SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

To continue the conversation without further TJing Gemmy's thread...

DRSOOLERS:

See, the problem we have here is a massive contradiction: we are essentially being told, "Don't trust my words or actions from when I was privately discussing my actual thoughts, wants, and feelings. Instead, only trust my statements now that I've been caught out and proven to be a liar."

​So, when waywards are caught texting their APs, claiming they are masturbating over thoughts of how amazing their sex was—are we supposed to believe those were all lies? Or were they actually self-pleasing, but somehow only doing it for the "validation"? Sexting is extraordinarily common in affairs. If it really is all just about validation, are we honestly expected to believe they never truly self-pleased? Or can we be serious adults and admit the organs... The sex... Ahs somewhat of a role. At least often.

I understand what you're saying, and I can see why you would have a hard time trusting the words of a caught WS...

One thing I think is pertinent is that there's a difference between being turned on by another person (finding them sexy/reactive libido,) being turned on by being found/feeling sexy (which a lot of women need to even experience a desire for sex), and just being turned on in general (spontaneous libido)... What you hear often on SI is "the AP could have been anyone," and that applies here too. I think it's quite easy for WS to idealize the AP in their minds-- really make them into someone they're not-- because it's all fantasy. It's often not the AP themselves, but the idea that the WS has of them in their heads, and the way that idealized person makes the WS feel.

So, in some scenarios it's that the WS is given validation and "thinks of England" during the sex, which they have to keep the validation coming. In others, it's that the AP makes them feel sexually validate/sexy, and they experience reactive libido, and the AP just becomes an outlet for it. In others... The WS values both the sex and the validation, or just the sex.

Nuance.

Please feel free to let this thread wander away from the topic at hand as the conversation naturally progresses, as I'm not here looking for support but interested in pursuing potentially useful discussions and furthering understanding.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 8:15 PM, Wednesday, July 1st]

It’s an interesting topic.

My only comment so far is this:

being turned on by being found/feeling sexy (which a lot of women need to even experience a desire for sex)

I mostly only experience this kind of arousal. It can come from feeling loved or appreciated but this is what I respond sexually to. I also am turned on by knowing what my husband likes and being the provider of it or slipping in surprises and seeing his reaction but mostly it’s all about me, my performance, etc. I think Esther Pearl wrote about this? I don’t agree with everything that she says but this combined with "wanting to meet a different version of oneself" as a motivator for an affair both hit the nail for me.

The validation for me was that someone was believing my version, after all it’s like you said people who have affairs often project things onto each other. I liked the feeling of being someone different. The fantasy for me was about me.

I'll move my post over here because it was a bit of a thread jack and will likely get lost in the sea of replies happening over in Gemmy's thread. This topic is hard on my mind because my wife and I had a discussion about this just the other day and it's been stuck in my craw.

My wife admitted that she wanted the sex as much as the validation. Maybe even more than the validation. Which makes logical sense because we had been going through a pretty long dry spell. The SSRI I was on not only killed my libido, but as an added bonus gave me anorgasmia (raises hand as a male who's faked orgasms).

I'm still trying to figure out which "reason" hurts more, or if it even matters. What really kills me is, I could have researched and found out much sooner that the SSRI was causing my issues instead of aging and gotten off of it much sooner. My wife also went through menopause at around the same time and never once complained about the lack of sex. As far as I knew, she'd lost interest as many women do when going through that. I had chalked it all up to "I guess this is what happens when some couples get older."

Boy, was I wrong. Menopause had the opposite effect on my wife. Her libido was supercharged while mine disappeared. She was/is craving it constantly. Meanwhile, I was suffering from well documented (but hardly ever mentioned by prescribing Dr's) side effects of SSRIs. Some real great communication we had, huh?

It took a couple of years for some of the more persistent side effects of the SSRI to go away, and some of it still lingers. Yes, years. Look up PSSD. My libido is finally back, but the anorgasmia only started letting up within the last year, and that's gone from not being able to climax at all to just taking a long time, which has actually kind of turned into a superpower.

Anyway, I'm not so sure how much the reason really matters. What really pisses me off is that we had such a serious lack of communication. I should have known. I should have known it meant that much to her. She should have talked to me about it instead of going to someone else. Maybe I should have just plain known she felt like she was in a sexual desert. I should have cared enough to ask her. I feel such a swirl of emotions and hurt over this. It's not like our sex life sucks now. It's daily, and we don't do quickies. I'm a generous lover. We got ot bed an hour and a half earlier than we need to just to budget time for it now.

