As for the fact that he told her he didn't love you...he may have thought he meant it at the time, or maybe he knew it wasn't true but seemed like the thing to tell her. I read things that my H said to OW that hurt me greatly, but some of it was not true. For example, he told her we would not be intimate unless I initiated it...he initiated all the time. He lied to her as well as me on more than one occasion....it is all part of the dual life of the A fog.
I suspect this is very appropriate to post here. I believe my wifes AP is quite skilled at saying exactly what he needs to when he needs to, to whom he needs to (himself, his wife, his kids, his OW) in order to nurture his chosen path for life on this planet. He was the one to break up their A (confirming his feeling of being in control), is reported to have had others before my wife and found another within months of ending his fling with my wife.
I suspect he has said many things to his APs that would be hurtful to his wife, but not necessarily true, but provide him the control he is after. He has said an equal amount of things to his wife to control her, to keep her from interfering with his plans to step out on his marriage and his kids. It appears he uses lies to inflict suffering...not just pain...but suffering, which is what you get from lies. You cant process suffereing...he is very happy to have her stop right where she is. Because if the lies stoped she could choose to change and process into a position of control far easier. Due to his manipulation she, unfortunately, is ill-equipped to do any better. She knows about her husbands A...but, truthfully, when I approached her the A had not gone physical....so to this day it is highly likely she still questions if her husband even had an A with my wife. I had thought about telling her the new info I have discovered since DD, but that is not my truth to convey to her. My wife is no longer connected to her husband...no longer a threat to her family or kids. It up to him to decide if he wants to do better by being truthful or do the same via lying.
After a persons DD, they know-better....but not everyone chooses to do better. Some may NEVER choose to do better.
The look on WH's face when he told me he loved his AP is burned into my brain. No emotion, none. So sad how much denial causes so much pain.
Yep, will remember the look on my wifes face that evening of my DD too.
Not to mention the lie is what damages us.
The above quote COULD be the path for some fWS to nurture empathy for this situation....that they are acutely familiar with lying and the damage it does to ALL involved. I agree the trauma and pain caused to us by a WS lying is uniquely painful to a BS....but surely someday, sometime a repentant fWS will connect the dots enough to see how lying to themselves hurt them. I believe my wife is starting to grasp this.
But doesn't your H's "I know," show some kind of empathy? Maybe he doesn't know what to say beyond that.
I agree most WS are ill-equipped to handle such expressions fully and completely. And this is where learning to R comes in....a fWS MUST learn to say more, much more beyond that. This inability to do so led, in part, to adultery being an option. This inability to do so, in part, has the real danger to stagnate R and that persons ability to grow past themselves.
Honestly, I spoke harshly of my wifes AP indicating he is some sort of predator or affair addicted person...and he may be. But the truth of lying at this level is that...my wife was quite skilled at this too, as are most WS. We were in weekly MC sessions, wife was doing IC sessions...and yet her A continued and escalated to PA AFTER DD and while she was professing to myself, her sister, and other close friends that it was over. This is a truth that hurts as well. A hurt that she choose to administer. A hurt that simply would not have taken place if lies and deception were not involved.
My wife very proudly tells me she never ran me down while with her AP, never even spoke of me while with him. It is laughable now...but there was emails from her AP to contradict this bold statement. Such as the one on a day that I came home from work early to talk more about my wifes A. In this email he states....Saw blakesteeles truck home early, thinking of you, hoping you are doing okay. Her response was yeah, its cool...just another day of him talking ad nauseam as usual....and ending with the cute love tones most of those emails had. As if he cared about my wife and her family. As if she cared about me and our girls. He only cared about one thing...himself. And only cared about fucking my wife. She shared similar concerns. He hit both of those goals...we were getting what we wanted and no one was the wiser or getting hurt....this was only possible through the skillful use of lies and deception.
I believe this is part of the reason my wife could choose adultery...by her stating this in such a manner it was as if she was minimizing just how hurtful her actions were to me and our girls, just how little risk our family was in due to her actions. This was a lie too....there were emails where she wrote things like. Thank God its Monday--blakesteele back to work and we can get back to it. While this debunks that I was ever talked about in a bad light with her AP, it enabled my wife to feel as if she was still respecting our marriage somehow....insane, but could see how twisted logic could play this out.
My gut tells me that, had I not discovered her A it would have escalated to the point that she would break her family to be with him.
God help me for this belief...but my wife was so intentional with her lies and deceit that this was a real option. Stuff you only see on the news...and it happened right here...in my marriage.
God help us all.
[This message edited by blakesteele at 7:06 AM, October 28th (Monday)]
