Trashing the house

[waterwoman]

I have been thinking really hard of a way of describing what it means when an AP gets involved with a married person. I have seen and accepted in part the argument that the AP isn't breaking any vows so they have less culpability than the married person. They owe nothing to the marriage or the BS. I have worked so hard to clear H's OW of all blame and more or less managed it. But I can't quite shake the feeling that the the AP *is* partially culpable too.

 

So here's the best way I can think of describing it:

 

Two people share a house. It's a nice enough home - not exactly perfect or brand new - but it's a home. It's decorated with colours that were chosen together. Curtains and furniture that they chose together. Paintings and sculptures that were memories of holiday past.

 

House owner 1 meets someone. THey invite this person into the house. The visitor and the owner proceed to party, spill wine on the carpet, leave dirty plates all over the floor, flick ash all over the new couch. Because the visitor thinks if the owner doesn't care why should they? But there is another owner, who almost certainly will care. And when asked the first owner does look uncomfortable and make a desultory attempt to clear things up.

 

Does the visitor not bear some small responsibility. Would they want that to happen to their house? Why behave that way when any child is taught that it's not acceptable behaviour?

 

Does that make sense?

[Decorative]

It makes perfect sense.

[BetrayedH]

After seeing the subject line, I'm just glad you didn't trash your house.

[road]

I have been thinking really hard of a way of describing what it means when an AP gets involved with a married person. I have seen and accepted in part the argument that the AP isn't breaking any vows so they have less culpability

 

Does that make sense?

 

 

No it does not make sense.

 

OM/OW is just as guilty as the WW/WM.

Edited November 11, 2012 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[carhill]

There are many potentials...

 

'It's my house; I live here alone'

 

'My co-owner is a slob. No worries'

 

'We're renting'

 

All of these potentials can be translated to real or perceived infidelity. The most common occurrence in my erstwhile OM life was 'I live here alone', meaning the MP was not entirely truthful about the nature of their marriage, either outright deceptive about being married or asserting a clear separation.

 

Lastly, I can't think of one person in this life who has overtly accepted or considered responsibility for my family member's feelings in their dealings with me, either personally or in business. Nearly everyone I know is transactional, meaning person on person, generally doing what's best for themselves with an eye on parity with myself. There are a few altruistic people who bear personal responsibility for their impact on the wider world, occupying their time and thought processes with the feelings and circumstances of others before themselves, but they are rare; so rare I discount them. Most, appropriately, care less. It was long experience with the majority of people in life which taught the lesson. At the end of it, no one else really cares. It's up to the individual to care enough not to trash the house because it matters to them, personally, as a style of living, and expect that choice to have no value in the world other than to oneself.

 

Good luck.

[BetrayedH]

I think the problem is that usually the visitor knows there is a co-owner and suggests, "Let's trash the place."

[woinlove]

I think the problem is that usually the visitor knows there is a co-owner and suggests, "Let's trash the place."

 

Yes, the cases where the MM/MW lies about being married, and the OW/OM are completely in the dark about that, are quite different.

 

More typically, the OW/OM knows the MM/MW is married and there can be a tendency to focus on what they want to believe. That is focus on the parts that make it sound like the M is essentially over and ignore the parts that show he/she is living a married life with their spouse (and children, if they have children).

[waterwoman]

There are a few altruistic people who bear personal responsibility for their impact on the wider world, occupying their time and thought processes with the feelings and circumstances of others before themselves, but they are rare; so rare I discount them.

 

I don't think they are rare. And altruism isn't a negative - ie not doing something damaging, on the contrary altruism is doing something good. Otherwise you would say it was altruistic to simply refrain from dropping litter or letting your dog dump on someone else's lawn. Those things aren't altrustic. Altruism is going something above and beyond the normal rules of civilized life - volunteering your money or your time for example.

 

We all have a view of ourselves that we value and aspire to. Most of us would prefer not to see that image tarnished. And we retain some of the attitudes that were taught us in childhood - don't hurt others, don't steal, don't lie etc. We may only pay lipservice to them but they still matter in some way. We don't want to be the bad guy.

