# A post in which sokillme askes a bunch of questions, and then feels guilty about it.



## sokillme

Affaircare said:


> Speaking for myself, you're trying to figure it out, so keep blabbering.


So in keeping in that fashion I want to ask you questions but forgive me if this seems harsh, but hell I'm harsh. If they are too difficult you can just ignore them. None of these questions mean I don't think you changed. Also man I write a lot of stuff on these boards. 

First off yours was and EA right not a PA? 

How long did it last?

I can see how a EA can happen in the sense that it can slowly happen if you are not aware of it, if you have poor boundaries so maybe this is it. How deep did it get was it at the I love you stage? Still at the point were you say I love you though something should click in even the most obtuse. 

So overall your story doesn't make a lot of sense to me. You protected yourself with the guy who treated you bad, but not with the one who was the good one? Expand on that, what changed to change your mind about that? How can you get it the first time and then not get it with the better guy? You understand that this falls right along the lines of the stereotype of the nice guy getting taken advantage of? The idea that it doesn't pay to be nice. Was it because he was so nice so you didn't have any fear?

Were you really in love with your husband at the point you cheated on him? I mean the love as you understand it now?

You knew what it felt like to be cheated on yet you still did it to someone else. How did you justify that when you knew how it felt? I get that you were unhappy but didn't you think how he was going to feel about it? Did you choose not to think of him? Did you think you would never get caught? 

I can see the fertility thing but you do have kids it's not like you couldn't have any. Was this more about the loss of your youth typical of a mid life crisis? 

It sounds like you had a typical mid life crisis type affair, helped along by your grief at your fertility issue. Also in the other thread you mentioned he didn't talk to you enough and that kind of kicked it off as well. Your story to me is actually more scary then most because none of your reasons seem very unusual, they seem almost ordinary life disappointments. Concessions even. It's hard for me to think that you didn't know better and did it anyway? 

Where you a Christian when you did it? What of your vows before God? It's a 10 commandment so you have to know it's wrong. Again how did you justify this? It's like Christianity 101. Was this commandment closer to how Christians think of do not lie, which is I suspect that one is not followed as strictly as say do not kill. I would think adultery is right up there with the killing and stuff, which again I know from a Christian point of view is the wrong way to think about it. Maybe you are one of those Christians who don't think any of the law applies. 

Were you a person who believed in loyalty before this happened? How does that work, is that just not something that is even a consideration? Was your husband not loyal to you? Did you consider yourself a loyal person?

One thing I have to reject is the idea of having a poor childhood leads to this, what accounts for the ones who don't and have a bad childhood? Both my parents were married 3 times. Dad cheated lots. My stepfather verbally abused my Mom in front of me all the time. I don't yell at my wife, I never cheated. Haven't gotten divorced yet. I just can't accept that one. 

It wasn't some life lesson that taught me not to do that, I just want to be decent to people. That is the basic reason. I don't want to cause people pain. I don't accept that my needs are more important then other peoples feelings in this respect. Now is this just something I was born with? I don't remember ever being taught that. I am sure everyone would say the same thing even lots of cheaters? (I am not bragging here, I am ****ty in other ways.)

So where does it go wrong? Some people just have mental illness and some people are just bad seeds, but what about the other people who were basically decent until they are not? The ones who can't believe what they did even after they did it over and over for months? That kind of stuff is dumbfounding. Part of me thinks maybe it's genetic, which again is scary to me, and probably a part of why I am so interested in this. See my quote about my father below. 

I don't get it, I don't think I ever will get it. I do get the temptation though.

*If anyone else who has and affair in the past but is now reformed would like to add there version of the answers that would be cool too. *


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## arbitrator

*Extremely thought provoking questions!

You are certainly not telling me that a sheer plethora of these very same questions are the same ones that the Heavenly Father is going to pose to all adulterers at Judgment!*


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## Affaircare

@sokillme, do not feel guilty. You are curious and you are thinking. Both are very admirable traits. How will you learn if you don't ask? I will take thinking and honestly asking over silence and assuming ANY DAY!

