Affairs and Lying

[jj33]

I agree with you Fooled. We have seen some horrific stories of vulnerable women who were manipulated within an inch of their lives and their sanity and would still given the slightest shred of a fond look, a moment of love, go back to the person who manipulated them so terribly.

 

And then there are the situations where the people go on and on about how they will leave (in 5 years, when the moon is full and the clouds are shaped like teddy bears....) or worse yet in January which becomes Easter which becomes after the summer vacation...

 

But it does take 2. And even if someone is lied to at the outset, once they find they have been lied to about marital status, how do they then believe that the person will eventually leave? They have been auditioned in the worst way.

 

It does still work out sometimes e.g. GEL but I think that is the exception to the rule.

[silktricks]

I agree with you Fooled. We have seen some horrific stories of vulnerable women who were manipulated within an inch of their lives and their sanity and would still given the slightest shred of a fond look, a moment of love, go back to the person who manipulated them so terribly.

 

And then there are the situations where the people go on and on about how they will leave (in 5 years, when the moon is full and the clouds are shaped like teddy bears....) or worse yet in January which becomes Easter which becomes after the summer vacation...

 

But it does take 2. And even if someone is lied to at the outset, once they find they have been lied to about marital status, how do they then believe that the person will eventually leave? They have been auditioned in the worst way.

 

It does still work out sometimes e.g. GEL but I think that is the exception to the rule.

 

It does work out sometimes - but I would bet that most of the times when it works out for the affair partners is when the AP does what GEL did, and says NO MORE. If the MP can continue to not make a decision, I would bet that they will... and then the affair will continue.

[bentnotbroken]

I agree with you Fooled. We have seen some horrific stories of vulnerable women who were manipulated within an inch of their lives and their sanity and would still given the slightest shred of a fond look, a moment of love, go back to the person who manipulated them so terribly.

 

And then there are the situations where the people go on and on about how they will leave (in 5 years, when the moon is full and the clouds are shaped like teddy bears....) or worse yet in January which becomes Easter which becomes after the summer vacation...

 

But it does take 2. And even if someone is lied to at the outset, once they find they have been lied to about marital status, how do they then believe that the person will eventually leave? They have been auditioned in the worst way.

 

It does still work out sometimes e.g. GEL but I think that is the exception to the rule.

 

 

So true and I love these statements.

[jj33]

Thanks Bent.

 

I wasnt lied to and yet I STILL let myself get all tangled up in it all (which is highly embarrassing in retrospect). He broke it off saying it wasnt fair to me and then kept coming back again and again and again... and at first I said no way then (well before I joined LS) I said maybe and he said no its not fair to you and then I finally believed him and yet he kept trying to come back again. And then he stopped trying to reignite the A, but continued to behave in a way that pulled at my heartstrings.

 

And for awhile I did believe that he was thinking of leaving even tho we had been apart for some time (a year and a half). And I kept my distance because leaving is his decision not mine. And I was torn. I didnt want to see him give up the only life he had ever known but if he wanted to do that himself (regardless of whether he was with me) I would have happily pursued a relationship with him.

 

Now I look back and wish I could have cut the emotional cord sooner. The fact that he wanted to keep the fantasy going (that I was there pining away for him so that should he ever decide to leave I would be there waiting...) was not my problem except that I let it be my problem.

 

I was totally lost without him for the longest time. Now I am just lost but he is not a part of the equation. He has become a stranger in many ways. I have a memory of someone who no longer exists for me. The doors have been locked and bolted. I now deal with the public face that he shows the world, not the man I once knew. Its still awkward after all this time. Dealing with him as if I hardly know him.

 

So when I say that sometimes we convince ourselves of the truth we want to believe, I dont mean to project my behavior onto others, but I suspect I am not alone. You can see through rose colored glasses even if someone isnt lying to you.

[Snowflower]

1. You mention that your MM was making some very big decisions about his future? Did that mean whether to stay in his marriage, or to be with you, or neither/something else?

