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I'm not sure. Even at 13+yrs out I still don't believe the parallels my WS used. He said he put MOW in a box in his head, when he was with her, he was also in the box and when he wasn't, it was just her.

It was like reading the chapter of a book. When he was with her, he was in the book. When he wasn't, he'd finished the chapter and put the book down until next time.

She was like a bright 150w light bulb - turned on when he was in the room, off when he went out again.

The responses to her calls and texts were just that - responses without thought. He just wanted to bat her away because she didn't belong in the life outside of the box/book/room.

He didn't consider the consequences because they were too great to contemplate, too frightening and whenever he did, he would panic. So he suppressed it and just lived life until or unless there was a DDay.

I guess it's difficult to understand and, personally, I have never been able to wrap my head around it. And so I remain sceptical.

[This message edited by UKgirl at 8:24 PM, February 25th (Tuesday)]

He didn't consider the consequences because they were too great to contemplate, too frightening and whenever he did, he would panic. So he suppressed it and just lived life until or unless there was a DDay.

UK girl, your skepticism is totally understandable- but I think this is a thing people do. It is a character flaw but a way people justify terrible behavior.

It is an extreme example - but I’d add that something awful like the holocaust couldn’t happen without compartmentalizations by relatively normal people. Evil is there directing the course of it all, but all the people caught up in that evil were not necessarily evil at their cores, they rationalized and compartmentalized that they were “just following orders” and then in that process warped themselves to become evil or part of the evil machine.

Not sure if I’m explaining this well but basically I think it is normal human skill that taken in bad situations allows the perpetrator to put distance between themselves and the victim.

Once they have emotional distance they are not as able to empathize with the victim - so it allows them to do terrible things. That is how I see what happens in a cheating situation - particularly LTAs. Then later, if they truly face what they did and lift the lid off the compartment - they feel horror and remorse at how they treated the BS. They just put lots of psychological distance in before to protect their own psyches from being the bad guy.

I think this happens in a lot of exploitative industries too. Not everyone is happy about what the company is doing but they are just one cog in the machine so can bar it away and put their culpability in a box

[This message edited by Justsomelady at 8:46 PM, February 25th (Tuesday)]

I think you all have hit the nail on the head. My WH said he kept me and the kids in 1 box and his affair in another. He also said openingly that he did not care about us or the impact of the affair at all. I also called BS. Because with all that being said, he said he always felt guilt. He knew what he was doing was wrong. If he truly was compartmentalizing the affair, he would have felt no guilt.

All Bs and another way he justified his actions and lack of remorse. Many times he has told me “he just did it”. He did because he wanted too. Just the same as he said he always loved me throughout the affair...more BS. Never had feelings for her...more BS.

Justsomelady - I think you hit the nail on the head. Anybody interested in this topic should at the very least read up on the 'Milgram experiment'. At first glance this sounds like something altogether different.

The 1975 movie 'The tenth level' is based on the Milgram Experiment.

So I hesitate to say this because I feel ashamed and it was a decade ago, but when I was in my RA with an old friend, someone I knew very well when I was young, I would frequently discuss my life, his life, my H, and his W. To me, this could not possibly be separate. These people were real! It bothered me!

I would ask him, "Don't you feel terrible?" and he would get a frown and say, "I don't think about it. I don't like to." I would get angry, because I felt very messed up and depressed and confused, and I'd say, "Well, that's kind of bullshit. What does it even mean to 'not think about it'? What is that?"

In the end this guilt, shame, and total horror at who I was caused me to end the whole thing. But I do still think back, especially when I read different posts here, to his love of compartmentalizing. I don't know what else to call it.

I will make these observations:

Compartmentalization is a choice. It allows you to do what is wrong or hard or whatever. You will yourself to ignore the other compartment, because you can then do that which is wrong or hard. So it does not happen by accident.