 

Those who unthinkingly and uncaringly do something that will damage others are possibly amoral. Who gives a sh*t is an amoral attitude. I would say that the visitor that trashes the house at the instigation of the house owner is acting amorally - allowing someone else's viewpoint to influence them to do something they would normally admit was wrong.

 

The visitor is guilty of allowing what they want, and what the house owner encourages, to make them act amorally iMO. The house owner is actively guilty (immoral)

[HeartBrokenInNY]

if he valued it so much then why invite her at all to begin with

[waterwoman]

Well we've established that the mm/mw is to blame mostly. The question was whether the ap bears some guilt to

[Furious]

if he valued it so much then why invite her at all to begin with

 

An invitation is not a command, the OW could have declined the invitation if she respected herself. But then again a person would have to not value themselves in order to not value someone else's home.

[whichwayisup]

if he valued it so much then why invite her at all to begin with

 

Because it isn't about his wife or his marriage many of the times...It's all about him and finding/having new excitement. (some) Men are very capable of separating love and sex. Sex can mean everything, have intimacy and love but it can also be just downright f'king too.

 

You read all the time that a MM is happy in the marriage, happy with his wife, still getting sex etc, yet some still manage to wander. why? Because they can and it means nothing to them. Not all A's obviously are like that, but some are.

[2sure]

As a former OW and BS I find no need to pussy foot around my part in accepting responsibility for involving myself in a relationship they had real and direct potential to hurt a woman I didn't know and change her family.

 

I have no problem wrapping my head around the fact that The betrayal of your spouse is a huge and completely separate thing than a stranger secretly being a part of your life. Both are violating in a different way. No need to split the blame into some kind of ratio.

 

The WS is guilty of cheating and all that goes with it.

The AP is guilty of violating the BS as well, I'm not sure what to call it.

[seren]

This thread and the who invited who into the 'house' and trashing it, reminded me of something one of my very best friends did on discovering her H had been sleeping with her sister. After D Day and her leaving, she took someone back to the family home which she was looking after while the rest of the family went on a trip and slept with him in her sister's bed (who was living in the house too) while wearing her sister's best lacy stuff. After my jaw had hit the floor she said that her sister was very, very peed off, my friend said she didn't think she would mind as she had not only slept with her (friend's) husband after they had, had sex, but had chosen to do so in the marital bed. Not something I would do, but she said it sure got home to her sister how yuck she felt knowing her H had done that in their bed.

 

I suppose her view was if you come and help someone trash my house, then be prepared for when I find out and come do the same to yours.

 

I am glad to report that after our house was trashed we slowly redecorated, not just papering over the cracks, but a full refurbishment and the old house is the same old house, but one that is better than it was before!! If the foundations of your house are strong enough, it can withstand a Tsunami.

[Spark1111]

As a former OW and BS I find no need to pussy foot around my part in accepting responsibility for involving myself in a relationship they had real and direct potential to hurt a woman I didn't know and change her family.

 

I have no problem wrapping my head around the fact that The betrayal of your spouse is a huge and completely separate thing than a stranger secretly being a part of your life. Both are violating in a different way. No need to split the blame into some kind of ratio.

 

The WS is guilty of cheating and all that goes with it.

The AP is guilty of violating the BS as well, I'm not sure what to call it.

 

I call it aiding an abetting. It really is that simple.

[Ninja'sHusband]

The AP is definitely culpable. I think a lot of posters here mistakenly make the claim they they are not...but the point these posters are really trying to make is still a very valid one.

 

The person you should be concerned with is your spouse, not the AP. Your spouse is the one you have the relationship with, not the AP. There are millions of possible APs, all who could and would intrude on your marriage. You can't possibly worry about all of them. Really, all you can do is decide if you want to be with your spouse or not, if you trust them. I say this because the only person you can really control is yourself. If you find you can forgive your spouse, eventually trust them, and be happy again, go for it! If not, move on and take care of yourself. AP? Forget them.

 

Now, if the AP is someone close you...that's a whole 'nother ball game I think.

