"Cake eater".
What does this mean, exactly?


Here is one explanation:
LINK to Wikipedia

The actual meaning of the phrase is this:
"You can't eat your cake and have it too."

In the situation where we describe a wayward spouse as a "cake eater", what are we talking about?

The wayward spouse wants to enjoy certain benefits of having a marriage and a family (those ENs being met) while at the same time having a separate romantic (conflicting) relationship outside marriage, where other ENs are being met.

In essence, the wayward wants both the spouse and the other person..
The wayward wants his/her home cake (spouse & family) and he/she wants to enjoy the cake (sex, companionship, ENs, etc) of someone else (affair partner).

Every person who is an active wayward but does not leave their spouse/family is a cake eater.
They want both.

..... more later .....

Looking forward to the rest of this and especially your thoughts on how if WS is not cake eating, then the M is doomed. Seems like the only way to stop her completely right now is a D

YES

WS often wring their hands and wail that they just can't "choose" between their spouse and their OP. Please don't fall for this. They are NOT trying to "choose". They are want to have both and will tell you any sort of lie to keep you dangling and waiting and hoping they will "choose".

The classic and ever-popular "I Don't Know What I Want Anymore" ALWAYS means, "I want BOTH and I'm just trying to figure out how to keep that going."

If I may:

A spouse who isn't cake-eating is a spouse who is already gone. They HAVE chosen and have decided that, for whatever reason, they no longer want the marriage. They are not lying and not sneaking around and not in a "fog" - they're just gone. That's why it's next to impossible to save a marriage like that.

But a marriage that is just suffering from a selfish fog-bound cake-eater can often be blasted back to reality with Plan A (including, especially, exposure) and sometimes a dose of Plan B.

Not sure if our M has much of chance then. My WW is not sneaking around or lying about it, at least not to me. Not sure she is completely gone yet either. I still get a lot of 'I don't know' and 'We are best friends'. At first, she wanted both and had no problem telling me that, but I couldn't do that. I'm going to be talking with the Harley's this week and get their take on it. Thanks for your explaination.

As Pep alluded to, CAKE-EATING in the context we are discussing here on MB is the psychological process utilized by an active-WS while he/she is involved in a non-monogamous (i.e. triangular) relationship. It is an unsustainable transition-period or bridge between the formation and the resolution of the triangle (the self-conflicting triangle will eventually be dissolved somehow one way or the other).

During this period of time, the WS is beset by confusion, vacillation, and ambiguity (undoubtedly along with guilt, self-loathing, rationalization, self-entitlement, and a thousand other emotions we all know well). The mental interplay of all these various powerful factors pulling in opposite directions can cause the WS to repeatedly act in contradictory fashions, whipsawing back-and-forth over time and sometimes even during the very same day. He/she is in essence caught betwixt & between indulging in 2 relationships�each of which holds some amount of allure and value in terms of ENs.

Typically, the marriage/BS represents far greater history, nostalgia, family ties, security, social acceptability, and comfort to the WS.

Typically, the affair/OP represents far greater excitement, newness, thrill, passion, and self-fulfillment to the WS.

ALL cheating spouses engage in some measure of cake-eating (unless he/she dumps the BS immediately as the affair begins which almost never happens). It is in effect what defines an affair for all practical purposes�the secrecy & deceptions that invariably characterize adultery are the WS�s attempts to conceal the triangle and preserve his/her ability to indulge in both opposite corners of it for the time being.

While all cheaters cake-eat, there is a definite proclivity for WHs to do so for a much greater time and extent than WWs, especially after the affair has become suspected and eventually discovered. In this strange sense, cake-eating is good (or at least less bad) for the recovery-seeking BS as it allows time for Plan A/B to have an effect and time for the marriage to hopefully outlast the affair. In general, WWs cake-eat far less in duration than WHs do and that IMHO is yet another reason why WW-affairs are demonstrably more difficult to successfully recover a marriage from. The WW-triangle tends to much more heavily-skewed towards the affair/OP and against the marriage/BS.

I agree with this wholeheartedly (which is why I posted above that cake-eating is a �good� or �less bad� sign as far as the potential for marital recovery goes). When a WS stops cake-eating, they have become at that point entirely sold-out to their affair in grass-is-greener fantasy. Most likely, they will not see things differently until YEARS later after �learning the hard way� so to speak. Needless to say, it is very, very likely that the BS/WS will be long divorced by then and sadly the pain suffered by the BS will be very terrible.

EGG - ZAK - LEE

Who do we target with a Plan A?
The CAKE EATING wayward.

Saying a wayward is "cake eating" as a reason to "dump" him/her or to go to an "immediate Plan B", is just not the MB way.

And, that's my point.

Let's be strategic with the newbies.
Not reactionary.

There ARE emergency situations that require an immediate response, but "cake eater" is certainly NOT one of them.

I beg to differ, or at least to elaborate. Many waywards continue to cake-eat even after they are gone. It's just that the EN's they have met by their spouse are not the intimate ENs. The most common way that I've observed (at least with WH's) is either in a care-taker sort of way or through a bizarre kind of hero-complex. These are the guys that come around and mow the lawn or fix the car etc. The BW's of these WH's have the hardest time moving to Plan B, probably because they feel a sense of helplessness themselves, and also to get their own "fix" of their WH. This situation is seen all the time on this board and these marriages often fail because the BW can't implement an actual dark Plan B. I know, I was one of them.

Also, WS's that have gone and left the marriage are still as foggy as those who are still trying to cake eat, often even after they've long gone. I've developed quite the radar for waywardism and I can tell you I've sniffed it out in people who are not only long past their marriage, but long past their OP as well. That sense of entitlement remains and these people make the same mistakes over and over.

A well timed, well planned, and superbly executed Plan B is a good thing.
I soooooooo agree.

I still remember that total AHA moment when (after asking and trying to evaluate if WH was, indeed the dreaded cake-eater), I realized that not only was he a cake eater, but I WANTED him to be a cake eater.

Right up until I closed the bakery.

Thanks Pepper! Great bump as always!