Anonymous wrote:What if the betrayed partner is in denial? My ex husband claimed he liked sex, claimed the extra 60 pounds he gained shouldn’t turn me off, etc, etc. I didn’t realize how badly he was gaslighting me until I had an affair.

Well, I'll tell you what I told my ex-husband in coparenting therapy, when he claimed that I "assassinated his character" because I said I had done more emotional labor in our marriage than he had (including, staying after and trying to forgive his first affair).

"Oh, um, well couldn't you have said to yourself, I cheated on her and abandoned her, so maybe it's natural that she feels this way, and couldn't you have shown me a little grace?" And he said, "Oh . . . right."

Like honestly you think your ex was gaslighting you, rather than the more obvious answer, that weight gain and libido issues had crept up on him and he wasn't facing that well? Meanwhile, you're doing actual gaslighting with your affair, but let's all look over here, at a guy who isn't accurately self-narrating his interest in sex as it changes with age.

My ex's AP is totally obsessed with not taking any blame for her divorce. Among her many complaints are that her sober, church-going ex "didn't love her like Christ loves the church," so she had to leave him for . . . my cheating, alcoholic atheist of an ex. To this day she still denies the affair (that my ex confessed to, snicker) and blames her ex.

"Why can't my betrayed spouse take better ownership of why I cheated on them!" is . . . a choice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What if the betrayed partner is in denial? My ex husband claimed he liked sex, claimed the extra 60 pounds he gained shouldn’t turn me off, etc, etc. I didn’t realize how badly he was gaslighting me until I had an affair.

His weight issues and your lack of character are independent of each other. You stopped loving him when you decided that the weight gain was a reason to dislike and disrespect him. In your head you were the perfect wife and treated your AP exactly as you treated your husband. The pretzel twisting cheaters go through to not see who they are is astonishing.

I'm a cheater, I don't deny that. Not sure whether divorce or cheating would have been better overall. If you think it's 100% better to divorce or live in a sexless marriage, you have black and white thinking and a low sex drive.

Actually, I was the high libido spouse and yes in my eyes cheating is black and white. The only gray is an open marriage, but I know if I had a side piece it would become my primary and the marriage secondary. I had plenty of opportunities with work travel and events, but I had seen the impact on people close to me and would not take them up on their advances. In hindsight, I should have divorced her before she had the affair, but I didn’t want to believe that we couldn’t fix the issues. I paid dearly for that stupidity.

Anonymous wrote:I was pretty suicidal for a long time believing I was unlovable and incapable of love. Today I am no longer suicidal, but still no interest in love. Dating is fun, but I stay in the shallow depths emotionally.

I am more empathetic to other people’s pain and distance myself from pretty much everyone. I can’t get myself to go back to church, spiritually I am a hollow shell of the man I wanted to become.

Overall I would say I am comfortable in my resentment and decent at hiding my contempt for the world in casual settings.

I hope things get better pp.

Anonymous wrote:I was pretty suicidal for a long time believing I was unlovable and incapable of love. Today I am no longer suicidal, but still no interest in love. Dating is fun, but I stay in the shallow depths emotionally.

I am more empathetic to other people’s pain and distance myself from pretty much everyone. I can’t get myself to go back to church, spiritually I am a hollow shell of the man I wanted to become.

Overall I would say I am comfortable in my resentment and decent at hiding my contempt for the world in casual settings.

your spouse was the only person you ever thought loved you?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What if the betrayed partner is in denial? My ex husband claimed he liked sex, claimed the extra 60 pounds he gained shouldn’t turn me off, etc, etc. I didn’t realize how badly he was gaslighting me until I had an affair.

His weight issues and your lack of character are independent of each other. You stopped loving him when you decided that the weight gain was a reason to dislike and disrespect him. In your head you were the perfect wife and treated your AP exactly as you treated your husband. The pretzel twisting cheaters go through to not see who they are is astonishing.

I'm a cheater, I don't deny that. Not sure whether divorce or cheating would have been better overall. If you think it's 100% better to divorce or live in a sexless marriage, you have black and white thinking and a low sex drive.

I was pretty suicidal for a long time believing I was unlovable and incapable of love. Today I am no longer suicidal, but still no interest in love. Dating is fun, but I stay in the shallow depths emotionally.

I am more empathetic to other people’s pain and distance myself from pretty much everyone. I can’t get myself to go back to church, spiritually I am a hollow shell of the man I wanted to become.

Overall I would say I am comfortable in my resentment and decent at hiding my contempt for the world in casual settings.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They tell themselves they are the victims. Own zero for the relationship not working.

If I had known myself better I would have known my marriage would never work. I wasn’t ready to acknowledge that unlike to my friends sex is a huge part of a marriage. If you can take or leave the marital bedroom you’ll never make it.

