SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I know my account is new, but I’ve been lurking here since my first DDAY back in Jan 22. I’m asking for some help/advice/perspective on something. Quick cap on my story, I’m BH (mid 40). WW had year long A (mid 40) with a "just a friend". We’ve been in R for about 13 months.

Since after dday 2 and end of her A, she gave me full transparency. Recently I found a few SM accounts I didn’t know about.l. To give her credit I have all passwords and access without any complaints or resistance. so of course I had to check them out. For the most part, nothing is inappropriate or red flags etc. I don’t think she was hiding these accounts, more of just something she did. These are anonymous accounts with no personal information etc, and vast majority of posts are just things she likes and nothing inappropriate.

However, I did find something that has been bothering me. Right as her affair was starting, she made a comment on a thread about cheating. Basically it said how she has no respect for anyone who gets involved with a married person. It’s selfish and harmful, and it’s taking part in running someone else’s life. She even went on a rant about all of the things that someone who is married should do (MC, communication, put more effort into relationship) instead of stepping out, and if all of that fails, D, then see someone else. I am just floored. This was posted by her as her EA was definitely well on the way, and I don’t know what to make of it.

I haven’t confronted her about it yet, but it is really bothering me. Any perspective? For more context, AP absolutely knew that she was married, he was a friend. That’s part of what is bothering me. “No respect for anyone who gets involved with a married person”.

[This message edited by HellIsNotHalfFull at 1:10 AM, Saturday, July 15th]

My money is on cognitive dissonance. Most people aren't saying to themselves, "Hmm. I think I'll have an A." If it was early stages and a brand new EA, she likely wasn't thinking of what she was doing with the AP as an A. She was "just talking with a friend."

Sure, I get that, but I don’t either I guess. She had so much admiration and respect for her AP during the A, always taking about how great he was, it’s mind blowing to see her say this as her A was well underway. I am also really disturbed by how she talked about doing everything to save or work on the marriage other than cheat. There is always the talk of the "Fog" but this proves that she knew there were so many other options than an affair. I’m really having a hard time with this.

Read about the defense mechanism ‘reaction formation’. That might be an explanation.

Holding two diametrically opposed thoughts is called cognitive dissonance. Sometimes it borders on hypocrisy.

Here's a very simplified example and nowhere near as serious as an A:

You consider yourself a law-abiding citizen, but you also speed, don't come to a complete stop at a stop sign (illegal here), jaywalk, don't wear your seatbelt 100% of the time. You're breaking the law, yet consider yourself to be law-abiding.

It's kinda the same thing. She doesn't respect people who get involved with married people, but doesn't apply the thought to herself.

My WH would condemn anyone who had an affair. He labelled them as sleazy, selfish, cruel and utterly stupid. He had great compassion for their poor spouse.

Hence my surprise when he had an affair. He was sleazy, selfish, cruel and utterly stupid. He had no compassion for me.

I share your confusion 😕

Waywards are often the exception to their own rule.

[This message edited by WhiskeyBlues at 6:17 AM, Saturday, July 15th]

I encounter this all the time with people, where they rail against some "drama queen" all while loving drama themselves, or they tell me that someone is a terrible listener and so selfish, when that's exactly the way I would label them.

But I don't think it's hypocrisy because I honestly think they don't see it. They don't see themselves honestly or objectively. Sure, everyone says they see themselves objectively, but a few minutes of listening to them proves otherwise. I guess you are still a hypocrite, whether you actually see yourself clearly or not, right?

My opinion--based on the fact that she really went off on this subject and she was "only" in an EA at that point--is that she was in denial about what she was doing, and out of guilt or shame or to distance from her wrongdoing, she projected it onto others who "do horrible things like cheat." They say projection allows you to feel better because you call the problematic behavior out in someone else as bad while allowing yourself to feel innocent. She was in full denial of what she was doing but knew in her subconscious how wrong her behavior was. And the projection allowed her to feel better about it, I guess. She didn't see herself as a cheater, and she called out hatred against the fact that she really was? That's how it seems, especially because the A was just getting started (guilt, shame).

So have you asked her?

[This message edited by OwningItNow at 6:27 AM, Saturday, July 15th]

Make it make sense.

The conclusion I came to is that NOTHING about an A makes sense. NOTHING.

Like WhiskeyBlues wrote about her WH...my H abhorred cheaters. Could...not...stand...them!!! He had a horrible time reconciling himself to the fact that he was a member of THAT club. I saw him get taken aback several times when he would see cheating in a movie...and start to comment...then realize this was HIM.

leafields and SacredSoul33 are correct with cognitive dissonance in my H's case. To HIM...he wasn't cheating...he was just having sex with a stranger he met online. To HIM...cheating was something that married coworkers or friends did when they started having feelings for someone and it turned into an affair. My H didn't know the adultery co-conspirator...didn't have feelings for her...it was just NSA sex. YES...he actually told me that!!! He's a fairly intelligent person too...he married ME after all...LOL! Seriously though...what makes sense to ME is that NOTHING about an A makes sense...period!

It's different than some waywards that cope with the fact that they're having an affair by going the character assassination/scorched earth route on their betrayed spouses - but what you are describing is still self-enabling.

I think that in certain situations, people that know they're wrong and wish they weren't will do one thing while saying the opposite to assuage guilt by re-defining their negative actions in their own heads. "People that have affairs are terrible.. but.. I'm NOT having an affair, because my close friend isn't just some stranger and, besides that, REAL friends confide in each other when they're troubled - so of COURSE we would share the ups and downs of our marriages AND it was just kissing (this one time) and I'm not going to let THAT happen again."

