“You MUST have known about her cheating,” says anxious outsider.

“No way you didn’t have an idea that she was cheating,” says another anxious outsider.

Whether or not you had suspicions (or even knew of the cheating) is not the same as giving them permission to cheat.

Let’s be honest: Anxious people saying such things about us “knowing” are likely implying we were giving permission. It is just one more betrayal by bystanders to this mess.

To be clear:

Knowing does not entail consent.

I suspect people making such statements about our situations are likely anxious that they might be made into suckers themselves in their marriages. Hence, they want to believe the fiction that they would know if their partner was cheating.

Sadly, that is not how infidelity abuse works. It runs on deception with the faithful partner being the prime target of said deception.

Cheaters often get caught when they get over confident in their deceptions. They think that they are home free when they weren’t first caught. This leads to slip ups.

However, I think most of us spent significant time in the dark to our partner’s infidelities.

It is simply NOT true that we MUST have known. That minimizes the abusive, deceptive behavior of our cheaters.