[Spark1111]

Err, no, the OP is not visiting the marital home. The MP is building a new home with the OP, so he now has two homes. From what I've read it's bound to make the MP start to feel like a visitor himself in the marital home because his heart is elsewhere. (See Alberoni's books on love.)

 

Then why doesn't he move permanently into the new home?

 

What does Alberoni say about that?

[road]

The AP is definitely culpable. .......................... If you find you can forgive your spouse, eventually trust them, and be happy again, go for it! If not, move on and take care of yourself. AP? Forget them.

 

Now, if the AP is someone close you...that's a whole 'nother ball game I think.

 

No same game. The BS and the WS must both go NC with the OP for life. This includes the OP's spouse and kids.

[waterwoman]

In which case H and OW's house didn't get much beyond a tent and that fell down in the wind

[cocorico]

Then why doesn't he move permanently into the new home?

 

Some do. Some don't. Some prefer hotel rooms or tents or couch surfing or other alternatives to the marital home. There is no one size fits all. It depends on what kind of a "home" the MP is looking for, or none at all, and to what extent the marital edifice matches that.

 

Some MPs want to live in a small, modest bungalow but discover that over the years there have been so many alterations and additions that their bungalow has become a mansion that they no longer feel at home in. When they see the yurt down the road it reignites their repressed desire for simplicity and they start to spend increasing amounts of time there. However, they still have to service their mortgage on the mansion, because they are legally committed by contract to do so, and because they may still have offspring living there they do need to make sure it doesn't fall down entirely.

[woinlove]

This thread seems to have gone pretty far off track from the OP which used the trashing house analogy to discuss the partial culpability of the OW in hurting the BW. I guess the two house analogy is a way of arguing for those who feel they have no responsibility for their role in the A and the pain it caused. For them, it may not matter that the MM is married and lying to his spouse in order to be with them. To me that shows a lack of caring and connection to others.

 

As a former OW, I have no problem accepting partial culpability in hurting the BW and I do think my actions at the time were selfish and showed a lack of caring and connection to others. Not only did I not care about the effect of MM's deception on his BW, I didn't care about the effect of it on him. Now, that I am more connected, I would not want to encourage or support anyone I love to be deceptive to others they share their life with.

 

So, in the house analogy, I would not want to come into his home and help him trash it or even watch him trash it. And I would not want him to build a new home with me while pretending that new home didn't exist and pretending he was working on the upkeep of his old home, when he really wasn't. If everything was out in the open and all were treated with respect and honesty, then I have no problem with 2 or 3 homes.

[Furious]

The tendency to not realize that the EMR is separate from the marriage, is that some form of denial, an inability to accept that the MP is having a relationship totally separate from the one he/she has with the spouse?

 

How can a wife "accept" her husband having a relationship totally separate from their marriage if she doesn't know about the affair? How can the wife be in denial if she doesn't even know you exist?

 

It's strange that you can discuss your "separate relationship", and accuse other betrayed wives as being in "denial", when in your own situation your MM's wife doesn't know you exist. Why don't you practice what you preach, or are you the one in denial.

[Decorative]

No same game. The BS and the WS must both go NC with the OP for life. This includes the OP's spouse and kids.

 

It means the offense of the OP is greater if the OP knows the BS.

 

So? Different game, although how you handle it is the same. It's a double betrayal. And it's awful.

 

I know you are a big Harley devotee, and he doesn't address this much. But it places an extra burden of pain on the betrayed spouse when the OP is a supposed friend.

[William]

Minor cleanup. Stage Two. Let's keep the LoveShack house clean.

[woinlove]

The tendency to not realize that the EMR is separate from the marriage, is that some form of denial, an inability to accept that the MP is having a relationship totally separate from the one he/she has with the spouse?

 

No, it's not denial. I think it is recognizing that people are connected through their connections. Most people who love someone deeply care about all their connections. I certainly care very much about all important connections in my H's life and things that affect him, affect me, because of that caring. I think some people can compartmentalize their life and relationships - into different houses if you like, but I think most people who live authentically allow all parts of their life to intertwine.