SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Has anyone been following the case of Caleb Flynn who has just been found guilty of murdering his wife and was having an affair!!!

Yes, so very sad. I actually was wondering how often affairs lead to someones death. I heard just recently of a NYS Trooper who actually did himself in after learning of his wife's affair. He had just retired too....

I will look up the statistics.

But when you open yourself up to desecrating something so sacred, you just don't know what harmful spiritual entities you open yourself up to.

I watch a lot of true crime, Dateline, 2020, or even Netflix, one thing almost all have in common is infidelity. That's why infidelity is so damaging and dangerous.

I have only been lightly following. But sad all around. The ripples from infidelity are wide and vicious.

I know its so heartbreaking. I was so worried they would find him not guilty because there was no weapon found and no testing of gun powder and then the two girls would be back in his care. I just thought it was so interesting how there is so much similarities in how affairs work and how they made the wife the enemy to justify their actions. And how they were both in this fog and thinking they are sooo i love and not even seeing how messed up the other person was. I hope he gets life and they end up charging the AP.

I have so many thoughts. Is he a totally different type of person that has an affair? Is he one end of a spectrum of people who are capable of behaving in ways that are entitled and callous? Or is this a possible end result if you start down a slippery slope of devaluing and dehumanizing your spouse to justify your affair and bond you and your girlfriend over a common enemy?

Statistically speaking, yes, there is a very very real relationship between infidelity, intimate partner violence and self-harm (including homicide and suicide). There is a summary of a few studies in the relevant section here: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/5/3904 and also in the Oxford Handbook of Infidelity there is a chapter on violence and homicide following infidelity. These are some of the risks people who have affairs choose to expose families to.

I'm haunted by thoughts at the moment about how much the messages between my husband and his girlfriend looked like this. And also if I can have been so wrong about what he was capable of, what else could he do??

A hill I will die on though: everyone who has an affair should have to read their messages out loud in court afterwards. The world would be a better place.

[This message edited by StrugglingThrough at 9:10 AM, Wednesday, September 30th]

Maybe is just assumption but I think the majority of deaths from infidelity are self inflicted, hearing a lot about suicide, neighbor jumped to fold his spine in half not too,long ago, apartment was used right after by wayward wife and affair partner since it was no longer need for secrecy, didn’t last long, no idea if daughter argument or just lost the fun side now they could be together as it often happens.

I think the character flaws that make possible for someone to cheat, betray and be unfaithful to their partner, are by itself describing a person who runs from reality and into fantasy to soothe low self worth and lack of self love.

Murdering your bs is vile, but it’s way too real for this profile, WS are usually behaving like children stealing from the cookie jar, not like gangster, they may play pretend, but don’t have the stomach for emotional or physical confrontation while they are in the depths of the escapism.

There was a time when in history you had unsolvable combined marriages where people out of desperation chose spousal murder as the only way out, not just for affairs but as an alternative to hell (long time ago, and mistresses or the male equivalent were a unofficially accepted thing too back then).

But I think isn’t the stuff of today, to go that far you have to have other issues more than being a WS. Is not pathetic and treacherous, is violent and homicidal, more akin to psychopathy than infidelity.

There is a lot of infidelity related deaths, but is suicide or exhaustion rather than murder (there’s also that, but I think is exceptional)

@strugglingthrough i get what you mean. I haven’t seen alot of messages between WH and AP but i saw some, and she had it out for me. God knows why when i dont even know her. My WH struggled with emotions and empathy. My therapist said he has probably been disconnected emotionally for so long, he struggles to feel his own emotions, and therefore can’t empathise. After dday, my body was in complete fight or flight, i was trembling, lost so much weight and had suicidal ideation. He did not care at all. I feel affraid of someone who is capable of doing so much harm to someone and not feel what a normal human should feel and go into complete remorse. I don’t think he would have murdered me but I wonder if Caleb Flynn also had these issues on a really magnified level?

WS are usually behaving like children stealing from the cookie jar, not like gangster, they may play pretend, but don’t have the stomach for emotional or physical confrontation while they are in the depths of the escapism.

Very interesting this from BftS. My H recently said something similar to me (the wayward). I personally agree. I also never felt I was doing something too bad (yes, I was expecting some consequences, but not the actual post-infidelity devastation). And yet, he made me notice how infidelity can sometimes be a trigger for violent crimes (either from a BS, OBS, or from a WS). Again, a world I don’t belong to and where I never thought I could end up in.

I agree with BtfS, that the average wayward may behave more like a child stealing cookies or a pretend-gangster. But now, I can also see what an awfully dangerous field infidelity is all around (e.g. even if one fully trusts their partner not being violent, there could always be a very different OBS reacting. Or WS and AP spiralling in their illusion, etc.)

A hill I will die on though: everyone who has an affair should have to read their messages out loud in court afterwards. The world would be a better place.

My H had me restore all the deleted texts between me and my AP, and then sit next to him while he silently read through all of them. His emotions from the other side of the couch and my guilt were just absolutely pounding on me the entire time; I wanted to just implode into a pile of dust. Probably the worst hour of my life.

Yours is a great idea.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 3:10 PM, Wednesday, September 30th]

Is he one end of a spectrum of people who are capable of behaving in ways that are entitled and callous? Or is this a possible end result if you start down a slippery slope of devaluing and dehumanizing your spouse to justify your affair and bond you and your girlfriend over a common enemy?

