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There are a lot of threads here on SI that address the concept of an A being "not about" the BS, or only "about" the WS. A rejection of the notion that an A is somehow a thing the WS does "to" the BS.

As an aside, there are of course As where the WS intends to hit the BS, such as certain RAs.

But I digress. In a garden variety A, where the WS gradually ramps up the EA component with the AP, and then it eventually morphs to PA status, there are multiple instances, often dozens, where the WS arrives home and greets his or her spouse and kids just moments after kissing the AP, or groping, or blowing, or fucking.

"How was your day, dear? Long evening at work?" "No, I just blew this other guy," they never say.

How does a WS do it? What goes through the mind the first time he or she looks the BS in the eye and lies about engaging in A activity. Or the kids?

What about the second time? And the third? Does the guilt build and accumulate? Or does it actually become easier?

This is the issue that I struggle with the most.

I can see why it would feel good to have someone you were attracted to flirt, and fuck and boost your ego. I can see why there would be a thrill in the anticipation and stolen glances and maybe even the sneaking around.

I will never understand, not in a million years, how he could walk in the door at the end of the day and kiss me at the door after getting out of her car. The guilt from that would be overwhelming.

My WW said she compartmentalized the A. It mostly happened at lunch, or immediately after work, so she associated work time with A time. Weekends and evenings were family time.

Basically, she told herself a bunch of lies to avoid guilt. She said there was an instance where there was an interaction between her and I and it didn't fit the story line she was telling herself. She said that was the beginning of the end of the A for her. The whole thing started to unravel and she ended it.

My husband compartmentalized too. He said he had to or it made him feel too bad. He knew that what he was doing was shitty and that I didn't deserve it. There were a couple of instances during his A (one over Christmas break when he was away from her and had spent some quality time with me) where he had attacks of overwhelming guilt (a crisis of conscience?) and told himself he was going to stop. He didn't though.

I don't think I'm very good at compartmentalizing. I just can't wrap my mind around it.

I will never understand how someone can have an LTA. For 3 years my STBX had another relationship. For 3 years he lied to my face and gave me 2 STDs. For 3 years he spent weekends with her while I went to visit my dad who had cancer. For 3 years my STBX let me believe that I could trust him after believing him when he said he stopped the A.

The reason he could do this to me is because he has no empathy nor compassion for those he has wronged. The reason he could do this to me is because I didn't matter to him. The reason he did this to me is because he wanted to more than saving me.

They can do it because they are monsters.

Once the lies starts, the metamorphosis into a subhuman creature occurs. It has a lizard brain with no moral compass

I truly can't understand that cognitive dissonance.

My WW said she compartmentalized the A. It mostly happened at lunch, or immediately after work, so she associated work time with A time. Weekends and evenings were family time.

There are a lot of threads where compartmentalizing is a theme, but even in those, we sometimes see the WS denying the BS sex -- "not tonight, dear, I'm not in the mood" -- only to find out it was because he/she had sex with the AP earlier that day, or planned to do it later and wanted to "save it" for the AP.

Then there are threads where the WS brings the AP into the home.

My H literally stepped over me as I sat on the floor in tears to go to a party. He then had us in false reconciliation while he continued to cheat. Same OW.

How we reconciled is by the grace of God.

My WW said she compartmentalized the A.

My WH says the same, but he would lay next to me and talk dirty to his whore and let her get him all worked up. All while he could hear me breathing. At one point I apparently rolled over and grabbed his arm. He stopped for a minute and then kept going.

So yeah, I’m not buying it.

What about the second time? And the third? Does the guilt build and accumulate? Or does it actually become easier?

I cannot remember where I read this, but the critical part of any action is the first step. The first step is the hardest to overcome because of programming/learned behaviour/cultural norms.

Once that first step is taken, then the rest becomes easier, as it is no longer an 'unknown'.

So, in the case of an A, there are several first steps:

- Contact ('Hi, how are you?')

- Flirt ('Oooh, you look good enough to eat')

- Touch (light running of the finger over their shoulder/hand)

- Kiss

- Intimate touch (over clothes)

- Intimate touch (under clothes)

- You know what happens next

Each step becomes easier and easier to overcome, because the brain becomes accustomed to the ramping up of the contact.

Now, as to the compartmentalization, I can only guess the closest analogy could be a 'normal' person watching a disaster happening on TV. We will all empathize with the victims, but when the TV is shut off, we do not dwell too much on the disaster, and go about out 'normal' lives.