 

Yes, about me & him. And also MLC style thinking about what he wanted. He knew he didn't want to leave me dangling from the outset. He made a choice. He thought ahead more than me. He also thought about whether he could betray his W long term. He couldn't. He carefully considered whether I could be his long term soulmate, because he had been disconnected from her for so long. But when it came to the crunch, he put all his effort into making his W his soulmate again, as presumably she had shown promise of being years bofore.

 

2. When he 'regained intimacy' in his marriage, you say the A ended. Who ended the A, you or him? Did his wife know about the A? Does your H?

 

We both ended it. There was no room for two from my perspective and he knew that. Both spouses found out about the A one month subsequent to this decision. But the end of the A was a kind of 'this won't go on while you reconnect to your wife thing'. There was dangling until DDay.

 

 

3. When you quit sharing a bedroom with your H, was that what you meant by the deceit? That you H didn't know the truth? Was it the weight of the deceit or because of your feelings for the MM?

 

Both. The deceit and my feelings meant I could not share with my H. It drove me mad on both fronts. The deceit was my feelings if you know what I mean.

 

As you are a BW I feel I should say sorry for your hurt. I honestly thought their marriage wasn't worth a lot, and I was wrong. But neither me nor MM knew that at the time. I have to add that the BW had told me she didn't love him and that she had never loved him, before anything happened between us, and while I doubt the truth of this now, it gave me some kind of go ahead (I never told him of this). Didn't she betray him by saying this? He never said this about her, and I never bad mouthed my H either. We were respectful in that way.

 

We never blamed the marriage problems on our partners. Just said we were not fulfilled. Which was clear anyway by what we were doing.

 

And now we are all in pain. And I feel a fool because I took a couple of things his W said (on the two occasions I talked to her) as gospel instead of intuiting what 15 years of marriage means to people.

 

It is difficult to decipher lies from truth here. I guess what they say about actions speaking louder is the key.

 

 

I know I'm a little late at responding, wheelwright, but I just wanted to say THANK YOU for taking the time to answer my questions! I was away from LS for a few days...needed a break... but I did want to let you know that I read what you wrote here and to thank you for taking the time to respond.

 

I hope your marriage and the marriage of your fMM survives this crisis. My marriage did survive and much stronger and closer despite the pain involved for everyone. I hope you reach the same point, eventually.

 

I wish you happiness.

[OWoman]

So we know they are lying to their wives, yet we refuse to believe they are lying to us. Why is that? Why can't we accept that they could be lying to us?

 

I guess this depends on general outlook. My H, for example, always gives people the benefit of the doubt. He's open, loving, trusting... naive and gullible. Like so many people, he wants to believe the best of people - until proven otherwise, he will accept them, and what they say, at face value.

 

I am the complete opposite. I do not cede trust, respect or closeness until it is earned. I am by nature suspicious, and never believe anything from only a single source especially if it is by nature not verifiable. Deeply skeptical, I take a long time before I trust anybody or anything, and even then I keep in the back of my mind a sense of provisionality - that I'll go along with something knowing it might be proven wrong with the addition of new information.

 

So yes, I always allow the possibility that I could be lied to - but I make sure that the odds are dramatically reduced.

 

I see many threads where it is discussed ~ posts about the OW doesn't want to admit that the MM is sleeping with his wife, or planning a future with his wife, or just living life like married couples do. To hear some tell it, these men and their wives never speak, never are seen together, live in separate areas of the house and have zippo interaction.

 

And, in some cases, it is true.

 

My H never claimed any of this about his M with his xW. Some I deduced from what I observed (eg their having separate bedrooms), some from what I was told by many others (his family, close friends, colleagues) and yet more from his habits and behaviour patterns and assumptions of what was "normal". OTC, he was in complete denial about the state of his M - admitting the extent of the abuse took a great deal of support and counselling.

 

Do you think more OW will be able to understand it / see it once the Affair is over?

 

Does it really take getting out of it for seeing them for what they were/are? When my A ended and I realized what a dope I had been, I was so embarrassed for believing what he told me. It was quite a humiliating experience.

