I thought I would start a new thread to hopefully help us BS understand and come to terms with the wayward behaviour. For me personally the re writing of our marriage and dengigration of my character has been really painfull. Its been a struggle to think WH thinks of me in the light he has cast me in.

I know the thread "Anger and Affairs" helped me and other BS to gain a better understanding. So any comments would be appreciated.

I really hope FWS can offer any insight.

1. Does a WS begin to believe their foggy justification, is it a case of, if said often enough they begin to believe? Is there any small part that remembers the BS as the person they really are? I suppose if they acknowledge this then they would have to take responsbibility for the actions and face their own guilt, so they possibly suppress it.

2. When they come out of the fog, irrespective of reconciliation do they regain clarity and see the BS for who they truely are?

3. I've read on some threads the WS when out of the fog forget conversations, behaviour, accusations from their foggy days, but do they recongnise that they had rewritten their history and denigrated their BS?

This is a good idea, and good questions, Happy. I feel the same way. Worse than the affair, is how they completely destroy you, your marriage, your family, your lives - even your children, drag it all down to the ground and turn it in to nothing but garbage in their heads. If I was half the monster pinoke accuses me of being now - I was this way for 22 years apparently - I would have been locked up 21 years ago. Heartbreaking. Especially when I think of everything I did to try to love him, even through this. And all his, "The kids are fine, you did this to them by not just accepting the situation, blahblahblah." Worst thing ever.

For me it was an addiction. And every time my hubby was snappy, rude or whatever, I felt justified.

There is no excuse

Did you pull out, Goldi? How? Did it help you for your hubby to be sweet to you so you couldn't blame him? Or did he finally stand up to you or do Plan B? Just wondering. Thanks:) (You don't have to answer if you don't want to).

HF66,
Although I knew right from wrong, and knew what God's word said about adultery, I willingly exchanged truth for lies. It took only a matter of weeks before my "truth" and "lie" were in opposite (wrong) positions. I began to see mostly bad things about my husband's personality and mostly good things about the OM personality. Yes, this helped justify my adultery.

What helped pull out of the fog ?? I met with OMW and learned the extent of lies he had told her and told me. I began to see the ugliness I was believing. I began to see the goodness of my husband and his long list of admirable traits that I really liked and wanted. OM list became quite short.

I think I am one of the foggiest waywards there ever was or ever could be. I continually cry out to God, "Let me see TRUTH and act on it" ! I really do not trust myself and have to give my mind over to God every single day.

As far as your question to Goldi about sweetness. Well, super-sappy- sweetness and desperation made me want to run. I respected cool, calm, matter of factness. When my husband ignored me and went calmly about his business, I wanted to pursue him more.

Hope this helps some.

Thanks for the insights, FF.

Hi FF and Goldi, I appreciate the insight, thankyou for sharing your experiences.

Bumped to seek comments re first post questions

I am glad you bumped this because I never saw it the first time. I am not sure if I can answer all of your questions in the first post but I will try from a FWW's viewpoint.

I know that most A's have very similar characteristics but I also believe that each one has its own as well.

1. Does a WS begin to believe their foggy justification, is it a case of, if said often enough they begin to believe? Is there any small part that remembers the BS as the person they really are? I suppose if they acknowledge this then they would have to take responsbibility for the actions and face their own guilt, so they possibly suppress it.

I really think FF answered this question but I will tell you what my foggy mind thought. My foggy mind started picking out all of my H's bad qualities and making them seem so bad in my mind that I felt justified in what I was doing. The thing is, that I never completely stopped seeing the positive qualities of my H. I actually felt very guilty in what I was doing but I was stuck. I would go to work and see OM and be pulled into this fantasy world. Go home see my H and feel very guilty. Tell myself I had to stop what I was doing, then go back to work the next day and get sucked back in again.

At first I did not acknowledged what I had done. I knew that it was wrong but I did try to suppress the extent of the damage. I tried to find a million excuses for why I did what I did. I even had friends telling me, well A's don't happen in good marriages so there must have been something wrong.

