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Since the fog/whatever it is, is a state of irrationality and non-sensical actions, do we, as BS, hold our WS responsible for their actions post dday but pre defogging...

My WH is acting absolutely dillusionally. We are 1 month post dday. I know he is still in the fog. But in the meantime, he has said and done things that I think are reprehensible. I have no desire to reconcile and I am okay with that.

But let's say he magically come out of the fog and starts acting like a sane person again.

Is it just another thing WS has to apologize for? Or is BS supposed to be understanding because WS is not the the right mind? Or can WS irreparably harm the marriage during the fog and that is that?

I don't believe in the "fog." What somebody does is what they do. If they ever are truly remorseful, then only you can decide what you want to forgive, including the days after the A when they continued to proclaim their love for the whore or whatever.

As for me, I would not knowingly tolerate even one day of "fog" after the A. Luckily for my H, he was extremely remorseful and threw the whore under the bus the very next day after D-day. If he had not done that, we would not be together now, more than 7 years later.

I too do not buy into this whole 'fog' BS.

It's just another reasoning we give the Wayward after dday to act like an asshat.

F that.

If the WS doesn't end the A immediately and start begging for your forgiveness - start the 180 and file.

Ugh. I'm sorry - bad day. But, I dealt with so much bull for months after dday. It makes R much, much harder. Do not put yourself through that.

Hugs.

I believe 'fog' is a very useful term to describe the WS's loss of touch with reality.

At the same time, WS is entirely responsible for what she does and says while fogged up. The WS can most definitely harm the M irreparably while in the fog.

R is a gift you give or withhold. Morally, either choice is right/Good/OK/etc., IMO. It's entirely up to you. You are under no obligation to offer R, no matter what mitigating circumstances are in effect.

I chose R, and I like it when others choose what I did. I think intact Ms are better for our society. I'm biased toward R. That's me.

You're you. If the A and/or the aftermath is a deal killer for you, so be it. Despite my bias, my hope & wish is that you make the best choice for you.

I was very hurt by stuff that happened in a week of fog. But I just add it into all the A stuff he did.

I imagine a long and drawn out fog would be harder to handle in that way.

The fog is real, but it is one they created in their own mind to justify their deplorable actions to themselves, and those around them. They are most certainly responsible for it, and unfortunately, sometimes the fog is all they know, and never come out of it... My EX only came out, 8 years after we split, and only because he nearly died... I had already been remarried for two years. (Interestingly enough, i married my second H exactly 10 years, one month and one day after I married my first H. And DDay was exactly 10 years, one month, and one day have dday from my first marriage... That's a bizarre coincidence...)

My WH was in the fog for a month and a few days after dday1. But there wasn't remorse, just regret. He was "sober", so to speak, for 4 years... But without really understanding the damage his actions caused... The first sign of stress/trouble, he went back to his old terrible coping mechanisms and cheated "for real" (meaning PA, up to that point, it wasn't cheating, in his mind. ) once the PA happened, he realized what he had done. What he'd been doing for the entire 4 1/2 years, since dday1. Now, we have real remorse... And i can tell you, it's way different.

Thank you for your replies.

I gotta say. I don't really believe in the fog either. It is just a way to reasonably explain his BSC actions. And they are truly off the wall out of character.

I welcome any WS input as well.

I would really like to understand WH's state of mind. It may help me reconsider Ring if he snaps out of whatever thing he is in.

My Wh snapped out of it. "It" for him was more of a child-like sense of entitlement and selfishness that he had been wallowing in (and had been escalating) for years. In the month following Dday and especially during his attempts to mislead me ("we were just emailing each other" and "really this is all your fault") we said a lot of terrible things to each other.

I told him that I would rather be a widow than a divorcee and tried to persuade him for the good of the family to drive himself and his cheater-truck off the mountain. " Make it look like an accident so we can collect the insurance.."

Funny but now two years later I can't remember what terrible things he told me. Mostly I remember the sting of him saying he'd take the kids half the time.

But I had been living with a Class A jerk for the last 12 years. Only two of those years had he been cheating on me but the rest of the time he was a lazy good for nothing once he got home, playing computer games and watching TV all night.

I went through raising a daughter with a serious birth defect (she's doing well now) and then having her brother right before discovering my cancer. I went to work all through chemo and he did very little to help me do anything with the kids or the house. What a f-ing jerk! But I "loved him" and I respected how hard he worked at his job, etc. etc.

Something about divorce planning and being kicked out of the house for a while opened his eyes to what a jerk he had been for all those years. He resolved to become a different person, he went to therapy for a year, quit working the long hours, took over 50% of the house work and child raising and agreed to start going to church with us.

So here we are, two years later, after we have said "unforgivable" things to each other and have acted terribly to each other and, of course, he has the past that he now has.

Yeah, I'd say there's irreparable harm. To me it is the loss of trust and feeling of specialness, the huge betrayal. For him it is probably knowing that I would rather have had him dead. Despite these things we are still together and daily life for me is 100% better than it was prior to DDay. As a matter of fact he's right now picking the kids up from Sunday school and getting ready to take them AND the neighbor kids to go see Thor so I can stay home and relax. This kind of action goes a long way to help reconcile.

I believe the fog is what shrinks call cognitive dissonance. So yeah, it's real...but pretend. Like everything else, it makes no sense.

Do I hold MrH accountable for things said and done during that time? Of course. I don't care what your reality is, there are two factors in play: adhering to your vows/promises/agreements and not being a hurtful human being.

There are people out there in the world that are assholes. I can think of a few customers we've had in MrH's business. Yet we hold to the agreements we made in that relationship. We respond with courtesy.

I don't care what their "reality" is, but your spouse deserves nothing less until they are no longer your spouse. Even then, decency is key because that's just how you should treat people.