SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Compartmentalizing...
The genesis of this topic is from a question asked to me in a topic posted in Just Found Out. I replied to the member (in the thread) and deleted as I wasn't going to be that person who hijacks a member's topic to hash out a difference of opinion. The member who asked the question does not allow PMs so, here I am...

I would like to see proof that HellFire is the outlier here. I don't see anything wrong with being an outlier, but I'd like to know this: What data says HF is the outlier in this case.

1. Despite this site's strength and longevity, it is a small sample size.

2. A WS who fully compartmentalizes the two worlds is a unicorn... it simply isn't reality despite the claims otherwise.

3. WSs speak poorly of their BS either directly or indirectly.

4. Citing anecdotal evidence provides hope for a specific outcome.

I have been shown/told (by counselors) and read supporting data.

Clearly people disagree... some vehemently/childishly so.

Carry on.

EDIT: appreciate a correction for the butchered spelling/typo in the title... thanks to anyone willing to help.

[This message edited by Apollos at 12:21 AM, Tuesday, March 12th]

There is no reliable data. Whether HF is an outlier or not can at best be supported by anecdotal evidence. Even Dr. Shirley Glass said that getting reputable evidence was difficult.

People have different outcomes. My XWH wasn't capable of doing the work to R, so we are D. He did disparage me to AP and I saw the texts to prove it. You're not going to change my mind about it.

I'd challenge #2 WS who fully compartmentalize are a unicorn. From what I have read, a lot of WS compartmentalize. Heck, I do it sometimes, just not for infidelity. Rather, I'd say that a WS that truly gets it and does the work to be a safe partner is a unicorn.

IDK what you are referencing so I need a LOT more context. Outlier to what?

I rarely mention their affair, because she reads here,and based on the very few things I have said, I just can't wait for thr self help books, flowers, or whatever ridiculous crap she wants to send me based on this particular mention.

Apollos said all ws talk bad about their bs(a generalization). I simply said not all. I had read their messages,all of them, before I confronted. Any time ow said something bad about me,he told her to never speak that way about me, that I am his wife,and I didn't deserve what he..what they..were doing.

That's it. That's all.

That said...yes he cheated. Yes that alone is an insult. All I said was he stopped her every time she talked shit about me.

A WS who fully compartmentalizes the two worlds is a unicorn.

I agree with this. When a ws leaves their bs to go to the bathroom to message ap..They're not compartmentalizing. Rare is the ws who doesn't message the ap from home. Worlds colliding(cue George Costanza).

All of this being said..can we make this about ws in general, and not focus on my ws, his pos ow,and me? Id appreciate that.

[This message edited by HellFire at 1:17 PM, Tuesday, March 12th]

Fwiw, I actually think that a decent percentage (clearly more than unicorn status judging by SI experiences) of WS compartmentalize and that they are doing it in some fashion even when they text from home. I don't think compartmentalizing means I only betray my spouse "when I am out of the house" but instead it is a mental division kept between the A and their marriage. Things like deliberately not talking of their spouse at all with their AP, intentionally keeping the AP away from meeting their spouse if local, not sharing their A with close friends. I think they do this to maintain the fantasy world and to avoid guilt. Of course it is a bit hard to understand but I don't think it is rare.

In some instances it seems to lend itself to a WS who quickly devolves into the weeping puddle begging for R when D day happens. Their compartmentalization is abruptly brought to light, crashing around them and they begin to see the situation they have put themselves in.

Fwiw, I actually think that a decent percentage (clearly more than unicorn status judging by SI experiences) of WS compartmentalize and that they are doing it in some fashion even when they text from home. I don't think compartmentalizing means I only betray my spouse "when I am out of the house" but instead it is a mental division kept between the A and their marriage. Things like deliberately not talking of their spouse at all with their AP, intentionally keeping the AP away from meeting their spouse if local, not sharing their A with close friends. I think they do this to maintain the fantasy world and to avoid guilt.

I believe most WS TRY to compartmentalize their affairs but that is easier said than done. "Worlds Collide" (love the George Costanza reference HF) more often than they would like, I assume.

I’m not going to get into generalizing, data or anything else other than my own experience.

My WW can’t remember many details about her multiple affairs, and can’t remember "how, when or why" her 4 LTAs ended. I struggle with this as she was essentially "dating" these guys for 6+ months. I remember that info for every relationship I’ve had in my life that lasted that long or more. She blames "compartmentalization of her affairs" and they have been "locked in the vault" (thank you Elaine). BUT her ability to keep her worlds separate during the affairs was severely lacking….

