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Hi...I keep coming back to the feeling that I did not really know my husband at all and that is something I am finding hard to process.

I cannot quite understand how someone can live a double life like that and still come home and carry on as normal - not just in day to day life but through birthdays, holidays, children being born, moving house, special occasions and all the moments that felt real and meaningful to me.

What I struggle with most is how someone can compartmentalise to that extent and keep going as if nothing is wrong and find myself wondering how their morals can seem so separate from the life they are living with their partner and family. I also struggle to understand how someone can do that and not seem weighed down by guilt at least not let it show and that disconnect is one of the hardest parts for me to make sense of.

For those who have been through something similar how did you begin to process that in your own mind? I am not looking for graphic detail, just your perspective. Thank you

I think here you can get a good insight from reformed wayward partners, because they can give you the other side perspective on how a person can allow themselves to become that, and the story and lies you have to tell yourself in the first place to be able to follow that self sabotaging path.

What I can give you is the general understanding of what issues are at the root and how they influence the behavior of a wayward.

Most commonly is this:
- low self worth

Followed closely by its relatives:
- people pleasing
- perfectionism
- avoidance
- emotional unavailability

The soothing mechanism for this issues is this:
- external validation

People with this character flaws feel a bottomless void that cannot be filled by normal human attachment. No measure of love or validation from a healthy partner can, because the moment it gets real and serious the fears connected to the flaws trigger and whatever you pour in, no matter how much, gets lost in their spiral.

You understand that this is not a stable or sustainable way to be a fulfilled adult individual.

But there’s something that works in soothing this internal desert, dopamine.

Dopamine makes you feel happy chemically and overrides temporarily whatever pain you’re feeling as a baseline.

Stupid example but often people have experienced it in their youth, when you are having a down period and everything looks bleak but then you meet someone that you fall in love with or just even have a crush for and you initiate something. And then all is rainbows and sunshine for a while. That’s how dopamine and happy chemicals work on us.

Now healthy and mature relationships provide us with an almost unlimited supply of happy chemicals, but is not a high like in flings, it’s steady.

So when you are dysfunctional and you fall back in your love self worth and rest spiral, it kind of loses its grip because it’s a baseline and not an high (so they got it but don’t feel it anymore and become a plateau, realigning with their sad unresolved issues and gradually all is bleak again).

Coping with this: let’s get a new dopamine high. External validation works like a charm for that.

You can’t give that anymore, because you already give it all, it feels good but they need that rush.

Hey this guy / girl over there has zero problem in messing with people in relationships! Obviously they are searching for excitement like me, giving no fucks how wrong, evil or sordid it is, all they want is a feel good high. And I do too. Let’s indulge.

Feel good overrides the void for a while, but shame might still drag them down.
To get the most of it you want to get the most validation from any source you can tap into.

So there’s the adultery providing the high, and there is you providing the baseline.

If I can compartmentalize both in little untouching boxes, I can get the best of both worlds, and the clandestine nature also keeps me busy in making sure they never touch, so I distract myself from going back there into the bleakness of my unresolved issues (bonus: I don’t even need to address those issue, to face my ghosts, as long as it goes on they are quieted. Win win).

It is messed up, but it is more or less what seems to be going on in who leads this double life. Similar to when you dive in work or things that keeps you so busy that you have no time to think about something haunting you.

A coping mechanism, just very self destructive.

And mind, it is all me, me, me, me, me…. Notice that nobody else matter anything in this picture.
Is the epythome of selfishness, you don’t matter, family and children don’t matter, friends don’t matter, even the affair partner doesn’t matter, is just a pig with similar issues happy to roll in the mud and call it a dream.

Perhaps because it is a drugged dream, from our own chemicals, but still very much one.

Feel good overrides the void for a while, but shame might still drag them down.

Thank you for taking the time to explain this, I think the part I am still struggling to understand is less the "why" and more how it could sit alongside a whole shared life without it showing, even after decades of building a life together.

