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15yrsinthemaking

Your sexual history before starting to date your husband - is NOT a reason to "beat you up" now.

15 Years ago - ???

Just wow - I agree with 3yrsout in that something with your BS attitude and maybe behavior (asking for a timeline from 15 years ago???!!!) is just off or plain fishy.

The thought of BS having had or is having an affair occurred to me a few days ago. So I add to 3yrsout suspicion with this post.

It just doesn't seem "average/normal" for someone to want to beat up their spouse for their sexual history - 15 YEARS later. IF YOU HAD AN AFFAIR after engagement/marriage, HELL YEAH BS would be right in wanting the details.

Add me to the "never give up total custody of your children." If I was to find out later in life my mother did so, I would forever be asking myself why. I don't even want to explore the possible reasons.

You?

I don't think any spouse is worth fighting for if "to win" one has to give up child custody.

By custody I mean abrogating your ability to see them at least 50% of their years before they fledge.

Perhaps you have more to share regarding your marriage?

Please clarify things for me,because I'm not seeing what others are seeing.

The way I understand it..

You were exclusive with your boyfriend 16 years ago. You cheated on him for months,and he found out. He asked questions, you told him what you did, the two of you worked it out, and went on to marry. Only you didn't tell him the truth about the cheating.

Over the years,he asked questions about it,but you still continued to lie to him.

Then there was another incident of cheating,an EA, that was discovered by your husband, and you lied about it.

His gut was screaming, so he continued to ask questions, and you lied about the EA, and the affair from years ago.

You kept getting defensive, and telling him he knew everything,when he didn't.

You have insisted he knew it all,to him, and to us, several times since becoming a member.

You only told him the entire truth last week.

So you have lied for many,many years.

Look, I don't think you should relinquish custody of your children. No matter what. Ever.

But I don't think it's fair to say this man didn't love you. He may be lashing out, and trying to hurt you as much as you hurt him. That's wrong, but he's been given yet another dday, and it's understandable he wants to hurt you.

Has he gone to an attorney and filed for full custody?

Saying a BJ ended the marriage is unfair. The lies did that. He's been given,at minimum, 4 ddays. Lied to for 16 years,and told over and over he finally has the entire truth,only to have the rug ripped from under him. It's cruel. That ended the marriage. If I were to find out my husband went down on a woman, when we were exclusive, and I had been asking him about it, for 16 years, and he lied to me, then went on to given me 3 more ddays, it would be the straw that broke the camels back. A person shouldn't have to put up with that much abuse.

But that doesn't mean you give up your kids. They don't deserve that. Never give up your kids for a man. Ever.

Thanks for telling me I should get bent. I appreciate that after posting my concerns in a kind manner.

I've had to step back for a minute to try to figure out this thread. Let me start by saying that I agree with every word of Hellfire's post. Nothing in this scenario justifies 15yrs giving up custody of her children. At the same time, it's far from the first time I've heard hyperbolic demands on SI, and I've never seen it turn into speculation that the BS was a cheating, abusive psychopath. CT argued that of course 15yrs kept lying about the BJ, because she was afraid he'd react badly if she told the truth, and it turns out she was right. This made me feel like I was in some Twilight Zone version of SI. Since when do we mitigate lying because the WS only did it to avoid the consequences of the truth? Since when do we say that a BS is a douche or an insecure wallflower for feeling the pain of betrayal?

So I've developed a hypothesis. Usually, our membership tries pretty hard to validate that cheating is cheating, and whether it's physical/emotional/cyber doesn't create a hierarchy of pain. However, we all have our own private opinions of what makes one affair worse than another. Some of us could forgive a drunken ONS as long as there was no emotional component. One BH posts routinely that he couldn't have cared less about the EA aspects of his wife's affair, but he'll never get over the kinky sex. Most of us have probably eyerolled someone's story at some point in our years here. But usually, we are able to put these things aside and meet the BS where they are, even if we don't entirely agree on the severity of the offense.

The problem for OP's BH is that her affair intersects several common "less than" cases.