These are just my opinions, and are not based on scientific fact, but based on what I have observed, so take it with a huge pinch of salt, or don;t take it at all...

I don't consider my WW a monster now. But I do recognize the temporary insanity that caused her to act like one during her A.

We had a two-year old son at home at the time. So not only did she put me, herself and her POSOM in danger, but she also risked our child having to grow up with no parents. Yes, my rage was that great at the time. A person in their right mind would never do anything that extremely selfish.

One day during the A she came home and announced that if I didn't go to see a shrink and get on meds, she would divorce me. So like a good, obedient, nice guy I did just that so I wouldn't lose custody of our son. All the time she's banging this guy, I'm spaced out on meds while working and going to school.

To screw around on your husband or wife and then come home, kiss who you're married to, play with your children, and act like nothing evil is going on requires a special type of narcissism and selfishness which is beyond my ability to explain.

"how he could walk in the door at the end of the day and kiss me at the door after getting out of her car." Because they didn't want to blow yup their life completely, they never inn a million years thought they would get caught and it felt too good to give up the side piece so in their mind they had no choice but to do all the above.

Not only did my WW compartilize it all from me but also her bff/cousin/obs.She was a great liar and hider.ughh

Peace

My FWH was a sex abuse survivor. He has compartmentalized since he was 6. I never got to fully know him until our marriage blew up. Even prior to the infidelities, I had the sense that there was a mysterious distance between us. I wavered in our marriage because of this sense, and I used to blame myself for being a horrible partner. I suspected that I married the wrong man even though what I was shown was perfect. I couldn’t leave a perfect man. I now know that the distance was the secrets he compartmentalized. The point I want to make is that if a WS can compartmentalize well, he/she may have been dealing with trauma by compartmentalizing all his or her life. It becomes part of who they are. My FWH justifies the affair to himself by thinking that the A is saving our marriage. A sane person can see the faulty logic, but in the middle of an A, no one is sane.

[This message edited by Bestthing at 7:53 AM, December 13th (Friday)]

I find the self compartment incredible also. My wife was in my opinion never happier, at least from my perspective at the time than whe was during her affair. It was very short, so maybe cracks would have started to appear if it lasted longer.

She would give me a big kiss hello, then excitingly showed me the progress that the Workman had done that day. Yet hours before she was fu*king him in our bed.

She now describes it as a kind of out of body or manic episode. Not that she doesn’t take responsibility for it, but when she was telling me about it, it was as if she was talking about someone else. I think this is probably the case in many cases, especially where the marriage was somewhat happy and there wasn’t a glaring deficiency that would give them cover to cheat.

We must hav3 spent a hundred hours on how she could hav3 fooled me so easily. I’m a good people reader, and she is a lousy poker player.

Crazy

I will never understand it...I guess I can't understand dishonesty. I know I could never do it. I've actually proven that. During the A, I was approached by an old friend to have an A with him (I hadn't seen him in years). I told him no and then told my husband about it because I thought he had a right to know. My plan was never to speak to this man again.

Update - I have spoken to him again. He's an attorney! We both had a laugh over it. He said "at least you can look at yourself in the mirror and have no regrets".

Truth.

There are a lot of threads where compartmentalizing is a theme, but even in those, we sometimes see the WS denying the BS sex -- "not tonight, dear, I'm not in the mood" -- only to find out it was because he/she had sex with the AP earlier that day, or planned to do it later and wanted to "save it" for the AP.

Then there are threads where the WS brings the AP into the home.

I agree with what you're saying. I can see compartmentalizing a job and family life because there's no overlap. Like a cop or hospice nurse. Where there's overlap, I can't see how a person could compartmentalize anything.

I haven't seen this mentioned at SI, but there's a power issue in some affairs. I know there was a "fuck you" aspect to my WW's A. That makes approaching R a bit different IMO. It's not the poor broken cheater narrative.

My H compartmentalized all the segments of his life..his marriage to me, his business , his secret and obsessive porn use . which led to his affair...until all of the above became intertwined into a very sick and dangerous game.

My WH was an asshole while he was at the height of his affair. He was also drinking like crazy. He blamed the drinking on work stress. He didn’t compartmentalize so well. It still disgusts me when I look back, because the affair continued after it lost his luster for him, mostly EA to keep her quiet, but it’s all so gross. Then after dday, he couldn’t understand why I didn’t know him anymore. I will never understand the deception. I am just not capable of it.