I don't think the above was in Jen's character.
I'm not sure Jen was clueless, but may not have been positive. It is difficult to make that accusation if your not confident in how true it is.
GR was angry with ES at one point because ES didn't share some of the things she knew. He felt ES betrayed his trust. The shopping trip where Jen was checking out the cologne for example.
I favor the theory of Jen being smitten. Simply because a person that is smitten will display subtle changes. (Most lies have an element of truth to them.) A little pep in their walk so to speak. Maybe there was a slight change in her appearance as confidence is increasing.
GR and the OW were each trying to justify their engaging in an extra-marital relationship with one another to their closest friends, family members, acquaintances, the public and whomever.
We saw him throw plates of spaghetti at the wall when she disappeared. He even employed (IMO, used) others to get his message out there for him. Believe he covered nearly every possibility of what could have happened to her, while simultaneously denigrating her and downplaying that his affair w/her BFF and divorce had a thing to do with her having "disappeared."
GR planted the misinformation that she may have been beginning one herself. He was staging false realities, deliberately planting misinformation with his friends, with her friends, with ES and with whomever else and with anyone else he needed to in order to carry through with his plan.
A skilled gaslighter: intelligent, verbal, respected and well-liked by his friends, even her friends, etc. He was also a persuasive individual: don't forget, we saw him at his most desperate on the internet, in the media and on the videos. When we, the public are introduced to him, at this point she's "vanished." GR is at his most anxious, most fearful, under tremendous scrutiny (LE in home & on property for 4 days) and under incredible stress, etc. Not as smooth and glib as he would normally be.
A man probably very used to usually being able to talk his way out of almost anything.
Highly manipulative and skilled at taking a tiny, thin thread of truth and from there, weaving, spinning and planting lies, rumors, innuendos and possibilities to suit his personal agenda. IMO, he had no plans to ever use the matrimonial court system to "divorce" her. He's intelligent enough to "know" that she's not going to agree to give him the house and sole custody of their 3 children even in exchange for 50% of the value of their home (if he could come up with it), his pension, health insurance, etc. Marriage is longer than 10 years, 3 children, stay-at-home mother, etc. He's not going to spend the amount of time and money required in this kind of a custody/divorce case, and he's not going to give her the house nor agree to let her have primary physical custody of the children (he needs house for the newer, larger family and because he does not want to pay CS).
It's not Hollywood or Reality TV. Jennifer is not going to agree to any such thing, esp for GR to set up house with her BFF, and he knows that. She's not going to move anywhere out of that home, either with or without the children. He knows that, too.
The OW has a husband and children. She's involved with her supposedly close GF's husband. Her GF has now disappeared. Other than to LE (and under a poly), she will say what she needs to say to the public, to her close friends, to her acquaintances, even to herself, etc.
Doesn't mean a word of it is true, only that is what either GR told her or how she is portraying it to others, or how she can make sense of it all to herself, or a combination of a few of these things.
