When my W got involved with OM she seriously thought this guy would swoop in, rescue her from her miserable marriage, and whisk her away. She talked about packing up our children and her entire life and moving 800 miles to a place she's never even seen to live happily ever after. Of course there was the minor issue of his wife and children, but true love conquers all, right? This is the woman who refused to move with me to Texas because she would have been too far (less than 200 miles) from her very healthy and independent widowed mother. And her A was 98% emotional, with very limited physical contact.
My W is still going through withdrawal, but even she shakes her head at what she was thinking back then.
My wife was 47, a caring (almost doting) mother of 4, and a strong Christian woman. Her affair was with a 28 year old "boy" at work, who still lived with his parents, who was studying to become a cop. She would meet up with him in dark parking lots, and have sex in his beat-up truck, while leaving our sons (then 14 and 11) home alone to fend for themselves. Her OM was trying to get her to go on government benefits so she could leave me, since he had nothing financially he could offer her. She was actually considering this.
She was a DEVOTED daughter, who talked to her mother every single day. When her parents disapproved of her affair and her mom confronted her about it, and her father told her how HORRIBLY UPSET her mother was over the whole thing, and was getting sick and not sleeping, she told him "Well, she just needs to get over it."
Oh, and when I re-confronted my wife with my "DECEIT" boundary, and played some voice recordings of her having sex in OM's truck, she listened to the voice on the recording and said (I believe honestly, to her at that moment), "That's not me. Who is that on there?"
It's scary, scary stuff.
They will suddenly listen to completely different genres of music than they ever have before, or suddenly stopping watching TV altogether (or START watching it, when they never had before), use a completely different voice or laugh that you've never heard before, etc.
