SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

GotTheMorbs -

I think it’s important that I clarify for anyone who has just read the last handful of posts that I am not defending infidelity as a goal or as a routine, but as a last recourse.

I think there’s a tremendous and morally significant difference between holding that ocean-worthy ships should have lifeboats that people might rarely need to use and advocating that lifeboats are ocean-worthy vessels for ordinary use.

Sisoon -

All you know about her [my OW] is that she's words on the Internet, words that move you, words that touch you - just as I am, just as hikingout, Unhinged, Inkhulk, Pogre, Morbs, you, et al. are.

And you're feeling as if you've slit your belly now that you're NC with the image you've created, an image that has an unknown and unknowable relation to reality.

You created the image. You're in charge of it. You can do anything you want with it.

My OW and I have spoken a couple of times and I have had a couple of videoconference meetings with my OW. So… she’s not a fiction or a figment. Some AI mockup. She’s an actual person. So, I can’t actually do anything I want with my concept of her.

The person behind the image has made her desires known to you, but your posts say you relate to/with the image, not the person.

My posts note that she habitually used to post smile icons to hide experiences she found painful. When I asked her privately about her tendency to do just that, she would admit to me her selfless duplicity. Also, one of our teleconference chats was held as a means of saying goodbye to each other. She was stoic throughout the parting until I was about to click the button to terminate my connection. Half a second before I clicked it, when I think she thought I was no longer online, I heard a sob on the other end of the line.

Those experiences taught me to recognize a disconnect between what she said and felt at times.

I can’t reasonably expect you to take on my say-so what I genuinely know to be true because I knew my OW so well, but I am 98% sure she declared our friendship "over" because she felt that was best for my W and me, and not because it’s the outcome she wanted for herself. If I am wrong about that, I will find that out when I make one last attempt to contact my OW.

Another potential topic for your therapy: what does this 'relationship' do for you, and can you get those desires met in real life?

Don't tell yourself and us you can't. The most you can say is that you haven't yet.

I reject completely the spirit of that question. It is asked in a way that treats an actual whole person—one I still platonically love, BTW—as set of fungible qualities. Completely without justification, your question shamefully reduces my dear sweet innocent OW into a whore—and disrespects me as a john; as someone who interacted with my OW purely for need fulfillment (i.e. transactional gain) and not because I actually cared about her.

However, I am in a more tolerant mood today than on some days. Not because your question was morally acceptable (it wasn’t), but simply because I coincidentally have the emotional bandwidth today to reframe your question into morally neutral language, the question that I will respond to is: Can you find relational satisfaction in deepening other relationships of yours?

My answer to that question is both a yes and a no.

I hope I can deepen my marital relationship. I’m a little pessimistic on that front today, but time will tell. But if my W holds a place in my heart that no friend may ever again fill, my OW holds a place in my heart that no stranger ever again can fill.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 7:08 PM, Friday, October 16th]

I think it's important that I clarify for anyone who had just read the last handful of posts that I am not defending chucking newborns off a cliff as a goal or as a routine, but as a last recourse.

I think there’s a tremendous and morally significant difference between holding that perfectly safe nurseries should have cliffs that people might rarely need to use and advocating that chucking those babies off 'em is for ordinary use.

Ok, Morbs…

Here’s a sentence I never expected to hafta write:

Infidelity is not infanticide.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 8:04 PM, Friday, October 16th]

No shit. It's also not a lifeboat.

A lifeboat would be civil divorce, or, at the very least for cherry picking religious folks who neither believe in divorce nor upholding their vows, ending the mutual expectation of monogamy and only being nominally and legally married, while one or both of you pursue other people.

Lifeboats are good because they are lifesaving safeguards. Having lifeboats on a ship is good practice. Willingness to engage in things like infidelity and infanticide is bad. Keeping cliffs in nurseries or using infidelity as a threat in order to make your spouse behave the way you want them to iare bad practices.

That is what we are condemning... After explaining why it is immoral and bad practice so many times, it's human nature to stop questioning one's understanding of the moral principle, and start questioning the willingness to behave according to it. Which is why people are now judging your character.

Morbs,

A lifeboat would be… ending the mutual expectation of monogamy and only being nominally and legally married, while one or both of you pursue other people.

That’s fair. Note, though, that I already said I would do essentially that before pursuing infidelity.

I said I would seek first to achieve fulfillment in my M. I said I would recruit my spouse first. I said there would be no secrecy. Then you went all ChatGPT on me and told me I was triggering
for you.

That is not what you said

On page 3 of this thread, I wrote:

"So, maybe... I could slide into another disordered friendship or A, but not without warning and pleas to meet my needs first."

To which, according to your ensuing post, ChatGPT said:

This is the passage I find most concerning:

> "So, maybe... I could slide into another disordered friendship or A, but not without warning and pleas to meet my needs first."

WHAT.

He's effectively saying that if his wife continues not to meet his needs, another affair remains a possibility—but he'll warn her first.

And the fact that you/ChatGPT quoted it proves that there was no retconning done there.

