Monday, December 16, 2019

Spinning stories out of S*@t

I was asked recently why people cheat. We had been having a conversation about how cheating is fantasy, how affairs are a distraction from uncomfortable feelings, such as grief, or loneliness, or anxiety, or depression. The common denominator, I had said, based on so many of the stories I read on this site, was that the affair had far less to do with the actual affair partner than with what she represented: the opportunity to be someone else, even briefly. To exit the real world into a fantasy and become someone who wasn't saddled with a mortgage, a special needs child, an ailing parent, a dead-end job, a beer belly. The change to be who we always thought we'd be – exciting, interesting, successful, sexy. That's what we're chasing when we're cheating, the fantasy of our other self.
Yes, was the reply, but we all have those feelings. Lots of us have suffered disappointments, lots of us have stressors in our lives. But why do some cheat and others don't?

Let me present this caveat: I am not an expert. I don't have years of schooling to help me understand human behaviour. What I do have is more than a decade curating your stories on this site.
And here's what I've learned:
People who cheat are those who've created a narrative that somehow makes cheating okay. Or understandable. To put it in the vernacular: They believe their own bullshit. 

Bullshit story #1: "My wife doesn't love me." 
So cliché, right? It's the story of every pathetic guy on a barstool hitting on the 20-something woman beside him. And he's probably convinced himself it's true. No matter that this wife is likely sitting at home while he's out getting sauced at his corner pub, no matter that she has at least as much incentive to cheat as he does, this is the tale he tells. He's unloved. Unappreciated. Unwanted. Disrespected. And so...who could blame him, right? After all, his wife probably wouldn't even care. She'd probably be glad to be off the hook, to not be saddled with his sorry self. 
These are the guys who are utterly bewildered when D-Day arrives, the proverbial cat is out of the bag and their wife is devastated. This is where the story they've been telling themselves falls completely apart. When it's revealed as a fiction.
Because this bullshit story is about entitlement. When you're the unappreciated husband of a total shrew, you deserve a woman who appreciates you, don't you? What red-blooded man wouldn't cheat under those circumstances? 
Guys who believe him are so busy feeling sorry for themselves that they can't fathom the role they play in their lives. They're just good guys and life has let them down. They wallow in the self-pity of their fabricated narrative. 

Bullshit story #2: "We couldn't help it"
Ah yes, the "we just fell into bed and never intended to hurt anyone" story. This was the story offered by my husband's OW. "We never meant to hurt you," she told me, in all sincerity. To which I cried, "bullshit. You knew exactly what you were doing. And, since your husband had already done this to you, you knew exactly how much it hurt."
Nobody "falls into bed" without having to cross a whole lot of red lines before you get there. Whether those lines took minutes or months to cross doesn't matter. 
But here's another consideration: Did she know how much it hurt? Was she so divorced from her own emotions that doing to another woman what had been done to her might have tasted like vindication more than betrayal. This was a woman who spent most of her free time on her way to the bottom of a vodka bottle. She wasn't someone who closely examined her motives or considered the repercussions. And, frankly, neither did my husband. Affairs were distractions, self-medicating, a way to avoid thinking. Because to think might have revealed that what they were telling themselves was total bullshit. 

Bullshit story #3: "It's harmless"
A friend confided in me a few years ago that she had met someone interesting on the plane who held an important position for our city. Flying high above their day-to-day lives and released from routine responsibility, the two laughed and shared stories. My friend felt invigorated by the exchange. This man was attractive. He made her feel interesting. He suggested they meet for drinks. My friend told me that she was considering it.
"But you're married," I responded. "And so is he."
"It's would be harmless," she said. "We're just friends. He wants to help my career."
Those of us who've been down this road likely have alarm bells sounding at that exchange, huh? There's so much wrong with this. She found him attractive. She was at a vulnerable point in her marriage with her husband travelling frequently for work. She was intoxicated by his interest in her.
Harmless? Nope. Bullshit? Yep. 

