Divorce, cheating, and infidelity fiction

prime · Mar 05, 2024, 10:13 PM

No better place to see The Human Problem than in what we fetishize. Literary erotica is mostly wishful thinking and revenge. The "Loving Wives" category is either hotwifing from people who secretly hate their slut wives, or men (mostly) trying to analyze where marriage, casual sex, and divorce went wrong.

Stories in this genre, other than the usual lit-erotica trope of an idealized man having lots of sex with multiple idealized women who fawn over him as if he had purchased them, take one of two forms: reconciliation at all costs (RAAC), or burn the bastard/bitch (BTB) in which the aggrieved and victimized innocent spouse, a husband (cuckold) or wife (cuckquean), embarks on divorce or separation with some element of retaliation or revenge.

A few new types have emerge. Burn your former life (BYFL) means destroying or stealing your net worth and escaping to a new identity, country, or lifestyle, and divorce and get on living a good life (DAGOLAGL) means simply escaping as best as possible. Much of this genre is fantasy and consists of cheating wives eventually realizing their mistake and ending up in pain. There is also a lot of sodomy and rage.

Content warning: this way lies only the pain that casual sex and jobs have inflicted on an otherwise mostly functional civilization.

prime · Mar 12, 2024, 08:55 AM

The high cost of broken homes:

QuoteI remember standing next to him, in the place where Nancy should have been. The Nancy that had died now almost four years ago on a drug overdoses. The Nancy, who had been his baby girl for so many years, only to grow up, confused and angry, not even knowing why she was so confused and angry. A Nancy lost to us, for seemingly no reason.

https://www.literotica.com/s/it-s-all-good

These are stories about abuse, including sexual abuse, by one family member against another. They are also about how abusers as narcissists destroy the self-esteem of their victim. Frequently the victims are groomed via gaslighting:

QuoteBut humanists see grooming as one person conditioning another person to allow them or someone else to abuse them. The term is often associated with pedophiles preying on children, sex traffickers conditioning women for prostitution or husbands conditioning their wives to allow them to abuse them.

https://biblicalgenderroles.com/2020/07/16/7-steps-to-grooming-your-christian-wife/

The cheaters are self-esteem-destroyers:

Quote'Don't let her take your pride too.' She had stolen a lot with her infidelity; my confidence as a husband, as a lover, as a man, my faith in her in particular and people in general. She stole my sense of what my future would hold.

https://www.literotica.com/s/glens-pride

Cheatards are motivated by individualism and self-pity:

QuoteI guess a lot of it has to do with the excitement and the thrill of doing something behind my families back that is only for me. It was so wrong but that partially made it so thrilling. And my life is so boring and it seemed to her that no one needed her anymore.

https://www.literotica.com/s/a-daughters-revenge-1

The bed is shat (1) or not shat (0)
But one cannot unshit the bed.

QuoteMom for whatever reason has thrown that code out the door by her actions with your Uncle Dan and once that trust and deceit is done; it can't be undone.

A scream for the inner child:

Quote"You took the innocence right out of your marriage and made it something dirty and ugly. "

https://www.literotica.com/s/requital

Just lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair fall all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence

RUINED

Quote"I just know you've ruined something that was really beautiful, you know that? Now, I don't have anything but pain...and it won't go away. I loved you with all my being."

https://www.literotica.com/s/separate-lives-pt-01

Torment, ill forgotten
A soul that will never rest.
Innocence withdrawn in fear.
Fires burning can you hear
Cries in the night.

In my view, most of these stories are off-base for the following reasons:

They overestimate how much women want to stay with the man.
They portray women as more emotional than they generally are.
They underestimate how much people simply cheat covertly in return.
They overestimate how much ordinary people have sexual relations.
They follow a porn scenario for sex that is more acrobat than the norm.
They overestimate people's capacity for self-reflection.
And the biggie: so many of these involve men marrying women for being hot, then projecting some kind of Disney-Hallmark love onto her, and finally being disappointed when she turns out to be a thot.
The lengthy dialogues are right out of Pilgrim's Progress but are unrealistic.
Jesus H Christ, why is there so much anal?