@arbitrator, you and I and from what it sounds like, @sokillme, all know that indeed these will be the very ones, but the only response we have is that we are not worthy but we stand in faith on the work Christ did. We have no plea but His.

Okay I'll begin addressing all these questions tomorrow AND I want to add these as well, from @Truthseeker1 's thread: The Unlikelihood of True Remorse




> Do you think he ever doubts his judgment? Like I am sure he didn't think you would cheat the first time. That would be an issue for me, if I didn't know the first time how could I be sure now. Have you asked him this?
> 
> You mean this figuratively right? My wife didn't cheat on me. I wrote a pretty good synapse of what happened to me on another thread. I really don't have any pain from that anymore. If my wife were to cheat I would ghost, wouldn't be a thought. Reading these boards have convinced me of that fact more then anything else about reading these boards. Life is too short and I don't have it in me. She could have the heart of Donna Reed from It's a Wonderful Life, and look like Sophia Loren. Not sticking around.


and



> I think marriage in general should be talked about before and during the marriage. "This is what I think our marriage is. This is who you are to me." Stuff like that. For instance the bit about having each others back. My wife and I talked about that is some fashion before we got married. I am surprised that this isn't the norm. Like don't you want to talk about the deal you are accepting?


and



> I think here I am getting a bad rap. Some adulterers (I like that better) are just *******s and should be thought of as such. But I feel bad for some, and I believe all are worthy of forgiveness if they truly change. Though as a Christian I guess I am supposed to forgive either way right? Not sure how that works. Besides that anyone who has come on here talking about what they did with a true sense of regret, read any of my posts to them, I am probably less harsh with them than lots of people. I really try hard to go about it following the "go and sin no more" route. I absolutely believe that committing adultery should NOT automatically bar you from starting over if you change, and I believe if motivated enough people can change. It's just that I don't think a lot of people have it in them to do so.
> 
> My father who is like my best friend and who I respect in a lot of other ways was a cheater. I don't hate adulterers. I hate adultery, and I hate when it is justified. I hate it when those who do it are cold to the pain they cause. Those people need to be called out. I respect you and a few other on here and SI who have done this and changed, maybe even more so for your change. carpenoctem for instance on SI, sometimes I wonder if he is really me in my sleep.
> 
> I also don't believe in sugar coating what it is that was done to the BS. I think this is what some people have a problem with me and some others on here. I think it is important to say exactly what happened, not to gloss it up so it isn't as painful. A few of us on here are like that. It's better to expose it like cancer.
> 
> 
> Maybe this is where you say I have grown. I used to say that R is a bad idea always, now I say most of the time, but you damn sure ain't going to know with only a few months of I'm sorrys. It's also much harder it seems that is presented by some.
> 
> Actually I think you and I are pretty much on the same page when it comes to this. Maybe 5% are truly remorseful. I just don't think remorse should be the primary reason to R though. It really depends on the BS. What the quality of life will be. In a sense this his more fare to the WS as well. How many threads are there from men who say they are 5, 10 , 15 years out and they still can't get over it and are divorcing. In such cases both the WS and the BS wasted all that time. Both people end up stuck in this broken marriage, for the WS I guess you could say the deserve it, but still.


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## arbitrator

* @Affaircare ~ In tacit agreement!

And although an adulterer may indeed be deemed to be a "child of God," they will be treated like His child with admonishment, yet love, just as any loving and caring father would do for his own unruly child. Inclusive of that would be a confession and an apology to anyone who has been either affronted or affected by their own selfish adulterous activities while here on earth!

But by the precepts of John 3:16, those "who do not, or have never cared to get to know Him," would be subject to a much graver fate!*


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## Affaircare

> So in keeping in that fashion I want to ask you questions but forgive me if this seems harsh, but hell I'm harsh. If they are too difficult you can just ignore them. None of these questions mean I don't think you changed. Also man I write a lot of stuff on these boards.


