How do people sweep infidelity under the carpet?

[curiousgeorgette]

It seems like the vast majority of people go through a broadly similar experience in reaction and feelings following the discovery of an affair.

I am interested in your opinions and thoughts about the people who really don't seem to react in the 'typical' way (i.e no signs of grief or trauma) and are able to just sweep the whole thing under the carpet with what seems like a lot of detachment and levelheadedness, acting like it never happened with no counselling, addressing the issues that led to the affair or following any of the steps that are accepted as what are required after an infidelity.

How do people cope and live like that?

NC'd by the way. Am relationships semi regular.

i think it's just horses for courses really

there are definitely people out there who see marriage/ltr as just one part of their life, and not a key part of how they define themselves. when something goes wrong they just clear it up and carry on, as if it were something that went wrong at work etc.

and on the other side of the spectrum there are those who feel their partner is part of them, and discovering an affair is like having an amputation.

i wouldn't say either reaction is wrong, it's just a reflection of how different people construct their identity.

It just isn't that big a deal to some people. Nor should it be. Despite the huge cultural pressure on everyone, especially women, to make the focus of your life getting and maintaining ownership of a specific individual's genitals, plenty of people have other factors in their life that are more important to them than a couple-relationship or at least the exclusivity of one.

SGB Yes, I agree although I probably should've made a clear distinction between people for whom monogamy isn't a deal-breaker and people who are studiously avoiding dealing with something. There is a difference between the two.

Not necessarily. People can be in officially-monogamous relationships and still not think monogamy is a big deal, so if a partner has breached monogamy but wants to continue the relationship, they can accept this and move on.
Not everyone wants or needs hours with some tissue-wielding counsellor before deciding how to arrange his or her life. And if deciding to move swiftly on is what suits an individual, I think it's wrong for someone else to insist that the situation be 'dealt with'.

To add to that SGB infidelity is not just what just happens with someone's genitals. It is/can also be accompanied with a lot of lying and terrible behaviour which are in many ways the worst bit so my question applies equally to how people can pretend a massive episode of lying and unpleasantness didn't happen with wishful thinking and saying 'Lalalala' a lot with fingers in their ears. Whether one wants 'ownership' or not, communication and honesty is surely required to have a good relationship?

agree with sgb

i must be say, if DH went and shagged someone else in a moment of weakness, but didn't want to split up, i don't actually think i would want to know about it. i would want him to keep his communication and honesty to himself, frankly. and to use three condoms at once of course.

if he told me i would be pissed off with him for telling me really. i would probably say "why did you tell me if you didn't want to split up?" iyswim.

monogamy is important to me but as i love him for longer and longer, and really know him better and better, i realise that my exclusive shagging rights aren't nearly the most important thing to me. i care more that when we're together, we're happy. and we are.

oikopolis I can understand that, but that's not the type of situation I meant. In the situation I know of (involving family member) no-one is happy and there are very big problems. I didn't mean 'How do some people not care?' because I know some people don't care to the same extent as others. There was a lot of damage caused during affair so I'm wondering what the effect of suppressing that and not addressing the pre-existing problems will be for my relative.

I did it because quite frankly my kids having a stable home life was more important to me. I was hurt yes but it seemed a small price to pay in comparison to the upheaval and stress of a spilt.

I left him when his drinking got out of hand as that was affecting the dc. He was unfaithful so many times that it became a fact of life and I just ignored it really.

I'm not sure how important fidelity is to me if I'm happy in all other areas of a relationship. However having my face rubbed in it was awful.

"tissue-wielding counsellor"

Even if they don't openly show signs of grief/trauma etc it doesn't mean they're not crumbling inside. Some people are too proud to show that they have been wronged or belittled and consider it a weakness. And, if you show a weakness you invite pity and sympathy from others which just makes the matter worse.

I agree it's not that big a deal to some people, but completely disagree with the comment "nor should it be".

There's no 'shoulds' about it. That's way too prescriptive and narrow-minded.

No-one who's in a monogamous relationship where love is involved actually knows what they'd feel like if it happened either, until it does. As in many life situations, theory and reality are two very different things. People very often react differently to how they'd imagined. I've seen that play out so many times in real-life.

The question is about people who sweep it under the carpet and pretend it hasn't happened. For every person in that category for whom it's not that big a deal, I think there are more who do consider it a big deal, but they under-react because of their own trade-offs. Either they've got their own secrets that wouldn't bear scrutiny, they don't love particularly deeply and so the hurt is not that great, they fear being alone, or they don't want to give up things that they value more than the relationship itself - such as material comforts, religious commandments, status or a live-in mother or father for their children. Sometimes all of those things. Of course, this means it's much more likely that it will happen again and the risk of losing those things becomes greater, so it's not a particularly sensible or rational set of trade-offs if they are being made in order to hang on to those things.