Affairs are like little bubbles of alternate reality into which you've invited someone who is not your wife. It might be shared confidences, it might be an after-work drink, it might be a lingering look, it might be a genuine physical attraction (it's not wrong to feel attracted to another person, it's wrong to act on it in any way that your marriage partner wouldn't thumbs up). 
No matter where it starts, an affair has required both partners to step over lines that should be signalling a clear boundary violation. It has required the construction of a narrative that makes cheating not only somehow okay but inevitable. It requires a belief that we are not agents of our own behaviour but someone helpless against forces stronger than ourselves. When we have successfully absolved ourselves of responsibility, cheating becomes something that happens to us rather than a choice we make. And with the bullshit belief that cheating happens passively comes an inevitability and the chance to throw up our hands and feign shock that we're eyeball deep in an affair that, frankly, is starting to get a bit tiresome. 

Cheaters traffic in bullshit even when they're unconscious of it, especially when they're unconscious of it. They've lied to their marriage partners, they've lied to their affair partners, and, frankly, they've mostly lied to themselves
Which is why the antidote to a cheater's toxic thinking is to pull it into harsh glare of daylight.
Your wife doesn't love you? Where's the evidence of that?
It just happened? Then why hasn't it "just happened" for the rest of us?
It's harmless? Then why is your wife falling to pieces, your kids aren't speaking to you, you're at risk of losing your job and the lunatic OW is making wedding plans on Facebook?
Part of a cheater's responsibility in the wake of D-Day, if he's truly committed to understand how he allowed himself to cheat when it violates his own value system, is to look at the bullshit stories he told himself, to begin to understand how those narratives gave him subconscious permission to cheat, and to become aware when he begins spinning those stories again. 
Only when he can smell his own bullshit can those of us married to these guys begin to feel safe enough to trust them again.

21 comments:

  1. My H was definitely a purveyor of story #1- he was married to an unloving harridan. Nevermind the ways in which I showed up for him every day of our 30 year marriage- put many of my dreams and lots of my sanity aside so that I could love and support him. And boy was entitlement a big part of it. But it was also cowardice on his part. Because it would have been scary to tell me the way he was really feeling about me and about us. It would have taken guts to take a good look at himself and his life and own his choices. Much easier (and a lot more fun) to f#$% a bunch of other women during out of town travel. Till the witch he was married to found out what he was doing, and his real cowardice was finally out in the open.

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    1. Hi Loner,
      A familiar story. Though the circumstances might be different, man oh man, the playbook sure sounds the same. Cowardice is a huge part of this. Conflict avoidance. So much easier to cheat than have an honest conversation. I think a lot of these guys don't even really understand their own behaviour until they're forced to peel back some layers and get to what's beneath actions that violate their own moral code.
      And Loner? You have enough guts for all of us!

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  2. That's the thing. We were in this marriage together, but my ex could not handle "life". All the years he berated me over so many things, now being here on this site I have so much more understanding. Not my fault at all, and nothing to do with me. It is all about his insecurities in himself and what he was projecting on to me! I remember when he left, I told him to have a good hard look at himself in the mirror. He was no model, didn't have a models body (at all), yet expected me to look like a porn star. My ex cheated because he wanted to believe he was something that he was not...and also looking at his family life, he was surrounded by a father who cheated and his father also supported a good friend who cheated....and a stupid mother who went along with it all. Good riddance to such toxic people.
    These are adults - not children/teenagers - and they know exactly what they are doing. Their ego's are more important to them than the family they created.
    I'm 4 years out from a D Day that changed my family with my children and I forever. Whilst I just go about day to day, I am still so angry with what my ex has done as he left me financially screwed, which will impact me for the rest of my life. Betrayal never leaves, yes the pain lessens. I'm hoping when the children have grown up I will never have to hear anything about my ex ever again. Even though I have gone no contact with him, just the ways he deals with the kids really annoys me.
    You are spot on with all you have written Elle.
    Hugs
    Gabby xo

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    1. Oh Gabby...sounds like he truly was toxic and grew up simmering in toxicity.
      My wish for you is that you can shed him, even as you live with the consequences of his actions, that you can fully get out from beneath him and what he's done.