 

I would guess that this would depend on the nature of the A, and to what extent the OW felt "lied to" or "led on" - whether explicitly or implicitly (or through their own assumption) by the MM, and to what extent they simply took it as it came.

 

If an OW is "led on" - either by an MM earnestly promising "one day" or by her own intensely harboured, by secretly kept, hopes of a "happy ever after" - then the ending of an A shatters those hopes and calls for some drastic remedial action - the same way that teenage girls gather in gangs to badmouth the BF of their BFF who's just been dumped by him. It's therapeutic to "rewrite" the history - to recast actions, utterings and impressions in a way that generates anger rather than sadness, allowing the dumpee a sense of agency in a situation in which they'd otherwise have none.

 

But if an OW was merely enjoying it for what it was, without those expectations or dreams - or perhaps even tempered by some reality-constrained hopes - then the ending would not require such a radical readjustment of perspective, because the investment in believing this alternative, constructed future would be far less.

 

I think it's fairly simple: the more you invest in believing in a "happy ever after", the more you need to recast the MM as a liar - whether or not he actively co-constructed the fantasy through his promises or merely served as a foil for the OW's projection.

 

I am sure there are MM who lie to the OW - either intentionally, to keep her hanging on; or because they so desperately want to believe their fantasy themselves, and speak it to call it into being for themselves, too - but equally there are OWs whose MMs do not lie - but whose words are filtered and heard by the OWs in a way that builds them up into more than they are, feeding a fantasy of their own wanting, adorning them with far more significance than the speaker intended. Does it make someone a liar if you choose to read more into their words than they meant? If you hang around the phone waiting for a call from a guy who said, "see you sometime", meaning a casual wave next time he drove past you at the bus stop, is the liar him - or your heart, which chose to hear his words as a promise of something more than they signified?

[MizzBlue72]

I know that I never lied the MM about my H - ever. He knew everything that was going on. How bad the M was.

The MM never talks bad about his wife. The only thing he says is that she changed, they grew apart and that he wants to leave. I think that is the truth. I guess if I am committed to staying in this relationship I need to believe that. If I truly believed he was trying to work on things with W then I would leave. He deserves that and so does the W.

[mybrowneyedgirl]

I was totally lost without him for the longest time. Now I am just lost but he is not a part of the equation. He has become a stranger in many ways. I have a memory of someone who no longer exists for me. The doors have been locked and bolted. I now deal with the public face that he shows the world, not the man I once knew. Its still awkward after all this time. Dealing with him as if I hardly know him.

 

 

 

Oh it makes me sick in my stomach to hear these words because they are so true. Not the man that I once knew.

[NoIDidn't]

I am sure there are MM who lie to the OW - either intentionally, to keep her hanging on; or because they so desperately want to believe their fantasy themselves, and speak it to call it into being for themselves, too - but equally there are OWs whose MMs do not lie - but whose words are filtered and heard by the OWs in a way that builds them up into more than they are, feeding a fantasy of their own wanting, adorning them with far more significance than the speaker intended. Does it make someone a liar if you choose to read more into their words than they meant? If you hang around the phone waiting for a call from a guy who said, "see you sometime", meaning a casual wave next time he drove past you at the bus stop, is the liar him - or your heart, which chose to hear his words as a promise of something more than they signified?

 

I like this. This is what usually happens in the end when the rose-colored glasses come off.

 

Its easy to see the MM as lying about the love he has for his W, when he says she changed and he wants to leave but then a d-day happens and he wants to work things out. He believes that there is something worth trying there, when he was giving the OW the impression that he didn't believe that.

 

I can't say that this MM is lying. He actually believes the reality he's constructed in his head - which explains why the OW believes it so readily.

 

Make no mistake, though, there are lies being told in affairs. IMO, the affair itself if the lie. Most recovering MP seem to agree that they were lying to themselves when they got into one.

[jennie-jennie]

IMO' date=' the affair itself if the lie.[/quote']

 

IMO, it is often the marriage that is the lie. Staying with one woman when you love another is living a lie. Pretending to your spouse that everything is like it used to be when you are in fact hiding a very important part of your life is living a lie.

