Why get married?
This thread is going to be an extension of the thread "What Is Marriage" for me. I learned a lot in that thread, and now there are new considerations being single.
Why do we get married? Should I look to remarry? Should I advise my daughter and sons to marry?
Bigger said in that previous thread that "we get married in the church and divorced in the courthouse", and that marriage is a legal contract like any business deal. What a romantic, right?
He’s not wrong. But that is also not a complete answer. Nobody writes heart felt songs over mergers and acquisitions. There is just more to this than your everyday contract.
I’d like to have a conversation with you all about this. I want to try to sort out some complex thoughts and feelings on this subject. In order to speak genuinely and stay within community guidelines, let’s use terms like "primary income earner" rather than "provider husband", or "primary care provider" rather than "stay at home mother". There are important parts of the conversation in acknowledging the members of a marriage may have different roles, and we can include them respectfully if we are thoughtful here.
I have a lot of swirling thoughts on this. That’s when I know I should come to you all. So what are the reasons to get married? And conversely, what are the risks to taking the plunge? The nightmare of betrayal has upended my thoughts on this institution. I’d like to start building back up and would love your help in that work.
51 comments posted: Tuesday, May 6th, 2025
Update
What would have been my 20 year wedding anniversary came and went this week. I honestly didn’t even notice it was coming. Then I wake up to an expensive gift and a note from her. Weird.
I feel incredibly heavy, like so much of the best years of my life have gone to waste. That I invested into the marriage, hoping for future happiness, and all that came in the end is this heart ache and trauma.
The divorce proceeds slowly. That also weighs on me. This sucks.
27 comments posted: Saturday, April 19th, 2025
The Containment of Why
In the time since I’ve emotionally detached from my STBXW, I’ve found myself reprocessing many memories. 20 years: falling in love, kids, friends, joys, struggles. It’s as if I have to go back and revise her character in those times. Kind of like watching the Sixth Sense for the second time, it’s a completely different story once you know that one thing.
But it occurred to me that if she had been able to give me "why", the scope of this could possibly have been contained. Maybe just the A period could have been stained, or I could have had a more generous understanding of her struggles in adulthood.
But parting the way we did, it has left a wasteland of changed memories of the prime of my life. I guess add that to the injustices of it all.
I’m curious if others have had similar experiences and any insight on this process. Is it helpful? Or just inevitable?
31 comments posted: Tuesday, February 25th, 2025
The Timeless Drama
As I think about romantic relationships going forward, I have an idea in my head that has taken enough form that it isn’t going away and I’d really like this group’s feedback on it. It’s infidelity adjacent, but I think it’s relevant.
I am coming to believe that a necessary part of a healthy romantic relationship is the ability to step into (and out of) a certain role or archetype for a period of time. That in a friendship we primarily interact with each other from a place of our individuality. But within romance, there is a desire to be something more timeless. That I want to be a Man (capital M) meeting with a Woman. Maybe even The Man, meeting with The Woman. To enter that dance and tap into something primal. To enter that for times of enchanted moments, and then transition back to our individualities and interact as good friends. Think of the Garth Brooks song, She’s Every Woman.
I think infidelity can be a malignant form of this, people pretending and destroying loyalty and decency in the process. But this theatre can be done within relationship, it doesn’t have to be destructive or taboo.
Anyway, I would love to get feedback on this.
38 comments posted: Wednesday, February 19th, 2025
How to not get stuck
Happy New Year, SI.
Something hit my heart and mind the last couple days as I’ve been reading, posting, and thinking. Heartbreakingly, I’ve observed that some people get deeply stuck post betrayal. There is absolutely zero judgment for anyone in that statement, my heart breaks for anyone who would see themselves in that and I want better for you. I personally developed a significant fear of getting stuck by reading here at SI, and that fear was actually quite helpful to me in facing my fears of divorce and abandonment. In my opinion, getting stuck in the turmoil of betrayal for the long term is the worst possible outcome.
I don’t feel stuck. I hesitate to say it, but I dare to even say that I feel pretty deeply healed. Again, this is not a brag or a judgment against anyone else, it’s merely a self observation and it’s something that I want for everyone. To heal, to move on, to stop being tormented by the A. I am so so so grateful to this community for the enormous role it played in my journey here.
I have thoughts about what the key ingredients were to my healing. But I believe that even I don’t perfectly understand my own story. As Brené Brown says, I have the story I tell myself. And with the goal of helping "unstuck" even one soul, I want to share that.
But even more importantly, I’d like to invite everyone here to either
1) tell the story you tell yourself of what allowed you to move forward and heal
Or
2) what do you think is keeping you stuck and what might you be able to do to take a step toward healing and joy?