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  3. Another fabulous post. Regardless of what they say, they are all just master BS artists until, as you say, the partner's reality gets factored into their fantasy world. The stories they tell themselves to cross each and every line are born in their heads. They believe their own narrative until the spouse edits the story with a reality check. At 4.5 years out I am beginning to believe that he is sincere in his "life skills" adjustment training to be an adult but I still wonder if I will ever get to where you are Elle. Visual triggers now roll off my mind for the most part yet the question still remains, "When the going gets tough again for us, and of course at our ages it will, will he be able to face it like an adult or revert to the "fix my pain and lack of control" with his past choices to self soothe with porn and whores? I don't worry about it because I know and he knows that I will be fine and he will have to own his response to adverse life changes. We now have a wonderful life neither of us could ever have imagined in a new state with shared friends and couples adventures. Who knew this might grow out of his screwed up life choices? May you have a wonderful holiday season my friend.

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    1. BeachGirl, Yeah, I couldn't have imagined it either. And though it doesn't erase what he did, the work he's done to be accountable to me, to become a better person, and to rebuild a marriage has helped me move forward.

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  4. Great post spot on and i cant believe in 2020 i will be 5 years out from dday and a time in my life i thought would break me. Im wounded not broken today im much more selective for me, i speak up now even when uncomfortable and i tell myself daily that i worked hard for this life and family and i deserve it. His betrayal is a wound i carry now sometimes stitched and scarred that i dont notice most days and some it burns like salt in an opened wound or an aggrevated old injury and un these days i reflect, add more self care and paint my toes red w glitter each day is mine to be what i want it to be even if it still in the damn rear view mirror it no longer grabs ahold to suffocate me or feels like a sucker punch knife to my heart. Elle i wish to be in the grace you have found and if nothing else it was life changing to me to live and do as i wish, authentically. Peace to you my prettiest.

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    1. Wounded,
      Sounds like you are, in many ways, already living that grace. I think of it like an old injury that might flare up, occasionally, when it rains or something. It will never not be there. But, as you write, it has become part of my story, not the whole of it. It was life-changing and not in an entirely negative way. I learned things that have made my life better in so many ways. Would I have rather not had the lessons? I dunno.

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  5. We did this to each other but that doesn’t make his decision to go outside of our marriage okay. He thought our marriage was over but didn’t let me know that and now he doesn’t know if he even wants to be here. I am trying to work on self care but it’s hard when on top of the infidelity I’m also dealing with whatever of his own issues he decides to throw at me. He likes to think she has nothing to do with us, i had to correct him multiple times on that one. She’s always there in my mind, every.single.day. How long does this pain last?? I hate who i am in this process.

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    1. It's been two years since our incident....the pain doesn't go away, it just changes. If I think about it it still hurts. I still don't trust him and don't know that I ever will. He's tried so many times to put the blame on me or to turn it around and accuse me of the same thing. It will never again be what it was when I was blind to who he was. The question always is....who will I be now? I have no control over him or the past. I only have control over me and my future.

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    2. bonabeaner,
      Yes, the choice to go outside your marriage is entirely on him. If he thought what he was doing was okay, why the secrecy?
      As for dealing with his issues, that's NOT your job. It's HIS. And it sounds like it's a job that needs his attention.
      As best you can, bonabeaner, try to emotionally detach yourself. Focus on you and your healing. He'll either fix his own shit or he won't. But that's on him to do, not you.

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  6. Sorry ladies for being so negative. It’s a bad day.

