SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

You are not toxic. It is toxic for any man to call any woman a cunt. ESPECIALLY his wife. You are reacting to what your gut is telling you- this person is not safe and is disrespecting you.

Next time he calls you a name or treats you with less respect than you deserve, end the conversation. "I deserve to be treated with respect. When I have had a chance to to collect myself, we can discuss this more." Then leave the room.

This will take a lot of practice. He is baiting you into some form of reaction. Then, when he gets that reaction, he's blaming you for having it. It's like blaming an animal for biting a person when they're cornered.

Please, please, please watch Dr. Ramani on youtube about narcissists. While your WH may or may not be a full blown "evil" narcissist isn't important- he's treating you like crap and displaying narcissistic BEHAVIORS towards you.

One of the recommended tactics Dr. Ramani recommends is "grey rock" - becoming so bland and non-reactive that the narcissist leaves you alone and looks for other supply. One way to do this is to excuse yourself and leave the room when he calls you a cunt. "I refuse to be treated with disrespect. When I am calmed down, we can try to discuss this again." Repeat ad nauseum until he is trained (unfortunately, like a dog) that you are unavailable to him when he is disrespectful of you.

Until he treats you with a baseline of respect, there can be no relationship with him.

Would you put up with a stranger calling you a cunt? Would you expect a friend to?

You guys are in an awesome drama spiral, attempting to manipulate each other. His "no one loves me" is a big manipulation. Probably manipulating himself too by generating self-pity. Power play. Very un-self aware. Reminds me of my brother in law (former).

Your use of his affair…it is absolutely in your rights, he asked for it and deserves it, but I’m not sure what your goal is when you do it. Other than to level the playing field, tit for tat. It seems to work, to put him back on his heels when you do it, based on his whining.

But is that how you want to live?

Your WH is a piece of work. Using the model of the 5 stages of death (of his old reality) he has a long way to go to acceptance.

he doesn’t love me.

He's telling the truth.

You apologized for saying the truth. He wasn't showing you love when he fucked her. And,for that, he calls you a cunt, and tells you he doesn't love you.

And you apologized TO HIM????

Girl. Please. Stop. He is horrible.

You need his permission to leave? Why?

Thank you both

House of plane- I don’t want to be like this. I don’t know why I do it. I think sometimes I feel he hasn’t taken much responsibility for all the crap he put me through. I sometimes feel he pushes it all back on me, like it was my fault he had the affair. Like him telling me there is no love and there was none before. Like I snap. I do this sometimes, I flip my lid and don’t manage my emotions. I need to work on it.
Any mention of the a gets such a reaction from him. Like he caught me looking up some affair recovery websites and he got so angry with me. I had to go and apologise. It is like he wants it all to be forgotten because he feels so much shame and most of the time I try and go along with it but then I just snap because I am so hurt and so angry and also so ashamed sometimes that I put up with it.

HE IS NOT ASHAMED.

You know,just because something makes him mad,doesn't mean hes right. Why are you apologizing?

I don’t know why I do it.

What else are you supposed to do with him? I completely understand why you do it. It gives you power and control where you are constantly having to fight for it. He asks for it.

Watch him and ask yourself if he is manipulating you when you interact (oh hell yes). Then ask yourself, right before you respond, if you are manipulating too. Not saying don’t do it, just try to step outside the game and watch every now and then. Like you are in the bleachers for your own fight. If you put your awareness in it, give it some attention, it will be illuminating. I promise.

Sending strength!

That isn’t right is it?

No. It sure as shit is not. It's so not fucking okay, that it blows my mind that you have to ask. I can honestly tell you that my husband has never ONCE in all our many years together called me a C-word (or any derogatory name). NOT ONCE, and I think if he ever did I'd have to assume aliens had invaded his body, because I can't imagine it ever occurring to him to say such a thing no matter how much vitriol I was dishing out. Not once has he ever told me he didn't love me.