You know, I am not sure I think you are harsh. You don't beat around the bush and you are straight-forward, which frankly I prefer. I don't appreciate hints and euphamisms. I am going to choose to answer to the best of my ability, and I do understand you can see I've changed. So let's start!



> First off yours was and EA right not a PA?


Yes, my affair was all online via PMs and chats. We did talk about sexual topics, but didn't send dirty photos or live skype or anything like that, nor was it live and in person physical sex. 



> How long did it last?


My initial reaction was: "Wow, I don't remember. Let me think." And before you think I'm deflecting, it was seven years ago and I have chosen to move past what happened when, who said what when, etc. and instead focus on the present and how I am and who i am in the present. But all that being said, if I count from when I first began playing the game and began to meet the OM to the time we went official no contact, I believe it was four months total, and three months of knowing each other. 



> I can see how a EA can happen in the sense that it can slowly happen if you are not aware of it, if you have poor boundaries so maybe this is it. How deep did it get was it at the I love you stage? Still at the point were you say I love you though something should click in even the most obtuse.


I do not know how to quantify "how deep it got" because there's not standard levels of deepness... LOL  But my biggest attraction to people is usually mental connection, and I found OM piqued my interest, and he expressed deep interest in me. I did not and do not think it was "I love you" because I didn't know enough about him to say that, but I did feel feelings, I did feel that rush of feeling like someone found me valuable, and I did care about him. 

Here's what hard about this question...what I know about love NOW, and what I knew about love THEN are like two different things! Back then, I thought of love as more romantic and an emotion (or at least evoking emotions of kindness and caring and fondness). Thus how could you love someone you if you didn't care about them and weren't fond of them? But see how that thinking is warped and incorrect? I sure do! So at the time, in the moment, I did feel feelings of caring and fondness and enjoying his company so to me that meant love. NOW I realize that love is not a feeling AT ALL but rather an action and how you dedicate to treat someone. The term I use in my head is covenant because that's stronger than a promise or even a vow or even a commitment. My covenant is to learn to take my lifetime and learn to be a person who treats my spouse in a loving way. I need to learn HIM and conversely he has promised to learn me. 



> So overall your story doesn't make a lot of sense to me. You protected yourself with the guy who treated you bad, but not with the one who was the good one? Expand on that, what changed to change your mind about that? How can you get it the first time and then not get it with the better guy? You understand that this falls right along the lines of the stereotype of the nice guy getting taken advantage of? The idea that it doesn't pay to be nice. Was it because he was so nice so you didn't have any fear?


I'm not sure what you mean when you say I protected myself with the guy who treated me bad. Back in those days with my exH, I had no idea he was abusing me and had literally no personal boundaries whatsoever. I didn't even understand the concept! If you look at LosingHim... that was pretty much what I was like because love and hurt were entangled with each other. I also lived in strong denial so I could survive abuse...I had an illusion of being a happy family because I didn't want to admit to myself that it wasn't true. 

So with my exH, yep he cheated on me. As I first suspected and then later got proof of his infidelity...and then even later got proof of MULTIPLE infidelity...I was in a place in my life of feeling like I was breaking down, so I went to a counselor at the kids' school. That turned into individual counseling and it was there that I faced my abuse as a child. Then my counselor referred me to a support group for spouses of abusers, and that helped me to realize I wasn't alone (which helped A LOT)...and then that lead to IC with a lady social worker to develop some healthier approaches to relationships like being individualized (rather than co-dependent) and having boundaries. Those kinds of concepts. 

To me, almost none of that was natural or made sense. As an example, my first counselor at the kids' school helped me deal with the childhood abuse using one technique called inner voices. This technique is to first begin to note when an incident of anger or strong emotion occurs. Next, when an incident does take place, to note some of the physical things I do to indicate that it's coming up. Next, to recognize the physical reactions before the incident takes place. And finally to write down what the voices inside my head are saying to me when I recognize the physical reactions. With me so far?? 

