Some of these situations are truly SMH believable, but a bit how can someone behave this way and think they are being a good person/good human being (or most likely they don’t care about that or enough about that; they are so needy that they put themselves above examining their own bad and inappropriate behaviors).
Look at Leona and Harry Helmsley. She made him feel like a king, so he threw over a kind Quaker wife because Leona tricked him into thinking she was being courted by another man who could give her marriage.
Some people compartmentalize their life. Perhaps some long term affairs are at first the sex, but then the time they spend together is very compartmentalized. Business life versus personal life. Enjoy the thrill so much.
My MIL has said some dumb things and then also not spoken up when she should. Not sure if she meant to be unkind. BIL was engaged in college, and later his cigarette smoking obese wife (size 24-28 at marriage and beyond) was told by MIL some years later that she wondered what would have happened if BIL had married this gal that MIL liked. Another BIL married a gal that IMHO was a big risk (she dumped him early college time to play the field for years and then wanted back with him for marriage) - MIL didn’t believe marriage would last a year but said nothing to her son about her concerns. This DIL had an affair, then as soon as her H asked her what the h— was going on, she asked for a divorce, married the BF and had a kid together with 2nd H to cement the relationship (it is more warped than that, but those are the basics).
If MIL or FIL has said anything inappropriate to me, it has just gone in one ear and out the other. H would not confront his parents if something was amiss (unless it was so outrageous, but even then he would be an emotional wreck trying to confront), but when his brother was inappropriately using his linguistic abilities to say something unkind to me at my first visit (because he was jealous his brother had a GF), my H to be told him in a very firm voice to cut it out.
ILs have four sons, and three grand-daughters. I am a rock star for producing two grand-daughters that they adore. Plus I am the DIL that they have liked from the get-go (they probably thought this son would never get married, and they thought their son ‘married up’). I know how to get along. H and I were young and I didn’t have a lot of the personality and personal baggage the other 4 DILs have had, and the one son had a lousy 2nd wife who also cheated on him after 12 years of marriage and dumped him to marry the other guy, right after she got H to buy her a new car - similar to wife1 in cheating although the marriage to wife1 was under 8 years). This BIL helped raise W2’s sons, and these fellas still have a relationship with him because he was so good with/for them. The oldest GD who has a mother/dau relationship with grandma because the real mother is so wacko-needy and GD was truly secure and raised with stability of grandparents (grew up in same small town, so spent a lot of nights at grandparents’ house, even when parents were married). Grandma has a hard time saying anything negative or corrective for things this GD does, even moral situations that go against our faith, This GD is a delightful person, just has made some mistakes, and now is paying the price with having married someone that was married at the time she met him/started a relationship with him, and he now is having trouble being faithful to her, and in other areas he is not as good as she thought she was getting during courtship.