The story I tell myself about my own healing is that I faced all my fears and voiced even the scariest emotions and thoughts. It took time, many of you watched it happen in real time. There were words and thoughts that were too terrifying to acknowledge for a while. I wanted my family to survive. I loved my wife and clung to the plans and dreams I had with her. I wanted to protect my children. But those good desires also acted as motives to suppress the plain agonizing realities of the betrayal. And I was fucking good at it. But over time, I stopped. I surrendered the outcome of the marriage and refused to compromise on my own healing. I don’t think that had to mean divorce. My STBXW’s ongoing behaviors forced D once I stood my ground. But as I understand my own story, I had to prioritize myself above the marriage in order to heal.
29 comments posted: Friday, January 3rd, 2025
It’s Happening
Had our first official court appearance today. I’m feeling really hopeful that the process of getting divorced is not going to be as hellish as it could be. I feel light, hopeful. There are still things to be settled, but it’s happening, as it needs to.
16 comments posted: Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024
Relationship “Needs”
What do we mean when we talk about needs within a relationship?
I think that it’s very possible that the use of the word "needs" drives certain entitlements in people’s thinking.
For example, humans need food. If a person is starving, most people are rather understanding of them choosing to steal food for themselves and their children rather than die.
So what happens in our thinking when we apply that same word to things with different significance? Do we end up using the same rationale as above, hence the "unmet needs" rationale for adultery?
Sex is such an interesting example to me. It’s commonly referred to as a need. It does clearly have a biological drive component to it. And no one is going to die from sex depravation.
It seems to me like the use of the word "Needs" for things that we want from our relationship partner creates all kinds of opportunities for thought distortions and resentment and entitlement. Even if we simply called them "desires" or "wants", it would sound very different for someone to justify cheating, or even their own unhappiness, because of "unsatisfied desires".
So what do we really mean with this word "needs" when we are talking about relationships?
**Just want to be super clear, this is not intended as a shot at MB coming out of another thread, just a continuation of an idea sparked from that discussion.
37 comments posted: Wednesday, October 30th, 2024
Counter-intuitive Relationship Wisdom
I was just thinking about stuff and things, and I’m also hoping to have some positive interactions with some people I care about with whom the most recent interactions were terse, so here goes:
What is something that you’ve learned about relationships that you found counter-intuitive when you learned it?
For me, two things come to mind, both from Gottman. The first is that complaining is good and vital for a healthy relationship. We don’t want to be whinny and dour, but we do need to voice our concerns with our partner and make productive complaints to them when they hurt or bother us. Complaining has such a negative context that I always assumed it was best to mostly avoid complaining. But that is the path to distance and resentments.
Second, an add on to the first, is that within a relationship there will be unresolvable issues, but even with those unresolvable problems, we should still talk about them. It seemed to me that we should just suck it up and accept our fate, but again that is just a path to emotional repression and resentment. But even if we are certain that our complaint isn’t going to result in change, Gottman says that we should voice that complaint none the less.
So what have you learned about relationships that isn’t just "common sense"?
71 comments posted: Monday, September 9th, 2024
Arm’s off
We told them. They weren’t shocked, it was a much lighter mood than last year when we separated. My second seemed pretty impacted, he’s taken a walk to talk with a friend. I’m stunned, somewhat relieved. The arm is off, it’s time to apply the tourniquet and hike out to safety.
78 comments posted: Wednesday, June 26th, 2024
Nice Philosophical Thread
Feels like it’s time to post an update. Things are both interesting and quiet on the home front. For the most part, we’re pretty hard 180. We actually had a day last week where I softened and it looked like maybe we’d put D on pause. But I made it clear in that that what she had done as my final straw (the mechanic asshat) could never happen again, and she dug her heals in. She claimed the right to make "affordable mistakes". I just walked away from her.
Well, turns out she had actually been in contact with asshat mechanic this whole time, all the while saying she still hoped to R and asking a mutual friend to advocate on her behalf with me. For some reason my wife confided this in the friend, and the friend (being compulsively honest) insisted my wife tell me. Wife argued, blustered, all that bullshit we all know and love, and then cut off this friend when she held her ground. So my wife told me about this, referred to it as being "more familiar than I would want to as a married woman". Translation, probably tiddy pics. 
I honestly have no evidence of the content, but it doesn’t matter, just one more piece of confirmation of who she is.
The truly informative part to me is it didn’t hurt me at all. No trigger, no emotional funk. It felt like vindication, like my mental model of her is now accurate because I predicted this, which is why I initiated divorce. My heart is truly dead to her.
We’re sharing the house. I really enjoy it when she’s gone, feel mild anxiety when she’s around. We still haven’t told the kids yet, for various reasons, but it will come soon. I think a benefit of this time will be that I will be able to control my emotions when we tell them and be present for them. But I know they must be confused and they need to be told soon.