There is also a Darwinian question:

Quote"He told me why she wasn't getting pregnant. She made a big deal about flushing her pills, then went the next day and got one of those implants that last for three months. She plans on saying she got tested and can't conceive. She doesn't want kids, can't stand them, doesn't want to wreck her body and make that kind of time commitment to anyone or anything. She's really shallow when you get down to it, odd how we never noticed it, isn't it? I must say she hid it really well."

https://www.literotica.com/s/did-you-really-mean-it

People who are hostile to biology are portrayed as parasitic viruses. Biology is tied to loyalty and affection:

Quote"There's no such thing as just sex. It's broken promises. It's disrespect. Most of all, it's not love."

https://www.literotica.com/s/anniversary-cheat

This one's for the Gen X kids... you all know what it is.

Quote"Paula has figured out most of what happened. She's no dummy that one. She's incredibly pissed at me and most conversations are monosyllabic. The other two are just confused about why I don't live at home any more. But there is still love there. It's not the same and it's not right and they growing...hardened. I can see it. There's a way they've changed in how they look at the world. Paula, in particular, is far more fatalistic about the world now. I don't know what to do about it – I keep reaching out to her, but she's just not interested."

https://www.literotica.com/s/live-from-the-game-ch-05

Interesting direct cite of reverse discrimination:

QuoteThe mantra these days was that the woman had to be believed. She had to be believed regardless of whether there is any proof or not.

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-guitar-player-ch-03

Psychology of the promiscuous (people with emotional disregulation tend to find, associate with, and defend others with their disease):

QuoteLenz, who writes the popular liberal blog 'Men Yell At Me', has written extensively about her divorce from her Trump-supporting husband-of-twelve-years David Lenz in publications such as Esquire and The Washington Post.

David is now happily remarried to another woman, with Lenz writing of her joy at being able to have 'really good sex' with other partners on their marriage foundering.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13254103/Lyz-Lenz-middle-class-women-happy-marriages-white-supremacists.html

Cheating is how muscletards reproduce:

QuoteTalan Renner, 17, reportedly boasted to Snapchat friends after throwing 'hammer punches' on Preston Lord at the bash in Gilbert, Arizona, in October 2023. He wrote: I got in a fight, a big group fight and I accidentally killed a kid. I guess I'm just too strong.'

Renner and six other alleged bullies have been arrested over the death of Lord, who died of a brain injury two days after the beating. Police records allege one unnamed boy danced on the dying teen's body shortly after the beating, while others performed 'humping' - simulated rape acts - to further degrade their victim.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13254373/talan-renner-bragged-beating-preston-lord-death.html

It's either literal cuckold where the parasite attaches to a decent man in order to provide offspring for an idiot, or sexual cuckold where the parasite attaches so that it can have a normal life in addition to its lust-life, or leaves normal life for a sexual obsession:

QuoteAfter months and months, we finally decided that we would try to find a surrogate husband. We had no idea what we were doing, but it sounded like a good idea at the time. Trying to find a suitable guy was not that easy. It had to be somebody who we felt could provide a stable environment and still be a good companion.

https://www.literotica.com/s/turning-tables-2

Funny how unequally yoked -- cross-ethnic, cross-class, and cross-racial -- marriages are portrayed as working out as badly as they do in real life:

QuoteShe was definitely upset when she jumped to her feet. "Damn you, Tony! I hate you. You Wop bastard." With that outburst, she left the room bawling. That was the first time she had ever swore at me and the first time she every made any derogatory remarks about my heritage. The Dutchie in her, finally came out.

...Carla and I were tearing up the sheets by noon the second day. My mother was right, I should have married an Italian girl. It felt natural and I did not feel as if I was cheating.