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    1. One thing I learned through this process is I have to accept how I feel. My feelings are all valid. It is hard going through this. It is a roller coaster. The lowest of the lows. I think it is different for all of us. I thought I would never make it. But here I am closing in on five years since dday. For me the entire first year was rough. At that point I started to feel a shift. I wanted to to happen sooner, I wanted to cross it off my list and feel "normal" again. But what I learned for me is I had to go through the stages. It was a sort of grieving process. Pretty much the death of what I thought our marriage was, what I thought my husband was. In time my thoughts shifted. I also could see the good in this all coming out. I could not go back and change his actions but when I looked back and did not understand why he was detached and I thought it was me now I know it was 100% him. He had two affairs that were sporadic so it was really hard to tell since he would go a year with no contact. And he always had an excuse when I brought up his detached behavior. So for me I started to see it as now I have answers. It is a process like no other. We are here for you. Keep sharing no matter what you have to say. Better to get it out here than keep it inside. Sharing on here helped me be able to share with my husband more too.

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    2. No need to ever apologize for bringing your pain here. We've all been there. Lots of us still are. We learn from each other, we lift each other and sometimes we just show up for each other and remind everyone that you will get through this.

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  7. I think we had a few more excuses thrown into the ring:

    "She deserves it". Ouch. If I was moody, or didn't want sex, or didn't initiate sex, he used that to tell himself that I deserved to be cheated on!!! It has been incredibly hard to hear him explain and apologise for that one, and to try to accept that it was the addict saying those things, that he didn't "really" believe it. But to know that your H has even contemplated such a thought was pretty gut wrenching.

    "It doesn't matter/it won't cause any harm" - told with the intention of me obviously never finding out. Yet that is rubbish too. Because blatently we are not going to have a good and healthy relationship if he is sleeping with others or even THINKING of sleeping with others. Even the porn addiction affects a sex drive, so obviously would have impacted on our relationship because he was not coming to bed until well beyond midnight etc.

    The lies they tell themselves are quite remarkable. I do think though, that the lies are only there to "make the deed acceptable". They aren't why they do it, or not in the case of a sex addict anyway - they don't realise it at the time, but it is serving a different need. Some sort of "self soothe" for stress, depression, or a need to feel wanted following trauma as a child maybe. But they don't see that, or realise that, so these lies come out to "make it ok". I think for the addicts, that can be the hard part - to rewrite the script. To recognise the lies muttering in the background, and challenge them, and say "no". To realise that they are lies and to find a different mantra - as well as a different way to deal with the difficulties which started this all of to begin with.

    And we are left reeling, dealing with what happened, dealing with the fact that they ever believed the rubbish they told themselves. This post is spot on Elle.

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    1. Ali, I loved being told that at least one of the two women was a great person and we would be friends if we knew each other. We would really like each other. He said the other one he did not even like that much.... I mean wrong thing to say to me. I just could not at the time understand his thoughts. What is crazy now four years after he cannot believe he said it. Basically he told himself whatever he had to in order not to feel like such a horrible person.

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    2. Hopeful 30 I heard the SAME THING. During my H's insanity he told me he hoped that we could all get together sometime in the future (this was the ONLY once of his side whores i had ever met)

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  8. You nailed it Elle about the why. Then the next question what is wrong with him? Through therapy, I learned my H has very little emotional maturity. She said give him time to learn and catch up. He tells me, “I’m giving you all I got. It may not be all the emotion you need but it is the best I can do.”
    So back to how. My H was ignorant of other people’s feelings. In the past, he took comfort in sex with a woman without emotions before we were married. He had no way to deal with his own emotions. He couldn’t see how his problems might because of him. He liked to blame other people. He always said I was to sensitive. He was critical of my feelings. He would walk away from emotional situations to avoid having to deal with the emotional fallout of an argument. He hid his true emotions from me. You can see how easy it would for him to justify an affair. Couldn’t see how much it would hurt me. Couldn’t see how was just using the OW, he used women in the past like that. Wanting to be close to someone without emotions, well sex fits that criteria. Couldn’t tell me how he was feeling, the resentments building up, how bad our marriage was, sex was a check-off list. He doesn’t have the capability to empathize at all. He had a great life, an impenetrable wall he built. Nothing comes in and nothing comes out. When he got caught and he was naked for the person who he really is, knowing if that wall didn’t come down pretty damn fast, he was going to be divorced and lose his family. The guys who show no remorse maybe like my H only they don’t want to change, be emotionally naked or learn how to handle emotions, they want to stay just like they are.

