Honestly, why not confess?

[violet1]

You're right, a WS doesn't believe she'll get caught. I don't believe anyone will catch me, and my A will probably continue for sometime.

 

I think, without wishing to stir up a hornets nest, that one thing that hasn't really been said is that whilst the A is completely the responsibility of the person involved in it, it is not necessarily their fault, or not solely.

 

It takes 2 people to make a marriage work, and when it fails, for whatever reasons, it is the responsibility of both parties to work at it and get it back on track. When 1 party is not willing to work on it, or does not acknowledge a problem, it leaves the other to try and fix it on their own, to make the decision to divorce, to remain unhappy, or to find another way of coping. In my case I have found another way of coping by having an A. I acknowledge that this is my responsibility, and will accept the consequences of my actions if it comes to light. But my H also has to accept his responsibilities in the failings in the marriage, and he has refused to do that, despite me asking for counselling, trying to make him see the problems, and trying to solve them. I love him dearly, but our relationship is failing because of both of us, not just because of my A which, in all likelihood would not have happened if we had both worked together to solve our problems.

That's ridiculous! You just don't like the options you have. It's easier to cheat than to sit your H down and tell him that things need to change or the relationship is over. You are taking the easy way out and that's on YOU, not your H. I'm willing to bet he doesn't think things are as bad as you do. I know because I've been there, done that and I did get caught. You will too eventually.

[merrmeade]

No one questions that the WS lies. No one questions that the BS deserves to know the truth. But this is not what the thread is about.

 

It is about why not confess. And you posted a slew of "excuses" which made no sense to me because those "excuses" are discovered almost entirely post DDay, as I said. Now you offer up three quite legitmate "excuses"

 

But I still think you miss something. These are not EXCUSES to JUSTIFY having the affair, They are things WS's tell themselves about HOW THEY ARE GOING TO GET AWAY WITH IT. Justifying having an affair is NOT the same thing as using self deception to get there.

 

I completely agree with you on 1 and a little on 2.

 

A WS tells him/herself s/he won't get caught. In fact, I agree with Glass on this. A WS having an EA and finally gets to that first kiss/make out / sexual encounter etc. goes home, maybe even starts to ask herself if she should have let things go that far, and sees that hubby, kids, life, is normal. They don't smell the sex on her. They don't notice the glow on her face. She got away with it. "So, hell, a little more won't hurt. I can always stop when..."

 

 

But my experience has been this:

My WW told herself that she can continue UNTIL she gets caught.

 

My WW, in fact, told me, that she and her AP talked about this, and as we have seen in LS a hundred times, and read in Glass, they even said "This is going to end badly."

 

Now this can be taken in several ways ("going to end badly between the two of us" - meaning, Im not leaving spouse if I have to choose between the two of you") but I took it and confirmed it to mean, "this is going to end badly if my husband or anyone from work finds out." In other words, knowing they are on a time bomb.

 

You see, my WS was in an EA for over a year before she had her first kiss. So as far as she could see, husband was not going to find out. If she planed her PA carefully, no one was going to be the wiser. And this is what many affairs are all about.

 

So I'd say that there are two essential ingredients in the logic of a WS:

 

1) Self deception about getting caught.

2) Delayed reflection: Ill cross that bridge when I get to it.

 

And this is very much supported by a host of WS's here and in the literature.

 

Given the choice of having an affair and having to lie to oneself about the consequences, the WS simply CANNOT bring him/herself to stop, and plunges forward KNOWING that this could at any minute end BADLY.

 

The contradictions that many here call "having cake" is for me something much more precise, at least in my case: It's about not asking yourself the fundamental questions about what you are doing because you KNOW the only solution is to stop, and since that is just NOT GOING TO BE AN OPTION the WS completely ignores those questions which do nothing but demonstrate the destructive and chaotic and irresponsible decisions they are making. They might even ask them of themselves once in a while. But they do nothing about the answers.

