Compartmentalization is really the act of setting thoughts and feelings aside so that they don't interfere with your ability to focus on a task at hand; for example, a surgeon will block out the fight that he had with his wife that morning so he doesn't accidentally make the wrong incision when he's cutting someone open.
I agree with this, and to be honest, even outside of the A, my husband is extremely good at this exact type of thing in a way I am not. Shutting out everything else in order to focus on the task at hand.
What difference does any of this make?
Understanding compartmentalization and talking about it here, was incredibly important in my ability to accept, understand, and heal. My husband was (and is) undeniably a compartmentalizer – both in life, work, and his A. Obviously not entirely…. like, as Trdd mentions, 100% would be impossible, he obviously remembered my existence when he was with OW (the only way I think complete compartmentalization would be possible would be in a situation of like multiple personality disorder type situation), but that said… he very much had everything - and everyone - in separate boxes. He had different modes. Married mode was future focused (we were actively trying to get pregnant during much of the A) and things were good between us, and A-mode, where he tried not to think of me (because it made him feel guilty – and that kind of ruined the mood). Like Hiking and Hellfire describe, he never talked badly about me and steered any conversation about spouses at all away – I have read the messages. When was with me, he typically wasn’t sneaking off to the bathroom to message her. In fact, he set down some rules with her about when messaging was allowed and when it wasn’t because he was afraid I’d see something. Although he had some minor marital gripes/complaints that he was using to justify his feelings of entitlement to some degree, he also seemed to appreciate how bullshit this was, and at no point did he ever even insinuate that I in any way bore any responsibility for his decision to cheat.
My husband’s A was also a cake-eating A – he never fell in love with the OW. He dropped OW like a hot potato the second I found out and never looked back. I know that makes his A different in nature from a "tru-wuv" A that is "justified" on the basis of destiny, deep connections, and fairy dust, but I hardly think it makes him a unicorn. I think we all tend to look for people whose stories mirror our own, and I have read many similar accounts by other posters here over the years.
When I say that he was a compartmentalizer, I don’t think of it as an excuse (and no part of me ever has) and my husband has never tried to use it that way. Although I suppose I’m grateful I didn’t ever have to read denigratory messages about myself, I don’t think it makes the A or all of the lying that went into it any less bad or any more palatable. In some ways, it felt worse (in that way the worst thing you can imagine is what you’re going through). If he cheated because he thought things were bad, I could maybe make sense of that, but if he could cheat on me when things were good, it just felt dangerous and nonsensical – how could I ever be safe? If R was on the table, I needed to understand it.
I have ADHD, and my ability to focus on one single thing at the expense of other things is both my weakness (distraction!) and a superpower (hyperfocus! Multitasking!). I wasn’t diagnosed until adulthood, but I grew up incredibly aware that other people’s brains – my husband’s specifically - worked differently than mine. Although I can maybe comprehend being tempted into a one-night-stand situation, I just can’t picture being able to live day-to-day with my spouse (as my husband had) and not being overcome by OVERWHELMING guilt. I was very much worried that if my husband was able to do that, he must be some sort of emotionless sociopath. Kind of like what Bluer describes here:
There are some cheaters who are able to put their affairs and their marriages into 2 completely separate boxes because they are completely devoid of empathy and think they're entitled to seek pleasure with little concern or consideration for the consequences of their actions. They don't compartmentalize as a coping mechanism because they don't need to; they're only capable of surface-level emotions.
If he was this person, I was deathly afraid of that. It meant: a) I didn’t actually know him at all, and b) he was absolutely not someone who was cut out for R or could ever be trusted again. Avoidance/compartmentalization as a coping mechanism to avoid negative emotions/guilt is different than not experiencing guilt at all.
In my view, compartmentalization isn’t about how one gets into the A in the first place, it’s more about how they justify the guilt over what they are doing once they are already in it. Some Waywards tell themselves that their BS is a villain in order to justify it, other waywards try not to think about the BS’s at all.
So yes, I don’t know of the data you’re referring to Apollos or even what thread prompted the conversation, but this is just me describing my actual experience. I know it is not the experience of everyone but I don’t think it’s exquisitely rare either.