Stop trying to tell yourself that you have to be the perfect person in order for him to not abuse you. That is not the test. He doesn't get to take out his negative emotions on you - no matter what. Your reaction is absolutely normal for someone who has been through trauma. The fact that you felt like apologizing shows enormous maturity.

no one loves me etc which I hear a lot

Boo freaking hoo. What a whiny little baby. He's still so unbelievably wayward. He's upset or stressed so instead of taking the tiniest bit of accountability, obviously it must be your fault. He expects you to boost his ego - just the same way he expected the OW to. It's all about external validation. You want to know what's actually hard? Infidelity. I dont' see him trying to prop up your ego. It is unbelievable to me that he thinks he's entitled to your affection after what he did and how he treats you. Man lemon, you think you're mouthy - that man is LUCKY he hasn't met me because I have a whole list of "choice words" and guess what asshole? I'M VERBOSE!

Ugh, and I don't want to hear the "breadwinner stress" bullshit. Is there stress involved in being the sole income earner for a household? Sure, absolutely, of course there is. BUT HE WANTS YOU TO NOT WORK and just like the A creating a shitty situation in the marriage, he created the debt (obviously - he wouldn't dream of letting you have any money despite the fact that it belongs to both of you). If he wanted to solve the debt problem, he'd get you on the same page and he'd probably encourage you to work like a team would tackle a problem. He doesn't want a teammate though. He'd rather sink both of your ships than ever face up to his faults. And like... also..... GIVE ME A BREAK. I have a full-time "high income" super stressful job, and I've stayed home to take care of little kids and I know for certain which one is more difficult - AND GUESS WHAT, I DO MY JOB WITHOUT THE BENEFIT OF A HOUSEWIFE helping me out. I can't tell you how much easier my life would be if I had a SAHP to take care of logistics and worry about meals and laundry and practice schedules, and drop offs and pickups, and making sure we don't run out of toilet paper, and keeping track of who is about to grow out of their rainboots and whether or not we need to track down the next size up, etc etc etc.

Lemon girl, I'm legitimately scared for you. He's obviously abusive - his gaslighting has been so effective that you doubt yourself so much that you feel the need to write down what he says because you know he's twist it and make you feel crazy or wrong if you call him on it. BUT like, beyond that (as if that were not enough) you know there is debt, but you have no idea how bad things actually are. Despite the fact that you get zero say over how money is spent, you are likely still responsible for family debts at the end of the day. He's putting you in a dangerous position financially. His actions are of someone whose walls are closing in on them. I'm worried about what kind of shitshow he's actually hiding and what that could mean for you and those little ones. And girl.... maybe i'm being dramatic (I am, but I hope you still hear this because it's true), but like, he also fits the profile of a "family annihilator" to a tee.

Do you have a safety plan? Do you have some secret money and copies of important documents stashed away safe somewhere in case you need to leave quickly? Names of shelters? Local help-lines? If not, I think this is something you should be working on. You don't need to be planning to leave, but think of it as an insurance policy. I know you think I'm being over the top about this and you cannot imagine taking your kids to a shelter, but I don't see this ending well and I'm legitimately worried for you. Is there someone who knows the truth about what he's like just in case something were to happen to you? Do you know where the kids passports are if it came down to it (I'm worried about him destroying them or hiding them from you if he gets a whiff that you might leave). I know your parents aren't local, but would they be willing to help you out if you needed them? Send money? Any friends nearby that you trust (I assume he's isolated you from making friends).

[This message edited by emergent8 at 10:13 PM, Thursday, April 11th]

HE IS NOT ASHAMED.

Agree.

Like I snap. I do this sometimes, I flip my lid and don’t manage my emotions. I need to work on it.

Have you ever heard about reactive abuse? I encourage you to look it up, but roughly speaking it occurs when the victim of abuse reacts to the abuse they are experiencing and they might lash out, or spew insults. The abuser then spins it around and retaliates by accusing the victim of being the abuser. They convince the victim that they are unstable or emotionally unwell and that THEY are the problem. And because the victim is a good person, they feel badly about what they said or did, and the abuser is able to manipulate them to believe that they are at fault for what has occurred. Overtime the guilt and shame that the victim feels erodes their confidence until they don't feel confident standing up to the abuser.

