Interpretation of MWD and DR regarding infidelity

[zig]

aah so you were reacting to my SHEESH assuming it was directed at you?

it was not directed at you at all! it was a reaction to the back and forthing on the thread over what was considered snooping or spying.


but many questions were directed at you later, and so i look forward to your answers and yes they would be enormously helpful

incidentally as an aside - are you guys saying that if you had the opportunity to get the inside scoop on what was really really going on with your spouses, you would just refuse to hear about it? that's not a question directed only to you starsky, but to everyone

stay well

zig

[Starsky309]

(I imagine it wasn't as easy as you make it sound....)

There was NOTHING even remotely easy about it! It was the hardest damned thing I ever had to do in my life, and without the power of prayer and my faith, and the help of friends and family (and some awesome DB'ers) I never would have prevailed.

SIMPLE, yes. EASY . . . no way.


Starsky

[Starsky309]

incidentally as an aside - are you guys saying that if you had the opportunity to get the inside scoop on what was really really going on with your spouses, you would just refuse to hear about it? that's not a question directed only to you starsky, but to everyone

I would like to comment on it, however. It always amazes me that people will say:

1. Depending on what is really going on (for some, it's whether or not there's an affair at all; for others, it's maybe whether it's an EA or a PA; etc) . . . it's a dealbreaker.

2. Then they say they don't want to do what's necessary to find out what's really going on.


I guess "ignorance really IS bliss," as they say. Personally, I'd much rather determine the accurate TRUTH of the situation, and then deal with that accordingly.


Starsky

[Still learning]

.....obtaining certainty is like doing crack for those with a bit of fear and anxiety in their R, so yeah I'd listen in. But getting the certainty this way doesn't solve anything for very long. It hasn't given me general sense of safety and security in my R. I'm looking elsewhere for that.

[needgrace]

Great discussion..

detachment (the mighty struggle for me...)

I wonder if it comes down to actions, feelings, thoughts..

we detach as much as we can be taking specific actions.. GALing, moving forward with our lives, working on ourselves..

and by working on our thoughts... challenging and replacing unrealistic and unhelpful thinking (expectations, giving up our own power/victimhood, obsessing, believing we can not be happy without them, living in the moment, forgiveness, etc.)

but we have to wait for our feelings to catch up.. we can act detached and work on how we think about out sitch but for the feelings to change it takes time.

and i like zig's approach (with homage to pema of course) to be gentle with our feelings, to allow space for them and creating space around them for something else to form... and in so doing they pass through and lose their power over us.. bc often our frenzy and panic comes from not allowing those feelings, from being scared that we can survive them..

maybe that is why it is frustrating to hear sometimes that we need to detach.... it feels as if we don't control it.. and the truth is that we control parts of it but not all... we can control our actions and our thoughts, but the feelings which change as a result of the first two are not something we control...and they take time..

[greatwhitenorth]

I snooped, or verified, or looked for evidence or whatever you want to call it (focus on action, not label) four times in one day. That's it. It was the day my gut told me there was something going on. I knew H's password because he had told me, so was it really snooping or simply taking advantage of the transparency assumed/required in marriage? I trusted H completely and had never before looked at his email. Haven't since either.

When I confronted him later that day, the second or third thing I said to him was "change your password". I had no further need to look. Why torture myself by looking again and again at what I knew was going on?

He knew he was doing it. Homewrecker knew she was doing it. And then/now I knew they were doing it. Enough for me.

So now that H's affair was exposed he had a choice to make - he was either with me or not. He chose not, so I told him he could not live in our home. CHOP! Kind of like a guillotine, for good or for ill.

I have not once asked him or his D about the affair, and there is nobody else to ask. My holding line has always been, "as long as he's not with me it doesn't matter what he's doing." It's the layer of reason applied over the emotion that keeps me somewhat in check.

And I'm scared to know. Scared sh!tless to find out that they're doe eyed in love and skipping through a field of daisies together, hand in hand, with flutes and bluebirds singing in the background and all that crapola that I know ain't true.

So if I had the opportunity to get the inside scoop on what was really really going on with my spouse, would I just refuse to hear about it? Not sure. Would I seek the information out? No, because I'm not a masochist. Would I accept it if offered by a third party? Maybe, but I wouldn't give it any credence. Would I accept it from him? Probably, but with a vat of pain killers and bandages on the side because I'm sure that whatever he had to say would hurt like an S.O.B. Once burned, twice shy you might say.

[Starsky309]

OMG. I just spent 45 minutes on a post to zig, and lost the entire thing. I'm going to cry!!!

[ericmsant2]

Zig ….you asked…

are you guys saying that if you had the opportunity to get the inside scoop on what was really really going on with your spouses, you would just refuse to hear about it? that's not a question directed only to you starsky, but to everyone

This question is posed, at least my interpretation, which could be wrong – as a Yes or No answer and I do not believe that exposure is a yes or no answer. Way too many variable to factor in and as each sitch is different and each person is different a “what works for you is the best answer”.

That said, here are my thoughts….

IF the LBS can handle it and not go off the F’ing deep end, which provide the WAS with additional “reasons”, then I think knowing is a good thing. You would at least know what you are faced with and can respond accordingly i.e. tailor your DB approach.

IF the LBS cannot handle it then I think it may have a negative effect on both the LBS and the WAS. I have seen LBS pass out, become suicidal, etc. which IMO, may have been avoided IF they focused on themselves, faced the fear that they had and THEN found out.


As for me personally, I snooped found out and was NOT at a place where I could have handled it – If I would do it all over again, I would focused more on ME, MY issue AND THEN snooped and taken the appropriate action i.e. hard boundaries, etc.

The notion of “finding out” is a very delicate topic….it’s weird it is almost a chicken or the egg scenario. I needed to grow a set before I confronted; however, confronting help me (in a small way) grow a set. Make sense?

[~ kd ~]

OMG. I just spent 45 minutes on a post to zig, and lost the entire thing. I'm going to cry!!!

*bite lip, say nothing, bite lip, say nothing, bite lip, say nothing,*

[Accuray]

I snooped and found a treasure trove because W did a poor job of covering her tracks. About all I missed was FB correspondence because OM had blocked her at that point and that deletes all your messages.

All the detail made me feel like total crap for a LONG time. My imagination filled in the worst possible interpretation of everything and I would fixate on it. You can't know everything, so all you'll get is bits and pieces, and for me, anyway, filling in the gaps was horrible and probably usually was overstated.

The weird thing is that I kept everything I found, and for the next 8 months would periodically pull it all out again and read it again. I wish I knew what drove me to do that, because it was literally like slamming your hand in a door every so often. What is the attraction to pursue that pain? That's something I haven't figured out about myself.

In any case, getting details can be torture.

My sister cheated on and divorced her husband, and he never asked any questions or snooped, he just accepted that his marriage was over and quietly moved on. I couldn't understand that at all at the time, but there's certainly bliss to be had in ignorance.

Accuray