Soothing self-enabling. But now the kissing has been minimized, making it easier to ignore then next time. Automatic first down, fresh start. You can see where it goes from there.

Sucks, and confusing to read when you're in the middle of sorting out YOUR feelings, but at least the working concepts of right and wrong are in the mix there.

[This message edited by suddenlyisee at 12:55 PM, Saturday, July 15th]

Gently, your post makes me chuckle. You reminded me that my W said that she and ow2b had at least one conversation in which they both swore they valued truth and did/would not lie. After which they proceeded to lie to themselves, their Hs, ow's kid, and my W lied to her therapist.

Cognitive dissonance and self-justification is part of it, for sure. My guess is that your W also has some self-hate going: she knows cheating is hateful; she thinks she's rotten to her core; she proves she's right about herself by cheating. That was true for my W, and it may be true for yours, but maybe not. It's definitely worth asking.

My WS also hated cheaters. So much so that he cut out of his life a good friend who actually divorced his wife because he was on the slippery slope to an A and actually recognized that he wanted to have the A. He respected his wife enough at least to be honest with her and divorce her. My WS thought that was the worst. I saw the pain in both, but also saw the respect. This was one of his few close friends.

Then, a few years later, he has a 2 year A with a married mother of 2 on husband 3 and affair 8 or 9. But he somehow convinced himself, with her help, that he was’t cheating. He was doing what made him happy— and didn’t that matter more? Didn’t he deserve that? And somehow that made it "not cheating" and "not selfish" but imperative for his well-being. And to hell with me and her family.

Although we did not R, I did see when that recognition hit— when he told his family. And when I asked him what it if was his sister having an A with two kids at home. I really think he never did that very minor thought exercise — and that was to ensure that he never had to actually acknowledge what he was doing. If he had even allowed one sliver of thought in, then it would burst the bubble of cognitive dissonance they had so carefully constructed. So they built up the walls of that bubble by convincing themselves they were in love, soulmates, and that their happiness was the most important thing.

It’s preservation of their fantasyland… and necessary for them to keep feeding their selfish desires.

(Did you see the movie or read the book LIfe of Pi? Different topic, but all about the mental gymnastics required to get through a horrible ordeal— WS do that but to keep in their fantasy land.)

Unfortunately, many wayward spouses are quite adept at reframing what they ate doing during an affair, with a bulwark of self deception and other cognitive dissonance soothing and accountability thwarting strategies. Projection and self-directed lies are wonderful conscience salves when deep down you know what you're doing is both devastatingly destructive and morally wrong. Humans beings, after all, tend to judge themselves by their professed intentions, while judging everyone else by their actions.

A lot of very good responses here, thank you all. I do take comfort in that this is normal (as it can be I guess) for these circumstances. A lot of you have said things that ring very clearly.

Sission, i think you may have hit on something that is very true, more than I have ever considered. I need to really think about it, but there maybe a lot of truth in what you said and i appreciate the insight. It makes a lot of sense, and a lot of things that have happened before, during and after the A match that.

The first person a WS betrays is himself. When my XWW read that statement, she broke down, realizing its simple truth.

I believe that infidelity is self-destructive. People cheat to abate some pain or anguish they can neither identify nor rectify themselves.

We, the betrayed, are collateral damage

Your WW blew up her life for reasons you will never fully understand. If you're anything like me, or a thousand other betrayed spouses, you'll drive yourself nuts trying to comprehend the incomprehensible.

[This message edited by Unhinged at 3:59 AM, Monday, July 17th]

1) she may have been trying to fight against what she was feeling about the posom when she posted that but obviously her rational side lost the fight.

2) people post shit all the time on the internet that makes them seem perfect, lol.

3) Confront her about it. It's an additional bit of pressure that should help her self reflection if she is actively working on becoming safe for the marriage

My husband actually had the audacity to think to himself (while balls deep in his affair) that at "least he wasn’t a terrible cheater that would ever leave his wife and kids like other asshole men do". 🙄 how swell of him. 🙄 you’re trying to rationalize the irrational. You have strong values so that will never work. You’ll just have to accept that your wife chose to act as a hypocritical asshat for a good while.

To HIM...he wasn't cheating...he was just having sex with a stranger he met online. To HIM...cheating was something that married coworkers or friends did when they started having feelings for someone and it turned into an affair.

I'm pretty sure this is how my H thought, too, with A1 and A2. They were just sex, and he deserved it because he wasn't getting much at home. (GEE, I WONDER WHY.) A3 was supposed to be more of the same, but he caught feelings and outed himself.

As much as I love the crew here on SI for the great community we have, we have to objective and real with ourselves that we are by definition a biased community that is far more attuned to the intricacies and nuance involved with infidelity. From my interactions with as many "normal" everyday folks as I can, I still see an overwhelming amount of people who only see cheating as the physical side of things. In the case of the OP, his WW was in an EA that was clearly an EA, but because she hadn't (I assume) yet crossed the PA "line" that things were not an A. I think we all know here that is total bullshit, but it is where some people draw the line. Everyone you talk to is going to have a different line in the sand for what they consider an A and while there are still some objective truths and guides to help (Not Just Friends is great and no I don't get paid for saying that ) the reality is that you just aren't going to get everyone to agree that an EA is cheating. That does not however preclude one from concluding that a partner has wayward tendencies or is exhibiting classic wayward behavior. Seeking out validation and ego kibbles from someone outside your monogamous relationship is wayward, even if the person doing it does not consciously acknowledge that is what they are doing.

Occam's razor, it is possible that the OP's WW was threading the needle on the definition of an A meaning the PA is what really matters and/or she was posting that as a way to call herself out for already crossing a line and she was feeling guilty about it.