She claims she never talked shit about me to the APs although they disparaged their wives to her. I don’t believe her but it really doesn’t even matter to me. Does she expect "extra points" for not talking shit about me on top of throwing our vows and marriage away multiple times?

Also, it’s hard to keep your lives "separate" when you have to "hurry this up so I can get home before my kids", take your toddler son with you to meet AP, bring AP into your house while kids are sleeping, go outside to talk so kids or husband won’t hear you talking to AP, skip your son’s out of town AAU baseball game and screw the AP in the hotel room you only have because of the AAU tourney and on and on…..

For me, compartmentalization sounds more like a convenient excuse not to remember things now than anything that was really practiced then.

I think we all have our own idea of what compartmentalizing is.

The dictionary defines it as separating into isolated categories.

IMO, when my husband got up from the couch,where he was sitting with me, to go into the bathroom to message ow, that completely blows the idea of compartmentalization. He was with me,but thinking of her. When he was laying in our bed,and I was sleeping next to him, he invited her into our room,by messaging her. When he was with her,but answered my phone calls...etc..etc.

I think true compartmentalization is a rare thing.

In the context of infidelity, compartmentalization is frequently used as an excuse by BS and WS alike to resolve cognitive dissonance (ie, "He was able to still love me but sleep with hookers on the side because of compartmentalization") or to justify convenient memory loss (ie, "I can't remember the first time we had sex because of... errr um... compartmentalization"). Not how it it works.

Compartmentalization is really the act of setting thoughts and feelings aside so that they don't interfere with your ability to focus on a task at hand; for example, a surgeon will block out the fight that he had with his wife that morning so he doesn't accidentally make the wrong incision when he's cutting someone open. That doesn't mean the surgeon has completely forgotten about the fight with his wife that morning or that engaging the fight with his wife is contradictory to his role as a surgeon.

Most of us have had our lives impacted by infidelity and observed behavioral changes long before Dday, such as the WS picking fights with the BS, being overly critical, defensiveness, etc. That's quite the opposite of compartmentalization.

There are some cheaters who are able to put their affairs and their marriages into 2 completely separate boxes because they are completely devoid of empathy and think they're entitled to seek pleasure with little concern or consideration for the consequences of their actions. They don't compartmentalize as a coping mechanism because they don't need to; they're only capable of surface-level emotions.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 3:15 PM, Tuesday, March 12th]

I don't think we can define it with the criteria being it was 100% separate. If that's the definition, then I think almost no one could do it. My definition is more mental, not physical or based on location, as I wrote earlier. The WS sees themselves as a different person when in the fantasy and thus keeps the mental state different. I'm not saying it is healthy or good but I think some people can do it.

I realize this is very far from the same thing but I am thinking about how I act with my wife when we are alone vs. if friends are at the house. I can get fairly goofy when we are alone but if friends knock on the door and join us a lot of that goofiness gets put away immediately, turned off like a switch is flipping. I imagine that it's something like that.

My two cents. What difference does any of this make?

In my situation neither myself or the AP said anything negative about our spouse. And I can think of at least one occasion on both sides where one insinuated something about the other spouse and the other was quickly corrected much like hellfire described.

Do we get an award? Extra bonus points? Nooooo, it doesn’t even make it remotely better.

In terms of compartmentalization, I also fail to see how if a ws could completely compartmentalize something or not makes it better? In some ways I think if they could completely compartmentalize maybe that might be concerning in itself.

Everyone can compartmentalize. Shut down thoughts or feelings. I think that most of all us do that to a certain degree in order to function at what is presently at hand. But it doesn’t really make it better or worse, this only describes mechanisms that were used to cope with living a double life. Personally, I did shut down feelings or thoughts depending on who I was with, but that was how I coped with my affair. That doesn’t mean my degree of compartmentalizing made something more excusable or better.

And citing anecdotal evidence is all that we have. The strength of this site is about sharing our own experiences. I think it would be silly to think just because I didn’t talk badly about my husband that makes things any better or that no other ws did that. In fact if we look at the small sampling of anecdotal evidence here, I think it would say more ws talk badly about their spouse in an affair that don’t.

For those of us who have been here as long as many of us responding to this post, I would say our sampling is much larger. In seven years there is a much bigger sampling from reading here than others who are new. I am pretty sure I have read thousands of cases by now.

But in the end, I fail to see the significance of that. All ws cheated, and there is no rating scale to it.