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-old-neighborhood-1

Performance anxiety (for women):

QuoteBecause she was not actually married to Rich and their relationship was only a relationship for a time, she did not feel the moral pressures of her upbringing. She did not feel the need to act as the proper wife and mother of his children. She could easily and openly talk with him about anything sexually, telling him of her fantasies she would have feared to tell her husband. So, it wasn't about the sex they had, that made the sex so good.

https://www.literotica.com/s/between-two-lovers-ch-01

At the core, individualism -- denying the gods/nature for the sake of ego -- spreads its wings:

QuoteKaren thrived on the attention. The ancient Greeks had a word for it; hubris... a great or foolish amount of pride.

https://www.literotica.com/s/birth-day-club-ch-03

It's the French Revolution narrative!

Quote"He made me realize I'm entitled to have sex with three different men so we can enter our marriage as equals."

https://www.literotica.com/s/never-is-forever

The magic word:

Quote"I take care of our family! We do it together! We're equals!" She had a look of triumph, like she'd found the secret phrase that would make everything better. Equals.

https://www.literotica.com/s/february-sucks-for-walter-mitty

Aaaand it's that individualism inversion:

QuoteALL LIES. Planned, rationalized, justified, excused lies.

https://www.literotica.com/s/open-letter-about-flings

Matriarchy:

Quote"You just have to understand that women are the natural choice to be in charge, and we have to use whatever means are at our disposal to gain that advantage. And the fact is that, despite what you might believe based on messages in popular culture, women need far more sex than men and can do it longer and better. We have to have more than one lover, and we need other men to serve in particular roles."

https://www.literotica.com/s/just-accept-it

A criticism of no-fault divorce laws:

QuoteShe can fuck the entire Giants football team in Times Square, and he will still end up paying for a house he can no longer live in, pay most of his paycheck in alimony lose half of his retirement, lose half of his life's savings. She lives like a queen while he is hoping that he has enough money for a couple cheap cans of tuna and some packets of Top Ramen to eat. The divorce laws in this state actually reward women for cheating on their husbands while punishing the innocent men for being faithful.

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-juror

And the technical side, albeit from a careerist perspective:

QuoteSo what do the courts do when dividing marital property? First, at least in Illinois, they never refer to the grounds of divorce when splitting the marital assets. To the contrary, the statute expressly directs the courts to divide marital property—and determine alimony and child support, for that matter—without reference to the grounds of dissolution. The reason for this, and why most states have similar no-fault divisions of marital assets, is simple: Courts are too busy to litigate which spouse was the bigger bastard during the marriage before making the property split.

No, courts in Illinois determine property splits based on the quaint, and faintly defined, notion of doing what's equitable, which is another way for saying it seems the most fair under the circumstances. However, the layman's idea of fair and the legal notion of fair are diametrically opposed matters. How so? Well, take the wife earning $200,000 a year and the husband earning $40,000 per year and tell me which one will get a higher portion of the marital assets. The one who earned, and thus contributed, more to the marital assets? Wrong answer. Rather, the one who earned less will get a higher portion to give that person an opportunity to give them a more sound footing on which to start their new, post-divorce life.

https://www.literotica.com/s/a-crash-course-in-family-law

(Translation: whichever party is the bigger bastard gets to seize half the wealth, instead of having a court decide to punish the bastard and reward the relatively innocent. This is especially relevant in adultery cases, where our gut instinct is to throw out the cheater without a cent.)

Means-over-ends:

QuoteLike most men, I fell in lust with the exterior packaging and forgot to check under the hood to see what made this model tick. There was nothing wrong, but there was nothing really right either.

https://literotica.com/s/the-adulteress-1

Zero-sum:

QuoteYou eliminated me from an intimacy that you and I have shared together for over ten years.

https://literotica.com/s/the-key-15

prime · Mar 15, 2024, 09:21 PM

Many of them feature people waiting until the kids are gone to split from a spouse who has become a narcissist, solipsism, individualist, sociopath, psychopath, or simply aggressive negotiator:

QuoteThere has been a growing trend in recent years for 'grey divorce', when couples in long-term marriages split after the age of 50.

Firstly, the study found that grey divorce generally leads to a decrease in the frequency of contact between adult children and their fathers.