1. It happened before they were married. We have many posters who tie the severity of an affair to the violation of formal vows. It's one of the reasons that an unmarried arrival in JFO is almost uniformly advised to run. Dating is just an audition for marriage, so you're supposed to be lucky that the betrayal happened before things were "real."

2. OP was young. This is the prefrontal cortex argument, that no one that age can be held fully accountable for their actions because they lack impulse control.

3. The trickle truth didn't follow a typical escalation pattern. The BH already knew "the worst," that there was a PA with penetrative sex. A standard TT escalation goes from "it's not what you think" to "ok we just kissed once" in a sequential rounding of bases until the confession of the final score. The BH here knew OP and AP crossed home plate before he proposed, so some members may feel the intervening sex acts fall under the umbrella of that offense.

4. It was a long time ago. Because the BH has been aware of the affair itself for a decade, some members may believe the statute of limitations ran out on his right to relitigate specific offenses.

Not all members will agree that these cases reduce the severity of an affair, but there are enough of them to predispose a significant subset of the site to have that private eyeroll. So when that BH, in a triggered state, crosses the line on the custody issue, he doesn't have the same deep reservoir of goodwill that a more typical BH would have. Because his pain is seen as less legitimate, he is expected to behave more rationally; when he can't, he's cast as nefarious rather than traumatized.

My problem with this is that all the exception cases I listed also applied to my own A. If anyone thinks I don't know about those private eyerolls being applied to my own situation, I do. We both do. It's one of the reasons he rarely posts. But I can tell you honestly, he wasn't ramming his pain down my throat as an abusive asshole. He had the symptoms in van der Kolk's "The Body Keeps the Score" for years before either of us read it. And if you read about PTSD, you learn that you can't get free of it with time, or traditional therapy, or bootstrapping. My BH hated himself for being unable to recover, and I can't tell you the kind of damage it would have done to him to read a thread like this about himself after D-Day.

15yrs, you do have to protect yourself. There's really no way to know what the effect of your lies, gaslighting and TT will do to your BH's psyche long term, especially if he has a Wormtongue whispering in his ear on another site. You have to renege on your offer. My guess is that over time, he'll realize for himself that you should never have offered and could not honorably deliver. But for the moment, I can see why he's triggered by you promising something and then taking it back, like you have so many times before. That's just one of the many poor choices you made that you now need to pay for by enduring his distrust and contempt. But you cannot pay for it with your kids.

[This message edited by BraveSirRobin at 9:51 AM, April 30th (Friday)]

Right now, your bh is in pain and in a world of confusion. So, yes he may have said that you are acting in a wayward manner by going back on your word about custody, but I believe in time he will realize that you going back on custody is not wayward thinking at all. He will see it as the mother of his children realizing that she should not have offered it in the first place. He will see that his wife was willing to do absolutely anything to prove to get husband that she wants to be with him.

Now, if he never realized that and always holds it over your head, you need to think long and hard. Do you really want to be married to someone who wanted you to give up custody?

You honestly have no idea what he will do. Right now he may not be kicking you out or holding the kids from you, but you don't know how he will be once those custody and divorce papers are signed. No one is saying that you shouldn't do everything possible to prove to him, but giving up custody should never be one of them. You said something in the heat of the moment because you saw your life slip through your hands. We have all been there unfortunately. I know you are deathly afraid of what he will think when you tell him that you are not giving up custody, but think about those babies first. They are the most important thing. Not your husband. Not your marriage. Not the life you once had. Those babies are. If he is this amazing man that you claim he is, then he too will see that. Yes, he may be angry for a bit, but he will see and know that the mother of his children have every right to them as he does.

I'm going to avoid the exception issues. Personally, the fact that my WH had sex outside the M hurts like hell, but for me , its the LIES that basically killed the M.

I agree 100% with BSR and others who say trauma or trauma response can lead to out of character behavior. It did for me personally, and I've read countless other BS who had similar experiences.

That situation (the trauma) - ALONE - is enough to not sign over your kids.

That situation - ALONE - is enough to have REASONABLE concern about how much to trust your BH until he can get some healing under his belt. This isn't victim blaming, it's recognizing the ways in which trauma can impact a person.