Honestly, though... the point is largely moot because I don't REALLY think I’d choose an A or another Disordered Relationship. (The reason's partly because there's another person who can get hurt in any A/Disordered Friendship--think of "Stay" by the band Sugarland--and I wouldn't want to hurt that person even if I was mad at my W.) In reality, I'd almost certainly just use the "threat" of further infidelity to get some attention from my W.

It's fair to say that that's still manipulative. Maybe even evil. I’m not laying claim to owning any real halos. But my W could issue the same "threat" to me if I fail to attend to my W's needs from the marriage. Because what's good for the gander is good for the goose.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 1:35 AM, Saturday, October 17th]

There's a difference between:

A) Having extramarital relationships without your spouse's knowledge or consent (infidelity and denial of the ability to make fully informed decisions)

B) Having extramarital relationships with your spouse's knowledge, but not with their consent (infidelity, and coercion if used as a threat, but at least each spouse can make fully informed decisions)

C) Having extramarital relationships with your spouse's knowledge AND consent (not infidelity)

Each of these has different moral connotations

ETA: I suppose I should include D) Having extramarital relationships with your spouse's consent but without their knowledge (maybe a "don't ask don't tell sort of policy," I guess? That would not be infidelity and I would think not necessarily immoral, though probably not a wise arrangement to maintain.)

Edit 2: How can you acknowledge that threatening infidelity is wrong and still give yourself hypothetical permission to do it? How is that supposed to make your wife feel safe and rebuild trust in you? How can you desire for a marriage sustained on fear, rather than voluntary good treatment of one another born of mutual desire and love?

"What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person." -- Mark 7:20-23

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 2:07 AM, Saturday, October 17th]

Interestingly, Catholic marriage expressly forbids open marriage, etc.--even if both partners want that. So... my own 2¢ on your post is that even your "option C" and "option D" constitute "infidelity." Maybe... "spouse-approved infidelity"? Anyhow, I do "get" that most people aren't Catholic. It's not like it's an obscure made-up religion, like... say... "The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster"... but it's not everybody's "cuppa," to be sure.

After all the hell my W and I have been through--and very possibly my OW (although, sadly, IDK, really)--further infidelity isn't something I'll actively go seeking for real, Morbs. But yes, I do still want to leave the door open a crack to that path. Not because I want to walk it. But because.... sometimes, that's just how good things get done.

Selectively applied, coercion can bring about positive outcomes.

How can you acknowledge that threatening infidelity is wrong and still give yourself hypothetical permission to do it? How is that supposed to make your wife feel safe and rebuild trust in you? How can you desire for a marriage sustained on fear, rather than voluntary good treatment of one another born of mutual desire and love?

Sigh. What can I say, Morbs? Without a little coercion, my W wouldn't presently be on a path to healing from CSA. I know we're supposed to steer clear of politics here, but being that what I'm about to write is old hat, I hope I won't get sanctioned or cancelled over this. And I'm going to use both a pro-Democrat and a pro-Republican example from history for balance. President Kennedy solved the Cuban Missile Crisis through strength. President Reagan won the Cold War by calling openly for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down this wall!

Younger me was more idealistic. Present-day me still has ideals--but they're tempered by realism. That's not an uncommon life progression. You just won't be 50 years old for 20 more years.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 2:26 AM, Saturday, October 17th]

Catholicism seems to prohibit everything convenient for your justifications.

"spouse-approved infidelity

"

That's an incongruity. Infidelity as a concept is specifically a violation/betrayal of the mutually agreed upon marital boundaries. If you both agree that extramarital relationships are allowed, in full or in part for either or both spouses, then extramarital relationships within those bounds constitute no violation of boundaries or betrayal of one's partner, regardless of whether your religion prescribes strict monogamy or not. The important part of *ethical* non monogamy is that you aren't hurting your partner.

If your religion prescribes monogamy and prohibits divorce and infidelity, well then I think you ought to be faithfully monogamous. Seems simple enough.

further infidelity isn't something I'll actively go seeking for real, Morbs. But yes, I do still want to leave the door open a crack to that path. Not because I want to walk it. But because.... sometimes, that's just how good things get done.

See previous Edit 2

I was editing my prior response to Morbs to reflect her Edit2 when she posted the response above this one.

If your religion prescribes monogamy and prohibits divorce and infidelity, well then I think you ought to be faithfully monogamous. Seems simple enough.

Yes, you're correct, Morbs. But life has a way of beating the purist out of people. That's all I'm saying.

I've just seen enough winters.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 2:41 AM, Saturday, October 17th]

From what you told me about it, I still think you could have talked with her about her reasons for not wanting to seek professional help, steadily and gently encouraged her, and still left it to be her decision. Like I said, I'm glad the disclosure worked out in the sense that she's getting help now, but I think that your choice there in the interest of getting her there is markedly different from potentially threatening her and coercing her with infidelity (that you may or may not actually intend on following through with.)

You have other options.

Can you be less-than-purist about your beliefs when it's inconvenient for you?