 

In my WW's case she had two people try to stop her with reason:

 

"Are you prepared to lose you husband, daughter, your marriage for this?" asked one. "I'm not prepared to give up AP" was the answer.

 

This is not someone who thinks her husband will find out, this is someone who is saying Ill cross that bridge when I get to it, but not before I have my thing.

 

In another, she went to her IC (work related depression) and told him about her EA ("not getting my needs met") and how she wanted to move forward into a PA. He told her to go home, talk to me, and demand to have her needs met, but maybe not a good idea to confess about her EA. Of course she did none of those things, because what she really wanted was her IC to give her "permission" to go all the way with her AP. And besides, not having needs met was a load of crap. She had no needs left back at home other than having a house husband take care of things, her AP by then quite clear about meeting all those supposed needs.

 

Self deception even in IC. Self deception even when her best friend is telling her her marriage is about to end. Self deception even when she asked her AP (who was himself a BH who lost his WW to her AP) how I was going to feel... and he told her, "you cannot imagine the pain this is going to cause - especially for your 8 year old daughter." Did any of this stop her? Of course not.

 

The only thing that allowed her to keep going was that bridge that she couldn't see in front of her nose.

Yep, everyone is right. This is an awesome clarification of the answer to the thread question from a WS's point of view while in the A.

1) Self deception about getting caught.

2) Delayed reflection: I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

I would posit a third essential ingredient in WS/AP logic: Justification for the A, aka rationalization. To have an A, they must justify breaching ethical codes every step of the way. Though the motivation is fear of getting caught, to seriously believe they will not get caught, they have to work at hiding it. To work at hiding it, their mental, emotional and moral condition precludes any reason for confession. If they're good at not getting caught, they're doing all the complicated rationalizations and mindf--k necessary to believe the A is good and right, the marriage or the marriage partners, bad or wrong. There's nothing to confess, just a whole lot to hide. They must see themselves as fated, a perfect match, nicer, etc. They must demonize the BS as rigid, weak, heartless or indifferent and portray the marriage as bad or hopeless. It requires a well-considered set of rationalizations to justify deceiving the spouses and the world, and BOTH APs must reinforce the necessity for this thinking so they can then go about the complicated machinations of hiding the A. If that thinking is in place, they're WAY, WAY past the option of confessing.

 

My H and OW/SIL were so convinced their "family" connection (since their spouses were the blood relatives) justified the EA that they talked openly about being 'best friends' to other people—children in both families, extended relatives, neighbors, friends of the family—but, never, of course to my brother or me. It worked because he was in a nursing home and I was out of the country. To each other, they said that my brother and I weren't modern or loving enough to understand the purity of their friendship because, first, we were just too cold-hearted and, second, our mother gave us such old-fashioned ideas about men/women friendships (to give my H a little credit, my SIL's stupidity did embarrass him). The cornerstone of the logic for hiding the PA, however, was that they'd just "lost it" a few times, knew it was "stupid" and the relationship was 90% friendship. I kid you not. They each said this and repeated parts of the previous sentence more than once. (H sometimes remembers to add—with coaching—that, in addition to being "stupid," it was also "wrong.")

 

My point is that, whatever the convoluted justifications for the A, that thinking precludes an option or reason to confess.

[road]

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Her words to the co-worker .was almost Identical to your WWs..."i cant give him up...I simply cannot quit. ....he doesnt know (me)..and i will deal with it when it comes.."

 

 

In looking back..when I first found evidence (on her phone) ...her denial,minimizing and trickle truth ...i knew i could not stay...when Everything became evident (pictures,confession..etc)..I knew i was going to have to do what was best for me...I stayed until I found much more than i bargained for.....But my how she changed when D_day arrived...

 

 

 

This shows that affairs cause the same addictive brain chemistry as all other addict's have.

 

 

Your WW was addicted to the OM. She could not give up her addiction and lose her high. And as long as a BH does not know about the affair their is no motivation or consequences for a WW to give up the OM.