After my own dday, I engaged in a host of trauma response behaviors that would shock folks who have known me my entire life. There were times (note: more than once) when WH and I would be in the kitchen and the desire to stab him was so strong I literally had to put it down and walk away. I intentionally burned my own body. The list is long. There is a reason why many/most therapists / books on infidelity (or trauma) advise the betrayed to not make ANY big decisions for AT LEAST three months (and IME, the majority were more like at least six months). It's because the trauma screws with our wiring and many - in both an emotional AND EVEN BIOLOGICAL sense- can't think straight.

One thing that is pretty much universally espoused on SI is that you have to let go of the outcome...

By signing over your kids in an attempt to save the M, your actions today are the exact opposite of that (IMHO good) advice. And you are now injecting potential damage TO YOUR CHILDREN by doing so.

Great posts! Great analysis.

Walking back your errant offer:

Could you put it something like this 15yrs?:

“You and our kids are the most important things in my world and I refuse to lose either of you. In my desperation to save what I love most in this world I offered up one of two things that should never be given up, my children. I am done with betrayals and giving things up that are most important to me. I will not give up my children and I will not give up on you or this marriage! “

[This message edited by RealityBlows at 2:22 PM, April 25th (Sunday)]

3ys,

Thanks for telling me I should get bent. I appreciate that after posting my concerns in a kind manner.

I would like to apologize for my knee jerk reaction. I feel that BS is being unfairly thrown through the mud. And I will control my emotions. And I do appreciate all POVs.

BSR, for me it’s not so much the this is less than this. Something honestly just feels really off here. Like it’s just not completely adding up. That there’s more to the story. Just my feelings of course, and of course some of that could definitely be personal bias.

15yrs, the lovely thing about this site is you’ll get all different opinions, but you’re certainly not obligated to agree with all! Take what you feel is needed for your situation.

CT argued that of course 15yrs kept lying about the BJ, because she was afraid he'd react badly if she told the truth, and it turns out she was right. This made me feel like I was in some Twilight Zone version of SI. Since when do we mitigate lying because the WS only did it to avoid the consequences of the truth? Since when do we say that a BS is a douche or an insecure wallflower for feeling the pain of betrayal?

What can we say when the response is as abnormal as this? It doesn't make rational sense that this guy would need a divorce when he already KNEW the pertinent facts before the marriage even took place. He knew she'd had sex with her previous boyfriend. He knew she'd done it multiple times. This was all seven YEARS before he even proposed. So at this point, he's demanding everything but the clothes on her back, including her CHILDREN over a single incident of oral that he didn't know about. That's NOT rational. It's not even trauma. There's nothing there to be traumatized over past the point where the sex was condoned all those years ago. His reaction is not within the parameters of a normal psychology.

That he's focused on the blow job suggests some sort of neurosis, maybe Madonna/whore fixation? ...who knows? We see that he's got no problems with receiving BJ's as witnessed by getting them from his wife during the marriage and from her friend all those years ago, so this is, without question, about her giving them. So how supportive should we be of neurotic behavior and where's the end point? Should we be supportive and understanding if a BH demands a WW's life? Because that's where this kind of abnormal response ends up every single day in cultures all around the globe. Where do we draw the line on the expectation of reason after infidelity??? Are we really willing to hold WW's responsible for the preexisting mental illnesses of their husbands?

I do think the OP would have been wise to go ahead and tell all the details back in the very beginning. I think this whole situation could have been avoided if she had. Maybe then, it would have been her rejecting him instead. But as I've said, this is the ONLY thing she's guilty of so the penalty is far outstripping the crime.

I feel that BS is being unfairly thrown through the mud.

Why do you think that? Seriously. Why do you believe your husband is above any criticism for how he's treated you? I'm sincerely curious to know.

It's not about a blow job. It's about nearly 2 decades of lies.

And why is anyone saying he is demanding she give up the kids?

Not really, in a conversation we had awhile back I said I wouldn't take the kids from him and I'd give him custody. I never want him to stay with me because the of the kids.

She told him she would give him custody. Did I miss where he told her to do it?

Demanding may not be the right word, but she said she didn’t realize what that meant when she offered it, and when she read about it and had second thoughts, he accused her of wayward thinking. So he may not be demanding it, but thus far he’s holding her to it, which is completely unreasonable.