[jennie-jennie]

Is that why so many AP's find themselves under the bus post D Day?

 

Yes, the stake just got higher as to requiring how much the WS needs to throw in there to keep the pretense up.

[jennie-jennie]

Did that make any sense to anyone else, 'cause I don't get it.

 

If the AP is so all fired important to the MM/MW like you claim, then why are they nearly always tossed away after the affair is discovered?

 

It is probably because people like you don't get it, that the WS gets away with it.

 

In a lot of cases preserving the image of the marriage is more important to the WS than anything else. And as soon as the dust settles the WS is back in the affair again anyway.

[wheelwright]

 

I think it's fairly simple: the more you invest in believing in a "happy ever after", the more you need to recast the MM as a liar - whether or not he actively co-constructed the fantasy through his promises or merely served as a foil for the OW's projection.

 

I am sure there are MM who lie to the OW - either intentionally, to keep her hanging on; or because they so desperately want to believe their fantasy themselves, and speak it to call it into being for themselves, too - but equally there are OWs whose MMs do not lie - but whose words are filtered and heard by the OWs in a way that builds them up into more than they are, feeding a fantasy of their own wanting, adorning them with far more significance than the speaker intended. Does it make someone a liar if you choose to read more into their words than they meant? If you hang around the phone waiting for a call from a guy who said, "see you sometime", meaning a casual wave next time he drove past you at the bus stop, is the liar him - or your heart, which chose to hear his words as a promise of something more than they signified?[/QUOTE]

 

I think this is a good analysis, because the question is more about whether we feel lied to than whether it was actually so. And that feeling is constructed by the OP as much as the MP.

 

My MM always told me how much commitment and duty meant to him. I was a big fat question mark for him asking what could be his happiness. He took it seriously. But he chose his M.

 

At one point in the A he chose 'love' -me. And I was so happy. But he reneged. And I don't feel I was lied to. It was a more than difficult decision. It was a life decision made in the full knowing that it was so. Even when we marry we don't feel the weight of our decision as fully as that (children, history etc.)

 

I really agree with OWoman that it is not usually lies. It is people working through feelings and choices. The pain makes us blame (think we were lied to), and that is one way out of the head****.

 

The fox and the grapes comes to mind: The fox sees tasty grapes. Thinks of many ways to get them. Can't sort it. Walks away saying grapes were sour anyway. (Aesop-does that need reference?)

 

It's about interpretation. Resolving the dissonance.

[fooled once]

It is probably because people like you don't get it, that the WS gets away with it.

 

In a lot of cases preserving the image of the marriage is more important to the WS than anything else. And as soon as the dust settles the WS is back in the affair again anyway.

 

 

People like what? Do you know jja470 personally? What do you mean by "people like you"?

 

OW wrote:

 

If an OW is "led on" - either by an MM earnestly promising "one day" or by her own intensely harboured, by secretly kept, hopes of a "happy ever after" - then the ending of an A shatters those hopes and calls for some drastic remedial action - the same way that teenage girls gather in gangs to badmouth the BF of their BFF who's just been dumped by him. It's therapeutic to "rewrite" the history - to recast actions, utterings and impressions in a way that generates anger rather than sadness, allowing the dumpee a sense of agency in a situation in which they'd otherwise have none.

 

Excellent post.

 

wheelwright wrote:

 

My MM always told me how much commitment and duty meant to him. I was a big fat question mark for him asking what could be his happiness. He took it seriously. But he chose his M.

 

At one point in the A he chose 'love' -me. And I was so happy. But he reneged. And I don't feel I was lied to. It was a more than difficult decision. It was a life decision made in the full knowing that it was so. Even when we marry we don't feel the weight of our decision as fully as that (children, history etc.)

 

So did the MM you were with choose love when he chose his marriage? Or was he only choosing love when he was with you?

[silktricks]

IMO, it is often the marriage that is the lie. Staying with one woman when you love another is living a lie. Pretending to your spouse that everything is like it used to be when you are in fact hiding a very important part of your life is living a lie.

I take issue with your use of the word often in this connotation.

