Could all of this be W just painting our sitch in absolute worst case narratives?
Absolutely. WWs are notorious at putting all the blame for the failed marriage on the LBH.
Look at it this way, no matter how bad the marriage was, what is worse. What she is accusing you of supposedly doing, or going out and sleeping with someone else? See the dichotomy? "You were a bad husband so I jumped in the sack with someone else!" Its laughable.
So yes, WWs try to spin everything to be your fault. It was your fault she couldn't keep her legs closed. It was your fault that she found another man attractive and acted on her impulses. It was your fault that After committing to someone for life, for better or for worse, she decided that worse gave her an excuse to break that commitment.
ballast, we all struggle with the feelings of it being our fault. Even if the WAS doesn't put all the blame on us, we do. It is a trap though. We like to take blame because then we have the potential to fix it. The thought of it being our fault is better than the thought it being out of our control. Most of us like to be in control, and we'll even take the blame if that means we keep control. ballast, your actions may have contributed to your sitch, HOWEVER, if she was going to do this then she probably would have found another reason eventually. (The big one that most fall back to is that "we should never have gotten married" or "I am not sure I ever really loved you".)
In my sitch my W used my behavior as an excuse for an EA in 2005. Then again at the end of last year. Admittedly, I was a bad H. But the fact that this is revisited tells me that she has a predisposition for this once a MR "settles in". No one knows the future. I could be exemplary for the next 10 years and still have her step out of the marriage. Who knows? This is a potential I need to face up to and decide how to proceed from this point forward.
This is what you need to face. Maybe it is a type you are drawn to? Maybe it is bad luck on your part? Maybe some of it was in your control. But the point that you can't get past is: anything short of extreme mental and emotional and verbal abuse, and of course any form of physical abuse, there is never an excuse to step outside of a marital commitment that was taken for life.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