Are we really willing to hold WW's responsible for the preexisting mental illnesses of their husbands?

Would everyone that is qualified to diagnose an internet stranger with a mental illness through second hand info please raise their hand.

It was before BH and I had became an official couple but we were suppose to be sexually exclusive. I had been dating BH for 3 months when I gave OM the bj. And I did lie about my actions

This is cheating. OP then continued to lie and TT for years. BS was never given all the info. We scream on the roof tops for WS's to be completely honest, Give the BS their agency back. So the BS can make educated decisions. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't the sexual act that is destroying the BS. Maybe its the continual lying! Let's not forget about the EA. Yet some of you are advocating it wasn't a big deal. Put your big boy pants on and move on. You know what's damaging to a BS? telling them there feelings aren't valid. Then to throw out all these accusations. It's crazy.

Also can someone explain to me the difference between being exclusive and official? It sure sounds like 15 is minimizing her actions. Any other WS would be flamed for that.

Then everyone seems to be missing a HUGE point:

Lies are something I was taught to do by my mother.

A pattern of lying that must be addressed. Up until very recently at least, lying is still acceptable to you 15.

Another thing. All this talk about OP still developing mentally when her cheating occurred (almost excusing her actions). What about the BS? The person he wants to be with and eventually marry cheats on him! What kind of scar does that put on his growth? She gets a pass. He's left in pain, and told he shouldn't feel.

ALL of this should have been addressed years ago, but it wasn't. So its very very likely the pain from BETRAYAL TRAUMA is still very real for the BS! Imagine you're a BS with a similar BETRAYAL story to 15's husband, and you stumbled onto SI. Imagine finding this thread first. Hearing the BS is the problem. Hearing he/she should just get over it. Jeez that could be really damaging.

Can I ask everyone that's posted so far please read Bigger's thread in General: Fantasy versus reality

15,

You know yourself and your husband best. Did you cheat more than once (PA & the EA)? Did you lie about it afterwards (for over a decade)? Is your husband truly in pain? Let's help 15 the best we can with the info we have. Not with what our funny bone might be telling us (if more is shared, we will absolutely be here to help).

Honesty is your only path forward. That also means doing things that aren't easy. Like telling your husband you won't give up custody rights.

[This message edited by Neanderthal at 7:25 PM, April 25th (Sunday)]

BJ and custody aside. Lies aside. All that stuff aside. He can be mad at you because you have red hair. Whatever. He can berate you because of your lies. He can be mad over BJ or not. You cannot control his feelings. But you can control how you react to his feelings. For example, by not making “I’ll give you anything” promises.

This is about you, and needs to be about you fixing your issues and becoming “safe”.

It is a dysfunctional coping skill to promise someone inappropriate things, which is what I was attempting to point out. And it concerns me that your thought process is such that you didn’t see the custody promise as inappropriate.

Perhaps your inappropriate promises are there because of FOO issues, whatever. My WH has shitty boundaries because he was molested as a kid, so he does this.

But I think it warrants a pause and a thought of why when someone makes inappropriate promises. It’s another manifestation of poor boundaries. And your BS seems ok with that, so he likely has poor boundaries, too, or knows how to push your buttons. I’m a button pusher, I know when other BS do it, because I know what to look for in my own WH when I push his buttons. He gives me anything I want, too. And it doesn’t help. In fact, it reinforces that he still has poor boundaries and is impulsive. This is a bad trait in reconciliation. Impulsivity is not good.

And defensiveness is never helpful, even if you offer it up on someone else’s behalf. I’m sure he didn’t ask you to say that to me, and prolly if he read it, I doubt he’d care. Your BH does not need to be defended from strangers on the internet. This is also poor boundaries. You’re trimming his garden but neglecting your own. Trimming your own garden would look different than this. Jumping in like a KISWA now (why now?!?!? And from me?!?! Please, as I posted before, ain’t no one a saint. I’m the first to call myself a bitch. But what I said was out of concern FOR YOU)..... this now is a little too little a little too late.

Look at your boundaries, the truth lies there.