So that is my life. No grand puzzles to figure out, it’s kind of peaceful actually. Thanks to all of you who have helped me along my journey to get to this point.
Being Father’s Day weekend:
Shout out to all the father’s out here. Even though we all have less than ideal home lives based off the club we are in, we are still crucial to our children’s lives.
171 comments posted: Wednesday, June 19th, 2024
How do you ever trust again?
The person that I loved like my own body, my person, betrayed me, deceived me, wrecked me in ways I could have never imagined before living it. I’m watching her fade in the rear view mirror of my life, so there are no new wounds being inflicted. But fuck I’m a beat down version of myself.
How does trust regrow in such scorched earth? I fear becoming so jaded and closed so as to never give a new person a chance. I know it’s all still fresh and I need time. But I’d like to hear from you all what it looked like to come back to trust enough to love well again.
71 comments posted: Wednesday, May 15th, 2024
I’m getting divorced
Title says it all. Please pray for me, her, our kids, and sanity to prevail.
235 comments posted: Thursday, March 28th, 2024
I needed to believe….
Denial, it’s some powerful shit. My brain is catching up with reality with the speed of a movie buffering from the internet of the 90’s AOL (if you know, you know).
I needed to believe she didn’t mean to, but she did.
I needed to believe that she was tricked, but she wasn’t.
I needed to believe that our life was salvageable, but it isn’t.
I needed to believe that the abuse post D-day was temporary and excusable, but it’s not.
I needed to believe that I need her, but I don’t.
I needed to believe. I don’t tonight.
202 comments posted: Sunday, March 24th, 2024
What is marriage?
I feel lost in this question of what is a marriage. On the one hand, it is a relationship that is supposed to bring about a net positive in a person’s life. Love, sex, friendship, these are elements that should characterize this relationship. And if the relationship doesn’t have these key elements, there are lots of fish in the sea, right?
But then marriage is also an institution. I come at this from a religious background and that carries a lot of weight for me, but I perceive that almost everyone would agree that marriage carries a weight beyond a relationship at the second date stage. We plan our futures together. We have children. We are legally entitled to each other’s money.
So what is this thing we call marriage? Is it an unnecessary label to a love relationship? Is it a stabilizing foundation for when love wavers? Is it a chain that makes people comfortable staying in their flaws because they have the security of vows? What is it when it’s been broken and violated?
I’m struggling with this right now. I’m struggling with how much I get to demand and when. I’d love to hear your thoughts, SI.
390 comments posted: Friday, March 8th, 2024
Why did no one help us?
It’s been clear that my wife is avoidant for a long time, though I didn’t know the word for it. She shut down in arguments. She stonewalled like crazy, I felt the resentments buried in there. She refused to communicate, and it drove me crazy. I’ve been saying to myself and to her and to others close to me that "not communicating is NOT a communication style". I talked to friends close to both of us. I reached out to her father multiple times (he had promised to be there for us if we struggled in our relationship). We’ve done rounds of MC over the years.
And I’m not trying to say I’m perfect and didn’t have things to work on, but reading SI and Gottman and understanding the profile of a cheater, I was sitting on a time bomb the whole time, I was crying out for help, and no body heard and no body came. It feels disheartening when I think about it that way, like there is this epidemic out there that humanity is blind to until the full carnage is made plain. Anyone else had this experience?
48 comments posted: Friday, March 1st, 2024
Which is worse?
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.
9 comments posted: Friday, January 26th, 2024
Big moments
I’ve just had two really big moments with my wife in the last 24 hours and I wanted to share them here. First, MC session yesterday, my wife talked about her guardedness and lack of trust for me was largely rooted in her lack of valuing herself. That she needed to learn to trust herself to advocate for herself and keep herself safe before she could truly trust anyone else. That felt enormous to me, that it spoke to a feeling I’ve had that nothing I ever did was good enough to build lasting trust with her.
Even more significant though was just this morning she told me that she had had a memory triggered of the A when we drove past a park a couple days ago. She had been wrestling with how to disclose it, and she even lied in MC as I asked if there was any more info to disclose. But this morning she quickly corrected the record and told me about this meeting. As much as it was not fun to hear about new info, this just proved to me that she will in fact be honest with me as these memories come up. She was terrified, she thought I might end it over this. She told me anyway. It felt highly trust building, it feels like an enormous landmark to me in the R journey. Just wanted to share, feeling really encouraged this morning.
70 comments posted: Thursday, December 7th, 2023
Disgusting affair anthems
I found out today a song that my wife shared with OM during the affair, and it’s kicking my ass today. Seniorita, by Shawn Mendes. And his match to the sleaze of it was Follow Me by Uncle Kracker. Both just revolting, it’s like they were proud and celebrating their debauchery.
