# Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"



## NextTimeAround (Dec 15, 2011)

*Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*

I'm just wondering wether in either an EA or PA or both, when your partner "treirs to rise above it" or feels "that they're better than that", do you /did you feel that you were getting away with something.

That is, you could have / had your inappropriate relationship of whatever type but since your partner tries "to look forward" and not discuss the additional relationships, you felt that you got something for nothing.

And if so, were you able to have respect for your partner after that?


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## sigma1299 (May 26, 2011)

*Re: Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*

I think I understand what you're asking and for me that answer is God no. I didn't get away with a damn thing - even if my wife didn't know I do and the prices I paid were way beyond anything that could be called getting away with something. Yes I avoided the end of my marriage but I in no way got away with an EA uninjured. 

As far as my wife. I respect her enormously for having the strength to give me and our marriage a second try.


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## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

*Re: Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*

No.Not at all.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## larry.gray (Feb 21, 2011)

*Re: Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*



MattMatt said:


> No.Not at all.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Yes, but is that true for your wife?


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## Brokenshadow (May 3, 2013)

*Re: Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*

An interesting spin to this question is whether a WS who reconciles with their spouse feels like they got away with it.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## soulpotato (Jan 22, 2013)

*Re: Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*

What Sigma said. Even if my partner does agree to R with me, I will not feel I have gotten away with anything. The question is like the equivalent of: You dropped an atomic bomb on your own home and didn't face any legal repercussions, so do you feel you got away with it? The real damage is already done, so long-lasting and widespread, and permanently alters everything you thought you knew. I am scarred and wounded by what I've done as well as the by the repercussions of it.


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## Brokenshadow (May 3, 2013)

soulpotato said:


> What Sigma said. Even if my partner does agree to R with me, I will not feel I have gotten away with anything. The question is like the equivalent of: You dropped an atomic bomb on your own home and didn't face any legal repercussions, so do you feel you got away with it? The real damage is already done, so long-lasting and widespread, and permanently alters everything you thought you knew. I am scarred and wounded by what I've done as well as the by the repercussions of it.


That's a positive sign, that you feel remorse so deeply. I think for the betrayed, it's different. They kept their word, didn't stray. The betrayed on the other hand has to deal with the fallout of their partners choices. It's forced upon them, was never their choice. So a wayward may feel bad about what they've done, but how bad they feel is relative to how much they love the betrayed. And, frankly, if they ever did actually love them, then how could they cheat?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## soulpotato (Jan 22, 2013)

*Re: Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*



Brokenshadow said:


> That's a positive sign, that you feel remorse so deeply. I think for the betrayed, it's different. They kept their word, didn't stray. The betrayed on the other hand has to deal with the fallout of their partners choices. It's forced upon them, was never their choice. So a wayward may feel bad about what they've done, but how bad they feel is relative to how much they love the betrayed.


You're right, BS. Both betrayed and wayward have things to deal with, though it's worse for the betrayed. The betrayed has to live with the fact that the person they loved the most betrayed them and broke their trust, dishonored the foundation of the relationship and turned away from them. And as you say, the betrayed knows that they were honorable and innocent and that it was the wayward who did wrong. 

The (remorseful) wayward lives with the fact that they did something so loathsome to someone they love. They question who they are and why or how they could have done something like that to their partner, just like the betrayed questions them. They question everything they thought they knew about themselves. They hate themselves, feel ashamed. Seeing the pain and destruction they've inflicted on the betrayed is agonizing. It keeps me up at night, follows me around in my thoughts every day. I have a hateful little voice in my mind that taunts me whenever I'm feeling sad, yearning, disappointed, etc.



Brokenshadow said:


> And, frankly, if they ever did actually love them, then how could they cheat?


I'm not sure that that question ever has an answer that everyone is satisfied with. There's no doubt in my mind that I love GF. She also knows that I love her, despite everything. Did I disconnect further and close off to her? Absolutely. Did I ever stop loving her? Not for a minute.

So while there are no excuses, and the wrongs I've done rest squarely on my shoulders, I believe that two major things contributed. 1) My psychological problems (that I am now getting help for). I had some big holes in my understanding of what constituted love and a loving relationship. I did my best trying to figure things out on my own, but I'm having to relearn/unlearn a lot. 2) GF has her own issues and is prone to emotional withdrawal/detachment, among other things. For years, I begged her to show me the love she said she felt. I didn't want to leave and I didn't know what else to do, so I started turning towards my friends to get my emotional needs met. It never occurred to me that that could be dangerous as I had no idea what an EA was at that point. (Recently, the therapist confirmed for GF that our relationship had been emotionally barren and that no one could survive that. So now GF is trying to make changes towards possibly meeting my needs instead of telling me that I shouldn't have them. She is also seeing a therapist on her own to address her issues.)

We've both got a lot to work on. I wish I could undo what I've done, but I can't. I can only try to become a better, more cohesive person and strive to create a better place for her and a better possible future. We've both done things to hurt each other deeply, but I think there's still hope for us.


