SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I don't know what else to do this morning other than to laugh.

WW re-started therapy a few months ago, and last night she and I were discussing a particularly difficult therapy session she just had, and she revealed that she had decided to restart therapy because she ended up at coworker's house, where he kissed her. In order to extract herself from the situation, she somehow gave him a hand-job.
Two questions:
1. Did anyone else know that hand-job was hyphenated? I always thought it was just a compound word, but it turns out when two NOUNS are combined, the hyphen comes in to play. That's why "blowjob" doesn't have a hyphen. "Blow" is a verb.
2. As she is a survivor of sexual abuse, can anyone help me understand how normal situations tend to spiral out of control for some people with this history?

Dear Suddenlyisee,

Even if you seem to take things lightly, I have a question for you : do you like to suffer ? Do you like pain ?
Ok that's two questions. My point is : let your WW free. Let her fix herself and maybe, in a decade, when she's able to be a stable, safe, non-toxic person, you can try to R again.

Why was she at his house?

he kissed her. In order to extract herself from the situation, she somehow gave him a hand-job.

This is a load of shit.I mean..what?? In order to get away from a kiss,she put her hands down his pants and jacked him off?

That's beyond ridiculous.

If she thinks you would buy that, she clearly doesn't think much of your intelligence.

It makes zero sense.

First, she shouldn't have been alone with a man,at his house.

Second..there's a door. In order to extract herself, she could have used the door.

She could have said no.

She could have told him he was being inappropriate, and she is married.

Instead, she took a kiss..and turned it into a form of sex.

What consequences has she had?

Is he married? Have you told his wife?

Surely, she has to find a new job, since she can't work with him again.

[This message edited by HellFire at 5:40 PM, Tuesday, June 6th]

Jack - That's maybe the most puzzling thing about it... It really wasn't any more of a shock than it would have been if she said she backed the car into a light-post and realized it was high time she got an eye exam. I'm really at a loss as to why I'm seeing a 'silver lining' in the fact that this happened and she did the right thing by seeking a therapist and then looping me in.

Maybe it's that after 35 years of this with 4 different women - I (unfortunately) truly have come to believe that with rare exception, no relationship is immune from this. This sort of thing has impacted every relationship I've ever had. I know that if/when this one ends that I'll never pursue another romantic relationship again in my life - so maybe it's just that this is my last go-around and I'm not in a hurry to stamp it out. Wild. Never figured this was gonna be my life.

[This message edited by suddenlyisee at 5:42 PM, Tuesday, June 6th]

Hey Hell...
Totally hear you. No excuse for it.
Got a therapist, disclosed to me last night, quit her job an hour ago, and resigned an industry board position 10 minutes later.
In the past, I would have KILLED for that kind of "I need to own my shit" attitude from any WW...

Funny thing: that's not getting any more of an emotional reaction out of me that finding out about it in the first place.

I have a better question: when are you going to stop tolerating infidelity in your relationships?

As she is a survivor of sexual abuse, can anyone help me understand how normal situations tend to spiral out of control for some people with this history?

In your wife’s case, it’s because she doesn’t have any sexual boundaries with men and she has no reason to build them because you will stay with her no matter what she does.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 10:55 PM, Tuesday, June 6th]

Hi, I just read your profile, honestly, this woman is toxic. How many affairs has she had during your marriage? 4? 5?

I think you need to speak with your own therapist and figure out why you would tolerate her abuse.

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

As a teacher, I did laugh at the first part of your post. My family shares a dark sense of humour.

But in all seriousness, the common denominator in all of your relationships is you. This is something you might want to explore in IC. What makes you gravitate to women who cheat? The subconscious is a powerful driver and you may want to get your picker adjusted. A good IC can help with that.

PS. My picker sucks.

When did this happen? Is this a new affair – a new d-day – or trickle-truth from her last affair?

If this happened after your last d-day, is a new affair with a new OM and/or happened after the last series of MC and IC sessions then IMHO this is more serious than if this a belayed trickle-truth confession.
Sexual molestation really f@cks up people (pun intended). There are men (and probably women too) that can zoom in on weaknesses. Smell a vulnerability. It can be something as "easy" as going after the slightly more drunk girl rather than her slightly more beautiful but sober friend at the bar. Or it could be like finding the person dealing with self-worth issues and seeking validation because both uncle Bob and Pete the step-dad molested her.

