SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

My WW and I had a discussion the other night about the sexual aspect, and she stated "It wasn't about the sex, I just needed to give them that to keep them making me feel validated." So I asked "So it was transactional?" She agreed. "I felt if I didn't give them what they wanted, I wouldn't get what I wanted."

This lead me into logically comparing her to a prostitute just with validation opposed to money. (I know a lot of you both wayward and betrayed alike are going to get mad at this, argue it is nothing alike, and you may be right emotionally. Logically and accurately though.....)

I know the word is ugly, I know it is loaded, I know some people will immediately recoil from it. But when I look at betrayal honestly, especially the sexual part of it, there is something about it that feels disturbingly transactional.

Not because money changed hands. Because something did.

Sex was given and received in exchange for something. Attention. Validation. Excitement. Escape. Ego. A feeling of being wanted. A temporary high. A fantasy version of oneself reflected back through another person’s desire. That is the part that makes it feel so degrading from the betrayed side. It is not only that my wife had sex with someone else. It is that sex, intimacy, access to her body, access to something I believed belonged inside the sacred boundaries of our marriage, was used as currency. It was traded for emotional payoff. It was exchanged for the feeling of being desired, pursued, understood, special, chosen, alive, or whatever other word gets used to soften it.

But at the core, it was still a trade.

The affair partner gave attention, and she gave access. He gave validation, and she gave intimacy. He made her feel wanted, and she rewarded that feeling with parts of herself that were supposed to be protected by our marriage. That is not romance. That is not love. That is not some deep tragic connection, that is a transaction dressed up as emotion.

And what makes it even more violating is that I was unknowingly funding the life around it. I was the faithful husband at home. I was the one building the family, raising the children, paying bills, showing up, staying loyal, carrying responsibility, protecting the home, and believing the marriage was real. Meanwhile, another man was allowed to step into the hidden economy of her validation and receive what should never have been available to him.

That is why betrayal feels so filthy. It takes something sacred and makes it cheap. It takes sex, which in a marriage is supposed to be tied to trust, love, safety, loyalty, and mutual devotion, and turns it into a tool. A payment. A reward. A way to keep the fantasy going. A way to keep the attention flowing.

The betrayed spouse is then left trying to understand how something that meant so much inside the marriage could be handed away so easily outside of it. How can something be sacred with me, but casual with him? How can something be part of our bond one day and part of someone else’s ego supply the next? How can the same body come home, lie beside me, accept my love, accept my loyalty, accept my protection, and carry the residue of a transaction I did not even know had happened?

It is not just sexual jealousy, it is not insecurity, it is not prudishness. It is the horror of realizing that what I believed was intimate and protected was, at least in those moments, negotiable. It could be exchanged for a compliment. A thrill. A secret. A message. A look. A fantasy. A feeling. Not even much of each to be honest.

And then the language around affairs often makes it worse. People call it validation seeking. Poor boundaries. Escapism. Brokenness. Compartmentalization. Wanting to feel alive. Wanting attention. Needing to be seen.

Fine, maybe all of that is true.

But those are just descriptions of the currency. They do not erase the transaction.

Because from the betrayed side, it looks like this: someone gave my spouse something she wanted emotionally, and in return, he received access to her sexually. He did not earn that through love, commitment, sacrifice, family, history, vows, or devotion. He bought it with attention. He bought it with fantasy. He bought it with secrecy. He bought it with the version of herself she wanted to feel in that moment. I am not saying it is identical in every legal, social, or literal way. I am saying the emotional structure feels horrifyingly similar: sex was exchanged for something she wanted.

That is why betrayal creates such deep disgust for me. It is not only that another person touched what was supposed to be sacred. It is that the sacredness was lowered enough to be traded at all. It is realizing that my wife had a price, even if the currency was not money. It is realizing that vows were not treated as vows. They were treated as obstacles to sneak around when the emotional payment was high enough.

That kind of betrayal does not just break trust. It changes the meaning of intimacy retroactively. It makes the betrayed spouse question every touch, every kiss, every "I love you," every night beside them, every time they came home and acted normal. It makes you wonder whether you were sharing a marriage or unknowingly standing beside someone who had turned parts of it into a marketplace.

That is the wound.

Not that she was desired, I desired her. Not that someone wanted her, I wanted her. Not even only that she wanted someone else.

It is that she accepted the trade.

She let another man pay her in validation, and she paid him back with sex. She was deeply insulted by my realization that I can not seem to forget, but also could not explain logically how that is not the case. I am deeply unsure if I can ever see it as anything but from now on.

Honestly I think A's are another relationship happening parallel to the M. But both worlds cannot converge.

Maybe in some cases it is transactional for the validation but I think it just comes with the territory. When you like someone you WANT to have sex with them. Prostitutes do not want to have sex they just want the money. So I guess I am having a hard time seeing this correlation. I'm going to go out on a limb here but I think they are having sex because they want to just like how any R begins. It's just that it is a hidden relationship because it is an A.

The validation and ego boosts just come with it just like how a relationship begins. An A is a relationship unless the person is using it as a sexual release and there are no emotions involved.

