In this conversational segment, Nick Stumbo and three other speakers explore the psychological dynamics that surface during divorce, especially when one partner rewrites marital history to justify an affair. Speaker B introduces the concept of emotional distortion, cognitive dissonance, and rationalization, describing how a spouse may magnify negative moments and squash positive ones, creating a “bent‑mirror” narrative that feels alien to the other partner. Nick Stumbo reflects on his own experience of cognitive dissonance, shame, and the brain’s tendency to downplay harmful behavior while over‑estimating one’s own role as a hero. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing these mental shortcuts, taking genuine responsibility, and avoiding both denial and excessive self‑credit. The discussion then shifts to the realistic view that no marriage is perfect, urging participants to acknowledge both partners’ flaws, retain some positive memories for the sake of children, and balance the narrative of the relationship rather than over‑emphasizing either the good or the bad.
So you note that partners often rewrite their marital history to justify an affair. How can someone find their footing when their former spouse is presenting a vision of the past that feels completely unrecognizable?
I love that question because when I started learning— when I studied a lot when I went through my crisis And I was so happy to find out that rewriting the marital history is actually a common phenomenon. It wasn't just in my case. And so just knowing that, and I go through in my book kind of the stages that lead a person to that point because it usually starts with the emotional distortion that the hormones are kind of lying to them that this is their soulmate or the answer to their life or their midlife crisis. And then they, they go into a stage of cognitive dissonance, and that's where they realize this isn't lining up with my values, but it sure feels good. And so they're in a battle, and they call it cognitive dissonance because it's very uncomfortable. It's like clashing music that doesn't work. And so they spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to solve it. Well, some people, it wakes them up. But other people choose their feelings over their good judgment, and they go for the immediate. And when they do, in order to live with themselves, they rationalize. And that whole concept of rationalization, uh, is to solve cognitive dissonance. And in the process, they will rewrite the marital history, and they will pick out the bad moments and magnify them, and they will squash the good moments and then link them all together into this whole other, um, story that you don't even recognize. And I just remember how mind-bending it was to hear some of his version of our story. I'm not sure I ever loved you. Um, you know, I used to think God brought us together, but I no longer think that, blah, blah, blah, blah, all those kinds of things that were part of our story. And, um, so it just helped me to see the progression and where that came from. I kind of liken it to what I call the bent mirror illustration. I first read about that with David Siemens. He wrote a book on emotional healing. And if you've ever been into a house of mirrors in a carnival, and if the mirror is bent a certain way, you might look tall and thin or short and fat, or your head's exploding. Or if a mirror is flat and accurate, you're going to see an accurate reflection of yourself. And that's what I experienced with my ex-husband at the time we were in our crisis, is I would look in the mirror and, and he was bent, and it made me think I was bent, and my whole perspective was thrown off. So when I recognized it was a bent mirror and I had to rely on accurate mirrors, not just the Word of God, which is a wonderful mirror, but also people that had history with me that knew me and knew I wasn't what he was reflecting back to me.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I remember for me how helpful it was to learn about cognitive dissonance and to see that explained a lot of my habits of rationalizing, minimizing, denying. And I think because in my recovery journey, there were unique points of shame in recovery where I was starting to feel so much shame about how I'd hurt my wife and how had this gone on so long and that feeling like, how could I do this? What's wrong with me? And that realization that, my brain was feeling discomfort. It couldn't align what I was doing and hiding with what I believed. And so my brain, trying to be kind to me and work with me, downplayed my behaviors, downplayed the harm of it, downplayed. And to then hear it come out and, you know, thankfully my wife and I were walking together in recovery to hear her speak truth about the impact. And I was like, well, I didn't do that. Like, no, I need to embrace that was the reality.
Mm-hmm.
So I think for the person going through the divorce, you know, while it doesn't make it easier, it might help them to know their brain is just trying to justify what they're doing. But I don't have to accept that version of reality. That, that's what their brain is doing to make them be able to sleep at night. And that's what the human brain does. I'm not gonna buy into their version, but at the same time, be aware of like, where might our own cognitive dissonance be causing us not to lean into the things we could lean into in our story. I remember an incredibly helpful line I heard around that time about kind of cognitive dissonance said, because of that, we will always underestimate our role in a conflict and overestimate our role in fixing it because our brain wants to feel like we're the hero. So the bad part, like, well, you know, we downplay it and then the parts we help, we overestimate. And I think for me, just to be aware like, okay, that's something my brain tries to do. So I need to be willing to take more responsibility for the problems, more responsibility for the fault, 'cause my brain is probably trying to avoid that. And I need to be careful not to take too much credit. So as we recognize that happening in our brain, I just, I think it's useful to keep in mind and help us to grow and not just get caught up in our own denial.
Yeah, that's excellent. I also think just recognizing there's no two perfect people in a marriage. And, um, and I think just embracing that and being a little more realistic, uh, is, is helpful. I had to go back through, um, some of my old journal notes to realize, yeah, there were more cracks in our relationship than I was willing to admit, uh, because I wanted him on the pedestal because that made me feel good about me, that I picked such a great guy. And so I had to realize I have some cracks and he had some cracks and, uh, we probably could have used help a long time earlier. And then I savored the, the good memories, you know. I, I did get rid of my wedding album, but I saved— I put the pictures on our computer to have them for the sake of our kids. And so there's a balance between remembering that there were some good moments too, besides the overemphasis on the bad.
