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It’s deep into almost year 2 of A season post dday 2. This time two years ago was basically the crescendo, where all of the vitriol and horrible comments came out. While I don’t condone in the least the affair at all, I at least understand the lying/gaslighting. It was all awful, but I understand the logic (as best as I can and logic is used lose here). What I don’t understand is why she had to be so damn mean.

I don’t understand why I was the asshole and he was the hero, and why I had to be attacked repeatedly. That is some of the most damage done to our marriage, not only did she betray me by the A, but she went out of her way to hurt me, and that I was a monster for getting in between her "friendship". Small context here, dday 1 was me discovering very inappropriate texts though not sexual, and the story was they got to close, but they were wrong and it won’t happen again. So it was 6
months of me getting more and more confused/upset/angry because she insisted on keeping him as a "friend". Of course it was all lies. I’m just really struggling with how cruel she was, going out of her way to blame me, to attack. Saying things like "he is only a friend, a great friend who was there for me when you weren’t." That was post dday 1.

Just had to vent. I’m not really sure if I’m looking for an answer here, I know my worth and that this is all affair crap and all on her.

Sorry man. No answers, just a listening ear.

I was reminded of how addictive affairs are from reading your post.

An alcoholic, when intoxicated, will often feel a sense of grandiosity and entitlement, as if they are better than everybody else. They feel as if they can do no wrong, and it is everybody else who is at fault.

This idea that it’s "everybody else" is also why alcoholics deny that they have an addiction. They cannot look at themselves as the problem, because often they are still trying to run from whatever is causing them pain. If called out, they will insist that they don’t have a problem, because acknowledging this root issue is too scary, shameful, painful, or overwhelming.

The easier route is to make other people responsible for their moods and overall emotional well-being.

They will often blame innocent bystanders for provoking them to anger and meltdown into fits of rage over the smallest things because they demand that everything be their way. Alcoholics do this because they are trying to self-regulate by controlling their external world to make up for their internal turmoil.

Understanding alcoholic abuse is a vital part of answering the question, "why are alcoholics so mean to the ones they love."

This is from an online article about alcoholism and anger. I think the "grandiosity" is spot on with affairs, and everyone can become a target, especially if those people try to interfere with the addictive grandiosity the WS is getting from the cheating. Not saying the abuse is acceptable or should be explained away. Definitely not. But challenging or stopping someone who needs this grandiosity--whether from cheating, drinking, drugging, gambling, spending, starving, purging, cutting, or culting--often produces hostile and abusive behavior. My WH was like a wild animal when I told him I was leaving him. It was the first time he had suffered any real consequences for his behavior, and he became enraged.

Divorce is your friend.

Because some people can never be the bad guy. They have to blame somebody else. It helps them justify their actions.

Doesn't mean it is true. It just helps them to rationalize their poor behavior.

Right, people can never be the bad guy and they have these thoughts in their head that they have used to rationalize their behavior. To them, these things are not cruel because they're just speaking aloud the reality that they've created for themselves.

That was what shocked me about some of the things my WW said after Dday - that she was just so "matter of fact" about it.

What is her answer to this question?

I don’t understand why I was the asshole and he was the hero, and why I had to be attacked repeatedly… I’m just really struggling with how cruel she was…

If you weren’t the asshole, then the world would have made no sense to her. You were required to be the asshole. It’s how the script was written in her narrative.

The pain comes from the fact that we use the people around us to help define who we are, especially our spouses. If you can detach from that and just really look at her behavior, then it can make sense. It makes ugly sense, but it makes sense. It wasn’t about you, you just had a role to play in order for her world to make sense, to be rational. You were collateral damage.

It’s one of the weird things about reconciliation, the better your marriage is now, the greater the divide between how she treats you now and how she treated you then. The sheer span of that divide becomes a roadblock. You want to ask her, if you can be like this now, how could you have been like that back then? Until you can reframe it and understand, it wasn’t really about you, That you were required to be that way in order for her world to make sense, then it can possibly be insurmountable.

You know, about 14 years after the fact it is the cruel shit she said and did that still bleeds out sometimes where the lies and betrayals are scarred over. I asked her years ago about it. She said she was a selfish asshole with no excuse and is ashamed of being that person.

I don't think there's a simple explanation. Selfish asshole that needs to justify obviously bad choices by painting the situation a certain way seems to be the long and short of it.

Sorry man. Hope your day gets better.

I don't think there's a simple explanation.

I don’t think it is as complicated as we make it out to be.