I saw your question in the questions for ws and I didn’t respond because I wasn’t sure I had anything insightful to say. It wasn’t my experience to say I wished my husband were dead, but I did wish for a magical solution to the dilemma I had caused myself in my darkest moments, something that would solve it so I didn’t have to (like my husband announcing he wanted a divorce or something along those lines where I wasn’t going to have to come out)

But when you phase the question the way it’s stated above I can say with certainty I think it’s a spectrum. We have to remember that people who are pathological cheat, as well as people who do not have that element in their situation.

I wasn’t mentally well when I cheated. I don’t think that excuses the cheating or that I didn’t make those decisions with the knowledge I should make different ones. But I do not have a personality disorder or some pathological issue that would make me be able to dehumanize him to that level.

I did disregard and dehumanize by cheating, and I acknowledge the damage that caused, as well as understanding how I came to be able to do that. But murder? I just don’t think even most ws are contemplating that. I believe in most cases there was likely some red flags about this far before cheating occurred in those cases- anything from pathological lying or deeply controlling behaviors to domestic violence.

However, that being said infringing on the safety of your spouse is part of cheating and one that must be recognized. My husband’s ap was our employee, as was her husband. I believe her husband was rehabilitated and a good man but in his youth he murdered someone and served 12 years. Yet my husband and his AP decided it was still a good idea to put his penis in that man’s wife. So I don’t think anyone having an affair takes in the facts and acts accordingly.

As for the idea of having to read out texts in court, I understand the pain that you feel that makes you state that. I will just say that is actually very counterproductive if the goal is for rehabilitation/redemption. It is a great revenge fantasy. I do think in the context of murder it makes sense because there would be a need to show state of mind, callousness, etc. but in run of the mill cheating-someone who is more on the pathological side of the spectrum would be uneffected by it. Those of us on the other side of it, often toxic shame was a big contributor to the callousness and the mechanics of the affair, it probably would be a huge set back in becoming a reliable wholesome person. Just some thoughts.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:50 PM, Wednesday, September 30th]

Thanks for your reply @hikingout. If you had asked me before I found out about my husband's affair I would have said anyone who can keep a second life secret from the family they live with for over a year would have to be disordered. I don't think I believe that any more, but equally I don't understand how people are capable of it either.

It's not a revenge fantasy, it's a prevention fantasy. I most want to remove the secrecy because if you shine a light on it, it can't flourish the same way. I do think that for at least some people, knowing other people would find out about it would focus the mind on the question of whether something really is a great romance, or whether it's shagging a pathetic older married man in a chipotle carpark.

[This message edited by StrugglingThrough at 7:04 PM, Wednesday, September 30th]

I'm thinking more about what you said about red flags. I just want to say that plenty of people will tell me that given what happened, I should have seen red flags in my own relationship. I would have thought the same a few years ago. I've come to realize that they aren't always there. People don't show you their worst selves at the beginning, sometimes not for years until some trigger.

I'm thinking more about what you said about red flags. I just want to say that plenty of people will tell me that given what happened, I should have seen red flags in my own relationship. I would have thought the same a few years ago. I've come to realize that they aren't always there. People don't show you their worst selves at the beginning, sometimes not for years until some trigger.

Because it can be true we did see red flags 🚩 in our relationship.

And we probably did, that is often the case, you feel something is off way before any evidence or dday happens.

Sometimes isn’t just as simple as spotting red flags 🚩, they are a thing that should put you en guarde against something that you should avoid. Red flags in dating is an example, the girl/guy you spot, is going to be written off as a bullet dodged.

Something else when you love someone. You aren’t blind to the red flags. You love them, and the connection you sense among you makes you think you can kind of "love those red flags" away from your partner.

Because you accept the person in full.
Good and bad.

However thought this works for some red flags, the one that allow a person to become a cheater, are insurmountable by your love, because the person can’t love themselves so yours can’t reach or heal them.

They have to do it alone.

When they started then maybe, love is curative.

Before, and when they lean towards the infidelity slope, is just useless.

That’s the part that hurts you afterwards.
Is not flawed, the recipient and this particular kind of red flags 🚩 are

It's not a revenge fantasy, it's a prevention fantasy. I most want to remove the secrecy because if you shine a light on it, it can't flourish the same way. I do think that for at least some people, knowing other people would find out about it would focus the mind on the question of whether something really is a great romance, or whether it's shagging a pathetic older married man in a chipotle carpark.

I get that—but the problem is we already have natural consequences that we know are there and we find a way to say that won’t happen to me. We don’t think we will be caught. We find ways to justify every thing that we do. I mean we usually aren’t ready to lose our marriage and family but we find a way to believe that it will all work out. It all comes down to people who have affairs largely use escapism and avoidance rather than true coping mechanisms or ways to manage conflict.

And to clarify—-the red flags I was referring to were about people who murder their spouse, not garden variety cheaters. They are far more likely to have shown violent tendencies, manipulation, control. I don’t think I had any red flags towards cheating either for my husband to pick up on.

I am going off of how many times do we hear in the story of the murder victim that their family knew it was their spouse or they had said something like if I am ever killed it was him? Not in all cases, but I do follow quite a bit of true crime and often murder isn’t the first sign of physical or psychological abuse.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:41 PM, Wednesday, September 30th]