I think I’m in a curious and pain shopping mood. Anyone care to share songs from their partner’s affair that drove the knife in deeper?
163 comments posted: Saturday, December 2nd, 2023
Prayers for the brokenhearted
I know holidays like this can be triggers for some, or grief soaked days that remind us of what could have been. I’m praying that God will comfort the broken and hurting among us, that we’d have a day of peace and respite.
10 comments posted: Thursday, November 23rd, 2023
How to make amends?
What has it looked like for a former wayward to make meaningful amends for their infidelity? Is it just becoming a safe partner? Cause that doesn’t really seem to have a "compensating" kind of element to it, it’s just doing what they should have done anyway. Does amends even apply in R from infidelity?
21 comments posted: Friday, October 20th, 2023
The Turing Test
This is intended to be a continuity to the conversation about how real an affair relationship is. But I think it warrants its own thread, so I’m breaking it off.
So we keep talking about whether the feelings and the relationship in an A can even be compared in the same universe as a real, genuine, out in the open love relationship. I like to take things to their logical extremes and see what happens. Let’s imagine that the AP doesn’t actually exist. Tanner talks about one of his wife’s AP’s was a catfish made up Internet personality. If it hasn’t happened yet, the day will almost certainly come when a JFO thread is going to be "my husband ran off with a chat bot" or something like that, I mean people in Japan are marrying anime characters, the world is so weird. So imagine that you find out your spouse is having a hot and heavy online affair, and the other side just so happens to be ChatGPT trained on OnlyFans. But your partner doesn’t know that. This is where the title comes in. The Turing test refers to a test for how to tell if artificial intelligence is actually sentient, that a human should interact with it and be unable to tell that it is a machine. So if my spouse falls in love with a computer thinking it’s a person, I say the betrayal is just as real. The feelings are there. The pictures have been exchanged. The plane ticket for half way around the world is in hand. What’s the difference? So it seems to me then that the AP is not special, but the feelings in the WS are real and they matter immensely.
This one should be interesting.
256 comments posted: Sunday, October 15th, 2023
Poll Thread: Attachment Styles
What is your and your partner’s attachment style?
Me - BH - leans anxious, especially after the A
Her - WW - at least avoidant, I’d guess fearful avoidant.
I’d guess this has been done before, but I’m curious so please humor me.
8 comments posted: Monday, September 25th, 2023
So insanely complicated
Hey SI. So a lot has happened in the last couple months. I’m not going to go fully into it all in this intro, but I’ll say that I was really wrapping my head and heart around D during the separation, and in the last two weeks a surprise coming together has happened. It hasn’t been flawless, but my wife has seemed to turn a corner in the remorse area and has acknowledged her lack of honesty and committed to radical truth telling, even if she worries that it will jeopardize the relationship. So in SI speak, she has let go of the outcome. So I’ve been dipping my toe back in the R pool. She knows she owes me a full written timeline, I’ve stated with poly, and she needs to explain what happened with my DD. So there’s that.
But wait, there’s more.
I mentioned before that I had had a health scare during the A, and it just so happened to line up with an encounter where she sought him out, drove down to him, to have sex and try to rekindle a dying flame. Well, that health scare is back and it just feels like a crazy gut punch. I don’t know if I want her to help me thru this or if the diagnosis itself is a trigger and I just need to run away from all of this. I can’t tell what I want. But the instability of the marriage is keenly felt, that part about sickness and health would have been nice to have.
I’m not sure I have a question at the moment. I’m just kind of reeling and I miss you guys.
281 comments posted: Tuesday, August 22nd, 2023
Another one bites the dust
Hey all, new guy here. My wife dropped the bomb on me last night, told me that she’d had sex with a friend of hers a year ago. She says it was a one time event, but I’m wrecked. We’ve been married for 17 years, and we’ve had struggles, but it always seemed like they were the type of thing that we could work thru. Infidelity has always been close to an immediate deal breaker in my mind, relating to my father being a cheater and generally just the value I place on marriage. I’ve always wanted marriage to be a very close and intimate relationship and cheating would be (and now is) the ultimate betrayal of that. So I guess now I find myself in a situation testing "ideals" that I never thought I would have to. I don’t know what to do. I’ve read this forum for a while. I found it based off some retroactive jealousy concerns, but strangely enough the timing lines up closely to when she slept with him. Maybe I intuited something was off.
What do people do practically? It seems like in the short term I have no real choice but to share a roof with her. I could bum a bed off friends and family for a while, but that would get old pretty quick, it seems.
Like I said, I’ve read a decent number of stories here. I’m dreading being one, but I do admire this community. Glad its here, sad to be here.
229 comments posted: Friday, July 22nd, 2022