I was stripped of my desire by a drug, and blamed it on getting older or low T or something, and she never really blinked an eye. I never turned her down or said "no," but I had always initiated. I just slowly kind of stopped initiating, and she never really reacted to it. At least not with me, but she jumped on the first guy who came along and started tossing compliments her way.

It's been over a year, and by every metric pretty much everything has improved between us, especially sex, but goddamnit if I can't get it out of my head that my wife, who was a virgin when we met, let another man pleasure her. It fucking kills me sometimes.

Well done, Morbs. Thank you.

Pogre,

It's easy to get caught up in the "should haves," and I feel your pain there. (Mine looks like, "I should have considered what might be affecting his libido and not taken personally...I should have asked him about it. I should have been more persistent.I should have known he knew about the A and that was causing him to withdarw further.").. As always, it's not your fault, and I'm sorry you're hurting. It will probably just take you some time to accept the "didn'ts," if that makes any sense, but I think it helps to focus on what you know now and what will be different going forward.

Experience can be such a cruel teacher.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 10:11 PM, Wednesday, July 1st]

No one is stopping their affair at secret meetings for afternoon tea.

I agree Pogre I am not sure it really matters what was gotten from it. Especially since so much more was lost than gained. I hear you.

I have been accused here of only believing that we fall under my specific pattern. I do not think that at all. I do think I speak about my story and experience which is specific, but telling about my experiences doesn’t mean I only believe that the validation piece or the losing yourself piece exists.

What I do believe is that a large portion of ws have similiar traits to varying degrees of extreme. We are avoidant, we lack communication skills, we lack self awareness, we are either overly selfish or overly unselfish, we tend to be insecure, sometimes codependent, and we do not self regulate well.

I want to clarify something from the other thread foreverlabeled explained this recently in a way I have failed to…

I do not think I had an affair because I was broken. I had an affair because I was underdeveloped. In many skills. In values. I never have seen myself as broken, just exhausted of circumstances that I willingly and fully admit were mostly self created.

And I think there is a distinct pattern for anyone to heal whether you are a bs or a ws.

That ingredient is self compassion. And sometimes being as far out as I am my own self compassion being reflected in other ws could understandably be triggering for some. I am not sure what to do with that because I like coming here to hopefully help someone.

And typically the main ingredient in healing a marriage is compassion for each other. That’s why that first year is hardly ever reconciliation. Both people have to heal using the self compassion first because that’s when they will have it for each other.

So yes, I do believe in similarities and patterns. But I do know not every ws is going to do the work, and maybe further from redeeming themselves, if they ever even do. But one thing is for sure, there is a chance of that happening. Only the bs themselves can decide to take that risk. Another good reason to delay the idea of reconciliation—-to assess the risk you must first observe the data for a long period of time.

I think over time, either you will come to understand and accept or you won’t, and you will have someone who has gained the skills and sense of values that you can rebuild with or you won’t. Neither divorce or reconciliation is a wrong answer.

I think this reads as accurate to me, Morbs. I think you've offered here an expansion on my point rather than contradicting it; Perhaps a deeper clarification of what I was trying to say. You are providing the exact psychological framework that explains why the "validation only" script is such a dishonest rewrite of history in many cases. (I'll take your advice and keep adding in these sorts of clarifiers)

Your point about reactive libido is particularly deep. If a person needs to feel intensely desired in order to experience sexual desire, then the validation and the sex are completely inseparable. The validation is the friction required to spark the fire. But here is the crucial distinction: once that fire is lit, they are still actively participating in, pursuing, and enjoying the heat.

I also want to touch on your observation that "the AP could have been anyone." While it's true that in a fantasy-driven affair, the specific partner is often interchangeable—an objectified canvas for the wayward partner's ego—that interchangeability doesn't minimize the physical enjoyment. Just because the sex could have been with anyone clearly doesn't mean they aren't loving the sex they are having with this person. The fact that the partner is an idealized prop doesn't magically make the orgasms or the physical pleasure fake. Again I presume many of us when single have had this experience. We've ended up back at someone's place and had a great night of sex, it didn't really matter who with.

To me it's clear that too often When a caught wayward partner uses the post-D-Day script—"It wasn't about the sex, it was just validation"—they are attempting to retroactively extinguish the fire. They want their betrayed spouse to believe they were just standing in the room passively while the match was struck. They try to isolate the validation as a bloodless, emotional transaction so they don't have to look in the mirror and face the hedonistic selfishness of the physical reality.

