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I hear people say their WS is in the FOG. What does that mean? My wife cannot make the connections between her affairs and the immense pain it has caused. Is this failure to connect the actions to results the FOG? How long does it last? So far she wants to rugsweep the affairs and move on while I sit here dying from the pain of betrayal. Its been 3 months and I have certainly coddled the M to keep it going. There is no transparency on her part, and refusal for IC. Just wondering if the FOG disappates in an epiphany or what. Thanks

The fog is that self-denial, disillusionment that waywards indulge in, to not see reality. It's as if you are standing on a hill and can clearly see an island in the seas in the distance. They are standing in a valley that is shrouded in fog, and can only see shapes, illusions, and what their imagination makes of these wavy images. Instead of climbing up the side of the hill to see the reality, they insist that their view of imaginary monsters in the valleys are reality.

Yes, sometimes, very rarely, they will get out of the fog by themselves. Most of the time, they have to have the fog blasted away by large doses of reality administered regularly and without dispassionately. The toilet is filthy and needs sanitizing. No amount of justification that if you wait, it will get better, if you are patient, it will self-clean or if you ignore it, it will smell sweet will work. You have to attack it with gloves, a brush, and sanitizer. Or it gets far, far worse.

Skan described it perfectly. Your wife is doing what you allow her to do. Until you "help" her to get out of the fog, she will not. What are your boundaries? Have you set them and have you set consequences for failure to stay in the boundaries or expectations. For example, IC is a requirement to remain in the marriage. Failure to actively participate results in D. Failure to fully disclose the A results in XXX; Failure to discuss at regular intervals will result in XXX. Until you set clear expectations, she has no "reason" to change in her perspective. If you do not provide a clear expectations, she most likely will continue to rugsweep. Your marriage may not be able to be saved if she is not willing to do the work. Sometimes to save a marriage you have to be willing to lose it.

jipt, there is an Article in the Healing Library about the Fog. Go to the Library, click on Articles and scroll down under the Heading of Discovery/Confrontation. Many good articles there. We have read most of them including that one.

Here's another example. My Dad drank until I was 10. He has been in AA every since. The first year of sobriety he had very "alcoholic-like" behavior, ie: selfish, poor-me-parties, blowing committments, except there was no booze. Even now he has a saying: Sometimes I am sober and sometimes I am just not drinking.

You want a sober wife. Once she goes NC, she will then being having withdrawl from this "fantasy" life she has created for herself. The fog lifts when she begins doing the work, facing her demons and owning the mess she has created.

[This message edited by LA44 at 12:42 PM, March 23rd (Sunday)]

I have theory.....

I am notoriously analytical.....

I think there is a connection between the dopamine bath that the wayward brain get soaked in and the fog.

Wayward behavior and addiction are frequently compared.

I believe they are in essence the same thing chemically. You can not expect a drug addict to think clearly or make intelligent decisions. I have read that the dopamine high from a sexual / emotional encounter can take two years to dissipate. I believe I am seeing this timeline with my own wayward wife.

This may be why severe consequences can sometimes break the fog, like an addict hitting "Bottom"...

Just my 2 cents

It is said that the WS lies to themselves more than they lie to their BS.

Denial, rationalizing and compartmentalization are all part of the fog.

You are probably hearing the phrase, just get over it a lot from your WW.

In my case, the fog disappeared once my wife started reading a few books, like After the Affair and another one I can never remember. She also read a few posts on here that really made her think finally.

If your wife is still having an affair, she will never get out of the fog. Consequences can bring a WS out of the fog as well.

You cannot keep throwing yourself into a M that your spouse is not committed to merely because you hope she wakes up and starts to appreciate your effort. It will only end in pain for you. She is seeing no consequences to hurting you, so why stop behaving poorly?

Stop taking care of the M and start taking care of yourself. Yes, your WW is in the fog of wayward thinking--but you are in the fog of betrayed thinking, where your hope blinds you to your current reality.

[This message edited by norabird at 12:39 PM, March 24th (Monday)]

The fog is the jacked up time period when the WS is in transition from the A to real life. It is a time when the WS is another person and not the person you have known for all these years. It is a time when the WS walks around like a zombie and you have no idea who this person is any more during this period. The WS's fantasy is over and reality is setting in but the WS (in my case) goes temporarily into a deeper fantasy world and acts extremely strange and says/does things totally out of character. For instance, my WW had a couple of month EA that turned into a weekend PA which she confessed to me and I had no idea. A couple of weekends after D-day, we spent the weekend out of town and she was extremely focused on her appearance. I later found an unsent letter that she wrote to the OM where she told him that "she would have knocked his socks off with the way she looked" over that weekend. She also detests cigarettes, she can't stand second hand smoke or to be near anyone who smokes. But during that same weekend she had a few glasses of wine and then asked my SIL for a cigarette. I read in her letter that she told him that she smoked a cigarette because it reminded her of him as he was a smoker. Had she been single, she would have never even considered dating someone who smokes. So, to me, the fog is a time of transition where the WS is a zombie walking around doing and saying things they would never normally do. Maybe it is caused by the reality that their little game is over but they aren't quite ready for it to be over and it is some strange reactionary way of mourning the death of the A.

Thankfully, my FWW's fog only lasted about three weeks. She was very remorseful, shameful and sorry every day starting on D-day but the fog was not a good period of time for me because I knew that she was thinking of the OM. Hopefully it won't last long for you!

My fWH fog lasted for 3 to 4 months. I really had to shock him into reality by:

1. Leaving him a Dear John letter and leaving

2. Stating that his A hurt more than the sexual abuse I suffered as a child at the hands of my ex-stepfather (in front of my IC therapist with him there). That really shamed him.

3. Telling all my friends and family months after D-day helped. This way he realized with their help, just how horrible and painful his actions were from someone else's point of view (which he didn't consider was over reacting to nothing).