SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I've been thinking about a topic that seems to divide people in a very fundamental way: the role of affair details in the reconciliation process. Is it all about the mindset of the betrayed partner and the subsequent actions of the wayward spouse, or are there some details that are simply too damaging to overcome?

For many, reconciliation is about moving forward past mistakes. If the wayward partner demonstrates genuine effort to grow and never repeat their actions, that's enough to begin healing. However, there's another perspective that holds that certain details of an affair would make moving forward impossible, regardless of the wayward spouse's remorse or post-discovery actions.

I'm curious to hear from those who have successfully reconciled: are there any specific details of the affair that you feel would have made it impossible to move forward?

For example:

Specific Sexual Acts: What if the wayward spouse engaged in sexual acts with the affair partner that were always denied to you?

Identity of the Affair Partner: Would it be a deal-breaker if the affair was with a close friend or even a relative?

The Setting of the Betrayal: Would a betrayal that was conducted in your own home be too much to overcome?

The Nature of the Betrayal: What about instances where the wayward partner seemed to fetishize the betrayal or enjoyed the deception itself?

The Affair's Modality: Did you reconcile because the affair was "emotional only" or "physical only," and would the reverse have been a deal-breaker?

Length of the Betrayal: Many seem to find it easier to reconcile after one night stands or short term flings where it appears longer term betrayal seem to harder to forgive.

I've seen many accounts where the details seemed overwhelming, yet the couple reconciled. My question is: for those who made it work, were there any specific details—any lines that, if crossed—would have made reconciliation impossible for you, irrespective of your partner's actions afterward? If so, what distinguished these lines from the ones you were ultimately able to move past?

It's difficult to believe that the specific details of a betrayal don't matter, whilst of course noting these specifics differ person to person. It is reasonable to ask if someone could realistically overcome a long-term, emotional, and physical affair with a partner's sibling that was conducted within their own home, especially if the wayward spouse also fetishized the betrayal and performed sexual acts with the affair partner that were denied to the betrayed spouse.

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 12:27 PM, Thursday, August 21st]

A very interesting post.

I too have often wondered about this.

For me, I think that an alcholol fueled ONS would be forgiveable if true remorse, etc. were demonstrated.

Also, for me, I think that if young children were involved I would at least attempt to reconcile if my partner showed true remorse.

The other situations mentioned above would demonstrate a Disrespect and Betrayal too great to even attempt reconciliation.

A practicing psychologist who has videos on Youtube says that when the betrayal happens the betraying cheater has mentally already left the relationship and has little to no value or respect for the relationship or their partner.

From what I have seen over the last 8 decades I have to wholeheartedly agree with her. Personally I would not want to be in a relationship of that sort.

Just my opinion.

[This message edited by lrpprl at 4:03 PM, Thursday, August 21st]

An interesting but potential difficult post for some. Some of the things you list people are already trying to overcome. I think everyone will have their own ideas and it's easy for me, now knowing what my husbands infedelity contained, to say for example bringing her to my home would have been a deal breaker, the reality is I truly believed any infedelity was a deal breaker until I was faced with it. I think what is more important is how the unfaithful spouse/partner reacts once the affair is exposed and their actions from that moment on.

Drowning has this right.

I think most of the betrayed on this site would have said, before they were betrayed, that any infidelity would be a deal breaker.

But for many, turns out it wasn’t a deal breaker.

Now you’re asking these same people what would be a deal breaker.

They don’t know until they’re actually confronted with it.

Any of those things might be a deal breaker for some, and not for others.

But I don’t think any of us can successfully speculate about how we might or might not react.

I can check all of the blocks.

Affair started in my home, first sexual encounter happened on my bed, and involved acts WW told me she didn’t like. AP was around my kids, constantly. Also AP also verbally abused and hit one of kids because my son pretty much discovered the A. WW lied to me post dday2 for 2 years about ending the A. I can go on and on. Think of a fucked up situation and I’m pretty sure I can say yup. Kicked out of the house because i told her it felt like she had a boyfriend (this was before I found out about everything), but really it was because she didn’t want me around so her and AP could have dinner with her parents and my kids and she wanted to see him, not me-to add insult I had only been home 3 months from a long deployment at that time.

Anyway- I don’t know if what I’m doing now is R or not, I’m not really worried about labeling it. Nor am I worried about forgiving her. For myself and my peace I’m working on forgiveness of the actual A, but I am not going to ever forgive some very specific events that happened during, because it’s not possible. I’m accepting that it happened. I have to take this a little deep, but as I’ve been working through it in therapy, I don’t forgive the people involved in my CSA, but I accept that it happened. Not at all comparing the two, but the path of working through it has been very similar.

It has worked for me and I find myself in a much better place now.

@Formerpeopleperson

That's an entirely fair perspective. I could be wrong in my assumption, but I would have thought everyone would have a definitive line in the sand. Though, naturally would presume that would differ person to person.

For example, it's hard to imagine anyone realistically overcoming their partner having a long-term, graphic sexual affair with their parent. My belief is that everyone has a line. Perhaps this is not the case. While I understand many people say that cheating was a deal-breaker until it happened to them, I often wonder how true that statement really is. Is it not that most people simply haven't deeply considered what they would do in that situation? Maybe they have a passing thought, "cheating is a deal-breaker," as a knee-jerk, surface-level response. I often wonder how many of those people, after deeply ruminating on the topic of betrayal, truly changed their mind when it happened.

Asking this question here seems to be the perfect audience to do so. We have all faced infidelity. I presume we have now all deeply ruminated on the subject matter. Surely now, we are all best equipped to answer this question.