[This message edited by crazyblindsided at 9:10 PM, Tuesday, June 30th]

I agree with the analysis.

My exWW at one point herself called it prostitution. She wasn’t as subtle as you, she realized that he was doing her favors for a shared activity they were doing and she felt like sex was her side of the bargain. Sold her body for cheap objects to do an activity she didn’t even like. Perverse.

The transactional nature of the A also creates a bizzaro world mirror image of a marriage. A very cynical view of a marriage relationship could be seen in similar terms as your argument. Sex traded for resources. But we don’t see it that way within the specialness of a living life partnership. The betrayal attacks the idea that the primary relationship was ever special. Maybe I was just a meal ticket this whole time. It all sucks.

The betrayal attacks the idea that the primary relationship was ever special. Maybe I was just a meal ticket this whole time.

I too had this kind of thought, except substitute "green card ticket" for "meal ticket."

This lead me into logically comparing her to a prostitute just with validation opposed to money.

Please tell me you didn't express this out loud to her.

This feeling is very common, particularly with betrayed men. We tend to focus on the physical aspects of an affair.

Prostitutes do not want to have sex they just want the money.

I agree with crazyblindsided. Your WW's affairs may not have been specifically about the sex. That doesn't mean she didn't want to have sex. It's a transactional exchange of gifts. There's a huge difference.

I understand your anger. I understand the revulsion you feel. BTDT. However, I would caution against demonizing your wife this way. It's not going to help your healing.

I did express this as I feel honesty about both our thoughts is crucial. Unfortunately once I made this realization I am having trouble seeing her as anything but.

Gemmy, I hear the way you’re trying to make sense of this, and I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong. From the betrayed side, the sexual part of an affair often does feel transactional, because something sacred was exchanged for something emotional. And when you strip away the language, the justifications, the fog, the fantasy, that’s exactly what it is.

From the wayward side, that’s the part most of us don’t understand until we’re doing the work. We weren’t thinking in terms of "I give sex, I get validation." But that’s what was happening. It came from a person who didn’t have the internal steadiness, honesty, or self awareness to show up as themselves. When you asked your wife if it was transactional and she agreed, that’s the closest thing to truth most of us can offer.

What I can add is this, the "trade" didn’t feel like a trade at the time because the person doing it isn’t anchored enough in themselves to register what they’re giving away (stay with me) There’s no real sense of value, no sense of boundaries, no sense of meaning. There’s just a chase. A pull. A craving. And the AP becomes a shortcut to a feeling the WS doesn’t know how to generate within themselves or within their marriage.

The degrading part you’re describing is real. It’s real because the WS is operating without a stable inner compass. Without that, intimacy stops being sacred. It becomes something they hand out in moments where they’re disconnected from themselves. Not because they don’t value you. Not because the AP was special. But because they weren’t connected to anything, not their values, not their identity, not their reality.

She was deeply insulted by my realization that I can not seem to forget, but also could not explain logically how that is not the case. I am deeply unsure if I can ever see it as anything but from now

It makes sense that you can’t unsee it. Once you recognize the shape of something, you can’t force your mind to pretend it was different. Your realization isn’t irrational or unfair, it’s a direct response to what happened. The impact, the wound. The sense of "she had a price". And pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone.

Infidelity broke through a lot of illusions I had about love and marriage. That marriage is forever, that it is sacred or pure, that love is all you need.

I didn't believe that marriage had to be hard work with the right partner. That commitment meant different things to different people. That love meant different things to different people, too.

Infidelity breaks your heart, soul, and mind in a multitude of ways. Recognizing the shallow nature of an affair is one. Realizing that love isn't enough is another. Seeing how easily the sacred can turn profane is yet another.

People sell themselves for all kinds of benefits. It's hard to see that your spouse is fallible and corruptible in these ways. You start to wonder if all love is transactional for them (it might be). I remember how each one of these insights/moments of clarity would land on me like another weight.

I'm sorry your load is heavier today, Gemmy. Going by general as well as personal experience, it'll probably get worse before it gets better.

Now how do I move forward? I see the shape and it is deeply disturbing to me. I cannot look at her right now.

I agree totally with foreverlabeled.

I didn’t see the affair as transactional until I started to do the work.

What I learned is most everything was transactional to me, even in my marriage.

I think the hard part to see from a male perspective on top of everything is that a lot of females are groomed from a young age that they way to get attention is to use sexuality. We are barraged with what our bodies must look like, people feel free to comment on them all the time. 1 in 3 women have been sexually abused.I know that is something that specifically shaped me.

It’s a tool I have used in my toolbox to win men over my whole life until I realized I was doing it.

And even in marital relationship advice a lot of it is transactional. Crap like chore play reinforces that women should reward their husbands for doing more housework with sex. In all reality, the concept was supposed to teach men that we are in a different era where women work as hard as men do, and if you want her to have enough energy for sex then you can’t leave everything in her plate.