As you noted, there is a massive difference between passive compliance where they "think of England" just to keep the validation coming, and an active, immersive fantasy where validation unlocks a reactive libido, resulting in intense physical pleasure, sexting, and orgasms.

The forum scripts almost always claim the former, while the evidence—the graphic texts, the atypical acts, the sheer frequency—almost always points to the latter.

You’re completely right that it comes down to nuance. Sex can be a vehicle for validation, and validation can be a trigger for sex. But we can be serious adults and admit that once the bedroom door closes, the physical pleasure is a massive part of the equation. To claim otherwise isn't historical accuracy; it's just a psychological shield against shame.

All of this said and I want to reiterate, I'm certain their will be individual cases where a wayward truly did hate or put up with the sex for compliments alone. But we see this used as an excuse all to often when the evidence points directly in the opposite direction.

On @Unhinged / Wider reference to threadjacking

If you cannot see how analyzing the validity of a wayward partner's psychological defense mechanism is pertinent to a thread explicitly written about that defense mechanism, then maybe this forum is not for you (to borrow your phrasing). Discussing the exact core topic raised by a member is the entire purpose of a support forum, not threadjacking.

Gemmy opened this thread by detailing a direct conversation with his wife. She explicitly claimed: "It wasn't about the sex, I just needed to give them that to keep them making me feel validated." He then logically deconstructed that claim, concluding that this defense transforms sex into a degrading, marketplace transaction.

My posts directly addressed that exact premise. I am analyzing whether the "validation only / sex as a transactional payment" script is a historically accurate reflection of human behavior, or if it is a psychological shield designed to mask hedonistic selfishness and avoid intense shame.

We see this type of analytical dissection on this forum every single day. For example, when a wayward partner claims they were "deeply in love with the AP," the community regularly debates the validity of that claim versus the reality of the "affair fog." Challenging a wayward partner's post-D-Day narrative isn't a distraction; it is a vital step in helping a betrayed spouse process what actually happened.

If I were to raise a topic, I would actively want poster to debate the topic I raised. Seeing both sides of an argument is precisely how one clarifies their thoughts. What would you rather. Just a ton of people responding: 'I'm sorry to hear that, stay strong' - whilst that sort of response has it's merit, it's certainly not going to help anyone in the long term.

You are entirely free to dislike my opinions or disagree with my analysis. I can accept that. If you think my reasoning is pointing Gemmy in the wrong direction, I urge you to state that emphatically. But I'd rather not have people hide behind the false accusation that my posts are irrelevant or "threadjacking" when they are explicitly tied to the exact words the original poster's wife used to justify her actions.

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 8:41 AM, Thursday, July 2nd]

Your point about reactive libido is particularly deep. If a person needs to feel intensely desired in order to experience sexual desire, then the validation and the sex are completely inseparable. The validation is the friction required to spark the fire. But here is the crucial distinction: once that fire is lit, they are still actively participating in, pursuing, and enjoying the heat.

I was specifically talking about sexting... Just feeling desired and being turned on by that isn't necessarily enjoying the sex itself. It's quite possible to be made to feel good (validation), engage in sexting, and pleasure oneself, but then when you do anything physical with the person giving you that validation, it's just bad, unenjoyable sex. And a WS (or even single people in general) may continue to have it with an AP just to keep the validation flowing.

Like for me, I knew the actual sex was likely to be bad. I was still intent on doing it anyway because I just wanted to experience someone being excited to get with me again, when it felt like my H had lost interest in me. From my own gathered statistics, it's highly unlikely that I'll find anyone better in bed for me than my H. I had (still have) good sex at home; it was just like, it felt like it was a chore for him that he was doing as a favor to me. I would do things like try on a new dress haul in the living room and be completely naked in between dresses, and the only time he looked up from his iPad was to pay more attention to the dog than me... Critical hit to the self-esteem. My AP wasn't even good at the sexting, and I wasn't attracted to him, but at least he appreciated my body, which made me feel sexy, and I sought that feeling out whenever my spontaneous libido struck. Often times after sexting with AP, I would come back upstairs and jump my H's bones, to complete the cake eating ritual. That alternated with crying about my marriage being "dead," of course. Just an entirely fucked up situation in general.

(That is not to blame my BH; it's just a description of what was going on at the time for the purpose of illustrating how it was about validation, not sex for me.)