Ok, I’ve now D-d my XWH but I tried to R for 3 years and it was brutal. I get that a WH is ashamed / guilty / feeling bad / whatever but that is not an excuse to rugsweep, which it seems to me that your WH wants to do. I absolutely understand why, my WH wanted to do that too. The shame and guilt etc must feel awful.

But, unfortunately, a BS will need to talk about the A. Ideally not in a slanging match, but it will need to be talked about so that healing can happen. It is absolutely understandable that you will eventually snap when he is all ‘woe is me’ when YOU are the one who has been betrayed. Yes, his life now sucks. But you know what, you are suffering too, and it’s thanks to his choices.

And him making his A somehow your fault? Absolute NO. There are other, healthier, ways of dealing with his unhappiness or whatever reason he gives for his A. It took a lot of IC for me to truly believe that I wasn’t at least partly to blame. And once I believed it, there was no way I was going to ever take that responsibility.

You have young children. I get that. All my children were under 6 when I found out. The baby still wasn’t sleeping through the night. I was far from home. I was not in a position to leave, even though I instinctively felt that I was not going to be able to get past it. All that to say, it’s ok to take your time. Slow down, but open your eyes and take a long hard look at what he is showing you. Would that be what you would want for a daughter of yours?

I remember having a meltdown around our wedding anniversary. Just completely spiralling. And my WH basically told me that I should be over it. I never forgot that. I wasn’t nice (and I felt guilty for that), but I was in so much pain and needed help. And he just couldn’t help me. How a WS acts after the D Day bit by bit form the real picture of what you have before you. And then you can decide whether that is really what you want.

Emergent 8

Thank you so much for your lengthy reply. I am not worried that he will hurt me or the children. I do talk to one or two close friends but I have been embarrassed recently.

I can go home but it is illegal for me to take the children to my home country for more than 28 days without his consent I guess to prevent kidnapping. I think I need to start individual counselling again to really work out what I want. My family are not happy with how he has treated me over the years but are very religious so I guess encouraged me to give it a go when he was apologetic. However, he will it speak to them anymore he says because he is too ashamed.

Lemon pie - you are right about moving children to a different country, you need his consent or a court order. I think it is The Hague Convention or something like that. However, that works both ways, he cannot move the children without your consent or a court order. So lock up their passports if you have access to them. Or give them to a lawyer for safekeeping. Or store them in a safety deposit box. Something like that. I never thought my XWH would take the children from me (still don’t) but just for peace of mind I kept the passport locked away.

Also, access to money. Whether you R or D, it’s always good to have access to some money that is readily accessible only by you. Just in case. A simple bank account in your sole name would do the job. There have been cases of WSs cleaning out joint bank accounts, or hiding money offshore. If you don’t have access to cash, it’s hard to fight the legal battle if it all goes wrong. Again, nothing I really thought my WH would do, but I had my own account. Just in case.

Perdita- my husband sounds very similar to yours. I do get the whole shame thing. My husband always prided himself on being this morally upstanding family man. He broke his own moral code

He had some midlife crisis which he felt entitled too. I think I said before when he was still going behind my back and seeing her he actually told me all the drama was my fault, that I should have just ignored the affair and it would have ended on its own.

But he rubbed it in my face, he didn’t even try and hide it.

He did wake up from that fog and seemed so remorseful and tried so hard and did listen to my anger and pain but there was a limit and the past few months things have just been slipping back to the old ways but worse because he is drinking so much more to cope with the shame

[This message edited by Lemonpie at 7:10 AM, Friday, April 12th]

One more thing, if you have access to any family financial information - joint bank accounts, investments, properties - now is the time to make a copy and store it somewhere safe. Can be as simple as taking photos / screenshots and emailing it to a new email account that you set up. If you have consulted a lawyer (always something I would recommend, just to find out how things to could look and also to find out any steps that might help while you decide what to do) you might be able to email them copies with instructions to just keep them on your file (so no large costs are incurred).

None of these things are necessarily steps towards D. This is information that anyone in a marriage should have access to to cover unforeseen situations. What if he were to have some horrible accident, and you need to manage the family finances? That kind of thing. It’s protecting you and your children. I know only too well how easy it is to slip into ‘you take of the finances, and I’ll take care of the children’.

