Question: Can anyone clarify why some mlcrs like mine just bring their affair right out in the open for everyone to see and accept and some don’t?
There was a question asked about why some midlife spouses exposed their affairs, while some hid their affairs….and it’s all rooted in emotional rebellion, disrespect, and a certain emotional decision the midlife spouse has made “for” the left behind spouse. I had to give this a lot of thought before I gave an answer based on what I know about human behavior, lack of maturity, and the thought patterns of weak midlife spouses who have so much emotional growth to complete.
I believe the “key” to the midlife spouse’s blatant exposure of their affair may lie in a teenage past. There were some teenagers who did these same things, (blatantly exposing the fact they were cheating on their current “squeeze” with someone else) were involved in an exclusive relationship, and because they changed, and began to crave excitement, they stepped outside of that relationship, and started another–all with the intention of manipulating TWO people into “fighting” for them–this made them feel “special.”
Back in high school, if you think about it, there were teenage girls AND boys who were guilty of this kind of behavior. We all knew about them, because we had watched their dramas play out, and sometimes it resulted in a physical altercation that led into a fist fight. I’d be lying if I said these were not entertaining, because they were, and I watched many of them in my time. 🙂
Somebody always got hurt, somebody always got suspended, and the cheater was usually abandoned by BOTH people, because the cheater showed they couldn’t be trusted by either party–the one who was “two-timed” and the one whom the cheater was “two-timing” with–even back then, teenagers knew that if a two-timer cheated with them, in time, they would also cheat on them.
Jealousy and mistrust were two common aspects to see in these immature, and very insecure relationships. Emotional addiction, depression, and even the withdrawal symptoms that showed the grieving of a lost connection were seen in people who had been emotionally abandoned without prior notice….and there was always someone else in the wings waiting to take the place of the one who had been abandoned. Not just that, the teenager who went through this grief process always sought to find another person so they would be “fixed” through the starting of a new relationship.
Teenagers don’t have the maturity needed to emotionally face themselves without someone to help them, and most of them refused to take the help of adults who knew more than they did–the teenagers knew it all, or thought they did.
Teenage relationships have never contained the kind of maturity needed to keep them together. The concept of commitment is not clearly understood, and of course no one was married before they finished high school, except for those who went through the “shotgun marriage” process that involved a pregnancy.
Why these pieces of common knowledge get lost along the way is beyond me…I think it’s because a lot of things are simply forgotten as the years pass.
However, because the left behind spouse in question is no longer a teenager, having some life’s experience under their belt, they don’t always fall into this kind of dramatic trap created by some midlife spouses–they’ll either choose to make a Stand, eventually coming into the mature understanding of why it’s not ever worth the trouble to confront the affair partner, and take the steps necessary to protect their remaining assets, OR they will NOT choose to make a Stand AND still take the steps necessary to protect their remaining assets.
No teenager I ever knew had any money/monetary assets built up, and because they have yet to gain some life’s experience, when it gets out that they’ve been “two-timed,” the majority of teenagers will go on the attack against what they perceive as the “other person” who “stole my girlfriend/boyfriend.”
Nine times out of ten, they end up fighting over the cheater. This may be what the openly rebellious midlife spouse intended to happen, but it can also backfire in a huge way on them.
I’ve often watched midlife spouses try and play the left behind spouse against the affair partner, because they love drama, don’t care who gets hurt, and they feel “special” knowing they have two people fighting over THEM. It’s representative of the teenage state of mind they’re in–and honestly, that kind of dramatic “bait” is best left alone, because if a fight breaks out between two people who are supposedly grown, somebody is going to get hurt, if not end up in the hospital…and it’s NEVER worth all that.
This making a decision to “decide for both people” is completely disrespectful to begin with–it’s rooted in codependency, selfishness, and the inability to “see” “hear” or “feel” the spouse in a marital relationship.
