Yup you did.. you were talking about how infidelity eventually grows to a point where the spouse starts to introduce their OP to friends and family because they reach a point where social acceptance is necessary... and you had a lis tof stages with that as one of them... i swear you did lol
I've talked about the need for a wayward spouse to "normalize" their illicit relationship into their regular circle of friends and family, but I don't have any LIST of stages or anything.
I checked my personal archives, and this is all I could come up with:
“Normalization”
"Normalization" refers to the process a wayward spouse will go thru in order to get their circle of family and friends to accept their affair partner. It is VERY important to them that everyone do so, and it's typically part of their fantasy that "everyone will be okay," and "will all get along."
Rarely does a wayward spouse envision any push-back, or at least they vastly underestimate it.
It's also VERY much typical "script" for a cheating spouse to deny the existence of an affair partner, until some time later, AFTER the marriage is either divorced or formally separated. Then, "all of a sudden," the wayward spouse will announce to their family that "I've just met someone."
I made sure my husband couldn't pretend he'd just met the skank he left me for by telling his family (he'd dropped all of his friends but his new drinking buddies) and his coworkers that he was cheating on me with her. Luckily, she has no education and can't speak English and looks like "the low rent version" of me, according to male friends, so it will be hard to pass off his tramp as someone new. I think that it's disgusting, though, that no one in his family stood up for our marriage. They just "want [my husband] to be happy" - and so easily wrote me off. I have a suspicion that my father-in-law, though, may rebel against the mother's dictum that whatever my h wants is ok. He is a minister and I am sure that he will not be able to hold his tongue over the long run about what my h has done to me - or what kind of woman he is now with. I just wish I could be there to hear it when it happens.
Discovered OW1: 1/10, H refused to talk. H moved in w 1st OW: 3/10 H cheated on OW1: 12/10 H left OW1, moved in w OW2: 4/11 D: 9/11 Still miss H. Don't understand, H just left, never even talked w me.
