What exactly is the fog? Does it come can go during the early stages of recovery? Is the affair over when she stops contacting the OM or when she starts being radically truthful with me?

The fog is a state of mind when a person uses entitlement and justifications for wrong doings. Around here, we apply it to spouse's in affairs, but it can generally be applied to anyone in life that is doing something harmful to themselves or others.

In the cases of affairs, the fog doesn't usually dissapate as soon as the affair ends. It usually takes weeks and months, and generally the whole first year before all lingerings of the fog is completely gone. So yes, you will still hear loads of fogbabble in early recovery.

Here's a good thread I started years ago when I was first in early recovery....it has some great responses by many VETS who had been through this long before me....

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2082903&page=3

Take a look at it, hopefully it will answer any other questions you may have.

As far as the affair being over, it is over when your WW goes into NO CONTACT with OM and puts EXTRAORDINARY PRECAUTIONS in place to ensure NC. With caution though, without EP's, the threat of the affair re-igniting is great, as the withdrawl period is excrucitatingly hard. To help get through that period, your WW and you should be spending every moment possible together.

Not2fun

I'm not a vet but I think the affair fog everyone is talking about is the inability to see the real truth about what the relationship with the OP is and the real truth about who they are involved with......
It's a fantasy idea that they are in love without living any real life with the OP, always seeing their partner in the best light, not having to live any real responsibility of that relationship because it is hidden and secret, not going anywhere, not taking care of life's details.......only looking your best, filling each others needs......
It also takes on a life where it is easy to blame the spouse for all the things that are wrong in the marriage, and the affair partner can just justify their sense of entitlement...they can't think of anything but the affair partner even though they are willing to go against their belief system.......it's like they are taken over by the infatuation of the other person and cannot see anything in the real sense.....
Once there isn't any more contact with the OP there is going to be a stage of letting go of that relationship and then slowly their real thinking should take over and they will come back to the real world.
Truthfulness should also go along with recovery and accountability for their actions........
It takes a while, my husband is about 6 months out and I think he finally sees that what he did was pure selfishness

Last Wednesday, I took my daughter and moved to my parents house. I called her parents and told them to come down and make sure that she did nto commit suicide. For 3 weeks since the original D day, she had dribbled out the facts of the affair and continued to lie about the rest of it. Each time, I asked," is that all? I am giving you the chance to tell me the whole truth, because what you are telling me doesn't really add up." I continued to snoop and finally discovered that she had been seeing him for about a year, She had admitted to a one night stand a month ago. After several additional admissions, I said enough was enough and left with my daughter. My parents house is a mile or so away. My daughter spends a lot fo time there and is comforable there. Thursday night after my daughter was in bed at my parents house, I went over to my house and we talked for about 6 hours straight, It was amazing. The lying had stopped and everything she said started to make sense. It was painful as hell to me, but I reserved judgement and anger in the name of saving our marriage. I explained the the truth was the only thing that could save out marriage. At about 2am, I left and drove home to sleep at my parents house.

Friday, I clled her at work and had a talk with her. I asked her to plan an evening with our daughter. A fun evening. She has become so distant with her that it is scarey. She immediately mentioned doing an activity that her mother does with our daughetr. I suggested that it should be her idea. My 6 yo daughter thinks the funnest thing that mom does is take her to the hairdresser. I am her primary caregiver. I saw single fatherhood as not that bad because I had been basically doing ti for a year or two. Suffice it to say that she had a great time doing fun things and she was extremely upset when I showed up to pick her up to take her home for bed. I went back over and we talked and cried for 4 hours. I then asked her to take me on a date the next night. We were suppossed to go bowling. WSe had not done this since college. We ended up eating dinner at a pub and staying until closing time. We were the only people in the diningroom. We talked for about 5 hours that night. Then we went home and talked for another hour. Then I went to my parents house. In the meantime, she has been redecorating my livingroom so I could be more comfortable in it. She had her first PA in there and I could not get the image out of my house. On Sunday, the LR was redecorated albe it with old ratty furniture. She took our furniture to the thriftshop. My daughet started to show some signs of stress. I decided that if I could get a committment from WW that she would never emotionally abuse me or dd, I would come home, but the next time we needed to be under seperate roofs, She would move out.

We have eben living and sleeping together since Sunday and it is mostly wonderful. I still get sad and she still gets guilty. She has given me passwords to everything and deleted her FB account. She has deleted the messaging programs on her computer. I have a logger that she does not know about, but she suppects something. She has been NC for 3 weeks. She is being radically honest. She still gets weepy soemtimes, btu I think this is guilt ot missing the OM. I have forgiven her, but amd not going to be walked on. She knows this. She asked me to be firmer with her. She is also NC with an old friend that knew about the affair and could have discouraged it or told me. She chose to encourage it. So she sent an NC letter to her. She is currently looking for a new job that will allow her to spend more time with me and our daughter. We are going camping tomorrow. Wish us luck!

Lets not forget that many WS do end up living with OP and the A goes on for years even when WS and OP live the reality of every day life. A are complicated the more I read the posts on this forum the more I see that at times the fantasy is not the only thing that keeps WS and OP together.
blessing