So I was supposed to notice "Oh, I'm holding my breath and feel a weight on my chest. That's usually what I do when something isnt' okay with me and I'm trying to stuff it down" and then listen to what my own inner voices were telling myself. He called the inner voices "the tape recordings" because it's the same stuff we tell ourselves over and over again, and sometimes it's a recording of stuff we heard a lot in the past. So he said that when I noticed the physical symptoms I should write down what I heard from these four voices: 1) The Protector, 2) The Judge, 3) The Child, and 4) The Nurturer. Well I heard the protector loud and clear: hurt them before they hurt you! I hear the judge loud and clear too: you deserve punishment for being a bad person! The child was quieter but easy to hear if I listened for it: I'm afraid. This hurts and I wish it would stop. But the Nurturer? What's that? Don't hear that one at all. My counselor gave me some examples of things a Nurturer might say, and I told him that not only did I not remember hearing that kind of thing as a kid, I don't hear that kind of thing in my head AT ALL. So one of ways I had to grow was to figure out what a Nurturer WAS... and what they might say, because I had to learn how to nurture myself and then pass that on to nurturing myself and others. 

Soooo... I think most people have mothers who nurture them. My mom was the one who is mentally ill and who beat me! So it wasn't her voice. I thought "well, who's the most nurturer beings you can think of?" Hmmmm...God (in His loving voice) and my dog. So for a while I wrote "what I think God would say" and "what I think a loyal dog would say" and that got me starting of thinking what a nurturer might sound like. Over the course of years, I began to be better at it and be able to come up with a Nurturer Voice more overall. And finally, I was able to incorporate that sort of a voice inside my own head ... for me. 

I tell this whole big long story because, for me, there definitely were some things that I think "most people" or "many people" naturally get from a somewhat normal family that I 100% did NOT get. It just wasn't there, and since I didn't know what I didn't know, I was not aware that I even needed it! 

So first husband was not a good choice for me, but at the time I had no idea he wasn't. I had no idea I needed to protect myself from anything including myself. I had no concept of anything other than abuse and co-dependence. That was my mode. But in a weird way, thanks to the infidelity and subsequent divorce, I got to learn those things! I did learn about boundaries, recognizing abuse red-flags, and choosing a healthier partner. So I wouldn't say that I didn't protect myself from my exH--I was wide open to both his abuse and to my own failings and faults. I know I was far from perfect in that marriage. 

Now in my current marriage--the one in which I had the affair--in real life my Dear Hubby was one of those "Nice Guys." Part of the dynamic that changed after my affair was that on his side, he had to learn to express caring and fondness out loud (he is by nature an very capital I Introvert, and a Thinker) but simultaneously to grow from the milquetoast "Nice Guy" to a stronger man who commands respect by his bearing. [Again, to clarify, this is not why I had an affair but rather indicating areas where we both grew in order to successfully reconcile.] So pre-A his exW had been a controlling narcissist type and he was the co-dependent Nice Guy to keep the peace. Beyond the things I learned above, I had MUCH more growing to do, and so did he...namely, that it was not only okay but GOOD for him to stand up, be strong, be firm and be the man of the family. 

Sooooo...does this make more sense to you? More questions answered at next work-break!


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## sokillme

Affaircare said:


> I'm not sure what you mean when you say I protected myself with the guy who treated me bad.


I went back I and I think I identified the source of this confusion. In the other thread you wrote



> I had to barriers/protection in place during my first marriage, but then again I was a work-from-home mom who ran her own company and took care of the kids. In a very grown-up way I was "playing house" in an adult way.


I think the 3rd word is supposed to be _no_. This is why I was confused, because I read that as you saying you had barriers up and then didn't in the next marriage. 

I will respond with more questions when you finish you initial posts. Thanks for taking the time. This is interesting.


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## Affaircare

> Were you really in love with your husband at the point you cheated on him? I mean the love as you understand it now?