And there are WS out there who don't even want to engage in the sexual aspect of the A, but worry their AP will lose interest and stop giving them non-sexual validation if they don't, so they do it anyway. (think-of-englanders)

And there are those who do actually enjoy the validation and the sex itself, and I think in those scenarios the sex is inseparable from the validation... But I think that is probably more rare than you are thinking, at least amongst female WS. Very few new, male partners are satisfying enough to be enjoyable, no offense meant to any men reading.

I just don't think that *very many* WS are lying about doing it for validation for the purpose of softening the blow to their partner's ego or absolve themselves of blame.

The forum scripts almost always claim the former, while the evidence—the graphic texts, the atypical acts, the sheer frequency—almost always points to the latter.

As I mentioned before, those frequenting the forums are likely producing a kind of selection bias, being more likely to be the introspective types who are wanting to do the deep work on themselves. Whereas "I'm selfish and gave into my horniness" is kind of a more shallow problem to fix... I feel like if you got an average person on the street to admit to cheating and you asked them why they did it, they'd be more likely to talk about giving into hedonistic sexual urges than problems related to validation seeking. Collecting WS reasonings from a wide variety of sources would mitigate that specific bias and give you more accurate data.

The core of the argument is that blaming "low self-esteem" or a "need for validation" is a way to shield the ego from looking monstrous. But as a WS who didn't hide behind a shield who actively tore my own ego apart to face the ugliest truths about myself, I disagree entirely.

​Admitting to pure hedonism is actually ego indulgence. It lets a person view themselves as a powerful, desirable, sexually liberated rebel who boldly took what they wanted. It paints them as a "bad boy" or a "femme fatale" who was just too passionate for a monogamous box.

Admitting to a desperate need for validation is absolute ego death. It forces you to look in the mirror and admit the most humiliating truth possible.

​"I was so profoundly empty, so weak, and possessed such little internal worth that I allowed a random person to cross every boundary just so I could feel visible for five minutes."

Facing your own pathetic emotional bankruptcy is a thousand times harder than pretending you were just a selfish, horny hedonist. The validation argument isn't a shield, it is an autopsy.

If affairs were truly driven by "the raw pleasure of different orgasms" and "the dopamine rush of physical climax," then how do we explain my experience?

The sex with my AP was subpar. I didn't get off. It wasn't mind-blowing. And yet, I kept going back.

​Why? Because the sex was never the fuel, the sex was the transactional tax.

When an affair is about validation, the quality of the physical act is almost irrelevant. The drug isn't the orgasm, the drug is the text messages, the stolen glances, the toxic high of being "chosen," and the temporary relief from a howling void of low self-worth. You endure the subpar sex (or enjoy the good sex) just to keep the supply of attention flowing.

Now.. this theory works perfectly for a ONS. A ONS can absolutely be driven by pure hedonism, proximity, intoxication, or a reckless desire for physical novelty. It requires zero emotional infrastructure.

​An ongoing affair is a completely different psychological beast. A sustained affair requires a massive, exhausting, high-risk parallel life built on a foundation of constant lying, scheduling, and compartmentalization. You do not build a second life just for a fleeting physical sensation.

If thousands of waywards arrive at the conclusion that they were chasing validation, it’s not because they read a handbook. It’s because the psyche only has so many ways it can fracture before it starts repeating itself. Commonality isn’t a convenient excuse; it’s a diagnostic pattern. Sex is the symptom. Validation is the engine.

Acknowledging that an affair was driven by a desperate, dysfunctional need for validation isn't an excuse, nor does it make the act any less monstrous or cruel to the betrayed partner. It is simply the diagnostic truth of why the machine broke down. If we refuse to look at the actual root cause because the symptom looks too hedonistic, we prevent actual healing and change.

Because here’s the part people avoid, once you admit validation was the fuel, you can’t hide from the work. You can’t hide from the parts of yourself that were starving, frantic, unanchored. You have to walk back into the room where you abandoned yourself long before you abandoned your partner. You have to sit with the version of you who believed attention was oxygen and silence was death.

​It’s the moment you stop romanticizing the affair and start interrogating the void, asking, "What part of me believed I had no other way to feel real?" It’s where you stop blaming the heat of the moment and acknowledge the internal coldness that made the moment feel necessary.

​Healing doesn’t come from confessing the behavior, it comes from confronting the architecture of the self that made the behavior possible. The affair/sex is the smoke. The validation wound is the fire. And the work is the walk back into the burning house to retrieve the part of yourself you left behind.

