No need to apologise at all, I really didn’t mean it as chiding you about ‘funny’, you’re right, I meant that it goes beyond funny and as you say here, straight through funny and into the totally ridiculous.
The media portray it as exciting and sexy and I’m sure it is within its bubble, but I wish they’d show you more of the damage it does and lives and reputations ruined.
I’m going to refer more to men cheating than women here, whilst recognising that women do this too, before I get jumped on.
I’m glad to see someone refer to this as poor self control and disease.
It’s think the risk taking and flattery are what people find exciting, I do get that part if it, it allows you to reinvent yourself.
I also think that, especially in in very long term relationships, getting that ‘first date’ new relationship high can be pretty intoxicating and it allows you to turn back the clock to feelings last felt in your long lost youth.
No marriage, no matter how good, no wife, no matter how good, attractive and successful, can compete with that. It’s an unfair comparison. Comparing yourself to an affair partner (what’s she got that I haven’t got? Etc) is bunkum, all she’s got is being new, undiscovered, a challenge and a secret. Youth and beauty fan the ego harder and are a bigger reminder of a long lost youth for an older guy, but they are ego based feelings, nothing to do with their wife. No older woman can be younger again or have the youthful beauty of a younger woman, it’s impossible. But no affair partner can recreate the life and history created and built by the wife and her husband, within an affair situation, ever. That’s what most husbands never want to lose. In being forced to choose, most recognise the temporary nature of what they’re getting off on. They choose home. That’s why a happy marriage and being loved by your husband is no guarantee that he won’t cheat. Cheating isn’t motivated by your perceived flaws or marriage flaws, catalysts can be anything that gives more and preferably new validation.
The most terrific wives can’t do what a new affair partner can do, they’re not a new exciting secret. Known vs unknown. Doesn’t mean the affair partner is better than them, (remember they’re ok with his lies and deception and ok with helping him deceive you, that’s really not a nice person) they’re just a willing catalyst for his reinvention and trying to turn back a clock that stopped years ago. Beautiful, young, successful and famous women still get cheated on. Just shows you that it’s always about what’s wrong with the cheat, rather than what’s wrong with the cheated upon.
All this stuff is crack cocaine to someone who gets more from external validation because their damaged internal self esteem likes the boost, add poor self control and crap coping mechanisms, plus an ability to lie to themselves and it could be absolutely anyone. Anyone can cheat given the ‘right’ circumstances which feed their particular angsts.
“Disease” takes many forms and attachment issues, damage from dysfunctional parental relationships in childhood, what their preferred sources of validation are and how healthy those sources are, addictive personality …. so many things that we all suffer from to varying extents which can gather into a perfect storm, even for good people who never, ever thought they’d do this stuff can get there given the right catalysts.
These are never excuses, however, there are none for something that was always a choice.
They are just reasons that do make you more vulnerable. Don’t listen to a cheat who clings to them as excuses though. They knew what they were doing and they knew it was wrong.
‘Exciting and sexy’….. Affair partners often think they feel so great with this new person that they were fated to meet, that fate brought them together and thank God that this person came along at the right time to ‘save’ them from their ‘unhappiness’. You only ever hear ex affair partners on here describe the way the affair partner made them feel in extreme terms, convinced they’d have been together in another life…. totally ignoring the flaws and defects and toxicity of the whole dysfunctional relationship that an affair is. In denial about why they are now inexplicably, given all he said, without this fated soulmate who loved them so much that he ran back to his old life when he had to choose. They buy into ‘he only went back to her because of his kids/ because his wife was mentally ill and might kill herself etc etc’ but hold the phone, this guy isn’t noble, doesn’t do the right thing at his own personal expense, they have proof of this. He does what he wants to do and what is best for him and the best thing for him that he really wanted, wasn’t you.
That’s why they’ll say it took years to get over, or that they will never forget them and always love them… just like addicts miss their coke and booze. They are missing something toxic, something so bad it had to be kept secret. They are missing the whole point of why they felt that magical way. Their ex affair partner is not their ‘soulmate’. Their ex affair partner reinvented himself and showed them one side of himself and kept the rest, like the other side of his double life, hidden and lied about.
They are missing what was a fake and doctored version of him, they actually got his worst side, not his best.
If you’ve ever been cheated on and are angry that she ‘got his best side’ (flowers, fancy restaurants, gifts, constant messaging, champagne…) then stop immediately. She didn’t, those things weren’t his best side, they are the him he created when he’s cheating. All those traits belonged to a guy who was using them as tools to manipulate, gaslight and control his affair partner and prolong the affair. He was maintaining his fix and creating smoke screens to convince the new woman that he’s terrific, madly in love, convince her that she’s chosen, special….when every single time he left her, he went home afterwards and got in bed with his wife.
The love bombing is the bread and butter of maintaining an illusion. “Don’t look over here, pay no attention to the grubby little man behind the curtain…. look this way, over here, at the great, shiny new guy who does more for you than anyone you’ve ever met before. Of course he does, he’s got to prove that he’s a lovely guy, when he’s already on dodgy ground with that one.
You already know he’s lying to and deceiving his wife and sleeping with both of you, whatever he tells you. Distraction techniques and giving/ telling you what you want to see and hear, plus you wanting to believe what you see and hear, because it makes you feel so good about yourself, keeps the toxic soup bubbling on the stove.
After you get dumped you desperately want and need to believe this even more, because the alternative explanations leave you hurt, betrayed and humiliated for being so foolish as to believe a liar.
Darker forces than fate were at work and this person usually comes along at the wrong time for their weaknesses and the affair, more often than not, damns a previously respected and faithful spouse rather than saves them.
Unless the marriage definitely is dead and would have split up without the affair, (ie the ‘exit’ affair, a far smaller percentage of all affairs) most unfaithful spouses just want their life back how it was and want to go home if allowed.
All that damage, shattered trust, reputation ruined, personal weaknesses exposed, condemnation and unimaginable pain caused…..and for what? Ultimately nothing.
To sum up:
Sexy and exciting? Yes, but for toxic reasons. Disease? Absolutely.
Ridiculous? Too right.
But sadly so very, very common. The flesh is indeed weak.