And in terms of giving people hope- I think that there are a balance of voices here that helps the bs decide what resonates for then.

I don’t read in just found out, disclosing in case I missed the point altogether.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:44 PM, Tuesday, March 12th]

I don’t believe her but it really doesn’t even matter to me. Does she expect "extra points" for not talking shit about me on top of throwing our vows and marriage away multiple times?

Excellent point.

My W says she did not disparage me, and I believe her. Lying, violating vows, sex with someone else - that's way more than I ever wanted to experience. Not dissing me is neither here nor there for me.

In fact, my W did admit to one thing she said about me that wasn't a compliment. They told obs about their A and their intention to continue it. They weren't going to tell me because I wasn't 'evolved' enough. Disparagement? Hell, I take it as a compliment.

*****

My point was exactly what leafields wrote: There is no reliable data about who is an outlier and who isn't.

IMO, recovering from being betrayed goes much better if one distinguishes between what one knows, what one believes without proof, what one suspects, etc. It's especially important to question absolutes ('all, 'none', 'every', etc.), because there are very few absolutes in life.

*****

IMO, a number of observations about behavior during an A, like 'compartmentalization', can be used as explanations and/OR excuses. Excuses need to be confronted; explanations, not so much.

My W certainly did some compartmentalization. My problem was perhaps that she put me in too small a compartment and ow in one that was too large. Her way of framing what she was doing could be viewed as a type of compartmentalization.

But she also dissociated, which can also be viewed as compartmentalization. My understanding is that dissociators can have legitimate difficulties remembering what they did in state A when they're in state B.

Explanation? Excuse? Each of us has to decide whether WS's withholding of something we want is a deal killer or not. Each of us has to decide whether WS is giving an explanation or an excuse.

IMO, each of us will navigate recovery more easily, though, if we distinguish between explanations and excuses. Excuses are withdrawals from the BS. Excuses are attempts to rug-sweep, a lose-lose game.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 5:13 PM, Tuesday, March 12th]

Different things matter to different people and can be the difference between trying to R and not. Also, different WS explain their thinking in different ways and some describe compartmentalizing as part of it.

I personally think compartmentalizing to some degree is easier to heal from than if a WS introduces you to their AP, has an A with a friend or mutual friend, disparages you or directly compares you in their head and makes a series of choices where you blatantly lose the comparison. I know some of that pain happens in every A but compartmentalizers do a lot less of it imo.

I think it’s semantics. My husband used the term compartmentalization to explain what it felt like to be living the cheater’s life. It wasn’t a justification. I asked what he was thinking and feeling and the term compartmentalization was just a phrase he used to help describe his thoughts and emotions which I specially asked he describe to me.

Compartmentalization is really the act of setting thoughts and feelings aside so that they don't interfere with your ability to focus on a task at hand; for example, a surgeon will block out the fight that he had with his wife that morning so he doesn't accidentally make the wrong incision when he's cutting someone open.

I agree with this, and to be honest, even outside of the A, my husband is extremely good at this exact type of thing in a way I am not. Shutting out everything else in order to focus on the task at hand.

What difference does any of this make?

Understanding compartmentalization and talking about it here, was incredibly important in my ability to accept, understand, and heal. My husband was (and is) undeniably a compartmentalizer – both in life, work, and his A. Obviously not entirely…. like, as Trdd mentions, 100% would be impossible, he obviously remembered my existence when he was with OW (the only way I think complete compartmentalization would be possible would be in a situation of like multiple personality disorder type situation), but that said… he very much had everything - and everyone - in separate boxes. He had different modes. Married mode was future focused (we were actively trying to get pregnant during much of the A) and things were good between us, and A-mode, where he tried not to think of me (because it made him feel guilty – and that kind of ruined the mood). Like Hiking and Hellfire describe, he never talked badly about me and steered any conversation about spouses at all away – I have read the messages. When was with me, he typically wasn’t sneaking off to the bathroom to message her. In fact, he set down some rules with her about when messaging was allowed and when it wasn’t because he was afraid I’d see something. Although he had some minor marital gripes/complaints that he was using to justify his feelings of entitlement to some degree, he also seemed to appreciate how bullshit this was, and at no point did he ever even insinuate that I in any way bore any responsibility for his decision to cheat.

My husband’s A was also a cake-eating A – he never fell in love with the OW. He dropped OW like a hot potato the second I found out and never looked back. I know that makes his A different in nature from a "tru-wuv" A that is "justified" on the basis of destiny, deep connections, and fairy dust, but I hardly think it makes him a unicorn. I think we all tend to look for people whose stories mirror our own, and I have read many similar accounts by other posters here over the years.