Although the day I was caught was the last day I ever spoke to my OM again, my mind did not completely defog until I came on this website almost two months after my A.

2. When they come out of the fog, irrespective of reconciliation do they regain clarity and see the BS for who they truely are?

I believe I answered this above but let me tell you what I saw when I came out of the fog, I saw the man I fell in love with, my high school sweetheart and I saw his pain. I saw him look at me in a way that I will never forget. I saw true pain in his eyes. This gave me clarity but it was the kind of clarity that makes you want to vomit.

3. I've read on some threads the WS when out of the fog forget conversations, behaviour, accusations from their foggy days, but do they recongnise that they had rewritten their history and denigrated their BS?


As far as this goes, I don't think I can or will ever forget but you do try. For me it is almost like you are looking at another person and their actions. I am in no way trying to shift the blame but you really cannot believe that that person was you. I actually have blocked out a couple of things to the point that if I really tried I think I could remember them, but it is just too painful and hurtful to really try.


Of course I realize that I have rewritten my history. This is the one question that my H often asks "Were you thinking about us, our future, our children, your job". Honestly, no I was not thinking about any of those thing. That is why they call it "the fog" because you are out of your mind on your decisions and what you are doing. Again, I am in no way using this as an excuse. There are no excuses for an A but it is scary to look back at the person you were during an affair and really admit that it was you.

Fifteenyears, thankyou for your honesty I really appreciate your sharing your experience and point of view. Having an insight into the foggy mind, personally helps me to understand and come to terms with my WH behaviour. I am sure this will also help other BS. I agree I think A have simliar and indvidual characteristics.

I personally have struggled with my waywards history re write and denigration of me. It really hurts to think he could believe his foggy perception of me. For me this has been more painful than the A, if that makes sense. I am standing for my marriage, but hoped if reconciliation wasn't possible, he would at least be able to see the real me again and not hold onto the negative perception.

So thank you, your post brought a few tears but has given me hope the real me may see the light of day again.

i don't know if this is any help, happy, but a few of the Qs my H answered about his a are, perhaps, relevant.

Q. did you consider our DD, and the effect of our broken M on her, in your thinking that your plans on how that (the a) was going to work out? A: No. I wasn't considering anything other than what I thought I wanted at the time.

Q: You told me that you were in love with her, and were going to bring her here and live together in our house. Did you ever stop and consider how this would play out IRL (what *I* would do)? No. I was living in fantasyland, and the only thing I could see was my fantasy. There was no bearing on reality at all.

now that he is fog-free, he finds his thoughts/plans/fantasy ... perplexing. he can't imagine what he was thinking and why he was acting that way. and he has stated that once he started to come out of the fog, he could see his thinking (fantasyland) was totally skewed - that it never would have happened/worked. at the time, i couldn't even recognise him (something you often hear here - the alien!). but now he is himself, thank goodness.

in regard to your comment on denigration, i will probably never forget the chat history where he called me "the dragon." (omg, how i cried buckets over that.) but now i am kind of proud of that title - yes, i stood up and blew fire all over that skank! she ran faster than a colt on derby day. he got a good singing too :O) stay out of the kitchen comes to mind...

The better question you should ask is, �At what point will I no longer care what he/she thinks?�

My WXW hasn�t come out of the fog. She�s been stuck in it for 6 years now. I don�t believe she is capable of coming out of said fog. The justifications for her actions years ago still exist today.

But I quit caring a good while ago. If she comes out of the fog, great. If she doesn�t, then just as well. I sleep great either way and am remarried to a wonderful woman that I and my entire family loves.

It took a few years, but I quit caring a while ago.

very important for those in plan b!

Happy, I can completely identify with the pain you are experiencing over this. My FWW did a fantastic job of reinventing everything from my character to our marriage and everything in between.

