SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I don’t like double threading, but this question hit me this morning in my ruminations and wanted to hear your thoughts. I’ll keep my personal stuff in the other thread and make this a "nice philosophical" thread.

We say that usually the affair is a mirage, and when you compare the pain of betrayal to the chasing after the mist that our partner betrayed us for, it seems so absurd. So it got me thinking, which is worse? Is it worse to be betrayed by a trusted confidant for a fantasy, or would it be worse if they betrayed you for the sake of their own real enrichment? Like a business partner lying and taking joint money or intellectual property and leaving you in their dust as they go live a life of luxury?

Obviously both suck. What do you think is worse? And let’s not just say the fantasy one just because it’s SI.

I think this argument is kind of the "is it better if your spouse cheated with someone they 'loved' or just some stranger?" Neither answer will feel good. Would you be comforted that your spouse could love someone else, or that you could be tossed aside for some rando?
I think this is a good question, but not one with a concrete answer. Logically you would want what is best for your spouse, likely with or without you. But is it okay for your spouse to get whats best for them at your expense. I may be wrong but I remember hearing about some legal cases that would be to the effect, if one spouse pays for the others schooling so that they can benefit as a family, and then they divorce. The spouse that benefited from it would be required to pay the other spouse a prtion of their income as compensation. This could be wrong and might be more of a spousal support deal, but anyway.
I know in my situation my ex wife cheated on me with her ex boyfriend. She wanted to punish him for breaking up with her and realize how bad a decision it was by screwing him whenever they wanted. Absolutley no logic to it.
In essence, my ex cheated on me with someone she didnt like to get back at him. Does it make me feel better that she sisnt want to leave me for him. No. Its frustrating that she cheated as some stupid revenge thing.
Im not sure it helps but I dont think either answer will be comforting. I hope that people wiser than me can help.

Typically neither case happens in isolation. The WS living in a rainbow fantasy worlds typically THOUGHT they were conducting the A for their own enrichment, so in a way the BS in that situation experiences the hurt from BOTH. In an exit affair scenario where the WS and the AP actually DO stroll off in the sunset together leaving the BS in the dust, the WS will often realize that the fantasy was not the same as reality and the new relationship doesn't tend to last. Sometimes, they come crawling back to the BS (and again the BS is faced with BOTH). Even in the rare cases where the WS and the AP seem to stay together long term, I think in a lot of cases, I have no doubt that the fantasy/excitement eventually wears off and the same unhappinesses that befell the WS in their prior relationship (that they blamed on the BS or the marriage) will emerge again because the call was always coming from inside the house. In that case, I suppose the BS might never know that the WS came to this conclusion however, and so they may always feel like they were the one that was lacking. That said, at least the BS in that situation, never had to deal with the prolonged slow death march of trying to R with an unremorseful spouse.

I do think that "what is worse" is typically whatever you experienced. Each have their own unique daggers that are going to pierce differently for different people. There are never any winners in the betrayal Olympics - just a lot of enormous suffering and a lot of gold medal worthy heartbreak. It is easy to get caught up in the details of the betrayal, and they DO matter, but I do not necessarily think that the comparative "awfulness" that happened to you necessarily defines your hurt. I have seen people with horrific stories go on to have great outcomes and people with "less awful" stories never recover.

I say all this, but I do think that the answer to your question is going to depend on the BS. It's tough to speak to things that never happened, but I think FOR ME I would have been absolutely flattened by having to watch my husband, who I had built my world around, go off and "be happy" and have kids with the AP - without giving me a single say in the matter.

I agree with Emergent in that the WS, in all cases imo, is pursuing their own enrichment. The affair might be a mirage but the motivation is not. The WS wants something for themselves whether it's more sex, attention, excitement or simply someone else. And they are willing to risk the BS for it.

Would it hurt less if the WS was pursuing an affair to find true love versus cheap thrills? For me, no, because again the underlying motivation and the heart of the hurt is that the WS was willing - for whatever reason - to betray and abuse the BS.

