judging 'cheaters'

Wow! are we on the same wavelength today or what? All evening I have been thinking about the cheating. I feel many emotions. I feel guilty for lying to my H, mom, kids, friends, and many others. I feel guilty and shame for lying to mom to borrow $$ for trip to go see POA. Told her it was a business trip. Mostly I am feeling HUMILIATED that I, an educated, liberated, sexy, happily married woman with an ideal family could have fallen for someone that NOW appears so transparently to have seduced me with lies. He has NEVER been fit to wipe my shoes, but somehow I always believed he was just misunderstood and would NEVER deliberately hurt me. I could not have chosen a man less worthy of me if I had chosen a Taliban Terrorist!
I feel so pathetic that this loser could say the most ridiculous excuses and I would buy them because I wanted to believe the fantasy SOOO much. Childhood sweatheart returns to say how much he loves me and wants me and sweeps me off my feet! (o.k. he was married, ugly, bald, naive, a liar, cheat, married 4 times and SOOO sexually messed up) I STILL WANTED MY FANTASY!!(child self stomps foot!) And I fell for it more than once!
I had no sympathy for cheating women before. Now I am one of them. God Help me. Cheryl, forgive me. I never met you, but I am sorry for what I did to you(even though you may or may not know about it.) You are married to a jerk; a very uncaring and not nice man. I hope you wake up and get you and your son away from him. No one can be with this man. He is too damaged to relate to other humans feelings. He is an emotional vampire and preys on trusting, needy women. I feel dirty, cheap, and violated. I wish I could tell you the whole thing and help you to see him as he is. I want to yell "Run away! Don't stay for the kid, just kick his butt out. It's your house and you make more money than him anyway!" But that is more fantasy that I need to stop. Tonight I feel really humiliated.
I am a cheater.

miztex

If I learnt anything from my POA, I learnt that I didn't know myself. Like you Greta, an hour, actually minutes, before I was hooked I would have said "I will never be unfaithful to my husband" And I did not know. I did not know what was stirring in my unconscious. I know a therapist in slaa who said to me "we have bottom lines because we do not yet know what is left unfelt in the unconscious"

I actually had a really nasty incident at work months before I got involved with my POA. A guy I was working alongside accused me of using my sexuality to please my POA. I absolutely had not and I remember seeing my therapist and crying my eyes out horrified that anyone would think that of me. I absolutely could not cope with the idea that I was thought of like that. I was HORRIFIED. And then a few moths later, I did just that.

So, why was I SO horrified? So upset by the accusation? I think now because really at base I knew I was capable of that but it was deeply buried under denial. That part of me was so split off, so hidden, so repressed, and I judged it so harshly, just as I judged others who shared it and acted it out.

I'm glad that I know I'm an addict now and am in touch with this part of me, it's given me compassion, and I feel more whole owning being an addict than I did stuck in my anorectic contempt and control. Primrose.

I want to confess since this is a place for honesty and venting. I was the one cheated on so of course I have a lot of anger. However I will confess that I know someone who is the other woman and this person and I have become really close friends. I just know for myself and I am not saying I am better than anyone here. I just know that I can't make another woman feel that way I have felt for the last six months. I do understand though how it can happen. I am still hurting deeply because of it because he did not want me and compared me to this other woman saying how much better she is than I am. She understands him and just other insulting things he shared with me.
I know this is a personality trait and I do not judge any one because at one time I was married and I was unfaithful to my husband I thought it would make me feel better since he did on me first and I was very young. Well I found out it only made me feel worse. I realize I am different. Even single I have a hard time to go out there and have sex with a stranger. Especially now since I was burned. I am totally afraid of men. I protected my self for four years before I met this guy and he I believe was narcisstic and selfish. I was taken in by his charm. I am totally in limbo now.

Its been almost a month this Wednesday since I had no contact and I am wondering if it just gets worst. Although we are not arguing I miss him terribly and wished I never met him.

I did not deserve to feel so betrayed and unable to get involved again. Hoping that some day I can heal from the betrayal and child hood abuses. Which in my life was plenty.

I once again do not judge anyone because I am not married and haven't been for some time but if I was married and felt so unhappy then maybe I would also.

I am just very beat up inside to allow anyone in my life at the moment. Guess I have shut down emotionally because to me that was the worst thing he could have done to me then compared me to her and making me feel I do not add up. So this is just me venting and sharing how I feel.

I just didn't know myself when I judged others who were unfaithful. I didn't know what I was before I was humbled by love addiction. I was cut off from part of myself. Am glad I did understand myself through love addiction (and still am learning) P.

Case of judging "cheaters"
My xgf, broke up with me when her and her husband separated, but at the same time she met and started seeing a married man (who was not in the LS/swinging). I was completely against this r/s and did not support her. I wanted to know nothing about this man or their r/s. First, I felt jealous that she stopped seeing me because she said she had changed and wanted out of the LS scene. However chose to get involved with a married man right after her husband left her. She said it was "safe", no fuss, no strings, no mess, no emotions.
Second, I felt/feel that even though being in the LS allowed me to sleep with other husbands; I had the wives permission. I wasn't doing this act underhandedly or scandalously. And as a women, one should respect the feelings of the wife. Finally, I worried about her getting hurt by this r/s and her in a vulnerable state. But she did fall in love with him eventually.
The breakup of our r/s didn't ruin our friendship but her choice to see this man almost did.
Eventually, I gave up and accepted it. This was her life and she had every right to live it the way she wanted.