The hand-job is definitely a no-no, but without more context then it’s hard to advice on next steps. Like I – the 100% heterosexual monogamous male - would probably go down on my knees and give someone a non-hyphenated blow job if he held a gun to my wife’s head. Depends on context and condition. Maybe she felt trapped, why did she get into that situation, why did the OM feel confident enough to pressure a co-worker to have sex?

Totally see that this is on me… I’ve stayed on this ride through my own actions alone. I’m sure a lot of us do…
I didn’t provide a lot of context, but this is the 9th or 10th time (that I’m aware of) that a professional relationship of hers has turned into this, or nearly this.
Aside from her full-blown emotional affair in 2017, they are all short-lived. The longer emotional affair was long-distance and they never met in person, but had the planned travel occurred, I’m sure it would have crashed and burned very quickly after.
Of the others, all have progressed the exact same way: business relationship, flirting, validation, private lunch, kissing, then guilt - which she defaults to anger at the guy she just led on.
This is the 3rd time it’s gone past the kiss to the house visit for some innocuous reason where it evolves to the sex-act stage. As she describes this - she simply felt like she’d caused things to go as far as she did and that she felt like she led him on and owed him a payoff of some kind to keep it from blowing up into the real world. Mechanical hand-job with her fully clothed, stood up and walked out as soon as it was done.
The longer emotional affair was long-distance and they never met in person, but had the planned travel occurred, I’m sure it would have crashed and burned very quickly after.
If I look at her pattern; They all end the same, her blocking them and severing all contact - feeling guilty AND victimized.
It’s like she’s looking for a platonic male female relationship to ‘replace’ the male family member that molested her as a child. So she seems compelled to test men to see if they’re out to use her - all the while impacting her own experiment by making SURE it goes there, so she can feel that charge of anger and shut it down to have the control she wished she had way back then.
I guess I’m looking for insight into whether anyone here has ever had experience with something like this….
This guy isn’t a coworker, but is an industry peer and member of a board she is also on.
This incident happened 5 weeks ago, she started with a new therapist a week later specifically because of this, developed her plan to tell me and disclosed to me Monday. She left the job and the board the next day.
And here I am.

There's a very good reason why you aren't supposed to choose the broken ones as life partners...

Time for one of my favorite quotes:

"If you meet an asshole in the morning, then you’ve met an asshole. If you meet assholes all day, then you’re the asshole."

Your wife is a serial adulteress who actively seeks out other men for sexual relationships of varying degrees.

We could definitely have a 50-page thread of sharing our experiences and playing armchair psychologist on your wife, but what good will that do? After not 1, not 2, but 9 or 10 incidents of infidelity (of which you are aware) the circumstances are irrelevant.

SI is here to help people get out of infidelity, not to cope with remaining in it. So do you want to get out of infidelity or not?

If you want out, then why do you keep choosing and then tolerating unfaithful women?

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 2:33 PM, Wednesday, June 7th]

I get that your wife was broken badly by the SA. She's known that and still ended up straying yet again. The odds are against her not doing it again. It's good that she owns it and is trying to fix it, but this isn't her first or even third strike.

As she describes this - she simply felt like she’d caused things to go as far as she did and that she felt like she led him on and owed him a payoff of some kind to keep it from blowing up into the real world

She's got crap for boundaries. She knows she has crap for boundaries. Yet she keeps putting herself in position to cross those boundaries. Just to avoid awkwardness. I wonder if she ever will be able to enforce boundaries with other men. You deserve better and don't have to tolerate this just because of what someone evil did to her before you met.

Funny thing: that's not getting any more of an emotional reaction out of me that finding out about it in the first place.

Is that a sign that you are approaching indifference or just that you are numb to her abuse. That you accept it and assume that's what your life is going to be. Because no one deserves a spouse that will continually cheat with other people.