When I say that he was a compartmentalizer, I don’t think of it as an excuse (and no part of me ever has) and my husband has never tried to use it that way. Although I suppose I’m grateful I didn’t ever have to read denigratory messages about myself, I don’t think it makes the A or all of the lying that went into it any less bad or any more palatable. In some ways, it felt worse (in that way the worst thing you can imagine is what you’re going through). If he cheated because he thought things were bad, I could maybe make sense of that, but if he could cheat on me when things were good, it just felt dangerous and nonsensical – how could I ever be safe? If R was on the table, I needed to understand it.

I have ADHD, and my ability to focus on one single thing at the expense of other things is both my weakness (distraction!) and a superpower (hyperfocus! Multitasking!). I wasn’t diagnosed until adulthood, but I grew up incredibly aware that other people’s brains – my husband’s specifically - worked differently than mine. Although I can maybe comprehend being tempted into a one-night-stand situation, I just can’t picture being able to live day-to-day with my spouse (as my husband had) and not being overcome by OVERWHELMING guilt. I was very much worried that if my husband was able to do that, he must be some sort of emotionless sociopath. Kind of like what Bluer describes here:

There are some cheaters who are able to put their affairs and their marriages into 2 completely separate boxes because they are completely devoid of empathy and think they're entitled to seek pleasure with little concern or consideration for the consequences of their actions. They don't compartmentalize as a coping mechanism because they don't need to; they're only capable of surface-level emotions.

If he was this person, I was deathly afraid of that. It meant: a) I didn’t actually know him at all, and b) he was absolutely not someone who was cut out for R or could ever be trusted again. Avoidance/compartmentalization as a coping mechanism to avoid negative emotions/guilt is different than not experiencing guilt at all.

In my view, compartmentalization isn’t about how one gets into the A in the first place, it’s more about how they justify the guilt over what they are doing once they are already in it. Some Waywards tell themselves that their BS is a villain in order to justify it, other waywards try not to think about the BS’s at all.

So yes, I don’t know of the data you’re referring to Apollos or even what thread prompted the conversation, but this is just me describing my actual experience. I know it is not the experience of everyone but I don’t think it’s exquisitely rare either.

Trdd/emergent, etc

I am not saying that compartmentalization isn’t important to understand.

My response was more: why are you so adamant that all ws talk badly about their spouse and that no ws can completely compartmentalize.

Sure both things can dictate whether you reconcile or not. But this conversation is not about that from what I am reading. The OP sounds more like they are upset that someone gave "hope" to a new bs by explaining that not every ws talks badly about the spouse or that there isn’t complete compartmentalization.

When we speak in absolutes, you have to question why someone feels these absolutes are important. When in fact, most of the reconciled couples here probably had the ws saying bad things about the spouse and examples where compartmentalization wasn’t complete.

My response was to challenge why holding those as absolutes are important. It is not usually an indicator that r will work or. It. And while it’s important a bs understands mindset so they can see this really wasn’t a testimony of their worthiness, I don’t think that’s the conversation OP is trying to lead. It sounds more like they are anti-reconciliation and have made their argument based on these benchmarks that I don’t even see as benchmarks.

I am not saying that compartmentalization isn’t important to understand.

I know. It was just an easy set-up to respond to, in order to say what I wanted to say in order to explain why it can both be true, and not a minimization/excuse.

Depending on where a person is in their healing, and the amount of gaslighting, minimization bullshit they got from their spouse following d-day, I think it is pretty common for a BS to have a kneejerk reaction to explanations/attempts to dig into the Wayward psyche. I kind of assume that's what this thread was borne of.

I agree that it's common for Waywards to talk negatively about their spouse to the AP. Because it was one of those things that stuck out about other people's stories as particularly humiliating/hurtful, it was a fear I had. I will fully admit that for like a year post-d-day, I was convinced that the more I dug, I was eventually going to to find out that my husband and his AP had secretly been laughing at me somehow.

[This message edited by emergent8 at 8:15 PM, Tuesday, March 12th]

I agree with this, and to be honest, even outside of the A, my husband is extremely good at this exact type of thing in a way I am not. Shutting out everything else in order to focus on the task at hand.