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  9. I know I've told this story before but it's been a while. Years ago in my first marriage, I found my self shockingly attracted to a guy at work. I was on the phone telling a friend about it (giddy and school-girly and completely inappropriately I might add) when I noticed that suddenly my husband was within earshot. I was SO guilty and SO ashamed that I took off running, I mean i literally ran out the front door. I had just finished a work out so I didnt look too crazy on the outside, but i was WRACKED with guilt and shame on the inside. I'll add that nothing every happened with that guy, but what felt like a simply lusty crush felt like the WORST thing I could do to another person when I thought my husband had overheard. Knowing that feeling I am pretty sure that any husband who has a modicum of decency in his body WILL do anything to protect himself. ANYTHING. because those actions, not just words, actions, actually exposed? That has got to feel like shit--and who wants to feel like shit? Turning the tables on you or us is a HUGE way to self protect and I would imagine for some is just too difficult to face. It turns out my H had no idea what happened, didn't hear a thing, and thought my actions were simply hilarious. To this day I wonder what the heck I would have done then, if he had confronted me.

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  10. Hi I’ve been with my H 40yrs, married for 36. There were tough times I can’t lie but we got through them and I thought we had a very strong relationship. My D day was 6/12/19 I found txt and videos on his phone, purely by accident, my world collapsed around me. His reply was it was only sexting so not cheating. I had watched him share what I thought was intimate only to us, with this OW very graphically sharing the experience. He denied at first and when I said how could he deny what was right there in front of us, he said it didn’t mean anything he wasn’t cheating on me. As you say I think they have to say these things to themselves in order to justify their actions. I asked what was wrong in our marriage that he had to go there. Nothing, he loved me, our family, our life, it was cheap thrills nothing more. He had problems with ED for a few years, I suggested all sorts of things to keep that part of our marriage alive and told him that was only one way of being intimate, there was so many other things other ways we could try. We went to the doctors who suggested all the things I had. We carried on trying many different things and then one day he said he couldn’t anymore, that he didn’t want to face being that failure, so everything stopped. He didn’t consider my needs or wants, but I loved him and didn’t want to see him in pain of his failure. I asked him to go see a therapist but he said he had come to terms with it and was happy in our marriage without sex. So I supported him and put my needs and wants to the side and for almost 3yrs he has never been intimate with me. So when I found the videos I was sucker punched to the gut. I asked if I wasn’t attractive to him anymore and he said no he loved everything about me. I asked if things worked with her, he said no it didn’t he still had the same issues. He had initially wanted to see if it was him, so tested the waters outwith is with this OW, but it didn’t fix it, things were still the same. I said I could get my head around that reasoning, but when he found out it didn’t work why continue and he said it was the thrill of it. However it transpired that this was not something new, he had a sexting relationship with her 4yrs ago for 8 months, then she stopped because she got married and then in June this year she got back in touch with him, supposedly over a work issue, but I have my doubts over that as she then said to him she was always there if he needed to chat, that she missed their little chats and not that I think he is any less guilty, because he had choice, but I think that was her intention all along to draw him back in. I asked him did he never consider the consequences of his actions and what that would do to our relationship when found out and he said he did, but didn’t expect to be found out. He had done it for 8 months and I knew nothing because he covered his tracks, so he thought that he’d get away with it again. He wants us to continue he can’t bear the thought of loosing me and he promises nothing like this will ever happen again. I love him, I always have, but I’m so afraid that he will break that trust again in the future. So now I feel like my heart has been ripped from my chest and I’m worn out physically and mentally and don’t know where I’m going from here. I am in awe of you courageous ladies, peace and love to you all xx

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  11. I just found out about my husbands infidelity less than a month ago. The emotions and thoughts are unbearable at times. Still trying to figure if I really want to try and work it out. Is it worth my energies anymore.

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