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## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

larry.gray said:


> Yes, but is that true for your wife?


No. I think not. We both went through some rubbish. All self created.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## awake1 (Jan 29, 2013)

*Re: Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*



Brokenshadow said:


> An interesting spin to this question is whether a WS who reconciles with their spouse feels like they got away with it.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_



Sort of like committing a felony and getting 4 months instead of 4 years, because you cooperated and turned states witness. 

Do they get away with it? In a way. On the other hand, I don't doubt many WSs find themselves in a living hell and feel the consequences whether their BS stays with them or not. 

The ones who do feel like they cheated the devil probably wouldn't admit it, even if in their private moments they think "whew I dodged that bullet". 

I'd be curious about your question too.


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## blackdiamonds (Jun 26, 2013)

*Re: Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*

I don't at all. To me, getting away with it would be my BS not knowing at all about the PA (huuuuuge mistake) that I had with a co-worker. I have to live with the fact that I screwed up, betrayed his trust and caused some damage to our marriage from my mistake. I also have to live with the guilt and with his doubts and fears about me deceiving and betraying me. My BH thinks I got away with it because of the R but I disagree. Regardless if he decided for us to go onto R or not, I still have to live with the consequences of my actions. We were in a rough patch in the marriage (around the time of me meeting and later having a PA with co-worker) but it didn't give me the right nor the excuse for what I did out of my own stupid selfish reasons.


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## Shaggy (Jul 17, 2011)

*Re: Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*

Of course they get away with it if they R, after all they did have sex with another person and they didn't get divorced by the person they chose to cheat on.

Wishing for anything else is wishful thinking.

The WS fears what consequences they'll have to face if they R.

The BS fears what additional betrayals they'll face if they R.


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## blackdiamonds (Jun 26, 2013)

*Re: Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*



Shaggy said:


> The WS fears what consequences they'll have to face if they R.
> 
> The BS fears what additional betrayals they'll face if they R.


:iagree:


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## Mrs_Mathias (Nov 19, 2012)

*Re: Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*

As a WS, I will never feel i 'got away' with anything. The effects of my affair are permanent and life-changing for myself and my husband. I am not, and will never be able to be, the person I thought I was, and the person he thought he married. For the rest of my life, whether we are able to successfully reconcile, I bear the weight of deciding to betray the people who trusted me most, who I thought I loved most, and who should NEVER have had that security robbed from them. Instead, I face daily in the mirror, someone who is capable of lying, betraying, compartmentalizing, and selfishly putting her feelings above those of my husband, son, and step-son. That will ALWAYS be me, from now on. There is no punishment, no course of action, no redemption or rug-sweeping that can undo that for me.

The very LEAST I owe to my family is to STOP being that hurtful, selfish individual and hold myself to the standards and beliefs that I once thought I inherently held. I can never repay this debt, never restore the innocence and purity of love to our relationship that was there for 16 years. And I don't know if there will ever be enough value in living my life as a better person to help us come through this with a relationship that my husband can be truly happy in. Even working together, building a new relationship with each other - it may always feel 'false' to him because we created that relationship from the wreckage of what had started so naturally together all those years ago. We can and are learning to understand each other's needs better, to cognizantly and deliberately work to meet those needs to maintain our relationship, to care for each other as we should have throughout all our years together. But is it synthetic? Created? Artificial? I don't know how we will ever know the answers to that, except through time.

I would give ANYTHING to not have done what I did, to have kept that delicate, valuable bond of trust and innocent faith in love intact between us and within us. Together or apart, we will never view relationships in the same way. And I did that to us. How could one ever 'get away' from knowing something like that?


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## Downthedrain (Jul 6, 2013)

*Re: Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*

This is partly why I never really considered R as a viable option. It seemed I would be the one carrying all the burden and doing the majority of the work for her errors. It felt like once we'd agreed to R, my WS just has to apologize frequently and act contrite and I'm left with the hard work of struggling not to throw it back in her face at every opportunity, having to forgive her betrayal, always being on the lookout for the other shoe to drop; meanwhile she's had her fun/seen if the grass is greener and can go back to normal as long as I continue to be the better man and can unconditionally forgive.


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## Squeakr (May 1, 2013)

blackdiamonds said:


> I don't at all. To me, getting away with it would be my BS not knowing at all about the PA (huuuuuge mistake) that I had with a co-worker. I have to live with the fact that I screwed up, betrayed his trust and caused some damage to our marriage from my mistake.


If I were your BS I would have trouble believing you as well, since you continue to minimize things. You need to learn that it was not a "mistake", it was a "choice" that you made. Also to say it caused some damages in your marriage minimizes your choices results on your marriage and husband. Whether there were big issues in your marriage or no issues at all to choose to refer to the Affair as causing "some" damages is minimizing the results. Stop using words that minimize and own your actions. It was a "choice" and caused "huge" changes and damages in your marriage, whether or not other issues already existed (and it is a marriage between two different individuals so there were other damages not related to the affair that existed.).
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## allwillbewell (Dec 13, 2012)

*Re: Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*

As a BS, I feel my WH got away with it especially since he was/is? a serial cheater. 
We are reconciling, which is a never-ending process, but I feel the only way he can deal with the intense negative emotions he feels toward himself and his choices is to minimize and compartmentalize them so deeply he can then effectively move on...
At times my inability to do the same is misunderstood by him as raking up the past or as an attempt to punish him, he becomes depressed and disheartened when he has to face the pain he has caused me, wondering outloud if we (me) can ever successfully put this behind us..he doesn 't or won 't understand how this has damaged me and our marriage...