Have you ever taken your feelings out on someone who had absolutely nothing to do with it? Come home from work and took it out on the family? Gone through the drive-through and been less than pleasant to the person at the window? Even though they had nothing to do with whatever is bothering you?

You’re a human, your spouse is a human. It’s a human thing, and it likely comes from the same place. The fact that one is orders of magnitude worse than the other doesn’t change that.

Eh. I get what you're saying but I don't think the kind of consistent, long term cruelty that involves a certain level of cognitive dissonance and self deception is the same as being an angry asshole because of a shitty day. Anger certainly plays a part but there's probably more going on there.

I think the response is certainly simple though. It is not to be tolerated, regardless of reasons.

He couldn’t be the romantic hero and she couldn’t be the damsel without casting you as the villain.

The only thing that’s changed since the affair ended is that you and AP have switched roles. She certainly still see herself as a tragic heroine.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 4:44 PM, Sunday, May 19th]

I think the idea that people look to blame someone else for their problems, and look to someone else to bring them happiness, is common. They are internally messed up, but look for external relief. It’s the spouse’s fault. The coworker will make it all better. If I shit on my cheating spouse, I will feel better. All those things are not unrelated, I think.

You (your relationship) had lost itself during her affair. I treat my wife like a girlfriend that I am in love with. I am very connected with her.
When a committed couple is going through an affair, that connection is missing. Marriage can result in one or both taking the other for granted, over built expectations, and hurt feelings. It’s time to treat your wife like a girlfriend.
If you have that love connection, is that good enough? Try it. You will not get your feelings as hurt over expectations. If that is not enough to give you both joy, then maybe think about getting a new girlfriend.
This may seem oversimplified but it works for me!

It’s time to treat your wife like a girlfriend.

Holy shit, the key to all of this! There you go HINHF, it seems like maybe she had some needs, and they went unmet by you. Shame on you.

My WW was unbelievably cruel to me during her affair. Even without knowing about the affair, I had every reason in the world to divorce her just for how she treated me. Everything she accused me of doing, every lie she alleged, every concealment she claimed I had done, every accusation she made toward me during the affair is PRECISELY what she was herself doing. She said I was hiding money from her. Nope, she was hiding money from me. She said I was having an affair. Nope, she was. She said I was ignoring her and playing on my phone whenever I was home. Nope, it was her with thousands of texts to him. Over and over, the accusations she made were, in turns out, projected confessions.

The way she tortured and neglected me simultaneously during her affair still hurts to think about. It was awful.

Long way to say: I hear you. I feel that. You are not alone.

Looking back I saw so many red flags and actually asked him if there was someone else and it was always "absolutely not".

I wouldn’t say my H was mean when the A was going on , he was just distant and unreachable to the kids and I.

After he was caught is when the meanness started to really come out. So much hatred and venom was spewed , it makes me sick thinking of it.

It got so bad I punched him

I’m like you , I question to so much, how could they be that mean but swear they love you more than heaven and earth.

I have to agree with most people here , it is all about them having to make us be the monster in their fantasy so they can keep it going. If they have to acknowledge anything good about us then the fantasy falls apart. Then they can’t keep getting whatever it is they are getting from their AP to fill the void they have inside.

I can sit here and type all of this but trust me when I say , I still don’t fucking get it.

[This message edited by Groot1988 at 12:51 AM, Monday, May 20th]

I wonder if these actions are intentional or do they come out of frantic desperation? Either way, they show an enormous amount of selfishness combined with deep resentment and rationalization. Plenty of people seem to have affairs without going the "extra mile" with this type of behavior.

BTB

For sure AP was the hero, and honestly, pre A I might have seen myself in this role as well. Post A, no, I’m not saving her anymore. During my horrendous pick me dance time where i was in a "competition" (just gross looking back on it, I’ll never allow myself to do that again) I embarrassingly tried that even harder. Never again.

It kills me because she even admits that she probably doesn’t have it to be able to be alone. I know while it will hurt, I will be just fine without.

StillGoing, WiseOld, Groot,

I’m sorry as well. I take a small comfort in that jr seems to be a universal experience with Affairs. It’s all a bunch of crap, but dose seem to be something that a lot of cheating spouses do.

Owning It,

That is an interesting idea, and for sure there are a lot of similarities between alcoholics and affairs. I knew a lot of drug addicted people growing up, but I never tried to intervene or anything like that. But looking back, there are some serious parallels between their behavior and my Ws during the A.