Let's not forget about the EA. Yet some of you are advocating it wasn't a big deal.

If I'm reading correctly, the EA also predates the marriage proposal. So, he would have known about that going into the marriage. Unless I've missed something, the only thing he's missed is the BJ which happened sixteen years ago.

And no.. I don't agree with telling lies. But I really don't believe that this is about the lie. I think it's about the blow job. If she had put a dent in his fender sixteen years ago and denied it until a couple of weeks ago, does anyone think a rational person would demand a divorce??? What this guy is saying by his actions is that he would not have married her if he had known about that blow job, even though she might have had dozens of sexual encounters and all the wild monkey sex they could manage. No. His stopping point was her lips on a penis, even though he tolerates female lips on his own penis. That smacks of neurosis if you ask me.

His stopping point was her lips on a penis

and so what if it is! Every single BS has the right to divorce at any time. Again, look at the precedent you're setting. Who are you, or any of us to decide what detail is enough to send a BS out the door?

That smacks of neurosis if you ask me

So you raised your hand.

and so what if it is! Every single BS has the right to divorce at any time. Again, look at the precedent you're setting. Who are you, or any of us to decide what detail is enough to send a BS out the door?

People can choose to divorce for ANY reason. That's the point of "no fault" divorce. Her WH could have gotten up one morning and decided he didn't like the shape of her nose or the sound of her voice. It's his right to divorce for whatever reason he decides. That doesn't mean he fits the bill as "rational".

Our OP is having a lot of trouble sorting out the guilt she feels about allowing that lie to stand for so many years. She's having obvious trouble trying to put some context around what the penalty should be. I think it's completely fair to point out that her WH's expectations that she allow him to take all the assets and her children in the divorce is irrational (even though she's the one who offered it in a fit of desperation). I also think it's fair to explore possible reasons for that kind or irrational response. None of us live in that guy's head, so of course we can't say for sure what's going on. All we can do is speculate at possible motives, that's true. I'm just saying, in my honest opinion... that guy's got some sort of neurotic fixation. The OP seems to think he's perfect and that she's defective. But he's NOT perfect, and even though she has some issues to work out, she's not a disposable person. Her kids need her.

Well this thread is unusual.

You have a WW who cheated twice, lied about it for years, including being in love with the OMs and all she gets is custody advice and an explanation why the BH is an horrible person. The BH should just get over it because some poster had sex when she was young... a BJ is not important, an EA is not important, lying for a number of years is not important and it happened a long time ago, so who cares?

So I’m with hellfire on this one.

How about the standard advice?

Is there anything I can do to help my BH

Go to IC. Work on yourself to become a safe partner. Even if you D and and enter in a new relationship in the future, becoming a safe partner will still help you. It takes a lot of time and effort but it will benefit you in the future.

Many betrayed find the lying worst than the cheating. You need to understand that he has no idea what is true and not true anymore. For all he knows, you had 26 affairs in the past 2 years.

So you will need to rebuild trust, by always answer his questions truthfully. You could offer a timeline, checked with a polygraph but... it sounds like he’s dead set on D, there’s no point.

When you D, your WH goes his way and you go your way, so you can’t help your soon to be X BH, aside from being courteous when you negotiate who gets the kids at Xmas.

As for the children, do what’s best for them.

I'm going to do my best to address all the concerns and questions.

You were exclusive with your boyfriend 16 years ago. You cheated on him for months,and he found out. He asked questions, you told him what you did, the two of you worked it out, and went on to marry. Only you didn't tell him the truth about the cheating.

Yes, I lied about the extent of the AP, yes it was for the first 6 months of me dating BH. BH had a small picture of what I had done. He did not know the full extent of my AP. He didn't fully learn of it all until last week. I did TT him and my marriage to death. He also didn't know the full extent of the EA. I lied about the feeling I had, I just brushed it away. BH has said that if he know the full extent of my PA he wouldn't have contiuned our relationship.

Your sexual history before starting to date your husband - is NOT a reason to "beat you up" now.

BH isn't "beating me up" over what I did prior to meeting him. BH has a problem with what I did when I was suppose to be only be having sex with him. And I agreed to only have sex with him and I did NOT stay true to my word.