I'll use an example to illustrate my point. I might say in passing, "I would never stay friends with a murderer." However, if I've never deeply considered the situation—for instance, if my sister killed her abusive husband—then do I really believe that, or did I just say it? In that specific context, with all the nuances and details, my initial passing comment was never the truth to begin with.

I guess that's an opinion I can never prove; it's just my gut instinct on the topic. I personally don't believe you have to have experienced every conceivable action in life to have a reasonable grasp of how you would react to any situation. Our core values and beliefs, when truly examined, can guide us to a reasonable conclusion without needing to have lived through the exact scenario.

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 3:32 PM, Thursday, August 21st]

It’s totally individually based IMHO.

Quite a few years ago we had a female poster who was livid because her husband had cheated at a bar. He pat the behind of a passing woman. That’s it. No response, no connection to the random woman. For her that was enough, and she was adamant that she was divorcing. For the couple of months, she was on this site she was consistently working towards that divorce because of his infidelity.
Then we have posters here who have reconciled from multiple affair partners. Including some I KNOW have a good marriage.

There are lots of scenarios in life where we have a predetermined line about what’s acceptable. When push comes to shove, that line might move a bit.

@Bigger

Quite a few years ago we had a female poster who was livid because her husband had cheated at a bar. He pat the behind of a passing woman. That’s it. No response, no connection to the random woman. For her that was enough, and she was adamant that she was divorcing. For the couple of months, she was on this site she was consistently working towards that divorce because of his infidelity.

Then we have posters here who have reconciled from multiple affair partners. Including some I KNOW have a good marriage.

I am aware that a person's individual character and traits are the biggest determining factors in whether they are open to reconciliation; in fact, I had a rather long discussion on that very topic here once. I was trying to determine which traits in a person made them more likely to lean one way or another. Quite a interesting debate developed.

However, my question here is a little different. I'm asking specifically to those who were capable of reconciliation: what detail or act would have been a bridge too far for you? What is it about that specific detail that makes it unforgivable to them where the other details were not.

I hope I'm pitching this right; does that make sense?

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 3:50 PM, Thursday, August 21st]

For starters, replace the word mistake with choice. An affair is not a mistake, it's a conscious choice to possibly destroy a relationship for purely selfish reasons.

Personally I will not waste a moment of time trying to reconcile from a sexual affair. I would forever wonder if she made the same sounds, said the same words, if the sex was better with to him, etc. My wife was sexting with a married coworker and that was enough for me to ask her to pack a suitcase and leave.

If she told another guy she loved him I would just walk away.

This is an interesting post. Ive thought long and hard about this issue when I was early in my reconciliation.

My wife’s affair was entirely physical. I know for some people this would make it tougher but for me this made it easier to reconcile (my desire) without any emotional connection between them. I was also already aware prior to her affair that she was unhappy with our sex life.

To compound things I inadvertently became aware of explicit sexual details of her affair. Many of these details are things that a wandering wife would never allow her husband to know if she wanted to reconcile, which she did. Essentially imagine the worst case scenario in terms of permitted acts, her levels of enthusiasm, his success satisfying her and, of course physical comparisons about things that I was already deeply insecure about.

Previously I would have thought any infidelity to be a deal breaker. To also be aware of all these devastating details would have finished almost any relationship. Reflecting back Im shocked that I didn’t immediately throw up my hands and leave the marriage. This would have been my advice to any friend in this situation but I did the opposite. I buckled down and worked hard to reconcile, which over time was successful.

I would never suggest it wasn’t difficult, the mind movies still effect today me but for our family and my continued feeling toward her it was worth it.

** member to member **

Is it all about the mindset of the betrayed partner and the subsequent actions of the wayward spouse, or are there some details that are simply too damaging to overcome?

I think you need to add a lot more alternatives in their to make this a useful question.

Some people D after infidelity because of the infidelity (though I think it's much more than that for many BSes who choose R). In any case, it's clear that some people are unwilling and/or unable to to R, and it's clear that some people R, some happily, some not so much.

I'm pretty sure, however, that SI (and the many other sources available for research) does not provide enough data to support much in the way of conclusions.

IMO, anyone who decides to stay or go based on a pre-infidelity guess about their response may be doing themselves a major disservice. Moltke, mediated by Tyson, said, 'Everybody has plans until they get hit for the first time.'

Infidelity was NOT an automatic deal-breaker for W and me, but I surely did not let that bind me on or after d-day. Our MC put the probabilities of D & R at 50-50 on d-day.

As others have written, I don't know what my line in the sand would have been. I don't think anyone knows what their line really is until it's tested. W tested mine; she didn't cross it to the extent of ending our M ... except that we changed our M, so maybe she did kill our M ... or maybe I did, or maybe both of us did ... you have to have a mind for metaphor to understand, and you need to accept that metaphor trumps logic.

I know you think you have a line. You haven't told us how it was tested.

For many, reconciliation is about moving forward past mistakes.

I guess you could say that, but it's a very sloppy and vague way of describing recovering from being betrayed.

I don't see recovery in those terms, and I doubt that many who have R's do. I chose R because I thought we'd create a loving M that helped both of us live a life we wanted to live. We wrote off no 'mistake'; an A is not a mistake.

I had no interest in a marriage with a major characteristic of 'no more cheating'; that was way too low a requirement. Fortunately, it was way too low a bar for my W, too.

I also see 'moving past the A' as a major minimization. I think minimizing is the wrong approach to recovering from betrayal between adults. (That doesn't mean I think kids should minimize betrayals - it just means I don't want to spend energy thinking about betrayals between kids.) IMO, minimizing probably plays a part in the stories of most of the people who come here feeling awful long after learning of the A. (I don't blame them - many 'experts' then and now recommend rug-sweeping, which is maximum minimization.)