JAGeezer Posted June 16, 2011 Posted June 16, 2011 The whole thing just fascinates me. I read and read and read about it just trying to understand why. What makes people enter into an affair. I can actually understand the cheating spouses logic. They think they are never going to get caught, they are looking for a little extra fun on the side and an escape from day to day family life of kids, household chores, bills to pay etc. I think often man it would be a nice escape to just "play" single sometimes and go back to the younger days of no responsibility but I know I just am not cut out for that kind of escape. What fascinates me though is what does the "other" person get out of it? What would ever make them want the affair lifestyle? There are so many people to fall in love with. Wouldn't you protect yourself from the married ones? I guess I don't believe that love just happens. I'm hoping one day to understand what people see in someone who goes home to a family every night but honestly I just don't think I will ever get it. Maybe I should stop trying to understand and just say it makes no sense. This is just a fast drive-by post. I haven't been here since...well, it's been awhile. I was thinking about this subject the other day, so I'll make a fast comment. The reason for any A, in a word, is immaturity. I think that most people who cheat, on both sides of the A either never left their teenage years behind, or they regressed back into them. Read some of the posts by the AP's and WS's around here. Emotionally they read like horny hormonal teenagers. Teenagers think they're bullet-proof. Untouchable. So do cheaters of whatever stripe apparently. For the AP's it's "It won't happen to me. I won't get caught. Nothing bad will happen. They won't throw me under the bus." For the WS's it's all that with a dose of "My BS will forgive me and won't divorce my cheating ass." Even if they protest otherwise, in their heart of hearts, that's what they believe. "It can't happen to me." Their words betray them every time. They come here, the AP's and BS's wondering how they got where they are and what they can do about it. Hey kids, the answer is, you have a sizable character flaw that led you to serious wrongdoing. The answer to that is, grow the hell up and stop doing what you're doing. Add in a dose of wanting what society at large says you can't have as the "cheese" to bait the trap and you have an explanation that covers most A's It's self-indulgence on both sides. They get to be teenagers again...assuming they ever grew up at all in the first place. JAG
nyrias Posted June 16, 2011 Posted June 16, 2011 Sure they do. Does that make it any less of a lie? Besides, although we all die as individuals, life continues. A great example of this is when General Eisenhower insisted the press photograph and/or film the German extermination camps. When asked why he said; "If we don't, someone will someday deny any of this happened." NO. A lie is a lie. But your claim that "They're unsustainable" is wrong. At best, only *some* lies are unsustainable.
nyrias Posted June 16, 2011 Posted June 16, 2011 Some people do...some people don't. One thing I would expect, from the more intelligent liars at least, is that when somebody lies, they at least accept the possibility that the lie will come out and explode violently in their face. And accept the consequences of their lie when that happens. I compare affairs (or lies in general) to being like a jenga tower in many ways. When you bring dishonesty into the equation, you introduce an incomprehensibly large number of new factors. The longer the lie sits, the higher the chance that one little factor "slips". One wrong slip, and the lie collapses. I think that is what Kriss, Steadfast, and SC were trying to say...maybe. That is not a unreasonable view, except that the dynamics is very much context dependent. Example #1: An ongoing A that the BS has to lied about his schedule, communication, and a host of other things. In this case, the jenga analogy is quite accurate. A little mistake will bring everything down. Example #2: An EA happened 10 years ago. It is purely through the Internet and there is no other witness. Moreover, the other party died from an accident since then. The computers used in questions are all replaced and scraped and there is no electronic trail. In this case, i don't see how it would be difficult to hid THIS particularly A. This is certainly VERY sustainable. (Now someone will show up now and say how does that make it "ok". A lie is a lie. My response: read carefully, this is about if a lie can be sustained. This said NOTHING about the moral dimension. And yes, it is still a lie. Murders are also wrong. Not all murder cases are solved.) These two are obviously extremely examples (particularly in #2). Most cases probably fall somewhere in between.
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