Reply to Wives who have cheated: share your story?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]All the men who cheat get a pass on their cheating .......... it is just a matter of saying nicely the reason you cheated.

I will keep that in mind.[/quote]

I'm one of the PPs on this thread. I understand that you're being sarcastic, but yes, I think it does make a difference when you say things nicely. There is a difference between saying "My spouse did X and Y that made me unhappy and I dealt with my unhappiness in Z way" and "My spouse is a bitch/asshole".

If you have an issue with the original post, that's your issue. People were responding to the request to share the story. If the story began and ended with "I cheated on my husband" there would be little point in sharing. I don't know why the OP wanted to know what people's stories were. Maybe the OP is married to a cheater and is trying to understand what affairs look like from the other side.

I think in conversations about cheating, regardless of gender, things get distilled to the point of being useless soundbytes. People and relationships are always more complex than they are given credit for. There are always multiple sides to a given story. Everyone has a perspective that is valid, even if you find it distasteful. [/quote]

I accept the sincerity of your response but I have no doubt that if a guy said he cheated because of xyz reason, no matter how nicely he couched it, on this forum, he'd be hanged, drawn and quartered and many women would have his guts for garters after his testicles were crushed to smithereens.[/quote]

PP here. You're generalizing, and I think that's what is getting lost. It's not "men who cheat" or "women who cheat" or even "cheaters of both sexes." It's individual people, who have individual stories and complexities. My story is not exactly the same as anyone else's. To detail the things that happened in my life that influenced the decisions that I made is not to excuse those decisions. It's not to blame those decisions on factors outside my control.

That said, when threads of this nature come up, as has happened from time to time since I found this site in 2009, I haven't been one of the ones with the pitchforks out for the head of the "skank" and the "dick" and whatever else we call the participants in the affair. I feel sorry for everyone in the situation - even more so now having gone through it myself. It's not easy for anyone. I think that it would be be helpful if there was more recognition of the guilt and shame that a person who has an affair feels, rather than automatic total condemnation of that person as a "sack of shit" or whatever else people on this thread have called me.

Now, I'm sure there are more than a few people whose moral compasses dictate that a person who is unfaithful to their spouse CANNOT be a good person in other ways. That sinners and sins are interchangeable and inseparable. I am not one of those people. I can listen while a friend confides that she's leaving her husband after having an affair, or that she had a secret affair years ago and never told anyone (both those things have happened in the last year), and she does not move in my mental rolodex from the "Good Person" to "Bad Person" categories. The friendship is not instantly over at that moment and I don't feel like I need to call that friend horrible names or make assumptions about what kind of parent she is.

In the aftermath of my affair, one thing that I found very valuable was the conversations I had with several friends who really just wanted to know why - sort of in the same tone as this thread. They did not understand why I would leave a marriage they thought was very good. What I learned from that is that almost no one has any real insight into the quality of a marriage. I was unhappy in a miserable, all consuming way, and I was certain that everyone could tell. They had no idea. They thought our marriage was perfect. My now-ex-husband thought our marriage was in trouble, but he didn't know how unhappy I was and didn't take that unhappiness seriously. I think that right up until the point that I told him I was leaving, that I was not going to change my mind (because he wanted to work things out when I first told him), he truly believed it would blow over. That it was a hiccup in an otherwise good marriage brought on by stress or whatever.

I try to apply these things to my participation on this forum. I understand that not everyone does that. But I think that the way that people talk about things makes a difference. It humanizes us in what is otherwise an anonymous place. I will continue to do that, regardless of whether anyone else does, if only because it is the right thing to do.[/quote]

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