It’s called dissociation, is coping by telling yourself such lies that the things you do know are horribly wrong (but you keep doing) seem to belong to another person.

Then when they switch to the other box the normal life belongs to another person, so in the end, what they are doing in this box it doesn’t feel as bad anymore and they can enjoy it.

Dysfunctional coping, not healthy integration.

You are blaming your self for choosing them and not noticing.
Don’t because it’s not your fault.

You chose them for the good part of their being. Likely they share your same values and align with you on a lot of things.

There was good in this person and that’s what attracted you.

And is not that the good disappeared most likely, is all still there.
What happened is that at some point the unresolved issues outweighed the good and they resorted to the coping mechanisms of validation dopamine.

And from them it spiraled, into dissociation after a while.

When I say the good is still there I am not excusing the actions and behavior, I am pretty unforgiving about betrayal, there is little to no mercy in me for that.

I say so because if the good wasn’t there then they wouldn’t need to dissociate, they would embrace the sordid garbage and ride the wave with pride.

But those people are very easy to spot, and you would have notice immediately (and called the garbage disposal)

There’s different kinds of waywards, everyone needs to betray themself first, before they betray you (us) and they cope with that in these ways.

Your wayward cope is dissociating and compartmentalization

Your wayward cope is dissociating and compartmentalization

Thank you for taking the time to explain this further and can see what you are saying about dissociation and compartmentalisation - it does help to give some kind of framework for understanding it and think I am still trying to sit with the gap between that and how it could exist alongside a whole shared life without it showing and probably something I need to take time to process - thank you again for your patience in explaining it.

Compartmentalization is a skill. Most of us use it in healthy ways in our day-to-day lives, switching roles to be different people in different circumstances. The BraveSirRobin in the boardroom has a different personality than the BSR playing on the rug with her kids and dog. Sometimes compartmentalization is more serious, even essential for preserving mental health, like the police officer or soldier or EMT who sees traumatic things every day that they can't allow to spill over into their home life. Those who can't maintain boundaries with those thoughts will suffer terribly.

People who are really, really good at compartmentalizing -- and I'm one of them -- can divide these roles in a far more granular and ultimately unhealthy way. During my affair, I practically severed BSR the long term girlfriend from BSR the AP. AP BSR was confident, secure, fascinating. She wasn't stressed like GF BSR about where her life was going. AP BSR never looked ahead more than a few weeks. She spent her time in front of a dressing room mirror that only showed the flattering angles.

I understand why you're blown away, because you thought you knew the authentic version of your husband. My BH thought the same. The reality is that no one saw the authentic BSR, not even me, because she was an assortment of different actors who never appeared on stage at the same time. I was a stranger to myself. It wasn't until I started the post-affair work that I laid out all the different versions of BSR on the table and saw, side by side, their fundamental incompatibility.

Hi Butterfly,

I found out 42 yrs later. Yes, it's a mind bender.

I posted here on general "Keeping Secrets". A letter posted by a therapist on Facebook of all places. I found it helpful. Perhaps it will help you too.

Finding out so late robs us of the ability to see things in real time. Impossible to know if he struggled as I was in the dark. He says he did, but it's difficult to know what was A related shame/guilt and what was his personality. I had always felt a slight detachment or distance from him, but we were so young. I just assumed it was who he was. Thought perhaps I was just too needy.

I will tell you this. Since he confessed he has become a man I hardly recognize. For the better. The distance? Gone. I fight bouts of resentment. Knowing that we might have had 40+ yrs of great connection if he had just manned up back in the day. What a loss. It's because of this 180 in him that I can begin to believe him when he tells me that it had haunted him nearly every day. He hid it by becoming a workaholic for one. Looked good on the outside. Gave him a place to hide.

I do have those feelings of not ever really knowing him. I don't know what to tell you to do to get rid of them. I try to focus on who he is now. Lots of conversations and questions. It's getting better.