 

If it is indeed the marriage that is the lie, then come D-Day, most of the time it would be the BS who is left and the OW who is not. IF however, it is the affair that is lie, then it is the OW who is left and the BS who is begged to stay. I don't know for a fact which is true, but it seems to be the accepted truth that most MM choose to stay with the wife.

[wheelwright]

Thank you for your wishes of happiness. My xMM wished the same, and I didn't know how to take it. I thought that in terms of love he was my happiness, I would be looking for another source thereafter.

 

I mean I wouldn't find it through love. Not that kind anyway.

 

I am a happy person - children, trees, people I meet in the street.

 

I am glad you replied, but I wanted to know your feelings. What did my story trigger in you if anything?

 

I am curious about you. What made you curious?

[Snowflower]

I don't know for sure if he lied about the lack of intimacy in the M, but I still believe it. I kind of had evidence for it. And I can see no reason for him to lie. He never strung me along, but spent the A time making very painful decisions about his future. And when he worked on his marriage and regained intimacy, he told me that too. At that point the A ended.

 

All cheaters are to some degree deceitful, but not all make lying a way of life. I told my H only one outright lie during the A. And I hated the deceit and could not share a bedroom with H during the A and told him I wanted to split up.

 

I am not saying my actions weren't wrong. Living with deceit is soul destroying, especially if you are not a natural liar.

 

I learnt that for myself, I cannot live with my own deceit, or a partner being deceitful to me. I could cope with MM deceiving his W only for the time I was convinced the M was empty.

 

Sometimes we deceive ourselves. Perhaps some MM believe their Ms to be loveless, but upon looking deeper find they were wrong. This could account for what with hindsight look like lies.

 

I am glad you replied, but I wanted to know your feelings. What did my story trigger in you if anything?

 

I am curious about you. What made you curious?

 

I'm not good at posting multiple messages and replying to each...I always mess it up somehow!

 

I guess what made me curious about your original post above were the parts I included here because I am comparing them to my own situation. I saw some similarities to what I learned happened in my husband's affair.

 

A little about me...I am a fBW who found out about my husband's A a year ago this month. He confessed to me and after a brief separation post d-day (he did not go to the OW-she lived too far away) we reconciled and really worked on our marriage. It has not been easy for either my husband nor me but our marriage is a success now and our reconciliation is a happy one.

 

Like you mention about your MM, my H also appears to have spent the time in his A figuring out what the h*ll he wanted in his life. I think you mentioned it was a sort of MLC for your MM and it was for my H. It sounded like the A helped your MM sort out his life and his feelings about his M. Please, I'm not trying to hurt you because I know you had feelings for him. It's just how I see it.

 

My understanding is that once your MM sorted out his feelings and regained the intimacy in his marriage (your words) that the A ended. Again, this sounds like my H.

 

And what you mention about the lying, WW. Yes, my H deceived me...I knew my marriage was in serious trouble and he was not truthful with me. However, the outright lies that he told me were few...similar to how you mention that you told your H one lie during your A.

 

Like you mentioned, my H also had a hard time with the deceit. For some people, like you and my H, the guilt, the deceit, the shame was soul-destroying. At this time last year, I saw my H literally an emotional mess...he was slowly imploding internally. He eventually confessed his A and I think it helped him regain some integrity in his own eyes.

 

So, I guess your responses had me curious because you presented a different, interesting perspective on some of what my H went through. We talked and talked during his A and after about what he felt. My H was a bit unusual in that even though our marriage was deteriorating rapidly during his A (it was a brief affair-a few months), he oddly kept some lines of very close communication open with me...even during his A, which of course I didn't know about.

 

I'm not sure if this answers your questions but if not, ask away! Like I said, I find your perspective interesting and helpful.

[learnfrommymistakes]

Fooled

I could have written this myself, really. Nothing more to add really except to say this is how I feel...exactly. These are the very same things I have been struggling with recently...how on earth can we think these men are only lying to one person, they are not. LYING is a part of cheating and affairs, there is no way around it.