I once worked with a woman who thought she was being very pragmatic about her husband's repeated flings. Their relationship was 'open' on his side only and although theoretically she knew she could do the same, she didn't want to. She thought that turning a blind eye and her husband's promise of discretion was the grown-up thing to do and believed the big picture was keeping their family intact. She said the first one hurt the most and after that, each new dalliance hurt less.

Until he fell in love that is and left her after their youngest child had left for university and she was in her fifties. I'll never forget her pain at that - she just hadn't reckoned on him developing feelings for someone else and losing the control she thought she had of her life. Her bitter conclusion was that she should have got out sooner and that her 'pragmatism' had been a massive delusion.

ok i see what you mean.

if there is massive, obvious unhappiness all round and yet nothing is being resolved/dealt with/talked about (i.e., nothing is being made "better" post affair, whether that's by giving up on the rs, or by working things out with counselling etc.)...

and you're wondering how people cope with that...
the answer's simple, people tend to do the thing that they fear the least. the people involved may feel that "dealing with it" is just not worth the upheaval, pain, self-reflection etc. and they would rather just carry on as is.

for me, i would be too afraid of living in misery indefinitely, so i couldn't do that. but sometimes indefinite misery is the better option in the minds of those involved iyswim.

it's all down to personal choice, temperament, and so on.

I think the real answer you need, OP, is 'keep your beak out.' It's not up to you to decide how someone else should deal with a difficult situation and insisting that the person takes action you think is appropriate is unhelpful and unethical.

Ooh I've just remembered another colleague's tale of woe too. This was a man who'd found his wife out in an affair. The affair was already over and she seemed to be blaming my colleague for it. His approach was to take the blame and not to ask her any questions about it. I worked with him on a project a few years later and you've guessed it.....she'd left him for someone else

Excuse me, SGB? I have not decided how they should deal with the situation nor do I plan to. I haven't voiced an opinion to the person (because I haven't formed one yet), much less fucking 'insisted' on a single thing. Where are you getting this from?!

One can ask for opinions and different viewpoints to add perspective and things to think about without doing any of the things you seem to have decided that I am doing. You might think you're reading between the lines but 1. you are wrong about the conclusion and 2. you've totally extrapolated very little into a narrative which bears zero resemblance.

Yes, I was a bit taken aback by the venom there too .

Now I see that this is a real-life dilemma for you Georgette, I can understand and empathise with your concern for your relative. I guess all you can do is to offer support and a promise that you won't judge him or her for the decisions made. If your relative wants to talk to you, it would be best to ask questions and listen - and only offer an opinion if it's asked for, promising complete confidentiality. Sometimes getting the other person to consider all the angles through the questions you ask is a great help, but you could also suggest counselling for the person on his or her own.
All decisions have consequences - we can do no more for our loved ones than helping them to work out what they might be and to decide if they can live with them.

There's a massive difference between offering non-judgemental support and refusing to get involved when someone asks for help.

"How do people cope and live like that?"

I think, for some people the very worst thing they can imagine in life is be to be alone. So they will do anything to avoid it at no matter what personal cost. When faced with infidelity they consciously suppress the anger and the hurt, partly by burying their head in the sand, partly by rationalising it away (staying together for the children etc) and partly by choosing to believe that the unfaithful partner really has changed or can change with their help.

No-one who's in a monogamous relationship where love is involved actually knows what they'd feel like if it happened either, until it does. As in many life situations, theory and reality are two very different things. People very often react differently to how they'd imagined.

I second that. I had no idea such pain existed.

I also agree with Hatty's comment about the delusion (of control). The hardest part of the pain is having your reality rearranged. And I don't mean sanity wise, your assumptions and your sense of 'safety'. What you assumed, are simply not true. As well as the reality that the person you live with can be that selfish, that dehumanising of you, that spiteful, that disloyal, that split - and capable of feeling more strongly about someone else than you, and showing it. It is devastating on many many fronts.

As to sweeping it under the carpet, some people can compartmentalise very well.

I always thought that if my ex was unfaithful to me that I would leave him straight away and that would be the end of it. However, when I found out that he HAD had an affair, I didn't react how I thought I would and I didn't end it. Our dd was 5 months old and we had two older boys too. I accepted his apology and we worked it out. However, after his 3rd affair I realised that he wasn't going to change and leaving him was the best thing I did. I may have forgiven him, but I had NEVER forgotten about it. I did think that I was staying with him for the DC, but now having been separated for a year I realise that I was staying with him because I was scared of being on my own with three children. I now know that it was the best thing I ever did and it doesn't matter who gives u advice on these matters, at the end of the day, it is only the person who can make the right decision for them. I'm just sorry that I didn't leave on the 1st affair and wasted 11 years on him!!!