The making of an “other” decision itself (without informing the spouse) lets you know that the midlife spouse KNOWS that what they are thinking of doing is emotionally, mentally, and spiritually wrong.
To be deceptive is to be disrespectful, because dishonesty exercised says that the midlife spouse doesn’t consider the left behind spouse as being “worthy” of knowing the truth about a decision that is made without the left behind spouse’s knowledge.
In fact, when a person decides to step outside of a marriage to get emotional needs met, they are completely discounting the marital relationship in its entirety–it goes back to the fact they set the marriage aside in their minds, sending it to its death, and seek to justify this complete destruction by saying a number of totally untrue and confused things that are meant to send the left behind spouse down a wrong path, to chase a “red herring”—to keep them so busy they won’t see, and maybe won’t discover, what’s going on.
Now, granted, the midlife spouses will often mix fact and fiction in their spewed projection, but it’s to remove the emotional “spotlight” from their changed outlook, and shift the blame in such a way that the left behind spouse is kept confused, unable to do anything right, and this whole situation often becomes like a magician in a magic show.
There are glamours, and illusions thrown up, as well as smoke that’s intended to hide a brightly burning fire that should NOT exist, but it does. Eventually the left behind spouse will snoop, and then follow the inadvertently dropped signs into discovery that bombs them like emotional dynamite.
I mean, you think about it–IF the midlife spouse had said anything to you about another person being introduced into the emotional picture, what would you say? Of course–you’d say, “NO, that’s NOT what I would want you to do.”
The midlife spouse is NOT dumb–they’re in emotional crisis, AND they’re acting like a teenager who is trying to make sure THEY don’t end up by themselves….they have become different, but instead of addressing this in a mature way, they address it in an immature way, and revert back to what they most likely would have done as teenagers.
So..in their minds, the midlife spouse DECIDES that the left behind spouse isn’t going to care one way or the other what they do. Because their perception of their spouse is skewed in such a disrespectful way, they cross the line of morality, commit adultery, and some will expose the affair as a direct challenge–(Look what I’m doing, and what are YOU going to do about it?)—these midlife spouses think it doesn’t matter what they do, the left behind spouse is simply going to overlook it, always forgive them, maybe even “fight for me” and the midlife spouse will always have somewhere to go.
The “joke” if you could call it that, is on the midlife spouse who exposes their affair publicly only to find the left behind spouse does NOT accept their adulterous actions. When the spending of money becomes excessive, the left behind spouse files for the purpose of protecting their assets from being plundered. There is a second aspect to this, and it has to do with the midlife spouse perceiving the left behind spouse as Authority with a capital “A” and in deep rebellion, they push the envelope of respect OFF the table.
Some justifications fall into the range of them saying they “thought” the left behind spouse didn’t love them anymore, so they were “forced” into doing what they did–but NO, that’s not true, they had a choice, and made a wrong one. These midlife spouses have to be shown that they’re ‘gambling’ against the “house” and the “house” always wins, while the gambler is going to be the loser.
But the rebellious midlife spouse who is deep within the tunnel, tends to deny that they’ll lose anything—at least until they awaken to themselves, the actual “loser” they have hooked up with (broken affair partner), and then it might be too late, because the left behind spouse always has the option of choosing NOT to accept the midlife spouse back.
Some midlife spouses hide their affairs as deeply as possible, because they fear losing their spouse. This is in spite of the fact they spew angrily, project, and justify their bad behaviors in any way possible. These midlife spouses are also “gambling” against the “house”—and again, the “house” always wins.
In both cases, regardless of what the midlife spouse might spew, project, or justify, the odds are always stacked AGAINST the affair, because it was doomed from the start—an illicit relationship built upon a foundation of deception born of adulterous sin, will eventually collapse.
There is always a fear of loss that translates into anger when the midlife spouse does find they’re losing everything, because in both types of situations whether involving hidden OR exposed affairs, the midlife spouse thinks they are entitled to do as they please without facing consequences for their actions.
Boy, are they in for a huge wake up call!