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There was always something legitimate she was doing, and that was what she told me. She simply left out the additional activity. Where she would meet the AP.

Her statements were factually true, but the information she provided was deliberately incomplete. That's how she concealed the affair without having to fabricate stories or tell outright lies.

There was always something legitimate she was doing, and that was what she told me. She simply left out the additional activity. Where she would meet the AP.

Her statements were factually true, but the information she provided was deliberately incomplete. That's how she concealed the affair without having to fabricate stories or tell outright lies.

Isn’t that always the case with wayward partners?

I can say from my experience that it is a withdrawal of truth that covers infidelity at the start.

You are staying late at the office? Factually true. You are going out with people from work? Also true. You are going to see a movie in the cinema? Yes you did. Spending a weekend at a professional conference in another city? That’s right. Going to dance in a club with the girls / boys to celebrate something? Of course that happened. Sleeping over someone because the night went up a bit too late or you were drunk and avoided traveling? True and sensible.

But like anything else about a person you care about when the full truth is withdrawn from you or unspoken, you feel something is off.

Therefore you ask, is it all ok? Can I help you In. Any way? — it is not necessary, and possibly is unlikely the first reaction— that you suspect your partner is doing something wrong to you.

Also it is natural to be genuinely curious and participative in the life of the person you love. How was at work? Your evening? Did you have fun? What did you do? How is x/y/z doing?

I think this is normal, you trust, you want your loved person to be happy and have a positive day, you don’t want them to be codependent on you, you love that they have a good life.

But when you ask those normal questions is when the withhold truth starts to seep out, so the lies are coming to patch out the narrative holes, and it’s unavoidable that consistency falls apart immediately.

And that’s perceivable immediately. When you spot lies after lies sworn as the truth for trivial things, is when you begin doubting and the darkness begins to chill you with the realization that you are being betrayed.

And you don’t even want to believe your loved one could ever do that. They are good people. The unthinkable cannot be.

What you are saying is that she trickled truth you.

Yes I think that could be very well universal behavior.

I never had outright lies from the start with a wayward partner.

Trickled or curated truth is how it begins, the lies follow suit when you ask.

PS:

There is another strong factor that goes along when the truth starts to be withheld from you:

The energy shifts when a partner cuts out the other person from their inner world.
The very same energy that you feel when it created the connection between you when it was shared, is now withdrawn.

You feel that. You might not be able to name it just yet, but we do perceive it immediately.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 7:59 AM, Monday, November 9th]

My wife never trickle truthed me. Anyway, I think that is beside the point, and I feel we may be talking about two different things.

I do not think the answer to ambiguity is becoming better at detecting deception or omission. A relationship where I have to continually evaluate whether what I am being told is true would already be a relationship I would not want. Like I said, I am not one's jailer, nor am I their confessor.

What I am talking about is what remains when you do have the "let them" mentality.

Truth does not make ambiguity disappear. In some ways, it requires accepting ambiguity. I cannot independently know another person's entire experience, thoughts, choices, or history, and I do not want to know those things unless they choose to share them with me.

What I do expect is enough truth to preserve my agency. Let me choose my life based on reality, just as I allow them to choose theirs.

My wife's affair proved there can be a gap between what someone is entitled to keep private and what another person needs to know in order to exercise meaningful agency in the relationship.

So for me the question is not how to close that gap through better scrutiny. I do not think that is a relationship at all. The question is how peace works once you are fully aware that the gap has existed.