Wild that you assume cheaters are in sexually dead marriages. That’s often not the case. My now exDH was sleeping with me 3+ times a week while he was cheating with coworkers, prostitutes and other people he met. I basically never said no to sex with him prior to discovering his infidelities.

And the sex couldn’t have been bad because he begged me not to end our marriage and continued to make passes at me for a couple of years.

OFC, after I discovered he cheated, I had zero sexual interest in him. I had sex with him a few times afterwards, but it felt really gross and like rape to me. It is truly ironic that part of the reason I ended our marriage, is that I believe sex is a really important part of an adult intimate lifetime partnership, and I was so grossed out by his cheating and felt so unsafe that I really couldn’t foresee ever having pleasurable sex with him in the future. So the irony is, it was actually his cheating behavior that created the dead bedroom.

Same

Anonymous wrote:They tell themselves they are the victims. Own zero for the relationship not working.

If I had known myself better I would have known my marriage would never work. I wasn’t ready to acknowledge that unlike to my friends sex is a huge part of a marriage. If you can take or leave the marital bedroom you’ll never make it.

Who could know you better than you? You gaslit yourself, lied to yourself and pretended to be who you hoped was lovable, until you decided that who they committed their life to was just a facade. Anyone dealing with you can claim victim hood from an outsider’s perspective. It’s hard to feel bad for you when your own words make you sound manipulative and selfish.

Anonymous wrote:What if the betrayed partner is in denial? My ex husband claimed he liked sex, claimed the extra 60 pounds he gained shouldn’t turn me off, etc, etc. I didn’t realize how badly he was gaslighting me until I had an affair.

His weight issues and your lack of character are independent of each other. You stopped loving him when you decided that the weight gain was a reason to dislike and disrespect him. In your head you were the perfect wife and treated your AP exactly as you treated your husband. The pretzel twisting cheaters go through to not see who they are is astonishing.

Anonymous wrote:They tell themselves they are the victims. Own zero for the relationship not working.

If I had known myself better I would have known my marriage would never work. I wasn’t ready to acknowledge that unlike to my friends sex is a huge part of a marriage. If you can take or leave the marital bedroom you’ll never make it.

Wild that you assume cheaters are in sexually dead marriages. That’s often not the case. My now exDH was sleeping with me 3+ times a week while he was cheating with coworkers, prostitutes and other people he met. I basically never said no to sex with him prior to discovering his infidelities.

And the sex couldn’t have been bad because he begged me not to end our marriage and continued to make passes at me for a couple of years.

OFC, after I discovered he cheated, I had zero sexual interest in him. I had sex with him a few times afterwards, but it felt really gross and like rape to me. It is truly ironic that part of the reason I ended our marriage, is that I believe sex is a really important part of an adult intimate lifetime partnership, and I was so grossed out by his cheating and felt so unsafe that I really couldn’t foresee ever having pleasurable sex with him in the future. So the irony is, it was actually his cheating behavior that created the dead bedroom.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They tell themselves they are the victims. Own zero for the relationship not working.

If I had known myself better I would have known my marriage would never work. I wasn’t ready to acknowledge that unlike to my friends sex is a huge part of a marriage. If you can take or leave the marital bedroom you’ll never make it.

Less so in 60s+.

I am in my 60s and not less so

Anonymous wrote:They tell themselves they are the victims. Own zero for the relationship not working.

If I had known myself better I would have known my marriage would never work. I wasn’t ready to acknowledge that unlike to my friends sex is a huge part of a marriage. If you can take or leave the marital bedroom you’ll never make it.

Less so in 60s+.

What if the betrayed partner is in denial? My ex husband claimed he liked sex, claimed the extra 60 pounds he gained shouldn’t turn me off, etc, etc. I didn’t realize how badly he was gaslighting me until I had an affair.

Anonymous wrote:They tell themselves they are the victims. Own zero for the relationship not working.

If I had known myself better I would have known my marriage would never work. I wasn’t ready to acknowledge that unlike to my friends sex is a huge part of a marriage. If you can take or leave the marital bedroom you’ll never make it.

The problem with your hypothesis is most actually do see their role in the relationship not working. The victimization of the betrayal overshadows all historical challenges in the relationship because it is the end of respect.

If the cheater would say I no longer want to live this way for these reasons, but I love these things about us and I am hurting. It hurts enough that we need to fix it, divorce or create a new agreement where we can seek xyz outside of our relationship. That would force both people to look at their role in the issues and prioritize solutions. The betrayal destroys the relationship, the individuals and family. The BP became the victim because their partner became the victimizer.

They tell themselves they are the victims. Own zero for the relationship not working.

If I had known myself better I would have known my marriage would never work. I wasn’t ready to acknowledge that unlike to my friends sex is a huge part of a marriage. If you can take or leave the marital bedroom you’ll never make it.