Apologies if this post raises difficult memories for some. Perhaps Pep's thread about evil has stirred dark thoughts...

I live on the outskirts of London; my family regularly travel up to London and we spend a lot of time on the Tube. So the recent suicide bombings have been disturbing, and the situation has been all over the press and TV.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about what persuades young men to kill themselves and others, and how they can do it to people that they're sitting beside, possibly talking to...pregnant women and children and babies and old people. It seems to me that they must be able to close off those parts of their minds that would naturally empathise and want to protect the vulnerable.

Last week, it occurred to me that perhaps, in some contorted way, these young men imagine that they're saving those people they kill - that they have been persuaded that anyone killed in this way will have instant access to heaven, or freedom from the awfulness of western civilisation, or whatever. I mentioned this thought to H.

And he snorted and said "So what about all the people they just wound and maim and leave crippled for life? How are they saving those people? Big heroes, yeah."

I looked at him, wondering if this thought have somehow emerged out of his realisation that 20 years of assorted infidelity had wounded and maimed and crippled people in his own life. But if it had, I would have expected him to show some understanding of how those young men could have arrived at a place where they were able to be so callous. He must surely have considerable insight into how a person closes off his conscience in order to do something that he doesn't want to think will hurt others?

I don't think he's made the connection. Not consciously, anyway. He was exhibiting that kind of righteous indignation that goes with a sense of being good where others are bad (a place I am very at home in, unfortunately).

But I have a small cold suspicion that infidelity and suicide bombing are at different points on the same line. Both are about shutting down something in the mind. Both are about self-deception. Both are about an all-consuming feeling of injustice or entitlement. Both are about a failure of respect for others.

My H gave me a minor STD. He seems to have been a carrier, symptomless himself. It could easily have been HIV - he simply closed down the bit of his mind that was able to see and assess the risk, and he closed down the neurons that cared about my survival. He closed them down for years, decades. It seems to me that the difference between killing me with a virus, or with plastic explosive, is just a question of mechanism. But he will not - cannot - accept that he could have killed me. There is a failure of logic and reason somewhere in his mind when we discuss it.

Does anyone else worry about the apparent deadness of conscience in those who cheat - especially long-term cheaters? (Some cheat and are almost instantly annihalated with guilt, I know.) How can the BS know when - or if - those dead areas of the psyche come back to life?

TogetherAlone

TA,

Very interesting this... "How can the BS know when - or if -those dead areas of the psyche come back to life?"

Reminds me of one area I have left to travel on my journey with infidelity....I trust my husband to be "affair proof" now, but I don't trust myself yet to know if he's having another affair.

Bottom line - I trust him in a sense more than I trust me/my instincts.

Hi TA,

At this point in my life,I do not worry anymore about the cheater in my life because I essentially cut him out of it.That is how I chose to deal with it and this is also how I choose to deal with other "toxic" people in my life.It's very freeing to disconnect from these types of people.People who,as you said and we have mentioned many times here before,feel entitiled to do whatever they want for self pleasure.

Misguided ideals and morals in those like Eric Rudolph,who still feels that he did the right thing by bombing clinics for abortion and the Olympics and killing and injuring other's.There's no shortage of these types of people who keep the cycle of demented self talk going that what they are doing is justified.Either they are just leading horrible lives and must seek out another man/woman to have sex with and solve all their problems or they must bomb a building in order to make a point.

How does one become insensed and cold to other's? Is it nature or nurture? A little of both? It's still all about choice though IMO.You can choose to solve problems and take a stand on some issue through peaceful means that do not harm anyone or you can claim in your own mind that the more harm you cause from a certain action, the more people will listen and understand you.

In my WH's case,he told me that not only did he tell himself that I and the children would be alright but that he wanted to do this(A)for himself,as if it were some treat to have sex with the homewrecker and be out with her instead of with his family.He believed the lies the homewreckers family told him from their family "psychic"(read:crackpot)that all this was "meant to be".He believed this woman whom he only knew a few days that she was "OK" meaning claimed to have no STD's so had unprotected sex.Maybe he felt even more reassured since he had had a vasectomy years before.No chance of pregnancy.What sick and horrible lines he must have sold himself.It makes me ill to rethink it all.

No.The best thing for me is to be FAR away from people like that.I have no place in my life for these liars and cheats.These people who lack integrity and morals.Who are selfish and hurtful.Whatever makes a WS close their mind off to what they do,I want not to see the evil that lurks there anymore than I would a murderer.How can you ever know if it's gone or just repressed?

I truly admire those who do take their WS back and try to reconcile.I did try too,before.But I have to say that I feel so good about not having my WH in my life anymore.I always knew that would be the hardest part for me,not ever knowing for sure if my WH was ever going to be honest again and not contact the homewrecker or commit adultery again.It's so hard to overcome.

I still believe there is a failure in society to see Adultery as horrible as it really is.I want to see punishment come back for it.It wreaks so much havoc on so many.There has to be more of a deterrent.Somehow.

O