On the other hand, there was an increase in the frequency of contact and in emotional closeness with mothers.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13197789/grey-divorce-reshapes-family-dynamics.html

Interesting the kids end up with the mother. Maybe the same biases that allow our society to see women as passive also makes them into perfect Virgin Mary like victims.

It turns out that battered husbands who are afraid to stop their narcissistic wives are a thing:

QuoteChilling never-before-seen footage from a nanny cam has revealed the moment a battered husband cowered on the floor while his wife hurled abuse at him and brandished a knife in their home during her 20-year reign of terror.

And explosive clips from police interviews show Sheree casually lying about her husband being the abuser, only for her face to turn ashen when confronted with the footage.

On one occasion she defecated on the floor and forced him to clean it up, and on another she beat him with a wine bottle so hard it permanently disfigured his ear.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13200557/Nanny-cam-footage-sheree-spencer-wife-abuser.html

Sometimes with erroneous legal decisions:

QuoteWhen they started dating, Jason had been divorced for several years. His first wife, he says, had cheated on him. Tiffiney was in a relationship at the time — married, in fact. It wasn't exactly a fairytale beginning from the outside looking in, but Jason says, for the two of them, it was.

Just hours before she got home, Jason found messages on their computer suggesting that she was having an affair.

Tiffiney's mom, Cheryl, says she knew about the affair.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tiffiney-crawford-death-jason-crawford-911-call-alabama-murder-verdict-48-hours/

Sex cannot be separated from love. Affairs end marriages because you can never trust or respect the cheating spouse again.

QuoteI was open to reconciliation, but I just didn't see how we could get there. I was never going to cheat on Tilly, so the only way to move forward with her was to accept her betrayal and forgive her for it. And that would always leave the scales of our marriage tilted. Combine that with her lack of remorse and her philosophy that there were exceptions to everything in life, and I had no confidence that she wouldn't do it again.

https://www.literotica.com/s/how-do-the-scales-balance

And a bit of PUA/MRA:

QuoteI'm a new man, and I would throw you out in a minute if you ever disrespected me again. You would no longer be my queen, or even my equal. You've taught me to treat women for what they are: deceitful, selfish beings. To me, women are just here to please me, not something I can ever depend on or expect loyalty from. In my view, women are no longer my equal, and I now treat them that way. The funny thing is that the more I treat them as beneath me, the more they want and respect me. You also taught me that being the caring, wimpy guy might be nice for the woman but does nothing for the man.

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-heart-never-waits

I think this describes most humans generally: they want to be degraded because that makes them important.

The eugenics question:

Quote"My grandpa always used to tell us the story. A horse was loosely tied up in front of the general store. A guy came by, untied the horse, and rode off with it. The question is: did he become a horse thief when he stole the horse, or did he steal the horse because he was a horse thief? Many others had walked past and didn't steal the horse."

"Hmm." I poured a fresh cup of coffee from the thermos. "I guess all these years I've been married to a cheater, a cruel, cowardly liar and cheater." Shaking my head, all I could say was, "I had no idea."

https://www.literotica.com/s/february-sucks-in-cold-blood

Too bad your kids are half-moron/fool.

QuoteThe worst thing is your heart, the excitement, the tingling you have, to seduce him and betray me. That thrill is downright evil. If you had an ounce of integrity, you'd come to me and tell me you want to be with him. That would hurt me, but I'd respect your wish and not stand in the way of your happiness. Fortunately, I found out about it in time, so I can still give you the divorce and set you free to have all the excitement with your Mr. Stevens you want. Only now, I'm devastated that, after our twenty-six years together, you disrespected me so much you did it behind my back

https://www.literotica.com/s/no-anniversary

More eugenics:

QuoteHow do I know you won't do that again? Maybe it's in your DNA, or something.

https://www.literotica.com/s/turnaround-is-fair-play-feb-sucks

You will find that in many of these stories, the kids of man and moron (or woman and moron) have follow a Punnett Square, that is half take after the Dad in being sensible and the other half are idiots like the mom or vice-versa.

