Refusing to Admit Known Affair

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People like this believe a lot of their own lies too. For example, emotional affairs or affairs that are caught before they get started.... it's easy for them to say "I never would have ACTUALLY cheated." They think the only boundary is PIV and if they don't cross it, they're innocent.

Oh my gosh. Yes, this. My ex-boyfriend had a thousand reasons why it didn't count, including that it wasn't PIV, that it wasn't with a woman, and that he was too drunk to remember if he climaxed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the rational behind that?

Imagine having ironclad indisputable proof that your spouse slept with another person. Multiple things confirm it. You share this with them an they swear on the life that it's all wrong. That you are mistaken, that they did not cheat.

What reason is there to deny the truth?

It's gaslighting, OP, and in my opinion it's abusive. The idea is to make the person doubt their own mind. You don't know what you think you know, you aren't seeing what you think you see.

Rather than face the consequences of their own actions the person plays mind games. Cruel. The way to combat gaslighting is to stick to the factual evidence and refuse to let go.

Gaslighting should not be confused with caring. If the person cared they would take responsibility for their actions, show true remorse and offer to seek treatment (both individual and couple's counseling). Gaslighting is more of a "get out of jail free" card and the behavior often resumes after the focus is off of the person.

So sorry, OP.

+100

[Anonymous]

OP the sad thing is your self esteem is probably very low. You are analyzing a horrible person instead of improving your own life by leaving. Life is too short to be stuck with a liar and a cheater. Leave and don't look back. If they ask you why. Tell them you're still there, it's their imagination!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People like this believe a lot of their own lies too. For example, emotional affairs or affairs that are caught before they get started.... it's easy for them to say "I never would have ACTUALLY cheated." They think the only boundary is PIV and if they don't cross it, they're innocent.

Oh my gosh. Yes, this. My ex-boyfriend had a thousand reasons why it didn't count, including that it wasn't PIV, that it wasn't with a woman, and that he was too drunk to remember if he climaxed.

And all of that is usually lies. There was PIV, etc. It is always more than they will admit. The gaslighters will downplay and justify if it gets too much to deny everything. A multi year affair becomes a one or two time thing, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because they think their spouse might accept the denial rather than forcing a change to the status quo.

Yes. And this is proof that they had zero remorse and no plans to change. That they are juvenile and untrustworthy.

If they owned it and wanted to work on the marriage, showed incredible remorse and worked every day to change. Went to therapy on their own, became 100% transparent, etc. That’s a lot different than a spouse that continues the lies even when caught red handed. I’d never get over it if that were the case. And, there were probably many other times too.

[Anonymous]

OP- if you have evidence of who it was with- you have another source. Catch them off guard and do it soon before spouse gets to them to help cover.

Or u can just say: I’m done. Your continued lying tells me everything I need to know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP- if you have evidence of who it was with- you have another source. Catch them off guard and do it soon before spouse gets to them to help cover.

Or u can just say: I’m done. Your continued lying tells me everything I need to know.

If the other party was married too, go there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People like this believe a lot of their own lies too. For example, emotional affairs or affairs that are caught before they get started.... it's easy for them to say "I never would have ACTUALLY cheated." They think the only boundary is PIV and if they don't cross it, they're innocent.

Oh my gosh. Yes, this. My ex-boyfriend had a thousand reasons why it didn't count, including that it wasn't PIV, that it wasn't with a woman, and that he was too drunk to remember if he climaxed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People like this believe a lot of their own lies too. For example, emotional affairs or affairs that are caught before they get started.... it's easy for them to say "I never would have ACTUALLY cheated." They think the only boundary is PIV and if they don't cross it, they're innocent.

Oh my gosh. Yes, this. My ex-boyfriend had a thousand reasons why it didn't count, including that it wasn't PIV, that it wasn't with a woman, and that he was too drunk to remember if he climaxed.

Yep. My ex-bf rationalized it by “well I didn’t intend to”. Like he just tripped and landed on top of another woman.

Also would give elaborate, long speeches when asked straightforward questions, without ever actually giving an answer. Like if I asked “it seems you don’t want to be on a committed relationship with me. Do you want to commit or no?” and would go on and on and the true meaning of commitment, how he deeply understands what commitment is, the patriarchy (??) without ever answering.

Although I think the worst were the mental health excuses. “I was going through a hard time and severely depressed. You have no idea how bad it hurt ME to do those things”. Yea dude, I’m sure pursuing other women was such a difficult, traumatizing time for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People like this believe a lot of their own lies too. For example, emotional affairs or affairs that are caught before they get started.... it's easy for them to say "I never would have ACTUALLY cheated." They think the only boundary is PIV and if they don't cross it, they're innocent.

