My take is the flip side! (This is from 10 years ago…so it comes with wisdom that may help at the end of this post.)
It blew me away, the lies Mr Uxor AND !!!3!!! other married men believed, that his mCOW had said.
And how Mr Uxor did not question or contradict her. THAT defines the sheer denial.
I guess I am talking about how he lied to himself and even paralleled her lies by imitating her with his own lies of omission.
An example from several dozens I have proof of:
Her: "My H and I only have Birthday sex, meaning just on special occasions. He neglects me. He knows how I am sexually. He chooses to sleep in the guest-room. My poor neglected needs!."
Meanwhile she is doing several other men, accessing info on their bankrolls to compare them (all executives, doctors and lawyers and such…every single one. Her husband was too, but sick and edge of retirement. The money stream was about to dry up.
And it was her third marriage to a successful man who was having a financial change.
She was also being coached by a former affair partner, who was a financial counselor and beyond promiscuous in every fetish you can imagine, on how to plan to invest her divorce take-aways and affair booty she was taking in from APs all while this guy was fully aware of her sexual extracurriculars that he had taught her, and was cheering her on and helping her strategize leverages (gifts, raises, etc).
She was not in "need". She was getting plenty of it. Even on the same day at times. And she had a team in play to get her a lot of jing in a way that would lock in perfect victim married wife image.
BUT Mr Uxor thought he was THEEE ONE!
And though we were easily intimate a couple of times a week, he lead her to believe that it was more or less like her false frequency. THAT was infuriating to me when I saw what he DIDN’T say.
I learned through this that my husband seldom lied directly. He was more likely to use a half-truth and omission to hide things.
(Advantage. Now I know to look for what is missing. NOT what is offered.)
She later realized we were intimate much more often; and would attempt to intercept him before coming home by staying until after others left the office to do work. She claimed the other mCOM was crushing her and needed to meet with Mr Uxor separately in order to focus on work and not be distracted.
She often complained to Mr Uxor that she thought this guy was obsessed with her.
He was.
That guy left his wife and married her.
But to Mr Uxor, she even attempted after work sex calls after DDay. (She got shut down).
Another example:
When Mr Uxor felt guilt and wanted to get spiritual and psychological, help she said her H had suspected she cheats and set up a post nup. That is why she has to work (untrue…her work gave her access to new targets). That if her H found out he would shred her and she would be destitute. M Uxor could tell NO ONE! And she had tried counseling. It never helped anyway.
Then she took it up a notch. She claimed she cared so much about him and his hard work, that if caught, Mr Uxor’s very loyal office manager (a person I recommend he hire…I had seen the mCOWs resume and said she was too inconsistent in her work history. It was her now new husband who wanted her hired and brought her in later) and myself would then shred him. We were staged as the monsters.
That office manager and I have years of history of keeping our cool under many difficult work and personal
circumstances. We are not shredders! We are not the monsters!
She was!
But he believed the mCOW! She knew and could prophesy ALL things!
His lie was in not defending the reality of who us two incredible ladies who always had his back were!
Reality?
She plotted and planned, leveraged and lawyered up BIG and took her dying husband to the cleaners in court. She staged him as the controlling monster. She didn’t even get a hand slap.
He did get the last word.
He died on her new husband’s birthday. (I kid you not.) He deserved nothing that happened to him, but he definitely will be remembered by his kids on their new daddy’s birthday.
No idea if that was God or sheer will, but that gets betrayal street cred from me.
My point is that not only do our waywards tell lies about our marriages, but they also tell lies to themselves about the AP even when the proof is stacking up in front of us.
Affairs are a mental illness bad coping skill. They are toxic beyond just the physical action. They toxify everyone else around them like breathing in microbes sloughed off lies.
It is the job of the betrayed, when these truths reach our minds, to not remain ill with the toxicity ourselves, and rid ourselves of patterns that infused into us without our knowing.
Remember, we are not responsible for taking the wrong action to a lie, because we were not acting with full knowledge!
(Example from my life 10+ years ago:
Mr Uxor arrived home late to find dinner staying warm on the stove. I had to attend a event our kids would be at, and would not be late AGAIN. A note saying that I finally had to go, but hoped he joins me after eating, was lovingly by a plate setting.
Mr Uxor’s declaration to her, whom he had just neglected me for while stating it was work (half truth!), was that I always make everything about everyone else.
She backed it up with, "So disrespectful!" And "What is his favorite meal? She would have made that for him AND been late for everyone else. THAT is what a man deserves!"
After DDay in marriage recovery he momentarily tried to go for that angle in accusing me why he was at times justified. I neglected him for others. Then I listed how he deserted me for work, FOO and hobbies, THEN an AP for years!
But I didn’t have an affair.
If I neglected him, it was to do what he should have been doing with me AND making up for his absence from our family AND - In fact - turning my life exactly into what she claimed hers was.
End of THAT lie he carried around in his head.
I cannot be responsible for how I managed HIS covert abuse and neglect. I was not fully informed.
But…he….was…about…me.
And
She…was…about…ALL…of…us.
SO, Let go any guilt of what you could not respond to in a healthy way, because of lies.
Own your better full knowledge and respond by never being puppetteered by the illness of betrayal dynamics again.
That is how YOU detox.
