SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Have been reading bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love in order to better understand my fWH and some of is deeper underlying issues. This quote spoke to me in particular (also posted on R forum) as I am struggling to understand how he could carry on the double life that he did during his 10 wk long affair with a CoW:

“Speaking about the meaning of integrity ...Rabbi Harold Kushner offers this clear definition: “Integrity means being whole, unbroken, undivided. It describes a person who has united the different parts of his or her personality, so that there is no longer a split in the soul.” Patriarchy encourages men to surrender their integrity and to live lives of denial. By learning the arts of compartmentalization, dissimulation, and disassociation, men are able to see themselves as acting with integrity in “cases where they are not. Their learned state of psychological denial is severe. Adding to the definition of integrity ... M. Scott Peck discusses the root meaning of the term “integrity,” which is the verb “to integrate,” emphasizing that this is the opposite of compartmentalization. “Individuals without integrity naturally compartmentalize. And patriarchal masculinity normalizes male compartmentalization....Since most men have been socialized to believe that compartmentalization is a positive practice, it feels right, it feels comfortable. To practice integrity, then, is difficult; it hurts. Peck makes the crucial point: “Integrity is painful. But without it there can be no wholeness.” To be whole men must practice integrity.”

This passage spoke volumes to me about how and why my fWH chose to sought comfort in the A rather than in staying in and trying to fix/engage our marriage (whereas, as unhappy or dissatisfied I may have been, I did not step outside); and how he felt justified in rationalising his behavior for so long. He was/is broken, and, actually, his AP thoughtfully introduced him to the term "compartmentalize" and offered to teach him how to learn to do this more effectively. It actually became a sort of sick shared joke between them.

Me, BW, 51

Him, WH, same

Married 31 years, three beautiful children 22 (DD), 18 (DS), 11 (DS)

10 week EA/PA with CoW

DDay #1: July 2014 (EA with a few instances of passionate kissing/ heavy petting)

(then, polygraph arranged)

DDay #2: March 2015 (EA/PA got a room together, couldn't consummate)

DDay #3: April 2015 (EA/PA, consummation)

(polygraph still scheduled, waiting for the next shoe to drop first!)

This post made my day! Off to the library I go.

Where is the "smashing the patriarchy" emoticon???

I always take Peck with a grain of salt - many extramarital affairs by him.

Wow. Well, that's depressing

But maybe he knows whereof he speaks.

In which case, if that's true, I won't actually pay for his books on principle-- but I may borrow them from the library!

Rachelc, you are right. Apparently in his in his book In Search of Stones, he admits to having had extramarital affairs (plural), and being estranged from two of his children. (sigh).

Still, I am finding bell hooks to be a pretty interesting read, even though she quotes M. Scott Peck.

I'll look into that author!