QuoteDerek, our 22-year-old, was always the more perceptive of our two kids. Natalie, two years younger, just assumed everything in the world existed for her pleasure, and therefore she had no need to perceive things.

https://www.literotica.com/s/feeding-ducks

Casual sex is a lie that rapes love:

QuoteThe longer you kiss and fuck someone, you can't help building an attraction. You can't avoid it, we're simply wired that way. So, if you kiss and have sex with Jack, or anybody else, there is no way you can avoid building affection of some sort. Call me selfish, call me what you will, but I refuse to be married to someone building that kind of affection with another man.

https://www.literotica.com/s/making-it-to-25

Inverted "love" is abuse:

Quote"You don't do that to someone you love, or at least not someone you're in love with."

https://www.literotica.com/s/honesty-above-all

Forgiveness does not mean BOHICA:

Quote"Forgiveness isn't forgetting, Mike. It's not letting people back into your life, nor is it about trusting them again."

https://www.literotica.com/s/after-the-future-is-gone-pt-01

Equality destroys self-esteem

Quote"A man's perception of himself," I answered, "is made up of his pride, his ethics, his self-worth and his self-respect. I would sacrifice all of those if I stayed married to you. I don't think your betrayal could be kept from our kids. Over the years, they would learn what happened last night. In about ten years, our grown-up babies are going to ask me why I divorced you rather than live with you in a loveless marriage for the sake of the family. I can answer that question. On the other hand, they would lose all respect for me if they learned that I stayed with you as a cuckold after being so treacherously betrayed."

https://www.literotica.com/s/february-sucks-one-more-time-1

Consequences of equality -- wealth transfer:

QuoteThe patriarchal society that we have known for centuries is slowly giving way to a matriarchal order that is seeing women poised to take control of government and power in the next century.

https://www.literotica.com/s/husband-has-a-limit

Love is the transcendent:

QuoteI didn't think of myself as a separate person. Since we were married, I thought of us as one. Two organisms, but one life force.

https://www.literotica.com/s/law-of-the-heart-ch-04

Have versus have-nots? Users versus the used, and since the users win over time, society declines:

Quote"I'm sure she liked you well enough to begin with, but she's a user. I don't mean she's using drugs. She's manipulative. She was using you. Maybe it didn't start that way, but think of all the things you did for her and ask yourself what she did for you."

https://www.literotica.com/s/playing-the-game-9

prime · Mar 16, 2024, 08:25 AM

At the core of these stories is casual sex, which not only allows for abuse, but makes people alienated from each other to the point that many of the people in these stories are complete strangers to their spouses:

QuoteI knew what she had been like before we got together, how could I not? She lived two doors down from me and we had been classmates from the fifth grade all the way through high school. I was at a party after the senior prom where she had taken on seven of our classmates. I'd been in the car next to her at the drive in movie when she and Steve had climbed into the back seat and the car started rocking. Ten minutes later Steve had gotten in the front and Ted had gotten in back with her and the car bounced some more. I had been on the roof of our house installing a motorized TV antenna and had looked down into her backyard and had seen her on her knees sucking Mark's cock while Ben fucked her from behind.

I knew what she was before she started going steady with me, but none of that mattered once she committed to me any more than Donna, Maria, Sue, Abby, Bonnie, Sarah or Nancy mattered to Michelle once I committed to her.

You might ask why, given our close proximity to each other and given the way she was, that I had never been one of her lovers and that we had never even dated before halfway through our junior year in college. The simple fact is that I was insecure where Michelle was concerned. She as just so beautiful, outgoing and fun loving and I was such a nobody that she intimidated me. Maybe intimidated is not the right word to use. Maybe not intimidated as much as afraid of rejection.

https://www.literotica.com/s/michelle-and-jimmy

prime · Mar 16, 2024, 08:55 AM

QuoteI gave away something very clean at that party and like my virginity, I can't get it back.

https://www.literotica.com/s/one-slip-a-hard-fall

Hint: it's about casual sex and chastity.

prime · Mar 16, 2024, 10:18 AM

And self-image, always important in a democracy:

QuoteI hated Jenny more than I'd ever hated anyone in my life. But my heart was singing, I heard birds chirping sweetly in the trees, and my blood was racing through me with joy. She wanted to come back again! She loved me!

https://www.literotica.com/s/my-second-nightmare

prime · Mar 16, 2024, 11:45 AM

Disturbing subplot: some of these writers are very fascinated with sodomy. Did infidelity turn them proto-gay?

