# Does affair change who other person was?



## bigtone128 (May 1, 2012)

I am reading a lot about how an affair changes the spouse of an AP - but what about them? I hear a lot about how they are no longer the person you married - but I am beginning to realize "THIS IS the person I married" but I did not see it.... your take? IS the person who had affair just the real person coming out? Or did the person change along the way?


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## thatbpguy (Dec 24, 2012)

bigtone128 said:


> I am reading a lot about how an affair changes the spouse of an AP - but what about them? I hear a lot about how they are no longer the person you married - but I am beginning to realize "THIS IS the person I married" but I did not see it.... your take? IS the person who had affair just the real person coming out? Or did the person change along the way?


Well, the answer to all your questions is........... "yes".

I think I can say with confidence my wife who ran around on me was not that person when we married. She morphed into that person. But some people are that way when they marry and the betrayed just never sees it. I mean, who looks for those tendencies? 

One last thought. 

I think betrayers who claim their betraying made them a better person prove out their continuing instability. We have one poster here who is a poster child for that point of view.


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## The Middleman (Apr 30, 2012)

bigtone128 said:


> I am reading a lot about how an affair changes the spouse of an AP - but what about them? I hear a lot about how they are no longer the person you married - but I am beginning to realize "THIS IS the person I married" but I did not see it.... your take? IS the person who had affair just the real person coming out? Or did the person change along the way?


It's difficult to say because everyone is different. Some good people can become evil, even if only temporary, but more likley than not I think your right: *"THIS IS the person I married" but I did not see it. *


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## Ovid (Oct 11, 2012)

People are complex. Often a perceived personality is the way one person relates to another person. Place that person with another person and other aspects of their personality come out. It's not that those aspects didn't exist or were being hidden. They just weren't brought out by the interactions with the previous person...

You didn't see a new person. You saw aspects of the same person that you didn't realize were there before the A. 

Cheaters that experience true remorse can change/mature. Cheaters that do not experience true remorse will not change or mature.


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## Hardtohandle (Jan 10, 2013)

You know its a common question and I have heard both answers.. 

But to be honest, I don't have a fvcking clue anymore... 

I think in the beginning you want to believe the Wayward has changed and then you start to think he or she was always this way but never seen it.

What I can tell you is this my wife really never cleaned unless she had to. I come to find out she sort of washed the cloths. 

*BUT*

She wasn't this evil villain I want her to be. When she was with me she loved me. She gave me attention. She made love to me. She laughed with me. We really had a good time. She loved our kids and took care of them very well. 

What I have now, I honestly don't have a clue.. She doesn't talk to me or my oldest. I am very aware she is ashamed of what she did and how she did it. 

Part of me feels we lacked a good marriage counselor or therapist many years ago to discover what her real issue was. 

My Ex had no real place to turn to so she did what she did because she just couldn't think well enough to make the right choices. 

All of that does not remove what she did. In the end she was a big girl and made her choices. I feel she felt pressure from this other man and not having a place to go she had to be faithful to him. She did have one reality that she could not afford a place on her own. 

But again getting back to your questions or thought. Honestly it has to be either one or the other, not many choices here.

I will say for me it was she changed.. Something snapped inside her. Midlife crisis, who knows and this is how she reacted to that change.


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## thatbpguy (Dec 24, 2012)

Hardtohandle said:


> I will say for me it was she changed.. Something snapped inside her. Midlife crisis, who knows and this is how she reacted to that change.


I was all on board with your post until this at the end. 

I loathe when betrayers (and I realize your betrayer didn't necessarily say this) come up with cheap excuses like "midlife crisis" or "I made a mistake", "set poor boundaries"... There is a bottom line reason- betrayers do it becasue they _want_ to. Pure and simple. They just friggin' want to. It means more to them than spouse, marriage, family or kids.


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## Racer (Sep 24, 2009)

It is the same person. It’s not an alien abduction or pod people or ____. Often a BS will assign some mental ailment so there’s something else to blame. But it was your spouse.

That is why the “why” is so very critical to recovery. Once they discover them, you’ll see how this ‘way they are’ has influenced them throughout their lives. From there, they can go about recognizing when it kicks in and put other methods for dealing with life in place. I think of it as a “defect”... one defect alone isn’t a problem and pretty normal. But when added to a bunch of other defects and under the right circumstances, things domino quickly. So don’t look for ‘one thing’ wrong; It’s usually a whole series of perceptions and reactions at play.


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## russell28 (Apr 17, 2013)

thatbpguy said:


> I was all on board with your post until this at the end.
> 
> I loathe when betrayers (and I realize your betrayer didn't necessarily say this) come up with cheap excuses like "midlife crisis" or "I made a mistake", "set poor boundaries"... There is a bottom line reason- betrayers do it becasue they _want_ to. Pure and simple. They just friggin' want to. It means more to them than spouse, marriage, family or kids.