I have ADHD, and my ability to focus on one single thing at the expense of other things is both my weakness (distraction!) and a superpower (hyperfocus! Multitasking!). I wasn’t diagnosed until adulthood, but I grew up incredibly aware that other people’s brains – my husband’s specifically - worked differently than mine. Although I can maybe comprehend being tempted into a one-night-stand situation, I just can’t picture being able to live day-to-day with my spouse (as my husband had) and not being overcome by OVERWHELMING guilt. I was very much worried that if my husband was able to do that, he must be some sort of emotionless sociopath.

Bit of a lightbulb moment going on here. My H is very good at focusing on the task at hand or, rather, he is extremely bad at multi-tasking. The man can't walk and chew gum. As recently as last week, we were talking about how he'll get a text and say "OMG!" and then when I ask him what's going on, he'll snap at me and say, "GIVE ME A MINUTE." He can't stop for two seconds to tell me what's going on. He has to HANDLE IT FIRST. It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with him being unable to multitask. I told him that it's complete bullshit to utter the OMG! in my company and then snap at me when I respond. Boy, I will cut you. He agrees, but I bet ten bucks nothing will change. Because he's bad at multitasking. lol

He's got a one-track mind. He is where he is, and unless it's self-motivated, he's not thinking about where he agreed to be in 20 minutes. Conversely, we've joked for decades that his body is always one step ahead of his brain, which is why he loses things constantly, or why he'll blow through our bedroom at 5am, turning on lights to look for his lost keys, forgetting that I'm still sleeping.

He often doesn't remember commitments, either, like commitments to not spend money when I've told him we're tight until payday. Conversations we've had about tasks that need to be done and who will do them. Lots of stuff.

So, with all that in mind, my guess is that when he was with the AP, he was WITH the AP and he wasn't thinking about anything else until he had left her company. And then he'd start focusing on how to cover his tracks.

I suppose it's also why he was so all over the place towards the end of the A (before I knew anything) when he was contemplating whether or not to end the A or leave me to be with AP. He'd cry and profess his undying love one day, then be cold as ice the next. Back and forth for months. Later, I figured out it coincided with his work week, when he'd see her, and with Thursday counseling appointments, when we'd get back on track only to have it fall apart on Monday. I bet he was cold with her on Fridays...

It's all so interesting.

It's called Sociology and Psychology... human behavior is very predictable. Some people dismiss "soft sciences" as kooky. That's fine.

Know, WSs possess many character traits of a Cluster B personality... eg deeply insecure, low/no self esteem, being more sensitive to negative emotions, lacking emotional discipline, impulsive (they think "feeling" is thinking). Know, WSs are long disgruntled prior to choosing to cheat and typically complain about their life/marriage to someone (prior to cheating). Thus, WSs talked shit about their spouse prior to cheating, directly or indirectly, albeit it wasn't to their AP (even if it was just a mental exercise; self dialogue).

A WS must rationalize their cheating by dehumanizing, belittling, demeaning, degrading, insulting, portraying their spouse in a extremely negative frame, an extremely negative light, etc etc etc lying to themselves, convincing themselves they're entitled to cheat (again all prior to meeting their AP).

That same person... who is so emotionally sloppy, so emotionally undisciplined and impulsive, who disdains their spouse and feels entitled to cheat when they aren't PERFECTLY HAPPY with their marriage/life... suddenly becomes an emotional stalwart, becomes emotionally disciplined once the affair commences? Now they have mastered their emotions, NEVER uttering a negative opinion, a negative comment, an insult, an negative inference, directly or indirectly, about their shitty BS? These emotionally sloppy people are now emotionally and mentally capable of ensuring their two worlds never collide? NEVER? That is simply untrue... it defies what we know about human behavior.

[This message edited by Apollos at 8:25 PM, Tuesday, March 12th]

Emergent,

I totally appreciate that. You and I are almost always on the same page with things and I do think it is probably more productive to use it as an opportunity to give a new perspective. I think many people reading benefit from that.

It’s just my experience is sometimes there is no interest in learning or identifying with a ws’s internal world. And I am not saying that’s bad or wrong, it’s just not their goal. Some come here hoping to save all the bs’s by giving them reasons not to reconcile. I am sure that has good intentions behind it.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:45 PM, Tuesday, March 12th]

Apollos, your description only characterizes a subset of WS based upon all that I have learned here and other places. The way you wrote it, it sounds like you believe that is true of all WS, is that what you believe?

I have seen more than a few infidelity cases here where the WS is as satisfied as most with their marriage but their poor boundaries and inner need for validation combine and cross with an opportune moment for infidelity. In that moment, they succumb despite having no large degree of discontent with their spouse.