What has been especially hard about this aspect of her "wayward" behavior is the damage it caused to numerous friend and family relationships. A long list of people heard months of very negative information about me and the "history" of marriage. Not surprisingly, with only one or two exceptions, each of these recipients of reinvented history bought into it hook, line and sinker and are now highly biased against me and our marriage.

To me this has felt like trying to swim in winter clothing. The environment in which we are now beginning the process to repair our marriage (hopefully) is damaged. The added weight makes everything so much more difficult.

When your WS or FWS is surrounded by friends and family who have now been poisoned by half-truths or outright lies about you and the history of your marriage, how does one overcome this? Sure at some point in the future if your WS buys into MB and the POJA it may be possible to agree to eliminate some of these people from your lives, but what do you do in the mean time?

Clearly, one of the most painful things one can ever experience is being vilified and denigrated by very person you love most.

Driven2, thank you for sharing your experience. I hope all goes well with your reconciliation and wish you every happiness.

It's sad to think family and friends who know the BS can buy into the denigration. There is a thread that addresses this topic "In laws after the affair by Family-Fallout" that may help.

I agree with you, being denigrated and vilified by the person you love is extremely painful. Thats why I started this thread in the hope that it would help me and other BS understand, come to terms with and hopefully move beyond the denigration.

I think in time with the help of MB in particular UA & eventual POJA you will heal from the pain of the denigration and be able to put it behind you.

Hopefully family and friends will see the efforts you and your FWW are putting into rebuilding your M and they will support your M. If not, as you stated when you are both ready for POJA, the issue could be negotiated in a way that makes you both happy, with the default position being you do nothing with them.

Letty, you have helped clarify that waywards are so focused on their "wants" they are not capable of seeing the pain around them or caring about their family. Your FWH's comments show how skewed their thinking is, its like they are wearing horse blinkers and can't see anything but the "fantasy"

Helpthelostdads, that is an excellent question and started me thinking along with recent events and the helpful insight posted on this thread.

For me the denigration and re write has been extremely painful. It hurt that someone I loved for 22yrs could vilify me and have this false perception of me. I struggled with the possibility that he may never regain sight of the real me again.

I have come to the realisation that for me to heal I need to let go of this. I know the truth and have my memories. My children know the truth and have their memories of our family and marriage.

I loved, respected and admired DH, he was a wonderful husband and father, but he is no longer that man. He has lost his integrity, principles and so much more, he has become Isildur a hardened wayward.

I realise I cannot allow Isildur's denigration to control me and cause pain, I need to let go of what I can't control and focus on what I can, my own thoughts and actions.

Thank you to everyone who has posted so far. Your insight as a foggy wayward, or your experience as a BS has provided clarity and helped me to understand, come to terms with the behaviour and hopefully move beyond the pain. I hope this may also help other BS reading this thread.

To anyone reading this thread who may be able to add further insight, please consider posting, your viewpoint may help others reading this thread.

Driven, this kind of scenario is typically avoided when a BS exposes the affair upon discovery and asks the family and close friends for support. Your situation is a perfect example why exposure is so critical. As you have seen, when the BS does not tell everyone the truth, the WS is free to tell everyone lies. And the bad thing is that since these people don't know the truth, they only serve to fuel her "victim" fantasy that she has concocted to justify her affair. And this is part of the reason she is still so foggy.

Have you spoken to these people? The ideal situation would be for her to speak to them and tell them the truth, but since she is so hostile to you, I would try to tell them yourself. Do they know about the affair?

Is there a link to this thread?

I would have to agree with all that's been stated. The villification hurt the most for me.

My wxw petitioned for and was granted a PO (that she has violated at least 10 times). She told people they didn't know what I was "capable" of doing. The funny thing is neither does she.

During our 11yr marriage, I never once threw anything, broke anything, slammed any doors, verbally berated her, hit her, threatened to hit her, thought about hitting her or anything out of anger. NOTHING! So where did she get that????

Waywards at their best!!!!