QuoteThen I went down on her again – this time adding a finger then two. I started rimming her ass with my tongue exerting more and more pressure. Melinda moaned as her head was turning side to side, begging me for another fucking as I actually fucked her ass with my tongue. I rose up between her thighs, hooked her heels on my shoulders and pushed my cock down until it centered in her little brown rosebud. I told her I was going to fuck her ass.

Her face was a masque of conflicting emotions. She wanted me in her again – just not exactly where I was planning on going. We had done anal a couple of times, usually when she was fall down drunk. She wasn't close to that. We both knew I wasn't going to force her, but it was clear that I was intending to press the issue – so to speak. I played my trump card (I can't tell you how tempted I was to call it "my hole card.") "Forgive me for being such an asshole these last couple of weeks?"

https://www.literotica.com/s/52-pick-up

Addendum: it is both a proxy for control and a proxy for virginity.

Quote"Go for it and have a memorable fuck and let him have that virgin ass of yours he been begging for."

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-receipt

Looks like casual sex has torched Scandinavia as well.

prime · Mar 16, 2024, 07:45 PM

A split here: integralists want sex and love to be coincident, but externalists are perfectly happy to separate the two.

QuoteI always felt that sex and romance should go hand in hand. For Sally it was all about the sex.

https://www.literotica.com/s/computer-history-log

prime · Mar 16, 2024, 08:07 PM

The cuckoo drops its egg into the nests of other birds, often removing their eggs in the process. This is the origin of the term "cuckold." Imagine accidentally raising a potato:

QuoteThe combination of the Irish reveal, an unknown first cousin and later discovering that she wasn't a genetic match with any of her cousins on her father's side led to one conclusion: the man who raised her wasn't her biological father.

After the initial shock, Paterson tried to understand at what point in her family tree this anomaly occurred. She would learn through research that the unknown first cousin had the same last name as a doctor who worked at the hospital her mother worked at in the 1950s.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/i-was-stunned-dna-tests-reveal-hidden-family-secret-for-b-c-woman-1.6810193

prime · Mar 17, 2024, 09:26 AM

Crux of the rage. A choice has been made, but waffling has followed.

QuoteAnyway, your affair tells me that you really aren't committed to me or this marriage.

https://www.literotica.com/s/friend-request-accepted

Deprivation is also an issue:

QuoteSuddenly, the woman I desired, and who used to desire me, would barely touch me. If I tried to initiate sex she would move away or say she was tired, leaving me upset and frustrated.

Four years into our marriage, we had a two-year-old and a baby — and a non-existent sex life.

I did not want to cheat. Despite everything, I still loved and fancied my wife and adored our family. But there are only so many times you can hear a woman say how tired and exhausted she is before recognising that the problem isn't with you, it's with her. Something in my brain shifted.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13244203/I-forced-cheat-wife-having-children-wrecked-sex-life-deceit-justified.html

BTW, I don't buy the term "forced." Forced means a gun at your back. He chose to handle the situation without her and probably has her tacit consent.

prime · Mar 17, 2024, 02:39 PM

Why it's angry:

Quote"I was trying to get away from a cheating wife without getting raped by the legal system to do it. I didn't do anything wrong, but if I'd stayed I'd have ended up paying for her cheating on me and I didn't think that was right and I wasn't going to do it."

https://www.literotica.com/s/on-the-road-away-from-her

How it breaks the marriage:

QuoteVictor didn't care whether she approved of his drinking or not; after all, she didn't ask his opinion before spreading her legs open for her boss.