People who are really, really good at compartmentalizing -- and I'm one of them -- can divide these roles in a far more granular and ultimately unhealthy way

Thank you for this BraveSirRobin I really appreciate how honestly you explained it as what you said about no one seeing the authentic version, not even you, really stayed with me. The image of different actors never appearing on stage at the same time helps me understand a little more of the part I have been struggling with and whilst t does not make it easier but it does help me make a little more sense of how something like this can exist alongside a shared life without fully showing itself. Thank you again for taking the time to reply.

I do have those feelings of not ever really knowing him. I don't know what to tell you to do to get rid of them. I try to focus on who he is now. Lots of conversations and questions. It's getting better.

Thank you for sharing this with me, there was something about your reply that felt very close to what I have been struggling to put into words myself especially what you said about being robbed of the ability to see things in real time really stayed with me as I think that is such a big part of what feels so disorientating now trying to look back without having known then what was really going on.

I also understood what you said about assuming certain things were just part of who they were and even questioning yourself instead - that felt very familiar to me. It does help to hear from someone who found out so much later and is further along in processing it and whilst I am not really at the point of focusing on who he is now yet but I can understand why that matters. Thank you again for taking the time to write so honestly.

BIP

The part that gets me is how some serial and long term cheaters handle the planning, paying for and keeping track of lies about the affair. Seems like a lot of work and unnecessary stress on top of life's other worries.

When the topic comes up in conversation the question arises how do they find the time and money to lead a double life.

In some cases the answer is they have a long term work spouse and inherently a second life and see no difficulties

In others I've seen they just lie about everything anyhow and they view all lies as equal

Thank you for sharing this I had not really looked at it from that practical side before amd it does make me think about how something like that can be managed alongside everyday life which in itself is hard to get my head around.

I think I am still trying to piece it all together in my own mind.

How do people live a double life without it showing?

She claimed it was the Prozac she was taking at the time that caused her to do that. She said it flattened out her emotions. Which of course is bullcrap. I bet her emotions weren't flattened out each time she jumped into bed with him. They just flattened out when she came home.

BackfromtheStorm nailed it. WW had the dopamine rush when she met a cop she had the hots for and coupled with having a 2-year old at home plus being bored with me - and voila - the affair happened. It's not complicated.

For a long time I was sure she was a sociopath but over the years I came to the conclusion she was just a shitty, selfish woman without a shred of empathy at the time. Would I be capable of inflicting that type of cruelty on someone I love? No, that's what makes it so difficult to understand how someone can do that and act normal at home.

As far as compartmentalization goes, we're all capable of it to a certain extent. But some are masters of it.

Under trauma I was able to compartmentalize and dissociate so the boxes "who I am " and " forgiving betrayed boyfriend " persona never ever touched. It was regulated by cortisol and reinforced by dopamine as she was showing back affection etc.

(Compartmentalization is way more complex I simplified obviously, the who I am I accepted only now, earlier it was like robin said, a set of masks and personas, the boyfriend, the student, the fiancée, the ceo, the son, the friend, the confidant, all manifestations of a fragment of my inner self inflated into persona fitting untouching roles, only glimpses of your deeper self existing and pushing through those identities )

That created a self induced push pull dynamic not dissimilar from what a cheater gets, but instead of a high spiraled towards the low of ptsd and depression because dopamine creates addiction and all the compressed emotions want to be recognized and explode hence cortisol and all other stressors, countered by dopamine again…

We can self induce probably and if we can make it pathological it does make you bonkers.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 9:27 AM, Wednesday, April 22nd]

Would I be capable of inflicting that type of cruelty on someone I love? No, that's what makes it so difficult to understand how someone can do that and act normal at home.