If he felt shame,he would be treating you kinder. Shame means he feels bad he hurt you. Does it make any sense at all that he would feel shame and still call you names, be controlling with money, bring the kids into it,etc?

If you hurt him, would you call him a POS because he was sad about it? No. You wouldn't want to inflict more pain.

You think he feels shame because you would feel shame if you cheated. You are projecting feelings onto him that he doesn't have.

Oh yes, the entitlement, I’ve seen that. In my case there was a bit of ‘affairs are so common, everyone is doing it’ (helped by the particular industry and place we were living in). I retorted that I didn’t care what ‘everyone else’ was doing, that wasn’t what I signed up for, and he knew that when he married me.

And I hear you, and feel your pain, about being abandoned when you needed him. If I may tell one last anecdote? We had gone on a trip to another city (me, him, the kids). My XWH was going into the office on one of the days since he was in town. No problem with me, I get he works hard. Then he decided to stay in a hotel near the office the night before as he has to be in early in the morning and our holiday hotel was further out. Again, I get it, the hours are long and the children will sleep early anyway. What did I find out actually happened? A drunken night out that turned into no strings sex. While I was left to look after little children. He actually phoned me the next morning while she was still in his hotel room. I almost threw up when I worked that out.

I have more similar stories but I’ll stop there. Needless to say that is one city that will take me a while to reclaim.

[This message edited by Perdita1 at 11:09 PM, Thursday, April 11th]

From my IC sessions, the stabbing or backlash response is sourced from the frustration of the situation. It’s like I’m told, anger is a secondary response to a primary feeling, typically that is frustration. And why wouldn’t you be frustrated, you simply want to heal from this yet you are still being attacked. My EMDR and IC sessions helped me to understand that. It has been very challenging to resist the urge to snap back with rude comments, but as I believe more in myself and realize that I am a good and worthy individual, I find it easier to take the high ground and calmly discuss whatever needs discussing. If my wife reacts negatively I simply say I’m finished with the conversation and skidattle off elsewhere until she is ready to talk rationally and in a calm manner. If she goes into the "I’m just crap, I’m evil" mode, I again just say I’ll be back when she’s able to talk in a more mature manner. It’s an amazingly powerful feeling to regain control of one’s emotions. Work on that, it is very empowering.

Oh, and to agree with the others, he is quite the manipulative piece of work that one!

What got me in THIS post is your comment about the FAMILY car.

Same here.

Maybe it is a cultural difference.

I currently make around 10 times what my spouse does, and the gap between our earnings has grown over the last 30 years, from 2 times up to the current level. But I have never considered any of the money I make "mine" since the day we got engaged, never mind being married.

With the exception of during her affair, she has behaved likewise.

Thank you! He has just come in demanding an apology for what I said yesterday. Basically telling me it happened a year ago and I cannot mention it anymore. He is now denying calling me those names and I started the whole thing as I don’t show him any love. For an easier life I will go with it but I am going to look into ic and going to try and not react to things he says

That sounds very sensible Lemonpie. Get yourself into IC, try and grey rock him, and start putting the practical things in place to protect yourself (open a sole bank account, get an initial lawyer consult etc). You don’t deserve this. Seeing what is really happening in front of you is the first step.

I relate so hard to the WH not wanting the BS to bring up the A. As if it was ignored it would all go away. That made me just want to push more and more, I wanted (needed) him to fully own it and the pain he had caused. The more he shut me down, the more I wanted to talk about it. It’s a vicious cycle.

Thinking long term, I think your eldest is 6? You can (very tentatively) start thinking about where you ideally want to live with your children, your current country or your home country or somewhere else. With or without him. Get legal advice as to how to plan, long term, for the outcome that you want. You’ve got a few years before your eldest enters high / senior school. Time to manoeuvre and get your ducks in a row.

[This message edited by Perdita1 at 9:52 AM, Friday, April 12th]

One more thing that might help you - document the instances where he denies reality (such as denying he called you names). No need to argue with him, just write it down asap. Maybe in this thread. The idea is for you to be able to look over it and really see how he is twisting the truth. You will forget specific instances over time but having a running list gives you something to return to when it feels like your grip on reality is shaky.