Then, I became involved with my POA...my affair, brought on by the LS choices my husband and I made together. She began to judged me, told my husband to leave me, told me to leave him, told me what a horrible person I was, told me that if I choose the other man over my husband; our friendship would be over.

Both hers and my affair ended roughly around the same time. I was heartbroken as was she, we comforted each other through it. But, then the man came back to her, said he couldn't live without her, but was not willing to leave his wife either. She was so happy, she couldn't wait to call me and share her GREAT news. Meanwhile, I had gone back to my POA, so I shared with her my news. She abruptly ended the phone call and didn't call me for a week. When we finally spoke again, she expressed that she was disappointed in me for going back to him; this is where the conversation turned awful, filled with hurtful things thrown back and forth. Hypocrite being the main one.
Ok, so you are telling me that its right for you to have an affair with a married man but my affair with a single man where my husband knows EVERYTHING is worse? And so much so that your willing to throw our friendship away because of it? (The sad thing is, that by the time this conversation happened, my affair was really over and a mood point). But it was the principle of the matter. She was SO happy she got what she wanted and was SO happy I didn't, that I realized she wasn't really a true friend after all. I had no idea who she was or what she had become. This women who I had once loved and shared everything with had turned on me and me on her.
It has been NC with my POA for 16 days and it has been NC with her for 12 days. I feel a terrible loss for both of them, but couldn't believe she was going to make me choose her over him.
Should I contact her and try to patch this up or is just better to walk away?
And after going through the steps, joining SLAA and reading about triangles; will being associated with her just be detrimental to my recovery process?
I never did nor can I truly be supportive of her affair. This not being fair to her or being a true friend.
But she was not supportive, fair, or a true friend to me either.

Ww

I started this thread a while ago and it was actually a reaction against another thread where someone was criticising people who had EMAs. It implied that having many lovers was not as bad as cheating on a spouse which I felt was pretty judgmental. But I suppose I was feeling guilty too. BTW Wendy, I could so easily have got into that scene had I continued my EMA. So really glad you talked about your own experience and what it did to your marriage. I'm even more convinced I don't want to share my partner

G, I'm sorry if I offended you in regards to MY lifestyle. I thought this was a safe place to express feelings about life, love and addiction.
There are MANY people/couples of ALL walks of life that enter into the lifestyle for a variety of reasons and I never judged people/couples for choices they make..as long as it is open and respectful. I can understand how people can think ANY EMA including swinging is a horrible thing..but its a choice and in my opinion better the turning to others for sex behind your spouses back.
These are real people, with real feelings, and real addictions as well, regardless if they acknowledge them or not, that is for them to figure out...as did I; unfortunately the hard way.

I guess I didn't realize that there was a stereo type of love addicts. Everyone has a story and they should be able to post it without being judged.

Ww

Who am I to judge anybody Wendy? But one of the first things that I read when I came on here was that recovery means monogamy and putting an end to ongoing triangles. There is no mention of LS or swinging but I think its pretty safe to assume that you will have to make a choice to turn your back on all that if you seriously choose to get into recovery here on this board. Not my rules but I do agree with them. G

WendyWoes,
I'm glad that you have found the SLAA meetings/class you spoke of. I never commented on your lifestyle because I am in a very serious fight for my 'sobriety' from Love Addiction & in your posts I've only heard your sometimes exact description of my pain of withdrawal, or toxic relationship simliarities & desire to get better. I didn't even know until this morning what your lifestyle was.

This board is very different from the meetings. I first thought it was ok to share my entire feelings & have since learned it is a recovery board. The feelings that arise BETWEEN sick to better are sometimes not acceptable. Going to meetings & talking with LAs in recovery has been the best source to discuss where I am completely & to get recovery feed back after meetings for all in between phases.

My goal is NOT to stay sick, but I have learned this is not the place to work through it all as it does offend or trigger others. I benefit from reading & posting & I do not want to lose that privilage so I keep the meat of my recovery within my face to face meetings, step study & phone calls with other LAs in recovery.

The friendship you described sound very irrational, toxic, didn't see a reason to keep it. I can not relate to being a swinger but I do hear it's a consented agreement on not a betrayal. The part that sounds unhealthy is whether consented or not it seems counter productive & distracting from recovery. I am seperated from my H & we are free to see other people, but it does not fit into my recovery for now. That's something you may inquire about at your meetings. Even if it is consented it just doesn't seem other men are the best place to be putting attention & effort. I am free to find a new partner but see it as a pacifier from the pain to do so without walking through far more of the recovery process. It's not a permanent ban on relationships but it definetly is a choice to be in none till my relationship with myself is better resolved. That's just my take.

I'm not the board, but I do my best to respect the rules. So whatever the outcome I just wanted you to know that I hope you are able to continue posting your progress & that you have a wonderful recovery in SLAA as well.