https://www.literotica.com/s/revelations-26

prime · Mar 17, 2024, 03:39 PM

QuoteI am someone's wife, someone's mother. I took vows and was building a life and a family. I am living a lie, day in and day out.

https://www.literotica.com/s/anatomy-of-an-affair

prime · Mar 18, 2024, 04:52 AM

A species tormented by its own neurosis:

QuoteI smoke and drink too much and Cathy is a little self-centered and the poster child for passive aggression. Cathy argues her passive aggression is a result of my smoking and drinking and I argue that I drink and smoke because she's so damn passive aggressive. Round and round, on and on but somehow it all worked.

https://www.literotica.com/s/brain-stew

prime · Mar 18, 2024, 09:10 AM

It's the casual sex. No one can ever measure up to the illusion of partial knowledge.

Quote[E]very single woman on the internet or at the bar [has] had a hot sex experience once that would today confound them if they were to meet each other again. All of us women, like all of you men, have a past.

https://www.literotica.com/s/eve-and-jerrys-new-baby

prime · Mar 18, 2024, 09:41 AM

Rejection:

Quote"I apologized until I was blue in the face. I told him that none of it was his fault, that it was me who'd destroyed our wonderful marriage.

He said it couldn't have been too wonderful if it wasn't enough to keep me out of Douglas' bed."

https://www.literotica.com/s/regrets-17

Transcendental bonding:

QuoteI am the man who forms attachments. When I buy a car, I keep it until it won't drive another mile. It fits me and it feels right. I don't just buy a house; I inhabit it. I bond with it. The walls become my fortress and the ground around it nurtures me. My job becomes my avocation. I rise in the morning with excitement and go to bed at night with satisfaction in a day well spent. My friends are everything to me and my family is foremost in all things.

https://www.literotica.com/s/life-in-exile

Paranoia:

QuoteMrs. Watson took that moment to point out that most situations like ours, more times than not, manifest from both people forgetting to defend and protect each other from the outside world. That a crack in a marriage foundation, no matter how slight, can be manipulated by those with selfish intentions and insert themselves into a marriage normally with a negative after effect.

https://www.literotica.com/s/options-5

The only solution to the tragedy of the commons:

Quote"In this State a man is entitled to use such force as is reasonably necessary to protect himself, his family, and his property. While no one would argue that another person could be considered "property," the marriage can be viewed as property with its own interests that are independent of the parties themselves.

https://www.literotica.com/s/january-sucks

Escape parasites:

QuoteWhile looking up and down the shore I was reminded that when they refuel those nuclear boats, they cut a hole in the hull to refuel the reactor and then weld the hull back together. Was that a metaphor for me? Was Karen's betrayal that tore a hole in my heart nothing more than the first step in refueling my life? Could I heal myself once my new life had begun?

https://www.literotica.com/s/ghost-on-the-wind

Mutality:

QuoteIf she was through with me, then I was certainly through with her as well.

https://www.literotica.com/s/clueless-6

Tribalism:

Quote"I even gave you a second chance, something I almost never do. But then you decided to betray me. I don't associate with traitors, and that's what you are."

https://www.literotica.com/s/roland-and-susan

The criminal mentality:

QuoteShe wanted to believe she was terrified by her narrow escape from disaster, but she knew it was untrue. What she'd experienced when Jack told the story was not terror, or guilt, but pleasure – the thrill of the sky diver or bungee jumper in the moment of escape from disaster. Her success made her charitable and she felt compassion and sympathy for Jack. Having won, she wanted to make him feel better – until the next time.

https://www.literotica.com/s/caroline-alone-ch-01?page=3

Jobs are jails and careers are voluntary servitude:

QuoteWe grew up, our priorities changed. Suddenly the thought of ducking out of work and spending the day playing wasn't as important as making a meeting or coming in early to beat the competition, so you'd have a leg up when promotion time came along, or you couldn't go on a spontaneous road trip because you had things left over from the week before, and needed to finish them and start on the new week so you'd gain ground. Good or bad, Beverly, we grew up, and now we're growing old.

https://www.literotica.com/s/let-go-6?page=5