Oh my gosh. Yes, this. My ex-boyfriend had a thousand reasons why it didn't count, including that it wasn't PIV, that it wasn't with a woman, and that he was too drunk to remember if he climaxed.

Yeah, that was a fun one. Apparently getting a BJ from another dude doesn't count as cheating. Just to be clear, I found out about all of this at once. I didn't just accept these lies over an extended period. This is just what he admitted, and the excuses he offered, when he finally got completely unavoidably no-way-to-deny-it caught.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People like this believe a lot of their own lies too. For example, emotional affairs or affairs that are caught before they get started.... it's easy for them to say "I never would have ACTUALLY cheated." They think the only boundary is PIV and if they don't cross it, they're innocent.

Oh my gosh. Yes, this. My ex-boyfriend had a thousand reasons why it didn't count, including that it wasn't PIV, that it wasn't with a woman, and that he was too drunk to remember if he climaxed.

Yeah, that was a fun one. Apparently getting a BJ from another dude doesn't count as cheating. Just to be clear, I found out about all of this at once. I didn't just accept these lies over an extended period. This is just what he admitted, and the excuses he offered, when he finally got completely unavoidably no-way-to-deny-it caught.

Oh, hello. Welcome to my DCUM club of 1 -- now 2. My ex also claimed he "only" did oral and because it was with men it didn't count as cheating. I can nearly guarantee you your ex-bf did more than receive.

[Anonymous]

Cheaters always lie.

So now you know you are married to a cheater AND a liar.

Divorce

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cheaters always lie.

So now you know you are married to a cheater AND a liar.

Divorce

You can’t be a cheater without also being a liar. Lying is part of the job description if u cheat

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do you care OP? Just get divorced already. What are getting out of this dance?

+1. My partner did this and I invested way too much energy in wondering why. The bottom line is that despite having 2 kids with the guy, I didn’t want to live with someone who cheated on me under any circumstances - especially not someone who doubled down and lied to me about it.

It doesn’t matter why he did it and there’s no rationality to it any way. I could go on now about how he grew up with an alcoholic mother who was in and out of rehab and as such, although his physical needs for food and shelter were met, how emotional needs were neglected. How the entire family learned to lie about what was really going on with mom’s alcoholism in order to present the facade of a nice family. How he was also probably driven in part by hypomanic hypersexuality from as yet to be diagnosed bipolar, etc., etc. But really, understanding the why doesn’t change anything. I don’t want to live like that. Kids or no kids none of us have to or deserve to live like that. Infidelity is a serious form of relationship abuse, and as difficult as my life has been since the sp,it, there is not a single day that is worse than when we were together.

It was also better for my kids to be raised with me in an emotionally healthy environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do you care OP? Just get divorced already. What are getting out of this dance?

+1. My partner did this and I invested way too much energy in wondering why. The bottom line is that despite having 2 kids with the guy, I didn’t want to live with someone who cheated on me under any circumstances - especially not someone who doubled down and lied to me about it.

It doesn’t matter why he did it and there’s no rationality to it any way. I could go on now about how he grew up with an alcoholic mother who was in and out of rehab and as such, although his physical needs for food and shelter were met, how emotional needs were neglected. How the entire family learned to lie about what was really going on with mom’s alcoholism in order to present the facade of a nice family. How he was also probably driven in part by hypomanic hypersexuality from as yet to be diagnosed bipolar, etc., etc. But really, understanding the why doesn’t change anything. I don’t want to live like that. Kids or no kids none of us have to or deserve to live like that. Infidelity is a serious form of relationship abuse, and as difficult as my life has been since the sp,it, there is not a single day that is worse than when we were together.

It was also better for my kids to be raised with me in an emotionally healthy environment.

I completely understand. The red flag was the alcoholic mother which does create a culture of lying/compartmentalizing in the home and often complete emotional neglect, if the other spouse can’t deal and is too busy surviving —the kids have all kinds of attachment issues—-even when they present as highly successful, emotionally sound “perfect”—that is how they were able to get through it. But they never addressed those issues and no adult bothered to ask (especially back then) because since they were achieving and masking the hurt and shouting it way down- nobody saw the damage.

Coming from a very loving and emotionally sound childhood with two living parents modeling a healthy relationship I was incredibly unprepared for learning how much damage can come out later in life for kids that grew up this way and never had therapy, or even had it addressed. It’s a lot to handle.