In my marriage, I did everything I could for my husband so he would love me. And as the years went on, it seemed to work less and I only felt more resentful because I was burned out. Relationships should not be transactional but they simply are in many ways. Romantic love is not unconditional.

In reality, I couldn’t receive his love because I didn’t feel like I deserved it. After doing a shit ton of work on that, I no longer hustle to be loved. I no longer people please. But I am kind and sweet and respectful to him because I genuinely love him and also because I want that treatment in return.

Nothing iustifies an affair and you are going to feel all sorts of ways about it. So none of us is going to chastise you for that. But I will say that holding this belief long term without balancing the humanity in all of it might mean divorce is a better option for you.. I do not say that with any judgment, someone who cheats breaks the whole deal and you are under no obligation to stay afterwards. Ending a marriage is a natural result of infidelity.

Right now you guys are still in the recovery stage and feeling rage and sadness and everything in between is what is completely normal. It will be many months likely before you come to terms with what you want in regards to a marital outcome.

I will tell you am not a prostitute, I am however an adulterer. The trade at the time felt like every other trade I had made in life. One that I have had a great amount of conditioning to do and not do.

[This message edited by hikingout at 11:43 PM, Tuesday, June 30th]

Also, have you ever traded giving a woman attention for sex? I am not trying to argue but you are asking how you can get past this, and the answer is to try and understand it as not something abstract that only happens in an affair? I don’t know if that is at all helpful but I say it meaning well for you.

You don’t have to make a snap decision. Clearly things are very fluid. Things that feel insurmountable may fade over days and weeks. Or maybe they don’t. I recommend you give yourself time, see how this settles in you. If this "shape" is permanent and you continue to feel disgust with her, then you should do both of you a favor and move on. But it also could shift again.

Gemmy,

I mean this without intending any disrespect.

Some BS's aren't able to R. Their mental model of marriage is too fundamentally destroyed by the affair. You may be in that camp. And that's fine. The sooner you realize you perhaps cannot R, the sooner you can stop wasting your time trying to accept the unacceptable.

What if what you were exchanging was sexual validation for sexual valid]ation? Acting as if you desired someone in order to feel desired?

Like you said, I'm experiencing an emotional rejection of the premise, but having trouble countering it with logic... As someone who has done sexwork in the past, the A sexting [and imagined, planned, but not actualized sex] *felt* different than paid sexting/sex. Still fake, but slightly more "organic," perhaps?

I also just see casual sex as different than sex with someone you love. I've never felt bonded to someone or closer to them just because we smashed. I've never felt like, "Wow, that was incredible; I want this person for the rest of my life. I'm so lucky" and then seek to hold the other person intimately after casual sex the way I do after sex with my H. But i recognize i'm kind of weird and wired differently than most people, so there's that.

dunno if there was a point to saying this, but there's my two cents.

I have only been with one other woman and by no means traded attention for sex. Ww does not see sex as something sacred and special by her own admission, so I believe we are just very different. I would never even entertain a ONS or anything else sexual without profound connection.

I did not mean to insult anyone, just my perhaps skewed perspective.

Don't apologize. You see sex and marriage the way you see it, and it's personal to you. We're all looking at this from different perspectives, and none of them are wrong. I'm glad you can express yourself here.

w/ re: to how youre feeling prsently, I don't have any advice. But I do hope you find clarity and relief soon.

I can say I wasn’t insulted.

That would take a lot.

But think a little deeper—-when you wanted sex with your wife, most people would say great sex at night starts in the morning. Extra attention throughout the day.

I can see that as a genuine I miss you and want to reconnect, but also most men are as attuned to women wanting to feel the flowery things prior to sex, just like women know men are more flowery after you give them sex. (Not in all cases, I am dangerous in generalizing because not everyone falls into gender pattern stereotypes)

For what it’s worth, I think it’s wonderful you see sex the way you do. I have come to feel that way about it now as well, but I had to overcome my conditioning. Perhaps your wife will come to that place as well.

[This message edited by hikingout at 12:02 AM, Wednesday, July 1st]

Now how do I move forward? I see the shape and it is deeply disturbing to me. I cannot look at her right now.

Take whatever time and space you need to process this new information and insight. It is very disturbing indeed. And painful beyond description.

One of my greatest struggles while surviving infidelity and trying to reconcile with my ex-wife was accepting that I didn't know her as well as I believed I did. Letting go of my own perception, the illusions I clung to, was excruciating.

Once upon a time, gazing into her eyes was pure rapture. During our wedding ceremony I was sooo completely lost in her eyes that the words spoken by the priest might as well have been spoken in Klingon. They didn't even register (and people thought I was stoned).

After d-day, there were moments when gazing into her eyes was... I don't even know the word for it.

Breathe, Gemmy. Deep, soulful breaths. What you're feeling is very normal. Just remember, we can master our thoughts and they can guide our feelings.

Peace, brother.

My xGF was romancing with one of her APs to hurt him. Sex for money seems more honest, not incredibly pathetic like sex for attention (literally attention w****?) and not psychopathic like sex as a torture device.

[This message edited by Itiswhatitis000 at 12:23 AM, Wednesday, July 1st]