Because almost all of us were so blindsided by Discovery, we spend weeks, months, even years trying to piece together the "hows, whens and why's" of the deceptions generated by our chronic cheaters.
In attempting to create an orderly narrative out of the chaos that our mate's betrayals brought into our lives, we swing between trying to stabilize ourselves— and—trying to fathom how we missed their deceptions playing out right under our noses, usually for years.
Often, our sense of ourselves as formerly perceptive and/or intuitive can evaporate as we survey the breadth and depth of what are often incredibly elaborate deceptions unfolding in our relationship, unbeknownst to us.
A just-published article in Psychology Today sheds some light on why partners can be easy to dupe, as well as why we often downplay nascent feelings of suspicion or negativity towards our mates when it seems they might be lying to us, typically, before Discovery.
Written by an attorney who is both a career prosecutor and a behavioral expert, as well as an author on a book about deception, we quote here a particularly chilling excerpt from Dr. Wendy L. Patrick's article (hyperlinked, below) :
"Deceivers are thus able to improve their craft by practicing deception within close relationships, and monitoring reaction for signs of distrust.
Burgoon et al. (2015) observed that deceivers capitalize on familiarity to craft lies that are consistent with a receiver´s knowledge base, and watch carefully for signs of disbelief.[v]
They note that liars can thereby improve their performance over time when interacting within familiar relationships. They explain that this improvement is presumably due in part to a reduction in cognitive stress while lying, based on the ability to more easily manage self-presentation with practice."