All - thanks for the responses.. especially Bluer. Truly appreciate the ‘cold light of day’ that this community brings. Grubs, you’re right. My indifference is total numbness. I really don’t much care anymore.
Wanting to know why she does what she does is more of a curiosity as opposed to holding out any hope.
I suppose, like most of us who are packing our shit, I just want to know there’s a reason (other than some defect in me) that she’s suiciding our marriage.
Mostly, i’m just irritated about what’s next.. new bank account, pushing my retirement another 10 years and a crappy apartment while I start over. Watching her shit decisions uproot my life entirely. Losing my family of the last 13 years. Seeing the amazing 24 year woman that’s been so much more than a stepdaughter to me since she was 11 navigate a totally new relationship with her mom. Sitting in the back at her wedding and then missing being a grandparent to her and her husband’s kids as it just gets too hard to accommodate us both… until I eventually just become that great guy that they all used to know before she blew it.
That’s why some of us stay so long before we wake up.. it’s not the shitty, manipulative relationship… it’s all those other GOOD things that leaving changes.

There's a very good reason why you aren't supposed to choose the broken ones as life partners...

If you define 'broken ones' as something like 'not totally healthy emotionally', which I do, our population would be a lot smaller than it is.

What suddenlyisee describes looks like one of the standard patterns for victims of CSA. My heart goes out to her. I hope she seeks, finds, and makes good use of great help - maybe meds, maybe EMDR, maybe something else that will be effective, probably some combo. She's got a difficult road ahead to heal, but I suspect that will be easier than not healing. But that's about her.

You're the SIer. You have to make your own decisions, and you can make them holding your head high. On d-day, my CSA-survivor W looked sick, and I thought 'in sickness and in health,' so I was more than open to R. But I suspect we're a lot older than you, and the bonds between us, healthy and unhealthy, were a lot older and stronger than the bonds between you and your W. Also, I still lusted after my W on and after d-day, so I wanted to stay together if we could. Luckily for me, my W finally decided to do whatever she needed to do to heal, and she followed through.

Would you wait until your late 60s for your W to build good boundaries and to become authentic? I'm glad I did, but you're not me.

My reco is to focus on your own healing, to resolve the pain that comes with being betrayed, and on finding the best path to joy for you - and then to follow that path. My heart goes out to you, too - but IMO healing will come easier to you than to your W, so I mentioned her first. BTDT.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:00 PM, Wednesday, June 7th]

"gently" Suddenly, I believe the broken one here is YOU. I can agree that its very difficult to absolutely avoid other men from approaching and going after a married women, your wives.... But after 4 tries, I think you really need to look inwards. Its not about acceptance or immunity at this point, its about how you choose to live your life for the rest of your days. Fix what is broken within you, and while you're doing that, get rid of this other broken women you find yourself with.

It may very well be the type of people you attract into your life, and accept with baggage that has led you to have 4 go arounds with infidelity. Find out why you attract these individuals and you'll probably learn a lot about yourself along the way.

Good luck to you brotha

SiSoon, Half..

Agree about more self work.

Funny part:

We met at a divorce support group that I actually ran. We had a guest therapist for that session and the topic was "How do you know if you’re ready to enter a new relationship?"

She put me on the spot.. "Suds, What do you think?"

My immediate answer: "Do the inevitable on the first date. Own your shit and ask them to own their shit. You’ll have to do it eventually anyway. Acknowledge and share whatever you hate about yourselves most.. the thing you both hide at first in new relationships.. your secret things. If you don’t each own it soon enough - when there’s nothing to lose - neither of you ever will. You’ll go on to find that you’ve been making excuse after excuse to push off opening up. Eventually, you’ll find yourself years into that relationship and realize one or both of you were never fully in it. Whether big or small, you will have subconsciously made decisions to protect your secret - or made decisions without knowing their whole picture. If someone’s feeling guilty, the guilt of keeping the secret will become a stubborn root of co-dependency.. before you ever realize it. You’ll eat a shit sandwich if you feel you deserve to me mistreated a little. Without guilt, a lie of omission becomes a cancer - because another lie doesn’t mean anything. Either way, it’s unauthentic and it’s doomed. Own your shit. Demand that your prospect also owns their shit. If you can’t do that, you’re not ready."

As I was addressing the entire room, this was actually the first thing I ever said to my wife.

Therapist silently nodded.. "Spot on.. are YOU ready?"

"Not even close, I’ve owned my shit privately and I’ve done years of therapy to get there. I’m never going to open up to that degree to anyone else in the real world again, so I’m un-dateable. I’m OK with that. “

After the meeting, my future wife asked - and I decided to share. I owned my shit, authentically. She also shared but stopped short. I fell for it.