When my ex AP would be forced, by me, to think about his wife or family, he would get a frown. He would feel guilt and shame, I could see it. But he would intentionally shake it off to allow himself this ego kibble time, this time to feel good about himself (since he usually felt fairly bad, low self-esteem). It was not about the person, me. Not at all. He just liked the extra attention, the feeling that he mattered. So he shook off the guilt when I brought it up. He needed compartmentalizing in life and used it when it suited him, to cheat and to survive stuff he hated.

He learned this as FOO. His dad was a hard ass, mean m$ther f$cker who constantly belittled him. He definitely learned the power of compartmentalization to survive the abuse. "It only hurts if I think about him and what he says." So he didn't. It's FOO. It's learned.

There is no fixing the M or the WS without fixing this ability (need, habit) of compartmentalizing that which is difficult. All emotions need to be handled at the same time, in the same room, to fully live one life. In the here and now.

It may be a survival tactic. But there is a time and place for it. If you get too good at compartmentalizing, you can live a whole separate life of fantasy and denial. It is the basis of multiple personality disorder. This requires a very good IC. Too much is not good. It's not healthy. But people do it and you have no idea.

[This message edited by OwningItNow at 9:03 PM, February 25th (Tuesday)]

Compartmentalizing is a word used by the same people that believe in the fog. To them it's real.

Compartmentalizing is a word used by the same people that believe in the fog. To them it's real.

That dismisses the fact it is a generally accepted psychological term for emotional detachment. Just because it is wrong doesn’t make it not exist.

That dismisses the fact it is a generally accepted psychological term for emotional detachment. Just because it is wrong doesn’t make it not exist.

I dismissed nothing. I didn't say they were wrong. But neither camp will ever convince the other that they're wrong.

It sounds to me like you were saying it is not real.

To them it is real. To the non-believers it is not real.

That's just how it is.

To them it is real. To the non-believers it is not real.

That's just how it is.

...not really following you

Compartmentalizing is how a 6 year-old survives a beating or how an 8 year-old survives repeated sexual abuse. You train your mind to forget about it when it's over. On purpose. To allow yourself some calm and peace in your life. And to not go crazy.

And then when you grow up, you don't know how to stop doing it. Gambling obsession? Go get the fix. Don't think about the family. Need ego kibbles? Send the dick pick. Don't think about the potential damage. Don't think, just do. And after you do, definitely don't think. Or you'll have to give up the fix of "the doing." And broken people need their distractions and kibbles.

Ahh this word is tossed about a lot lately by me and FWH and our therapists. It’s their term for his coping style. I can tell you that my FWH is really good at it by necessity. His job requires that he be able to forget a lot of what he sees, on purpose and without attachment, for his own mental health. The reactions I see when he is forced to open the compartment of the As are pretty extreme. He is moved to tears quickly and that is sooo not typical for him. He likes keeping the doors closed. He’s working on it.

Meanwhile all my thoughts and emotions are having a rave, a loud dance party, in one big ballroom.

Yep, I'm gonna go ahead & say it is BS too.

All the things cheaters do are choices.

I get very upset when my WH says he compartmentalized.

He also said when he was spending evenings & weekends with his AP #3, he would go outside, sit in his rental & call me. He travels for work & this particular A took place while he was contracted to a plant a couple states away for 4 months, only flying home every other weekend.

He would even tell the AP he had to call me before going outside.

So...BS!

He told me once when we were at a concert together, he went to get drinks & called AP "because AP liked the band we went to see".

So... BS!

He was thinking about me, even if it was because he knew I would become suspicious if he didn't call.

He was thinking about AP while with me so he made up an excuse to get out of earshot to call AP.

So...BS!

The "fog" is BS as well. That is another word they use that just sounds better than admitting they were always thinking about themselves & having sex outside of their marriage.

Its simple, really.

Words they use to help themselves feel better about lying, committing adultery, taking away their spouses choices out of colossal selfishness.

Don't even get me started on "limerance".

All the things cheaters do are choices.