[This message edited by foreverlabeled at 2:03 PM, Thursday, July 2nd]

Pogre,

It's easy to get caught up in the "should haves," and I feel your pain there. (Mine looks like, "I should have considered what might be affecting his libido and not taken personally...I should have asked him about it. I should have been more persistent.I should have known he knew about the A and that was causing him to withdarw further.").. As always, it's not your fault, and I'm sorry you're hurting. It will probably just take you some time to accept the "didn'ts," if that makes any sense, but I think it helps to focus on what you know now and what will be different going forward.

Experience can be such a cruel teacher.

Here's where I go off SI script when it comes to my situation. I get caught up in guilt cycles. Like, I know it was her fault for making the decisions she did. I know that, but I also know she desired me. I not only had some of the physical side effects from the SSRI, I also had some (also well documented) psychological and emotional side effects in the form of emotional numbing.

I stopped caring about a lot of things. I'm an audiophile who loves music. I stopped even enjoying that. I stopped getting goosebumps from certain pieces of music that used to stir a lot of emotion in me. The compliments and the sweeter side of me dried up. I wasn't emotionally available to her. I started not taking care of myself. I lost an alarming amount of weight. There were a couple of occasions when she walked out into the living room topless while we were having a conversation, but she might as well have been dressed like bozo the clown for all it did for me.

Then, while I was losing weight she started gaining a lot of it. Around 50 lbs, and she's 5' 4" tall. And honestly, that didn't do much with my already nonexistent libido. She felt fat, ugly, and undesirable. She thought I wasn't attracted to her anymore, and in a way she was right. But I wasn't attracted to anyone or anything. It wasn't just her. I had just lost all desire across the board. I had stopped paying attention to her.

About 3 years ago she was promoted at work. She went from pretty sedentary type of work to more physical work that involved a lot of walking (she loves her new position, btw. Win-win). Some of that weight started coming off, and when she noticed it she actually started putting work into it. Changed her diet and started eating healthier. Over the last couple of years a lot of that weight she'd gained started melting off. She continued wearing the same (now baggy) clothes and I didn't really notice it. AP sure did tho... that's when the over the top compliments and unrealistic levels of compassion and understanding started flowing. He played her like a fiddle, and she was starved and primed for the attention.

She didn't go looking for an affair. She even resisted it a little bit at first, initially rejecting his advances, but he was persistent. She eventually gave in to her desires and instead of coming to me she ended up getting a hotel room with him under the guise of sleeping over with a friend who's husband was in the hospital. "She was scared and in need of some company." Most of that was true, but really was just a good cover story to explain her being gone for the whole night. She did that 2 more times before I caught on, did a little detective work and found out where she was.

Like I said, I know intellectually that her decisions are her responsibility. Her "fault" so to say, but I'm also very convinced she would never have done it if I hadn't checked out like I did. I'm all but certain that's the case. She's over the moon that I'm "back." She was very hurt and disappointed, angry even, that I had lost desire for her. She thought it was because of the weight gain. She was deeply ashamed and embarrassed about it. I know that if I hadn't checked out and lost interest in sex of any kind it never would have happened. She's still very much physically attracted to me, as I am to her again now.

All she wanted was her husband and I deprived her of that. Hence, my feelings of guilt. Our relationship was in the toilet, and it was definitely at least partly my fault. SSRI side effects and all. I could have been more self aware. I could have noticed it more. I just kind of let it happen. I didn't get curious and dig into why I had lost interest and had no libido. I just didn't care anymore.

I eventually did do that. I learned about the drug I was on and realized that those side effects lined up with what was happening in my life, but the damage had been done, and stopping taking it wasn't like flipping a switch. Those side effects can take years to go away, and in some cases can be permanent!

I started coming around more and woke back up so to speak, but by then he had his hooks in her. She was a couple of months into the emotional part of the affair and 2 weeks into the physical part of it. To say I was devastated would be an understatement. I know everyone says this, but I was certain she just wasn't the type to have an affair. She was a virgin when we met and had almost 27 years of demonstrated fidelity by that point. It was shocking.

The timing of certain events - me checking out of the relationship - her weight gain and subsequent weight loss - her epileptic seizures increasing in frequency and losing her driving privileges and independence (which was emotionally and psychologically devastating for her) - AP who is also epileptic and still drove stepping into the picture with unrealistic amounts of understanding and compassion for her situation - all converged into one great big perfect storm.