The relationship developed and I thought I was doing it all right. I had the best chance for success I could possibly have had.

Later, I was so invested in that ‘best chance at success’ that I just naturally wanted to fix it.. at any cost. So close, so I kept fixing.

Tremendously ironic to be so right and so wrong at the same time.

[This message edited by suddenlyisee at 1:12 PM, Monday, June 12th]

I don’t want to come down too hard, but how did she explain incidents one thru nine, and why did you tolerate it after the second time?

You are being treated like this because you expect it and don’t demand anything else. I’m sorry, but you need to take some drastic action like having her move out. This is a prime example that if the WS doesn’t suffer some consequences, the cheating pattern will continue.

Suddenly I see said:

Of the others, all have progressed the exact same way: business relationship, flirting, validation, private lunch, kissing, then guilt - which she defaults to anger at the guy she just led on.
This is the 3rd time it’s gone past the kiss to the house visit for some innocuous reason where it evolves to the sex-act stage. As she describes this - she simply felt like she’d caused things to go as far as she did and that she felt like she led him on and owed him a payoff of some kind to keep it from blowing up into the real world. Mechanical hand-job with her fully clothed, stood up and walked out as soon as it was done.
The longer emotional affair was long-distance and they never met in person, but had the planned travel occurred, I’m sure it would have crashed and burned very quickly after.
If I look at her pattern; They all end the same, her blocking them and severing all contact - feeling guilty AND victimized.
It’s like she’s looking for a platonic male female relationship to ‘replace’ the male family member that molested her as a child. So she seems compelled to test men to see if they’re out to use her - all the while impacting her own experiment by making SURE it goes there, so she can feel that charge of anger and shut it down to have the control she wished she had way back then.
I guess I’m looking for insight into whether anyone here has ever had experience with something like this…

.

Unfortunately, I have some experience like this. I am BH also. My WW had 11 APs over the first 20 years of our marriage. This included a same sex AP. 10 of the 11 were met through work. 8 were co-workers but 2 were not from the same company but interacted on shared projects (something like "HJ guy" for your WW). My WW was a victim of CSA (her older brother) was abandoned by her father at 13, has self esteem issues, is bipolar and displays a multitude of Type B personality disorders. Where I differ, is all but two of her affairs resulted in full on intercourse. The "pattern" you describe above is also similar. Some variation of "meet, develop a connection ("innocent" at first), flirting, inappropriate contact, kissing, full on sex". She describes the majority of these as "ONS" since there was only one sex act. The relationships were cultivated over weeks or months though. Also, for my WW, the sex was "essential" and was the "validation" for her (am I attractive enough for them to have sex with me). She also said she felt she "owed" then something for their efforts and also said "the sex was only to keep the attention coming" yet most of her affairs ended once they were truly consummated. Welcome to "crazy town".

During disclosure there was also a lot of minimizing so that "just a BJ" turned out to be "more than a dozen BJs"plus 8 hrs (took a vacation day) in a hotel with multiple intercourse and all kinds of "other stuff" in between. I would take the whole story (HJ fully clothed then walked away) with a grain of salt….

Unlike you, we have been "together" 42 years and married for 39. She says she hasn’t cheated in 19 years and passed a polygraph (I’m convinced she could beat it BTW) so there is the added dimension of this being "long ago" for me. That said, a lot of those personality traits exist within her to this day. She has always been the "I have more male friends" (not a surprise when you are banging them) type person who sees women as the "competition". She now has clear boundaries and knows how to keep herself out of trouble (that’s a hard lesson learned at this point). I can’t say I fully trust her and I stay now more due to family, financial and health decisions. Had I caught her acting this way when it was going on, I would have left a vapor trail behind me.

Are you taking her word that nothing more than the sex acts she described occurred? I can’t imagine that you have any tangible proof other than her word.

My strong advice - she needs to take a poly immediately to determine whether other sex acts occurred. If it were me, I totally wouldn’t tolerate her behavior, period. But, if it doesn’t matter to you that she may have had full blown sex with her nine APs - and it might not matter to you - then there is no reason for the poly.

However, if this potential is cause for concern, then you must have the complete set of facts snd truth before making any decisions. I would bet a nickel that you are very far from having this right now. My recommendation is to sit her down today and demand, not ask, that she take a poly.