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## Acabado (May 13, 2012)

*Re: Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*



Shaggy said:


> Of course they get away with it if they R, after all they did have sex with another person and they didn't get divorced by the person they chose to cheat on.
> 
> Wishing for anything else is wishful thinking.
> 
> ...


Very few times I have to disagree with you Shaggy. This is one.
I believe you evaluate this in a very simplistic way.
Three years and a half after DDay the aftermath of this weights heavier in my - former wayward - wife than me. I can assure you and I don't believe I'm the only one. It probably will be this way for more time.
We tend to picture waywards in a convenient way (for us) but there are many of them who just don't fit the label we want to put on them: the shame, the guilt, the sense of dissapointment in themselves, the self betrayal... they carry it with themselves forever, the fall from the pedestal was that huge.
If we manage to find a way to think out our own minds or even empathize we can see, realize, admit it.
In order to do so we need to stop contemplating this from the betrayer/betrayed dichotomy and look at them as hurting three-dimensional individuals instead of a frozen archetype. It's hard, not always possible. We must care enough. It's fine also if we don't.
We just can't generalize, how many times people in TAM claim to be happier than ever after getting rid of "the cheater" while the karma bus hit them?


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## EI (Jun 12, 2012)

*Re: Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*



Acabado said:


> Very few times I have to disagree with you Shaggy. This is one.
> I believe you evaluate this in a very simplistic way.
> Three years and a half after DDay the aftermath of this weights heavier in my - former wayward - wife than me. I can assure you and I don't believe I'm the only one. It probably will be this way for more time.
> We tend to picture waywards in a convenient way (for us) but there are many of them who just don't fit the label we want to put on them:* the shame, the guilt, the sense of dissapointment in themselves, the self betrayal... they carry it with themselves forever, the fall from the pedestal was that huge.*
> ...



Acabado, you say so eloquently something that I, personally, know to be true for myself. But, it's almost impossible for a WS or a former WS to express these kinds of feelings and emotions on TAM, without facing a negative backlash. So, after a while, we tire of trying to convince those who will not be convinced. 

I tried very hard to open up on TAM to BS's who were genuinely seeking insight from former WS's. I think TAM can provide an opportunity for BS's and WS's to gain a greater understanding of one another. But for every BS who was genuinely trying to understand more about their WS, there were many more who just wanted to throw rocks at any and all WS's. Even when the OP's would ask them not to. So, for the most part, I no longer respond to those threads. 

But, everything you have said in your post, particularly, the part I bolded, describes the feelings that I live with everyday. Although, for the happiness and well-being of my spouse, my children and, yes, even myself, I work very hard to not allow those feelings to consume me. I try to keep my focus on the here and now. 

I know that I am immeasurably blessed to have the love and respect of my husband and children. I know that my betrayal hurt them, terribly. It hurt me, as well. I believe they know that. So, I try to stay in the present and focus on who I am and who I want to be, always striving to be better, rather than dwelling on who I was during a very dark and unhappy period in my life.

So, to answer the OP's question, no, I don't feel as if I _got away with_ anything. Unless hurting your spouse, your children, your extended family and friends, along with surrendering your pride, self-respect, and sense of self is some prize to be won. 

Yet, today, 13 months into reconciliation, I do feel extremely happy, blessed and grateful. So, there can be hope for a happier tomorrow, even in the face of infidelity. And, for those who aren't familiar with my story and wonder if my spouse shares those same feelings, the answer is yes, he is happy, too.


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## Maricha75 (May 8, 2012)

*Re: Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*



Brokenshadow said:


> An interesting spin to this question is whether a WS who reconciles with their spouse feels like they got away with it.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Well, the very first reply was from a fWS whose wife chose to R. Like Sigma, I don't feel I got away with anything. That is always there. Sure, it is in the past. But it's not something I can take back, any more than he can take his back. No, I didn't get away with anything, nor did he.


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## TCSRedhead (Oct 17, 2012)

*Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*

I didn't get away with anything an even though we are reconciling, I lost a lot. 

I lost his unblemished trust in me. I lost respect for myself and I lost a piece of my dignity.


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## Cwtchbunny (May 20, 2013)

*Re: Asking the WS and others: Do you sometimes feel that you "got away with it?"*



TCSRedhead said:


> I didn't get away with anything an even though we are reconciling, I lost a lot.
> 
> I lost his unblemished trust in me. I lost respect for myself and I lost a piece of my dignity.


Totally right


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