the fun and very little suffering.
Here are some things I think I have learned in researching this infidelity business:
1) Many times it is the lying vs just the cheating that destroys the marriage.
2) One of the biggest sources of resentment is the theft of our time. In many cases, we had options to upgrade but refrained. Meanwhile,our cheating spouse hit the ground running with a new relationship in place.
3) Society really, minimizes the trauma of affairs and glamorizes them.
4)Virtually no one who has not been through this has even an inkling of what it is like. They will be impatient with ongoing pain.
5) Again, folks who have not been through this seem to need to place blame on the BS to lmake themselves feel safe.
6) Claims like 85% of couples stay married and many have better marriages are inflated due to $$ incentive by companies or individuals who get paid for reconcilation services.
7) Most of the time, the cheater's family supports the cheater and abandons the BS.
I think I have derived the most benefit from talking to other Bss vs my counselor(who is a good guy),
Oh, and 8) I had no f'ing clue just how pervasive this cheating stuff is. Not even close. I see it all over now.
I had no clue either how pervasive the cheating in society is. I really had no clue, until i was a victim of it and started researching it and reading books about infidelity.
The good side to all this is that I learned there are a lot of people who don't cheat and never felt it was an option.
I am particularly surprised to see that the number of blindsided male spouses equals that of the females.
When I first learned of my husbands cheating, I kind of thought it was a man thing. Now I know it's not. And, obviously he was cheating with a MW so I don't know why I thought it was a man thing.
The men are after all cheating with woman.
Lastly, Yes, I think it is Bull that any marriage is improved and strengthened by an affair. That's just bull. If I stayed I could never ever trust my husband again. What kind of life is that?
As for not being satisfied by one revenge affair. Well, I am not sure your logic applies to all loyal spouses who have and RA.
A loyal spouse who has a RA is no longer one. It is a contradiction.
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Still, I am only saying ONE RA should be forgiven, not ongoing RA's.
Forgiveness and reconciliation are two totally separate things. I forgave my ex-wife but chose to divorce her.
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I do not think it will become addictive and saying so negates your first paragraph in which loyal spouses claim to regret having a revenge affair.
No it doesn't for I wasn't talking about the former loyal spouses who regret having an RA but of those who who even after having an RA, were not satisfied that justice had been met. These are the ones I was talking about having more affairs. His wife IS addicted and refuses to end her affair. There is no guarantee that even if she does end it that she will become a loyal spouse and will never again stray.
Yes being betrayed is traumatizing to the extreme - tell me about it - but nobody forces or puts a gun to a spouse's head to cross marital boundaries that lead up to him/her having an affair. To insist that it does is ludicrous.
Yes being betrayed is traumatizing to the extreme - tell me about it - but nobody forces or puts a gun to a spouse's head to cross marital boundaries that lead up to him/her having an affair. To insist that it does is ludicrous.
A loyal spouse who has a RA is no longer one. It is a contradiction.
I agree from a semantic standpoint. Still, the BS in my opinion is not and never can be the disloyal one because the marriage vows have been broken first by the cheater. Hence, there is no real marriage to be loyal to.
In a real marriage there are only two people not three.
Also, it has been proved that the victim has been traumatized and likely has situational PTSD, and may have a revenge affair in an altered state of mind as others have mentioned.
Since the BS caused the PTSD, he needs to realize the ramifications and bear with them at least once.
That is why forgiveness on the part of the cheater should be the only option for a one time RA.
I agree this woman is wrong to continue the affair now that husband has tasted what it feels like to know his spouse is being intimate sexually and emotionally with someone outside the marriage, she must end it or he should D.
So, we agree on that part.
Where we disagree is that the cheater should be allowed to get off scott free breaking the vows and rules of engagement and then still punish the traumatized spouse for doing something crazy.
I do agree that if the wife is a shrew, or the husband an abuser, divorce is the answer, not an affair.
Many BS's have describe their WS as abusive based on having an affair. So why does one form of abuse cause people to excuse or even encourage an affair while other forms of abuse do not?
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Why would someone stay with a shrew or an abuser and choose to have an affair rather than a divorce. It says something about the person who has the affair rather than choosing to divorce.
There are many resons, such as financial, children, and fear. They may not be good reasons, but if these boards are any indication, it is not as uncommon as I would like.
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Re: Coping with wife's affair... 
