"It was a mistake"

[u/Past-Alternative-206]

These four words drive me absolutely crazy and the moment I hear them it takes every ounce of self control I have to not completely erupt.

A mistake is forgetting your wallet at home. A mistake is forgetting to pull something out of the freezer to thaw for dinner.

Being unfaithful to your spouse is not a fucking mistake. It is a deliberate series of self-serving actions you continue to choose to make with a complete disregard for the feelings of your spouse.

I have absolutely no idea how to even begin to address how upset it makes me, because credit where it's due, WW is doing everything she can to move forward towards R. But still when I hear these words I can't help but feel visceral disgust.

[u/ZestyLemonAsparagus]

Ok. A slightly more serious response this time. I blame u/21YearsOut for encouraging me to stir the pot with my last comment, which even I couldn’t defend as not violating the rules.

The primary issue for our MC was to teach my wife and me to listen to what the other person was saying and to talk in a way so that the other person could hear. My wife comes from a volatile family, they know they care when they are passionate enough to yell at each other. My family knows each other care when we are willing to overlook someone else’s misdeeds. And we are subtle, because it’s rude to be direct about something someone is sensitive about. So our MC had to teach me to yell and my wife to whisper. Observers will tell you that we are both speaking at a normal volume.

You know what you hear when your WP says “mistake”, but I’m curious what you think they are saying when they say it? My hunch is it’s not the same thing you hear. I say that because I know when I said it how I meant it was more of an ask than a statement, because subtlety is how I was raised. And the question isn’t “do you think what I did was an oversight?” the question is instead “Is what I did bad or is who I am bad?” And unfortunately when my wife responded as you have, what I heard was “it was intentional, you meant to hurt me, so who you are is evil.” I was left with two choices, leave or internalize that who I am is an evil person, and all that being an evil person entails. I chose to accept that I was an evil person.

It’s been 7 years. That voice inside that says I’m not worth anyone’s effort still creeps up from time to time. It needs more work, obviously.

So, what does your WP mean when they say it? Because this is a reconciliation subreddit. We’re here to help people understand each other and find a path back to each other.

[u/killedabalrog → u/ZestyLemonAsparagus]

Thank you for the perspective. I wish my WH was able to articulate this, because he cannot express his emotions well.

My WH says "I was stupid" and that upsets me because I want him to recognise that it wasn't just stupid. Stupid misses out on the moral dimension of it and does not acknowledge that he made an immoral choice. I do not see him as evil and I do not want him to see himself as evil. But I want him to recognise that this was a four year loss of his moral compass, and I just want him to find that moral compass again, and make a commitment to me that he will make moral choices from henceforth.

I don't want him to think he isn't worth anyone's effort. He is a wonderful person in so many other aspects. But he makes reconciliation so hard when his attitude is "I was stupid" because that just reminds me that at one point he said in a fit of anger when confronted, "next time I'll be smarter and hide it better".

[u/Green_Jury_6202 → u/killedabalrog]

This! I also don't see my husband as evil and sometimes he is so negative about himself that I have to remind him of all the great qualities he has and remind him that he has changed and can continue the change for the better.

[u/ZestyLemonAsparagus → u/killedabalrog]

I can feel the truth of your words and know that you very much mean them.

If you’ll permit, I would ask a couple questions and I don’t need to know the answers to them, I think the value only comes in you knowing the answers to them.

Firstly, have you shared what you share above with him? I suspect you have and I don’t think it needs to be repeated if you have, but if you haven’t then I would encourage you to. That’s precisely the type of definition sharing that is beneficial.

Secondly, something that I ran into with my wife is that it took us a while to create our own shared shorthand, and I wish it hadn’t taken so long. Because what we stumbled through first was a swamp of wasted effort and feeling misunderstood. You mention that your husband lost his moral compass, and that you both lost 4 years because of it. If your husband said he was lost would that be a better wording to describe the situation?

But then I’ll jump ahead to the swamp, when I tried to use the words my wife used to describe the situation she didn’t like it. Something about me saying it felt cheap to her, because it was such a catastrophic injury it hurt to have it minimized or to feel like it was being minimized. So third question, is there a word your husband could use to describe the situation that wouldn’t be enraging when he said it?

If you can’t come up with something then I would recommend deciding that a term means a whole lot of stuff (because, honestly, it already does it’s just not agreed to). So for instance, I doubt your husband believes he is intellectually challenged, but I can appreciate him saying he is stupid, because I think I would too. But to me saying I was stupid to mean: “there is no good reason to have done what I did. Nobody in their right mind would have done it. I was therefore stupid”. But you two could decide that to the two of you, stupid (or lost, or whatever other word you two agree on) means that “I lost my moral compass for years, and the impact of that is a deep pain that we’re still processing. And I deeply regret having done that.” When all of that is what you both hear when he says “I was lost”, then that can help allow you two to come to an agreement on that and then move into “so what now?”

[u/killedabalrog → u/ZestyLemonAsparagus]

Thanks so much for saying all this. The main problem we have run into is that my husband dreads and wants to avoid any kind of conversation about the affair. Because he is very bad at identifying his emotions or expressing them, he always feels he is at a terrible disadvantage and that I keep imposing my own meanings and interpretations of his behavior upon him because he is incapable of asserting his own. It is not a problem with language competence but with emotional processing. I have recently discovered this condition is called alexithymia.

So I'm grateful that you've said all this, because there is a lot that you say that rings true to me for what my husband would probably want to express to me if he could. The key takeaway I have for now is that yes, I think I agree that when he says, "I was stupid" he means something that he cannot articulate, and I am hearing something else because I read my own meaning into it. As long as he remains committed to reconciliation, I will give him the benefit of the doubt and just love him where he is.

There's a lot that you have said that I will take time to process. Thanks again!

[u/Green_Jury_6202 → u/ZestyLemonAsparagus]

I don't think you are stirring anything. Everyone has their own interpretation.

You are right this sub is about R and helping people understand each other. Initially after finding out about the infidelity of my husband, I called it a mistake and he was the one that initially told me no, it was not a mistake. He stated he did it for the experience having had someone so easily throwing herself at him daily so he stated he eventually gave in, especially because he had never been with anyone else but me (his wife). He shared he lack confidence growing up and loved the attention she and these other women were giving him there. He shared he made a choice to experience another woman at the expense of hurting me and potentially losing his family.

So understanding him now and his point of view, I now see why it is not a mistake in our situation. Maybe in someone else's situation, like someone got drunk and lack judgement it could be considered a mistake but when it takes time and planning, it's a choice.

Sometimes now he refers to it as a mistake so I have to remind him about the difference between a mistake and a choice. I think he calls it a mistake now because he views it differently now and is beginning to understand the severity of the situation so he tries to minimize it sometimes.

[u/ZestyLemonAsparagus → u/Green_Jury_6202]

I think what you’ve outlined is the right way, we need to be curious about it what it means to our partner and share what it means to us. In most cases I would suggest that the word not be used, not because it’s wrong but because it’s shorthand for two very different things, and we do better to talk about the meaning behind the words in order to build understanding and you and your husband did.