Copy and paste emergents whole response and that what I believe to be the truth.

It doesn’t sit well with me that the ws’s enrichment almost reads as if it had to do with a a lack in the bs. 100 percent of the time an affair happened because of the lack in the ws. Lack of character combined with a void that causes the kind of desperate thinking that creates this fantasy world to begin with.

Sure, some people will cheat and hope to get someone with more of something. Try and ride off with money or whatever they feel they lack that the bs can’t offer.

However, just by reading here the majority of the time the ap has far less to actually offer than the bs. A lot of times the ap isn’t even someone the ws would date if they were both single. The Ap is a lesser person than the bs by default really. But how often do people report they were less attractive, less ethical, less employed, lesser skilled than the bs. So that just comes down to the ws belief system: I will be happy when…sort of thinking.

The reality is someone who knows how to be happy can do so on a lot less than whatever they started with. The idea it’s got to be more of something is most of the time just part of the illusion because they didn’t appreciate what was in front of them. To believe having an affair is enriching to you IS a fantasy. The reprecussions are almost unparalleled to most any other decision you make, few things would cause that kind of destruction.

It's like saying"Which hurts worse, getting shot in the right knee, or the left knee?"

FWIW, if you have a prosthetic leg, and you have a choice, choose to be shot on that side!

I think Notarunnerup's reframing of "is it better if your spouse cheated with someone they 'loved' or just some stranger?" is interesting. Yes, both are terrible and usually rooted in some degree of fantasy or escapism. But I think if all else is equal then for me the "falling in love" is worse. It just adds another dimension of pain for me because in addition to giving the AP time, attention and sex they are also getting emotional commitment. Distorted or not, they're still getting it. If a burglar comes in my house and steals only my second favorite painting it hurts a little less than if they also steal my favorite too.

The WS living in a rainbow fantasy worlds typically THOUGHT they were conducting the A for their own enrichment

Part of me hates to be a pedant, but that's only one part.

I think it's important tp keep as full a picture of what we're dealing with in our minds at all times. That means remembering that many WSes are KISAs, and I believe they think the A is about helping their poor, powerless aps.

WRT Ink's Q, what's your timeframe. If my W left because of true lurve, I think I'd be happy for her - but she'd have to have 25 year relationship with her 'loved' one. But it would take me a long time to get to that POV. Until I did, I think the 2 cases are equivalent in terms of pain.

I think the answer to this depends on the betrayed’s unique emotional makeup . For me, the fact that my husband absolutely knew it was just attention seeking and never entertained the idea of leaving the marriage did help me arrive at the fact that it was a he problem rather than a rejection. I mean, it still hurt like hell, but I never felt rejected or traded in so to speak. I think that would have done a number on my self esteem. But, him knowing from the start that he was f’ed up and that he knew it somehow helped me heal. 🤷‍♀️ she literally could have been anyone or anything to numb his internal pain. Had he been mentally healthy and simply fallen in love with someone else that would have hurt me worse. But that’s just me. All cheating hurts.

It's like saying"Which hurts worse, getting shot in the right knee, or the left knee?"

FWIW, if you have a prosthetic leg, and you have a choice, choose to be shot on that side!

I was thinking more along the lines of "in the heart or between the eyes". Infidelity is a "marriage killer" IMO. Whether that means you D or you R and go from "Marriage 1.0 to Marriage 2.0" it is fatal to the original marriage.

For me "which is worse" is also hard to gauge. I think I could handle her being in sound mind and falling in love with another better than being mentally messed up and "chasing a fantasy" with multiple partners. At the end of the day, whatever her reasons (fantasy or tangible gain), the marriage, me and our children didn’t matter and were cast aside. Repeatedly. So whatever we had wasn’t worth more than a fantasy OR something tangible. And "dead is dead" whether it was in the heart or between the eyes.