Infidelity and Low Self Esteem, Ego and Neediness

Continuing my series on Confronting the Other Person:

Let’s make a couple distinctions about the types of affairs that might be helpful.

Low self esteem, ego and personal needs can be viewed differently.

Low self esteem as I use the phrase has more to do with affair #6: “I Need to Prove my Desirability.” The cheating spouse has an affair with the intention (usually unconscious) of building that self-esteem which has been lacking for as many years as s/he can remember.

Ego often refers to someone in the “I Don’t Want to Say No” affair who inflates his/her sense of self worth. This is the big “ego” that feels entitlement.

The person in the scenario below I would imagine is someone with powerful, but unrecognized, personal needs. The affair was an attempt to fill a void with those personal needs – most likely, an “I Fell out of Love…and just love being in love” type of affair.

The confrontation worked because it reigned in his personal needs, something he probably had a difficult time doing, but knew he must.

Another take away from this scenario. The confronting spouse felt badly after the confrontation because she was not whom she wanted to be. A good lesson – for any situation.

1. What was your purpose for confronting the OP and what did you say/do?

My husband was forced to take early retirement. His self esteem and ego must have been very low at the time, and he went into an affair which lasted for 7 months. Obviously he denied it, although his phone records proved that he was in contact with the OP at least 3 times a day whilst I was at work. He said that it was purely business. I decided not to contact the OP, but phoned her husband and told him of my suspicions.

2. What happened? What was the outcome?

After this, it was like a swarm of bees – with calls being made backwards and forwards with all parties concerned. My husband denied emphatically to the OP’s husband that nothing was going on, but they both got such a fright, that no further contact was made with each other, to my knowledge.

3. If you were to do it again, would you do it differently? What did you learn?

No, I wouldn’t do it differently. The only thing I regret,was that I lost my cool in the end. I just wished I had never blown my top and told the other woman what I thought of her when she started shouting at me on the phone. I was actually lowering myself to her level.

Comments

  1. The other man was in a different state. I confronted him on text message. He was military and denied having sex with my wife but I had his text messages to prove otherwise. I had about 20 pictures of his tiny dick he had sent on Viber…..so I packed up the wife and the texts and pictures and went and made a report to the military police. Wife wrote a statement. Police found his hotel bills that backed up her story. All this was sent to his commander. I sent the pictures of his little weiner to other members of his chain of command. He was charged with adultery and sending lewd pictures over the internet. As a victim of a military person you are not allowed to know the punishment which sucks. He retired a year later. My guess is he got at most a letter of repremand. The best I got out of this was knowing his chain of command found out what a pervert he was and I hope a good laugh at his near micro penis…..and his text messages where he talks about playing with himself as much as he can…..I home his nickname changed from RV to spank.

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