Jenniffer, I too have noticed that when someone comes here and reports a meltdown in their marriage, someone usually (or at least often) jumps in and points out that there may be an OP involved. Occasionally someone is more emphatic and actually insists that there <I>must</I> be an OP involved.<P>In my opinion, it is appropriate to advise an unsuspecting newcomer to carefully consider the possibility that his or her spouse is having an affair. After all, that is probably the most common scenario. <P>But usually (or at least often) when this warning is given too emphatically, someone else pipes up and points out that there isn't <I>necessarily</I> an OP. Because there are actually quite a few of us here who have been deserted by spouses that (to the best of our knowledge) did <I>not</I> have an affair of any sort. <P>The pattern for relationships in which one spouse suddenly deserts the other (with or without the involvement of a third party) is not always the same. Sometimes the desertion occurs because an unhappy spouse hides his or her unhappiness from a complacent partner until it becomes too much to bear. Sometimes the unhappy spouse does <I>not</I> hide his or her unhappiness, but the complacent partner does not understand the attempts at communication or ignores them until it is too late. Sometimes an unhappy spouse refuses to take responsibility for his or her own problems, choosing instead to cast all blame on a confused partner who is doing everything possible to make the marriage work.<P>The one thing that is astonishingly consistent in almost every case is the "fog": that tendency to revise history, to exhibit self-destructive irrationality, and to deliver those oh-so-familiar "lines".<P>Jenniffer, if you've really read "millions" of the posts here, you know that sometimes a new poster is unanimously urged to leave an abusive spouse. I doubt anyone here believes that every marriage can be restored or even ought to be restored. But growth and self-respect as a person never comes from hiding from yourself, or hiding from the truth. It doesn't come from irresponsibility of any sort.<P>The "fog" is terribly corrosive to <I>everyone</I> involved, BS, WS, OP, and BKs alike.<BR>