Yes, compartmentalization is a choice. It's just usually a long-practiced choice, one that allows them to not feel. A good compartmentalizer is a dangerous partner imo. They have to be very aware that they are capable of ignoring things so that they don't compartmentalize in ways that allow hurtful behavior--like having a secret life, keeping hurtful secrets, participating in unhealthy behaviors like drugs, gambling, over spending, ignoring times they are hurt by shelving those feelings and avoiding conflict, etc.

Conflict avoidants are excellent compartmentalizers. Due to FOO (usually) they learn to put their anger and hurt in a compartment and switch the channel since they are often powerless as children to actually articulate that anger. Being out of practice and uncomfortable with their own anger then, they enter marriage and keep all anger in until it becomes a festering resentment. Unaware that their compartmentalization and avoidance is their own issue and not their spouse's fault, they justify cheating as a way to get back their power over this anger they feel. It's very passive aggressive. Most compartmentalizers can be very passive aggressive.

Thank you all for your responses-this is a good conversation.

Compartmentalization is in fact, a defense mechanism. But is an unconscious process, a way in which we cope with things that cause cognitive dissonance. So yes, it is very real. It exists so we can live our life.

Where I have struggled and why I started this thread, is how so many of us seem to jump on the bandwagon (raise my hand here-I did it too for a while) of using compartmentalization to rationalize the As. If we are truly using "compartmentalization" to cope, then we wouldn't be aware that we are doing it. Like Catwoman, NTSC, OwningitNow and others have said, true compartmentalization is not recognized by the individual who is using is to defend against cognitive dissonance. But is surely seems to be used once the A is out in the open. As someone said, it definitely seems to be a softer landing rationale, than "because I wanted to" or "I'm an addict".

I bought into this for a long time because I didn't like the answer "because I wanted to." For me, I just couldn't wrap my head around the selfish behavior of my WH so I grabbed on to his ability to put his family and his A into separate boxes. In reality, if he or anyone else who is a master compartmentalizer, is going to change for real, they need to integrate their behaviors with their emotions. Until then, compartmentalization (unconscious coping mechanism) will continue to happen.

I guess what I am saying is that while real, compartmentalization - just like the fog - is being overused as a reason for the why. Just my opinion.

I believe compartmentalizing is real, and some folks REALLY excel at it, and others don't.

So do I (believe it's real), mostly because I'm one of those people who "really excel at it". But also because I'm a person who knows plenty of people who do this regularly. No, it's not what my W's A was, hers bled over immediately into our lives, she was in "love" with him, and out of love with me. However, there are a LOT of people who, in affairs, build little "boxes" for everyone and those boxes really don't touch very much/at all. The guys I know who've had affairs would nearly all fall into this category, when they are with/talking to the AP, she is the best thing in the world. When with their friends, she's nothing. And with the wife, less than nothing. There's no "love" that's bleeding over the compartment. Probably the best way to think about it, at least for me, is how someone who does sex work for a living operates, "work is work" and then at home, you're a different person.

Me personally? I do it all the time. I have a completely different persona at work than I do at home, for example. I compartmentalize that part of my life because I'm there to get a job done, my home life can't bleed in, and bringing my work life home is also not a very helpful thing to do. I go in, I do my job, and then I forget about it as much as I can when I come home. I've dealt with my W's A with a massive dose of it, I enjoy talking to her, enjoy intimate times together and am completely disgusted by who she was and what she did. Using compartmentalization, I can, for example, really enjoy sex while, at the same time, being terribly upset with what she's done or not done (since DD). The two things are seperate, the question of "Do you want to have sex" and "Are you disgusted with me" can both, at the same time, be yes. The only way that works is with some internal walls that keep the two things apart.

I've done this my entire life with women, and I don't think I'm at all alone in it; it's how I was able to enjoy ONS's and sleeping with people who are entirely unsuitable as partners (IE, people I didn't really like). There's the "sex" compartment and the "enjoy their company" compartment and while the 2 can meet, they don't need to.

