SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I have an uncanny way to explain because your wife and I experienced common psychological responses of having an affair. It’s not unique to us or a major share of other ws.

You know how I know she has? Because she has an uncanny way to answer the same as me. She has clarity over herself. It’s a great sign. I don’t know what parts she doesn’t do great but I seem to remember you saying different times she has overall tried.

What it’s hard to recognize, it’s not stupidity. It’s choosing to ignore and live out the narrative in your head.

I am a very smart woman, especially when it comes to people. It’s served me well in many ways especially my career. In some ways my fucked up upbringing gave me this gift. Because I had to keep a temperature on every one else’s moods in my house to avoid a shitstorm, I just tried to be left alone., and I got very good at reading people. Hyper vigilance is my super power.

I ignored largely the things he said and the actions he didn’t make and turned up the volume on the things I wanted to see. Because it was never really about him. It was about me.

I was trying out someone else on him. It’s a little like role playing but like character acting. This is who I want to be, and this is who I want to become and it’s really not. I mean, I like music but not to the degree I pretended too. I said awkward cringey things. I believed I had the upper hand as I was much younger than the ap (that part was maybe very 2D of me but when you are in this state you believe your own bs) it was all performative.

The hook is the dopamine bomb. The feelings that gives you makes you believe there is something deeply emotional happening.

Escapism is not being dumb, it’s using creativity, and in this case it’s being used terribly for a heinous act. Have ya ever noticed that the ap is often a loser? I mean for more than just being a cheater. Often the bs has no idea why their spouse would be interested in someone like they were cheating with.

I wasn’t me.

[This message edited by hikingout at 12:04 AM, Saturday, May 24th]

TrayDee

It's amazing how similar so many of our situations are!

As I move across one of my POLF, I am currently stuck asking myself...How could she be SO STUPID!?!? How could she not see how insane all of this is? Did I miss the fact that she was ALWAYS this broken?

I don't know if I'm on the POLF or not, but I have been having similar thoughts about my WW. I have been going over and over how stupid some of my WW's decisions were.

For example she specifically had an affair with a man who admitted to having at least one previous affair, and admitted to using escorts without telling his wife any of this. She knew this BEFORE they initiated their affair. Then she got upset when she found out later that he lied to her... Like really?! How were you expecting someone like that to act? She actually told me that she trusted him and didn't think he would lie to her. Thats why they had sex without protection. He "promised" to only be with her during their affair, and he didn't have any STD's, and had a vasectomy, so why use protection?

The more I look at our history as a couple, the more I can see the signs of her impending betrayal. I'm 100% convinced that whatever caused her to act like this was present well before we knew each other. Yes I missed the fact that she was always broken. But at least I can see it now that she has revealed herself. At least I (hopefully) know where we stand. At least I can now put firm boundaries in place. Boundaries I never thought I would need to spell out, or be firm on before, but thats where we are unfortunately.

I’ll just chime in here with a "me too." My WH is also a liar. Big surprise. I know he lies all the time. I hate it but I just got used to it. It was about stupid shit that didn’t warrant a lie. Stuff like eating all the chocolate or the ice cream. It was almost always about food, but he also lied to his parents when he never told them how much they hurt him or how angry he was. He always faked affection. So yes, it makes me feel very insecure. Like he’s just 100% fake and why does he waste my life lying about how much he loves me? I always attributed it to his being from Texas where I never met so many fake people in my life. But it was a nice fake, a flattering fake, a perfect persona fake. My husband hated it as much as I did but couldn’t ever stop. It’s like he’s not capable of telling the truth because the truth is rude. He claims it’s why he loves me so much. Because I’m brutally honest and unafraid of the truth. Fleetwood Mac "tell me lies tell me sweet little lies tell me tell me lies"