I've never seen it turn into speculation that the BS was a cheating, abusive psychopath.

My BH has done thing in our relationship to recieve this type of ridicule. BH has only been faithful and honest to me.

Personally, the fact that my WH had sex outside the M hurts like hell, but for me , its the LIES that basically killed the M.

My lies are why my marriage is in the state it is in.

What can we say when the response is as abnormal as this? It doesn't make rational sense that this guy would need a divorce when he already KNEW the pertinent facts before the marriage even took place. He knew she'd had sex with her previous boyfriend. He knew she'd done it multiple times. This was all seven YEARS before he even proposed. So at this point, he's demanding everything but the clothes on her back, including her CHILDREN over a single incident of oral that he didn't know about. That's NOT rational. It's not even trauma. There's nothing there to be traumatized over past the point where the sex was condoned all those years ago. His reaction is not within the parameters of a normal psycholog

I will try to make this as clear as possible. My bh did not know the extent of my PA. And I lied about my EA. He wasn't able to make a clear and honest choice because I lied

Why do you think that? Seriously. Why do you believe your husband is above any criticism for how he's treated you? I'm sincerely curious to know.

I do not believe he is above criticism. But he didn't knowing and willing choose to stay with me because I lied about my actions. Had he know what I did he would haven't contuined our relationship. I took his oppertunity of know the truth about my actions and lead him to believe it was much less than what it was. BH didn't KNOW the full truth of my actions. I lied to keep him in my life. Because I knew what I did was fucked and still wanted to be with him.

It's not about a blow job. It's about nearly 2 decades of lies.

And why is anyone saying he is demanding she give up the kids?

It is about the LIES. And no he is not demanding anything. At any point in time I do have the choice not to sign the paperwork. But I know my BH will not take my kids away from me. BH hasn't done anything to make me feel threated. He hasn't asked me to leave our home and we are still living as a family. I hurt my BH and I betrayed him.

Our OP is having a lot of trouble sorting out the guilt she feels about allowing that lie to stand for so many years. She's having obvious trouble trying to put some context around what the penalty should be. I think it's completely fair to point out that her WH's expectations that she allow him to take all the assets and her children in the divorce is irrational (even though she's the one who offered it in a fit of desperation). I also think it's fair to explore possible reasons for that kind or irrational response. None of us live in that guy's head, so of course we can't say for sure what's going on. All we can do is speculate at possible motives, that's true. I'm just saying, in my honest opinion... that guy's got some sort of neurotic fixation. The OP seems to think he's perfect and that she's defective. But he's NOT perfect, and even though she has some issues to work out, she's not a disposable person. Her kids need her

I do have a tremendous amount of guilt and shame for my actions. I will start IC this week. As far as BH being neurotic, not so. He is HURT. I understand no one is perfect but the amout of crap that is being spoken about my BH is very disheartening. He is not the one who lied about his actions, he didn't know the full extent of my actions.

-- My BH isn't soley focused on the BJ, it's the lies before and after the BJ. And yes it is hurt that I gave another man a BJ when I wouldn't do it for him for years. And I can fully understand his hurt. I lied to him for years and then I TT him. I even lied to you on SI. I fully understand that my word mean shit to him and possibly you all. But I'm going down a path of honesty and I'm seeking IC to better myself. I have a lot of work to do on myself, from the lies to the self esteem issues. But no matter the reasons for my lies it doesn't take away the pain I have caused my BH.

As far as our kids, he is not going to take them away from me. I feel that the fact I have said something about custody this thread went in a direction that was unintended. I do not feel BH is forcing me into something I do not want. He and I are still talking and we are very civil we spend time together as a family. I understand why the concern over the custody. But honestly I'm here for advice on how to speak and address items with my BH. Last night BH and spoke about my AP and it was one of our better chats. I'm trying very hard to be able to talk to him with out getting emotioanl. That is where my weakness comes in ... seeing the pain on his face kills me. But I'm learning how to deal with it and his anger. He does have every right to be angry and hurt. He isn't mean to me .. we did have a day where he was trying to hurt me with his words. But we were able to speak about that day and since then we haven't had those issues.