Thank you for sharing this. What you said about not being able to imagine inflicting that kind of cruelty on someone you love is a big part of what makes this so hard to get my head around as well and I think that disconnect between what they were capable of and how normal life carried on is one of the hardest parts for me to make sense of.

the who I am I accepted only now, earlier it was like robin said, a set of masks and personas, the boyfriend, the student, the fiancée, the ceo, the son, the friend, the confidant, all manifestations of a fragment of my inner self inflated into persona fitting untouching roles

Thank you for sharing that and for being so open about your own experience of it - I can see more of what you mean about the different boxes and roles becoming so separate from each other. I think I am still trying to take in what that kind of split really means in the context of a shared life but I do appreciate you taking the time to explain it.

wondering how their morals can seem so separate from the life they are living with their partner and family. I also struggle to understand how someone can do that and not seem weighed down by guilt at least not let it show and that disconnect is one of the hardest parts for me to make sense of.

I have been accused of having black and white thinking on occasion, though I would argue it is closer to rational thinking. The answer to the above in my moral landscape is simple: by being a bad person. If you start with the precept that a good person doesn't knowingly commit actions that cause trauma or pain to another—worse still, a loved one—they would only be able to do so if they weren't a good person. This explains how they are not weighed down by guilt or morality. Someone whose morality stops them from committing painful acts would be considered a "good person"; someone whose guilt stops them from reoffending could be argued to be on the path to becoming one.

For my money, while "compartmentalizing" is a psychologically accurate description of what’s happening, it is also just a synonym for being a bad person in that moment. Most "bad" people use similar psychological defense mechanisms to avoid facing the fact that they are doing harm.

As other users have noted, compartmentalization can be a useful tool and is not necessarily "evil" in its own right. Like all tools, it depends on the user. Many people with psychopathic traits do not go on to be serial killers; they become high-functioning business tycoons who do a lot of good for the world. But just because they’ve identified the "tool" they used to perform bad acts and then return home doesn't do anything to change the reality of those acts.

The mechanism doesn't change the morality. Whether they were "dissociating" or "splitting," the result is the same: a conscious choice to prioritize their own desires over the well-being of the people they claim to love. Knowing how the engine works doesn't make the car crash any less devastating.

The mechanism doesn't change the morality.

Thank you for this and I think that is an important distinction and part of what I have been wrestling with. Understanding how someone managed to separate things in their mind may explain the mechanism but it does not lessen the reality of the choice or the impact of it - I think that is a big part of what makes this so hard to make sense of...

Understanding how someone managed to separate things in their mind may explain the mechanism but it does not lessen the reality of the choice or the impact of it - I think that is a big part of what makes this so hard to make sense of...

I haven’t walked exactly in your shoes—my ex-partner didn't lead an extended double life—but the feelings you’re describing are universal among those who have been betrayed. We all find ourselves asking the same questions: How did they fool me? How is the person I'm seeing now so at odds with the person I loved? How could I have been such a "chump"?

The answer I eventually reached was simple, if harsh: I was conned. They were never the person I thought they were; they just wore a very convincing mask. I have never wavered on that viewpoint since. I wouldn’t have loved someone capable of doing what they did—therefore, the "authentic" version of them was the one they hid from me.

To me, the "double life" is just a long-term con. Now that the mask has slipped, you are finally seeing the real person. The question then becomes: are you willing to accept who they actually are, or do you go back to the market and look for someone who actually holds the values you thought they had?

I chose the latter. I would highly recommend it. :)

It is indeed a head scratchwr.

Some years ago I started a thread called "Cognitive Dissonance vs Duplicity" where I tried to grapple with much the same. It elicited some excellent input from other posters, both Betrayeds and Waywards. It was helpful to me and may be worth reviewing. You can find it here:

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/topics/658091/cognitive-dissonance-vs-duplicity-/

I wish you well.

The answer I eventually reached was simple, if harsh: I was conned.

Thank you for sharing your perspective so honestly I can understand why you came to that conclusion and I think that sense of having been deceived on a very deep level is a big part of what makes this so hard to process.I am still sitting with the question of what was real and what was not and I do not think I have reached a settled answer on that yet but I appreciate you taking the time to reply.