SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

How people can see so much and perceive so little.

It's the Dunning-Krueger Effect.

"One of the great challenges in this world is knowing enough about a subject to think you're right, but not enough about the subject to know you're wrong."

- Neil DeGrasse Tyson

[This message edited by Unhinged at 9:45 PM, Thursday, August 27th]

InkHulk, post #77:

It’s love. We love them. I loved her. I had 20 years of love. It wasn’t immediately obliterated. The great stories of the world are written about this insanely strong force that drives people to do the near impossible. Do you seriously not know that?

I think this needs to be challenged. Did the WS really love the betrayed partner though? They ran into the arms of another person and lived a double life behind the BS's back. That's not my definition of love.

ETA: Challenged on whether this should be considered a virtue or not.

I'd even go so far to say that if someone views that as love, they need to be harshly disabused of that notion.

And in your particular instance, @InkHulk, your XWW's actions may very well have put you and your family in PHYSICAL DANGER. You're a high income-earner (if I am recalling correctly that is) whereas your WW's AP POSOM was a real sleazebag--above and beyond having an affair with your XWW and on his own family that is. There is no telling of the lows they would have stooped to, the access your XWW would have granted to POSOM. Definitely not love as far as I am concerned, and I was actually in the wrong for not bringing this up on your threads.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 4:32 AM, Friday, August 28th]

I think this needs to be challenged. Did the WS really love the betrayed partner though? They ran into the arms of another person and lived a double life behind the BS's back. That's not my definition of love.

Inkhulk never mentioned his WS love in that post. It was his love for who he thought she was that kept him trying until she proved to him that the woman he loved never really existed. Love like that doesn't fade quickly for most.

I don’t know that my journey will end up in a romance novel anytime soon.

R is emotionally uphill both ways, it is a long, uneven path for the first several years.

I don’t think healing is especially romantic in and of itself either.

There was something unique about the moment where I had given up, and informed my wife that the pain of it all was just going to be too much. The farewell we had that day was both of us being okay with moving on. Maybe it was letting go of the outcome, letting go of the old M, I don’t know if I can define why we each of us kept reaching out to each other anyway. We kept being kind anyway. We kept talking about the kids, life and whatever else.

Maybe a spark of romance there that day kept us in this thing.

But again, there was still a ton of work we had to do.

Is it a romantic notion to give someone a last chance — who wasn’t expecting it?

I suppose it depends on the person being given the last chance.

As WWTL reminded me, no one is owed a final chance, and as Unhinged often said, infidelity is always a deal breaker.

I agree with those two sayings.

It is what we want and ask for in whatever deal we make to go forward is the start of R.

R isn’t enabling someone to continue to hurt or lie to you, it isn’t settling for less — to me, R is asking for more than ever (and if the M continues, it includes asking more of yourself as well).

I can say that ten years later, I think we found a way to always be who we were that day we thought it was over.

When I looked over my family, all together over the holidays last winter, I was really glad I found a way.

And these days, we got the romance stuff down.

I wouldn’t romanticize the concept of R — it is very hard work.

I’ll always understand why people walk away, and I can also understand the people who didn’t (as long as they built a relationship worthy of their time).

[This message edited by Oldwounds at 10:43 PM, Thursday, August 27th]

WBFA, you completely missed my point. Grubs, dead on.

I. Loved. Her.

I continued to love her after I found out about the affair.

It had to be ground out of me, with pain and time.

You don’t get talked out of love by Internet forums.

And yes, from where I stand now, uncoupled from the love bond, I can see that there are other options. But love by its very nature does not consider the beloved interchangeable.

Give people time. Let them find their path. Again, I just can’t believe that needs to be seriously debated.

@Inkhulk

I understand where you’re coming from, but this doesn't quite address the point I made.

And yes, from where I stand now, uncoupled from the love bond, I can see that there are other options. But love by its very nature does not consider the beloved interchangeable.

Unless you're implying I don't genuinely love my partner, I’ll restate my position: I love her deeply, but if she were to betray me, I am fully confident I could eventually find another partner to love—someone who might even be more aligned with my core beliefs and principles. I think this of the vast majority of people who go through infidelity.

You don’t get talked out of love by Internet forums.

I accept that love can blind some people to alternative possibilities, especially if they’ve only ever experienced love once. Teen sweethearts all the way through, type situations. But that isn't universal. Why shouldn't we represent the perspective to users on this forum who don't fall into that camp?

Ok, we understand that stating you could love someone else as deeply may not have helped you. But I don't think that claim can be made universally. I actually can imagine it would give some users great hope and optimism.

For the record, I don't think I'm alone in this. If I recall correctly (in one of our long running debates), Hikingout also mentioned that—since she doesn't believe in fate or single soulmates—she logically accepts she could have found a different partner to love just as deeply. I actually think it was her who put forth the shared history argument to me when I was looking to understand, none practical benefits to reconcilation. Which I think is powerful and fully accept. I actually think it was the only compelling none practical argument for why someone who doesn't believe in soul mates or have other religious beliefs to reconcile.

So now we have discussed this further, what do you think of my perception now? Do you still think I'm ignorant and trivialising things? FWIW I'm re-read this exchange several times and don't think I've said anything to warrant those claims.

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 12:32 PM, Friday, August 28th]

If your experience was that from day one that you were prepared to drop your wife (girlfiend? I don’t really know your story) then it’s nothing I can relate to. And I’ve not once come across a newly betrayed on these forums who talks like that.

I suspect that it would be different for me if it were to happen again, that the lessons of self respect and reliance would kick in and soften the blow. But I cannot imagine a world where I am immediately and definitively emotionally decoupled from the woman I love. My heart doesn’t move anywhere close to that fast. No-one I’ve interacted with here or in real life has that little emotional inertia.

Your comments about it only being about shared memories is trivializing, IMO. Even if you want to throw out long standing love as a consideration, there are enormous stakes in the balance with children, family, money, mental and physical health. Dreams die. New ones can replace them, but people still need time to grieve. This is such an emotional undertaking. I think you want to bring rationality to help people thru it, and that is admirable. But to say to a grieving mother who lost a child that she can have another is monsterous while she is in her grief, even if it is true.