As I understand it now, heck no! I believe love is an action--acting in a way that is loving toward another. How could I possibly act in an adulterous way and actually love someone? Can't happen. 

Now I can say that I did not have ill-will toward my Dear Hubby. I didn't "hate his guts" or anything, nor did I try to do mental gymnastics to convince myself I loved two men or that I was justified. The way it seemed to me was as if my Dear Hubby had checked out and didn't give a **** about me. There was a part of me that "wished" if you will, that he was the one who found me fascinating and captivating, but from what I could tell, he didn't so there you go. I did have feelings for him to the extent that I cared about him, and I honestly think that was part of why I was able to see the pain on his face when so many disloyals can't see the damage they're doing. 



> You knew what it felt like to be cheated on yet you still did it to someone else. How did you justify that when you knew how it felt? I get that you were unhappy but didn't you think how he was going to feel about it? Did you choose not to think of him? Did you think you would never get caught?


Here's some of the embarrassing stuff. I knew better! I had lived through it myself and I'm a very gentle, loving person so I feel so belittled to think I have it within myself to treat someone like that. It's monstrous, really! But it's also sort of shocking, in that when I look at me and my character over the decades, I'm not that kind of person. It seems to foreign to me, and yet, I did it. 

So at first I didn't do a ton of justifying because my Dear Hubby did not care, that hurt me, and I participated in a hobby that is something we both enjoy: a game. No need to justify because there really wasn't anything happening at first. But I think the VERY FIRST small step across the line was when I began to think of the game as MINE, and began to exclude Dear Hubby. At first I tried to include him and he wasn't interested. I think he found it boring, to be honest. After a while I gave up trying to include him. After a little longer I was not including, and hence excluding by omission. Finally I was actively excluding. So see how that was the start of it all? 

At that point there was justifying beginning, because each of those is a small step over the line...then another..then another. My justification was "He doesn't care anyway, so what?" I chose not to think of what he may or may not feel, because I was angry with him not caring about me. I didn't think about getting caught because I didn't think he cared about me and thus he wouldn't have 'fought for me' if he did find out. Plus I liked feeling like someone found me interesting, so what I was doing was justifying one more step over a line in order to keep getting something that "made me feel good" about myself, and simultaneously not thinking about Dear Hubby at all. 



> I can see the fertility thing but you do have kids it's not like you couldn't have any. Was this more about the loss of your youth typical of a mid life crisis?


Yeah I think it was a loss of youth thing for sure. See, I do have seven kids, so you're right I've had the blessing of having children. I've also been blessed with relatively easy fertility and pregnancies so that being a mom was who I was. And to me, to be a young, interesting, sexy, alive woman meant having children. Finding out there was no chance to have children, on top of losing one, was crushing. I felt old and shriveled up like a prune--used and dried up! 

So couple that with a grieving Dear Hubby who's emotionally cut himself off, and I'm old, I'm useless, I'm not a vital woman anymore. And along comes another person who did not see me that way. I was NOT prepared for that. 



> It sounds like you had a typical mid life crisis type affair, helped along by your grief at your fertility issue. Also in the other thread you mentioned he didn't talk to you enough and that kind of kicked it off as well. Your story to me is actually more scary then most because none of your reasons seem very unusual, they seem almost ordinary life disappointments. Concessions even. It's hard for me to think that you didn't know better and did it anyway?


Well there are so many things I know differently/better now. I think my affair actually IS pretty typical to be honest. I think most women face a time in their lives where the kids have left the nest, and they look at their husband after years of neglecting each other and think: "I don't feel all lovey and mushy about him. Why am I here?" The trouble mainly, in my humble opinion, is that people don't know how to look at themselves to work on their own issues...and people don't know how to come back from it when they've done something wrong. Shoot, the vast majority will not ever admit they did the wrong thing! But if they do, they don't have much of a model for stopping doing the wrong and then learning and growing to start doing the right thing. Know what I mean?


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