Agree. I think the reasoning of this can vary:
In all honesty, there is a good chance the person who's acting out isn't even thinking about risking a life of calm and serenity for trouble with a misfit partner. That's because they feel excitement over the idea of being with someone else.
I think it bears mentioning in many most cases they aren’t excited to be with this specific person because they are anything great. Or because they have things the bs doesn’t. It goes back to whatever it is they are seeking. Again, it’s usually not because of direct reasons tied to the bs. Some common ones we see on this site includes:
More or different sex
To feel younger, sexier, that they’ve still got it
To experience a different version of themselves
Boredom
Depression/self isolation/loneliness
Acting out over built up resentment
The problem is that it’s still hard to understand how they can stand up in front of everyone, say vows with you, have children with you, make a home with you and then totally disregard you.
I had been married longterm and felt like things were solid. We hit rough patches in the past, I never considered cheating. I was unknowingly in the midst of an existential crisis, which of course is not a license to cheat, explaining something is not the same as excusing the behavior.
In fact, the AP had flirted with me many times in the past and I thought it was gross. So a lot of being able to do what was described in the article had to do with my mental state. I didn’t care about anything anymore. I can see now it brought on an entitlement to feel better.
So this time when he flirted, my boundaries weren’t as strong. It feels so weak to be the poster child of the biggest cliche but this time I started acting in a way that was out of character. I never talked very deep to colleagues, but ended up taking a walk with him after a group dinner. The fact I could tell he was interested seemed fun to get the attention, but I didn’t actually think anything would happen. I still couldn’t imagine crossing a line. I lied to myself that this walk itself wasn’t actually crossing a line because I felt in control. I was flirting with disaster and telling myself it was fine.
But by the end of the business trip that was all that had happened and I got in the plane to go home. I felt the pull of guilt but justified it as innocent. Still, the seed was planted, I liked the attention.
I sent him a Facebook dm. I didn’t have his phone number, only his work email. I just made a joke, I already missed the new attention. I didn’t even delete it, we didn’t have a big conversation and it wasn’t all that deep. I didn’t acknowledge it was another boundary cross. I never dm’ed people from work on Facebook.
And from there a lot of banter that got increasingly questionable was formed. He kept pushing the boundaries and I felt high from it. It was the first time in a long time I felt good. But, it’s not because of my husband, it was because I failed to look after myself in a way that would have dealt with the very real crisis playing in the background. The way I had been managing my life for the 18 months prior to the affair had come to a head in many ways. So many things I avoided looking at stacked like a house of cards.
What was happening is I was slowly becoming addicted to the attention, but moreso I was slowly doing what I saw at the time as a glow up. I lost weight, bought new clothes, became hyper fixated on my looks. I would try and text clever things and fixate in what I said and whether it exudes the image I desperately wanted to have. Before long it felt like he was the only person who knew me. I felt seen and heard. The part I couldn’t understand iis the reason it felt like he was the only one who knew me is because I literally was inventing this new version of my self. It wasn’t a better version, it was a far more desperate, shallow, selfish, cartoonish version of myself.
And while in the beginning I didn’t really find him attractive (truthfully the first risqué photo he sent was with his shirt off and my initial reaction was he looked like the crypt keeper. I was 41, he was 60, he’d been obese most of his adult life but had recently lost weight and got into shape. On top of the wrinkles was all the loose skin from his weight loss). I am not saying that he couldn’t be beautiful to his wife or wasn’t worthy of love because of his appearance. I am not usually a particularly shallow person. I am just painting a picture of what this mind morphing looked like. Over time I needed to subconsciously hype him up because if he wasn’t Mr. Wonderful all the validation he was giving me wasn’t worth as much. This new me needed him to be more worthwhile, and in risking everything even moreso. My mind started filling in a lot of blanks to paint that picture. None of which of course proved to be true. So in many ways I created different versions of both me and him.
It got easier and easier to cross each boundary, as I justified and compartmentalized more and more. So I think the article is right but for me the things described are not instant. There are a series of decisions in the beginning that for me came with guilt, but that guilt added to my already depressed state and tipped over any resistances that remained. I slowly let go of what grip I had left. In a sick way this is when I thought I had fallen in love with him 
and the part that is most incredulous, it didn’t feel like that was true all at the same time.
On our next business trip, it was clear that this was going to be physical. Being in his presence now after all the things we had now said to each other was off putting. Because in his presence I honestly wasn’t inspired to take things physical and I was extremely nervous. It was harder to hold some of the fantasy face to face/ He tried to kiss me and I ducked. And that’s about what I will describe of that. But from the time I got in the cab to go to the airport and all the way through my two flights and layover I sobbed. I was embarrassed making a spectacle of myself but I couldn’t control it. I could not admit to myself why I was crying, to me it was disappointment over we how he treated me that morning. But I know now it was like a death. I killed something inside of me, and it was years getting it back.
I don’t write that for pity or compassion I know what I experienced was a drop in the bucket of what I put my husband through. But there is this whole house of mirrors type thinking that is hard to describe. The highs were highest and the lows were lowest. I know now with therapy that is what actually creates the chemical addiction to dopamine.
My head was always so crowded that it was easier and easier to jot think about what I was doing, and not consider others in my decision. I spent a lot of time analyzing my performance to gauge if it was captivating enough, I actually focused on his very little. I was very critical of myself and self conscious by the end.The day I confessed began my long journey back. For a long time I was fighting to get back to my own baseline and I hurt my husband even more in the process. It’s a miracle that we made it through any of it, I am thankful every day.
The affair was the worst time in my whole life. I couldn’t see that at the time because I was conditioned to receive this constant attention on how great I was, how clever, how cool, young, vibrant and the accompaniment of the rush of chemicals to my brain. When I think of how foolish it all was it is ridiculous to me.
I am not saying this is what all cheaters experience, but I do think many of us enter this house of mirrors created out of denial and cognitive dissonance and create distraction that we are very ill equipped to address in the light of day. To me that is what the fog is. The fog is not why we had the affair, it’s the period of time after the affair where we are still believing the shit that was used in our own self brainwashing.
I do think some people who cheat never experience the fog. My husband for example wasn’t very foggy, some but not much. His affair was a manifestation of his anger over mine. He didn’t require brainwashing to disregard me. I think some don’t. Those of us who do, you will know. None of the shit we say during that time makes any sense. I don’t think one instance is better than the other or that it means anything different, just the methods of compartmentalization are probably different.
Anyway, I hope if you read this far you understand that I 100 percent take accountability over what I did regardless of mental state. Not one thing I did was right or justifiable and I didn’t write that to convince anyone otherwise. I wrote it because I think what beachwalker is trying to do is have a discussion in mindset so I shared what mine looked like in hindsight. In real time it looked very much like I was having fun and fuck everyone else, I don’t lose track of that either. It was both things happening at once.
[This message edited by hikingout at 3:51 PM, Wednesday, February 21st]