 

I know a lot of OW all believe and say "this is the first affair he ever had, he has never cheated, I am the only one..." and I too believed that for a long time, now I dont believe it at all. IT seems like these men are so convincing, so deeply in love, and yes, all their marriages are doomed, they live separate lives, never have sex...yad yada, perhaps they all read the same book..lol...and give the same lines. These stories seem to familiar.

 

An cheater is selfish. I had a conversation with a colleague sticking up for my exMM yet again, saying...he did not leave his marriage cause his wife and kids needed him, and he put them first.....

 

then she said something that stuck with me....she said..NO HE PUT HIMSELF FIRST, he was selfish. Oh is this true. I always felt bad, never wanted him to leave wife but did not want to be in affair. I felt he was doing the right thing staying...yet the right thing is NOT to sleep with and love and chase other women when you are still together.

 

HE was selfish, most people in affairs are thinking of themselves...it is just the way that it is...

 

If OW here are a little put off by my tone, I apologize. I am not bashing you, I am venting and seeing some ugly truths about myself, and my love for this man who has been bsing I think, all along.

 

lfmm

[wheelwright]

wheelwright wrote:

 

 

 

So did the MM you were with choose love when he chose his marriage? Or was he only choosing love when he was with you?

 

Fooled Once, this is a good question. He did choose love. The turning point was when he saw the look in the eyes of his teenage children when he told them of the split. That was it. And I understand that love.

 

And that love meant he had to remember love for his W or end his days living for his kids. I believe he did just that (the former). I am not as delusional as you might think.

 

I believe in love, whether it be renewed or the kind you get when you know it could be right given the circumstances.

[Spark1111]

I think OWoman makes some great points regarding feeding the affair fantasy both partners are having, one that implies a future together with

soulmate.

 

However, reading these boards, I am frequently amazed at what is NOT discussed during an affair, only deduced through words of romance and undying love.

 

After the fact, it may seem like lying, although I doubt it is intentional. It seems more like self-delusion on both the part of the WS and the OW/OM.

 

Or self-protection of the affair dynamic, IMHO.

[MaureyL]

I don't think I was lied to while the affair was active, in fact as so often happens, I was his confidant. But once he left the country and was trying to stay in contact with me via text, email and telephone, he stopped trying to be honest with me. More of the sin of admission stuff-- I asked once how his GF was coping with the realisation of his affair with me and he said that he didn't want to talk about it. I'm sure he would have felt strange telling me how he was begging to have his relationship back that way it was before I appeared on the scene. He's not going to tell me that, right?? On our most recent phone conversation, it was obvious that he was lying to me about a few certain things or details.

 

That's fine. Not my problem! x

[NoIDidn't]

The topic of this thread is "affairs and lying". Sure, it was written from the view of a former OW, but its generally discussing affairs and lying.

 

I take issue with the fact that jennie-jennie is attempting to turn it into which relationship is more real - the affair or the marriage. This thread is not about that. Its about "affairs and lying".

 

The affair IS a lie when the BS doesn't know about it. And the way to keep it hidden is to do so by lies of ommission and obfuscation on the part of the WS and the OP. We already know that the BS is lied to during the A. Why feel the need to make it seem that only the BS are lied to and that somehow that makes the BS stupid for believing the lies if they don't have absolute proof of an A?

 

Affairs involve lying. And like 2sure has already posted, it isn't the direct lying that's the biggest problem for the BS - its the pretense that everything is just fine, the pretense that the love for the BS is the highest ever. If I were an OP this would be a problem for me. I would not accept that while my "BF" is telling me that he loves me, that he's planning to leave for me - he's home doing everything in her power to make his leaving seem like it was completely out of the blue (for those in this situation). But I guess this falls under the general feeling of most OPs (as was said in the past by some) that they don't care if the BS is being lied to because they didn't feel that they were being lied to. And you know what? Those same OPs are probably still in the same boat they were in before because they allowed the lying to go on instead of challenging the status quo and getting the MP to make a decision to end the affair/marriage limbo.

 

(And of course, none of this is relevant if you enjoy being an OP and have no designs of an exclusive relationship with the MP you are seeing.)