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From another thread, the statement was made that person who cheated is the person you married. So here’s my question, is that really the case?
I make the contention that the person I married would not have lied to me for 15 years, told me she wouldn’t cheat, got busted, continued the affair, then was only remorseful when the divorce papers were handed to her and life got real. The person I married said cheating was stupid, would never do it, and wanted to spend her life with only me. The person I divorced is not the person I married.
They inhabit the same body. It doesn’t make them the same person.
Thoughts?

I think my exWBF has two people inside him--the man who loved me, who moved forward with me (probably too quickly, in an attempt to suppress the other side of him through rushing ahead), and then the man who resented me, was pathologically obsessed with my past, was insecure and unhappy with himself, and acted out for a need of ego kibbles; who was really selfish and never thought of me.

Unfortunately he is really only one person; there is no evil twin in another body. I think I'm just trying to hold onto the love I had for him, and what it meant; really trying to believe what he told me, about having loved me but not being able to live up to the love. It's very confusing. Who is the person you loved when they treat you so badly, really? I'm not able to let the bad destroy the good in how I see him.

Of course I should just stop psychoanalyzing and accept that what does it matter, his actions matter and his actions were all about him and his needs and his warped view of reality and what he deserved. But that's easier said than done. I go around in circles on this, and am glad I'm not alone in doing so...though I hope we can all eventually move on and accept there is no magic answer or secret key that unlocks their behavior.

However I think it is nice to believe in the love you once had. Did she change in your case? Certainly something inside of her did.

I have concluded that I really didn't know the person I married, he kept his true self from me for many years. After D day he tried to still be a little bit of the person he made me think he was, now many d days and years later he doesn't even pretend there is any of that person in him, and he actually seems kind of proud of the cold mean person he is. I shake my head in disbelief that I love this man, it makes no sense to me.

Nora, more I think about it the more I was married to the lie and the real her came out when she was caught cheating. Vengeful, spiteful, blaming, hate filled, self loathing and punishing the world for the hate in her heart.

I loved the thought of what she said she was, the her that she projected, all the while she led a secret life. After 16 total years, I found out probably 5 affairs. She admits fully to one, plus phone sex after we married with another. I have FB notes on two more, and gut level suspicions about 2 more, which, I now trust my gut which told me for years she was off the reservation. But I chose to believe her lies.

So I do think I married one woman and found out she was not who I thought she was. She's a stranger in my ex wife's body. Like I never really knew the real her.

I thought my ws changed. I would have bet my life this cheating crap would have never happened. I'm not so sure now. I actually got reacquainted with a friend that dated ws best friend when we were all younger. I asked her, since she knew ws before I did, if he was shady back then. Her boy friend was always cheating on her. She pretty much told me, times she caught her bf, my ws was at the scene of the crime doing the same thing. I was shocked but when I thought back, there were times that stories didn't add up, things that put questions in my mind. He was just so damn good at lying and I was so good st wanting to believe them. I would like to think he was faithful after we M until this A but I don't know. So I think he's always had a side to him that was capable but kept it under control.

Me too ostrich, me too.

We are in the middle of this right now. My WH keeps asking why I can't see him. He says why do I only see the bad that he has done. I can't see him. The man I married stood for good and had flawless integrity. In fact he was quite judgmental about other people. Now I feel ashamed of him. It isn't the sex that bothers me, I can understand that need for validation etc based on his FOO issues but the lying? The chances he took that could have led to our children finding out? Unprotected sex and the potential consequences of that? My husband, the one I married and loved so completely wouldn't put his family at risk. He wouldn't hurt me like this - and he knew what this would do to me. But he did it. Over and over again. It is all just so wrong and so anti everything we stood for. I look at him now and I don't feel love. I look at him and see a stranger. The other day he wrote me a letter saying that he is the same man but he has this blackness in him that was put there as a child. He never wanted me to know. He didn't think I could have loved him. The funny thing is I would have loved him if he had told me. But he didn't and he chose to ruin our beautiful life and he killed my love for him. No he isn't the person I married because that man could not have looked me in the eye and swear on our children's lives that he was telling the truth and then LIE.

Amen Arias. Perfect. When you realize how horribly broken and harmful these waywards are, you really take a step back. It took me months to realize how profoundly deep I was in her muck. The old frog in the boiling water concept...the frog dropped in boiling water hops out, the frog place in cold water that slowly boils kills the frog. Her gaslighting, her lying, her misrepresenting who and what she was, all the while cheating repeatedly tells me I was married to a lie. I feel your pain.

I struggle with this. My WH has changed so much from the man I thought he was. He would have hated the guy he is now a year ago. When I think back though he did and told me about a lot of things that happened before me that are in line with the guy he is now. I guess he just couldn't contain this anymore. I also wonder is it to do with love? when they loved you they were one way but when they stopped they return to what they know…. what a depressing thought. I guess I could look at it as I made him a better person and when he chose to walk out he lost that.

It feels like a kind of murder. They kill who you thought they were/who they were trying to be, and they kill the love between the two of you. No wonder a desire for revenge or punishment is so strong!

I'm sure he's the same guy I married. I think I'm just newly acquainted with the real man.

The man I married was a manipulator, a liar, and a serial cheater. He was always that man.

The wonderful man I thought I married was the false façade he put on over his real self. He was never actually that man.

When my usefulness for him came to an end, he stopped maintaining his fake façade, and I could see the real man underneath. But by then he didn't care, because he was busy creating his new (and completely different) fake façade for OW.

I know who he is now, underneath, for real. And he's no one worth having. Sooner or later, OW will find that out too.

I think I'm still married to the same man, and I firmly believe the good man is still inside him. However, this lying, cheating man is helping him to cope with some very deep seated issues that he has refused to address all these years, and now can't be contained.

It sucks.

I'm struggling with this as well. My H always professed a disdain and disgust for porn yet I now know he's had an addiction to it for many years. There are many aspects to his character that I used to admire and respect. Now I question EVERYTHING I thought I believed about him. I'm also coming to terms with the fact that his passive-aggressive nature may be the dealbreaker I just can't live with any more, not the porn addiction.

Two months ago I was happily oblivious and never questioned the future of my M. Today I can barely look at H any more and when I do I feel the most intense hatred. It's scary. I don't know what to do with these feelings.

I don't believe people really change that much, at their core, at least not without a lot of work. Who he really is, deep down, was always there for me to see. I'm seeing more clearly now.