That all was well over a year ago now. I'm back and better than ever. I've gained a lot of weight back. She's lost a lot of weight. For the first time in years I weigh more than she does. We're both very healthy. I look good and she looks amazing. We went out and got her a whole new wardrobe. Things are... good? Well, except for the fact that infidelity has marred our relationship. I struggle with that, combined with the knowledge that it likely would never have happened were it not for the chain of events I described above.

We have a somewhat unique situation with a lot of the same tropes, actions, and words that are typically found with most affairs. I think that's why I've been as forgiving as I have (without having actually quite forgiven yet), and why we're doing as well as we are this early in the game. It's a real mess, but I don't really feel like I was truly replaced or that she stopped loving me. I'm carrying a lot of guilt and at least partially blaming myself, even while she doesn't blame me at all. She's owning it, but I'm a bit of a mess still. I will say I'm glad I have my wife back, and I know she's thrilled to have her husband back. I just wish, more than anything, we'd have gotten here without the treachery and hurt of betrayal.

I'm sorry for rambling, but you did give permission to wander off a bit, and some of the subject and replies from the other thread got me thinking about it. She admitted that sex was a big factor in why she did what she did. Just as much if not more than the validation, and there are some substantive reasons for it.

Tragically, accurately, and beautifully said, FL

Morbs,

To your point about sexting and self-pleasuring: if someone is masturbating to the fantasy of the affair, then sex is still inherently playing a central role. Whether the physical reality of the sex ultimately lives up to the fantasy is almost irrelevant; the anticipation of the physical act and the desire for it is still a massive primary driver. I am sure there are instances where people continue having bad physical sex purely to keep the emotional validation flowing, but my whole argument is that this happens far less frequently than is claimed.

Regarding the idea that woman rarely find new partners sexually satisfying—I don't think it's possible to apply your personal experience as a blanket rule across the board. I am a very sexually open person with many close female friends whose lived experiences simply do not align with that generalization. Some absolutely do, but many do not.

Ultimately, this is where our debate reaches its natural conclusion. I admit your opinions are incredibly well-thought-out and logical, and I respect them. We simply look at the same landscape and see the evidence pointing in opposite directions. Neither of us has a definitive global dataset to back this up; it comes down to interpretation, perspective, and gut instinct.

You make a fair point about forum selection bias, but the critical distinction is that we aren't just analyzing waywards who actively come here to do the deep work. In cases like Gemmy’s, the wayward partner isn't here. We have no idea how deeply she is doing the work or how high her level of self-actualization is. We are forced to piece together her motivations based entirely on a betrayed husband's account of her words. When a wayward partner uses that language under those specific high-stakes conditions, I remain highly convinced that the validation narrative is, at best, incomplete, and at worst, an out-and-out lie.

You also mentioned that a random person on the street might be more likely to admit to cheating out of hedonistic urges. In my experience, when cheaters confess to family, friends, or spouses, admitting to a selfish, hedonistic sexual urge is the absolute rarest path taken. They are far more likely to lean into relationship issues, neglect, or attention arguments.

@foreverlabeled

That is a fair assessment, and I am certainly not discounting your personal story or the profound depth of your own recovery. However, in my opinion and lived experience, the vast majority of people would far rather be perceived as broken, neglected, or a victim than a selfish prick.

I cannot fathom the average person telling their family, friends, or children: "Look, I destroyed my spouse's life, fractured my family, and blew up our social circle simply because I wanted to experience some strange new flesh." I also massively disagree that this would be an easier task. I can, however, easily imagine them hiding behind a cloak of emotional neglect or a "validation wound"—irrespective of the actual truth.

You used the validation narrative as a brutal, agonizing autopsy to tear down your ego. I commend you for that. But I still firmly believe the it can't be as prevalent as the amount waywards claiming it. As previously noted, waywards who have a body of strong evidence pointing directly in the opposite direction, by which I mean that they loved the sex, still claim sex was never a reason. It's more difficult to make that point with this sites rules against quoting specific use cases but their are plenty I could quote. I'm talking users who found diary entries recounting how orgasmic the sex was. Texts and email threads talking about how amazing they were in bed yet the second they are caught, the sex was poor and it was about the compliments... Makes little sense to me in those cases. Furthermore, suppose those waywards are lying... which is the way the evidence points, in some case directly from personal journals. If its harder to say it was about validation then sex, why are they sayings its about validation rather than sex?

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 2:12 PM, Thursday, July 2nd]

Please don't apologize Pogre! Ramble as much as you'd like/need. You are heard