Sometimes there are stresses, and reasons that it becomes so much more important to them.. and those reasons, can be stupid, wrong, unjustified, but they use them..

Say for example 'kids are grown, no longer need me...' 

Someone that early in life, raised kids, enjoyed it, felt needed.. got love from children as well as husband, now fells no longer needed or necessary.

Instead of "I can spend time on my family now, and enjoy my husband" it becomes "I can spend time on me" (aka screw around with that guy that's been flirting with me in work)

Warped and twisted logic to justify lusty desires... aka, an affair.


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## workindad (May 7, 2011)

Op to your primary question. 

I do t think it changed my xw. Rather the discovery just shed light on her true character.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## In_The_Wind (Feb 17, 2012)

I would say probably a little of both plus you are seeing them for who they really are. Like the old words when someone shows you who they really are you should believe them.


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## Squeakr (May 1, 2013)

I don't think it changes them per say, but it changes the way we view them and their character. We start to question whom the real person is that we are seeing and if they have always been this way and we just missed it or are they behaving out of character?


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## NeverMore (Feb 24, 2013)

No, mine was always a selfish douche, and I knew that, but saw that as one of his "flaws" we were working on. Once I realized he was a selfish douche AND a cheater most of our marraige, well.. **** it... I'm out!


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## thatbpguy (Dec 24, 2012)

russell28 said:


> Sometimes there are stresses, and reasons that it becomes so much more important to them.. and those reasons, can be stupid, wrong, unjustified, but they use them..
> 
> Say for example 'kids are grown, no longer need me...'
> 
> ...



Still, at the end of the day, they did because they wanted to. I've yet to hear a betrayer say, "I had so much pressure at work to make sales I just had to wh0re myself out..."


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## bigtone128 (May 1, 2012)

I guess the reason I ask is because now that it is all said and done - I look back and see her selfish tendencies and narcissistic personality long before and see that she was always like that and I just let her off the hook so many times.

There was the time - we were married only 9 months and it as snowing out and we were at a dance and to prevent her from getting cold I went out to get the car for her and was waiting for over 20 minutes - when I went in to get her - here she was - up on the dance floor waltzing with some good-looking dude - while I was waiting for her.

I had this discussion about evil people with a Psychologist and "what makes them go bad" and she made an interesting comment she said "They never "went bad", this is their true selves coming out." she said you are looking at things from your perspective - from a evil person's perspective - they spent years covering up who they really are and then it just comes out. Kinda what I think here.


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## PamJ (Mar 22, 2013)

I don't think my WH changed, I think some things around him changed. He was always into erotica and fantasy with magazines back in the day, some porn, not a lot, I don't think.

When the computer and then smart phones made it easier to connect with people he was somewhat addicted to that, chat rooms, then online games with chat rooms, where he met two women who didn't mind sharing their fantasies with him.

He made some bad decisions, but always thought of them more as a game or fantasy than real life, for the ,most part, even though he did truly also consider them 'friends'.

So, no, the A did not really change him, it just changed how he acted on his fantasy life.


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## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

bigtone128 said:


> I am reading a lot about how an affair changes the spouse of an AP - but what about them? I hear a lot about how they are no longer the person you married - but I am beginning to realize "THIS IS the person I married" but I did not see it.... your take? IS the person who had affair just the real person coming out? Or did the person change along the way?


Yes. This is the person I married. Am I waiting for the other shoe to drop? For another affair? If I am honest with myself, yes.

Should that happen, again, I'll just deal with the situation, again, as best i can. But hopefully without a revenge affair, this time.


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## LostViking (Mar 26, 2013)

MattMatt said:


> Yes. This is the person I married. Am I waiting for the other shoe to drop? For another affair? If I am honest with myself, yes.
> 
> Should that happen, again, I'll just deal with the situation, again, as best i can. But hopefully without a revenge affair, this time.


You're a man among men.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## sang-froid (May 2, 2013)

MattMatt said:


> Yes. This is the person I married. Am I waiting for the other shoe to drop? For another affair? If I am honest with myself, yes.


My H insists that what we had was real, he got lost along the way, and he would never risk our relationship again. I so wish I could accept that. If I'm honest with myself, I know that he never fully committed to our marriage, so this is the person I married. I'm constantly battling with myself between believing that someone can choose to change and knowing the odds favour the other shoe falling on my head one day.


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## MarieG (Aug 23, 2013)

bigtone128 said:


> I had this discussion about evil people with a Psychologist and "what makes them go bad" and she made an interesting comment she said *"They never "went bad", this is their true selves coming out."* she said* you are looking at things from your perspective *- from a evil person's perspective - they spent years covering up who they really are and then it just comes out. Kinda what I think here.


I’m not saying that I think that my husband is evil but, yeah, I think that over the years, his true self came out…


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