I honestly think that most of us do this, to some extent, both before and after d-day. Perhaps those who successfully R are better (or worse, I really don't know) at it. And I know that some of us are better at it than others (in general), people who are good at it, for example, go to war, kill people, and then come home afterwards and "switch it off" and go back to being who they were. Those who aren't good at it go to war, kill people, and then wind up broken mentally and can never "switch it off" to get back to a normal life. It's a skill, and a useful one, that can be COMPLETELY misused to allow yourself to do awful things and feel nothing afterwards. But it can also be used for good, it's not wrong to do it, it's wrong to use it to allow yourself to do something you know is awful and unjustifiable.

Terms like this and others (being in the fog, an affair of the heart....) are used to make betrayers lessen the impact of what they have done so they can move forward quickly and feel little need for any consequences. It's like after cheating on your spouse, you get to cheat with your feelings and the betrayed.

I disagree with this.

I think that the reason my affair became an exit affair is I suck at compartmentalizing. I don't have the ability to keep different people in a box, so if you are the one I am putting my efforts and thoughts into, then that's where I am.

The AP in my situation was a cake eater, a practiced serial cheater. He was a master compartmentalizer and I watched it in action many times. At the time I didn't realize what it was I was seeing, but a good compartmentalizer can drop an AP and not look back. That's why there are a mix of both on the site.

I don't like the term fog. I do believe that people make the decisions they make. But, I think that there is a self-brainwashing aspect to an affair that is hard for a BS to understand.

It's the justifications that feed that brainwashing. You know down deep what you are doing is wrong, so you rationalize and justify it until the point you are able to feel righteous in your decisions. You play the blame game long enough, and you glorify a fantasy, you really can start convincing yourself of your own bullshit.

I don't disagree with "He/she did it because they wanted to". I think that's very true. But the process of being that person to not being that person requires we look deeper at ourselves. We have to answer "WHY did we want to do it?" That we start unwinding the stories we told ourselves. Where that behavior originated, the ways we perpetuated it.

In couples who have gone through the reconciliation processes, I think the BS usually does display that they were able to look deeper at some of the concepts to be able to understand what makes their WS tick, but they can only do that if the WS does it for themselves so that always has to come first. Being stuck on compartmentalization means to me that he really hasn't dug into his why very well. Compartmentalization is a how. How did you make that work? Why is why did you want to make that work?

I believe in the concept of the fog, because I know I experienced it. But the word is stupid and doesn't illustrate what it means is that you believed the stories you told yourself in your head so strongly that you disconnected from reality. Coming back to reality and realizing it is a process.

I believe in the concept of compartmentalization, because I know I can do it for some things, especially on a professional level. I am not a good emotional compartmentalizer.

The main thing I thought when I read the OP was that her husband needs to determine what love is. I don't believe that if you really love someone that you can do things that destroy them. I used to think of love in terms of romantic feelings, but love is an all encompassing commitment and actions. I had those fond feelings and feelings of attachment to my husband, but it's not the kind of love either of us would want if I can also lie and cheat. So, that might be more the crux of what you are looking for. Compartmentalization is really not the issue as much as you are coming to terms with he did not exhibit his commitment and love to you by cheating. How he did it might piss you off, but it's really secondary to the problem.

[This message edited by hikingout at 9:16 AM, February 26th (Wednesday)]

So I hesitate to say this because I feel ashamed and it was a decade ago, but when I was in my RA with an old friend, someone I knew very well when I was young, I would frequently discuss my life, his life, my H, and his W. To me, this could not possibly be separate. These people were real! It bothered me!

I would ask him, "Don't you feel terrible?" and he would get a frown and say, "I don't think about it. I don't like to." I would get angry, because I felt very messed up and depressed and confused, and I'd say, "Well, that's kind of bullshit. What does it even mean to 'not think about it'? What is that?

"

Same thing here.

I can't say I didn't compartmentalize ANYTHING because I sure did ignore a lot. But people who are really good at it can keep strong feelings I think for both people. Strong feelings is not love though.

Yes, Cheater uses the term to describe how he could fuck a cumdumpster, then come home and kiss our newborn baby. He compartmentalized so neither thing affected the other

Disgusting