SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I have never heard of a easy R story where everything went magically back to wonderful. There is going to be good days and bad, progress and setbacks. From now on it is one day at a time. Sakura did not become the medic ninja in one episode.

My confession to my husband was "I'm a stupid whore who sucks dick"

Is that what you think of the other WW's here who are reading along and trying to remediate their flaws in character?? If you wouldn't say (or think) that about others, why would you treat yourself so???

Toxic shame makes you LESS safe, not more safe. An unrecoverable shame spiral inevitably results in giving up. OTOH, respect for yourself is The Cure. It's what makes developing and honoring your true core values and getting down to the bottom of your "whys" possible. You can't do this until/unless you learn to love and care enough about yourself to feel like you deserve the best you have to offer.

What is the best way to go about interacting with my husband's anger? He bottles it up and let's it out because he doesn't want to be like that. When he does let it all out it's mostly name calling mixed with sarcastic remarks. I listen and understand his perspective as well as reassure him and apologize. Sometimes he wants that and other times he wants me to leave him alone. Today I went to IC so I let him know like I have been and he asked "how does that compare to dick? Surely dick would make you feel better about yourself. Did you?..... Yeah that's what I thought. bye" and I just left after apologizing. I understand he's in pain and objectively he is right though my question is just how do I best know when to comfort him or leave him be?

When you allow him to verbally abuse you, the marriage is further damaged. You might be spiraling in toxic shame right now, but you're not deaf.. and every word is registered in your brain and WILL scar you emotionally. He can't hurt you without hurting the marriage, because he can't just wound your half of it. The marriage is a whole. You can't just injure the pieces you want; there are no pieces.

Yeah, he's mad. Believe me, every BS on this board was mad. But you know what?.. it IS possible to exercise self-control and I know that because I no matter how enraged I felt, I did NOT verbally assault my WH regarding his infidelity. I'm not an aberration and I'm not a saint, so I can attest that it's difficult but do-able.

Try utilizing a safe word to let him know he's out of bounds.

my question is just how do I best know when to comfort him or leave him be?

Ask him what he wants. Then decide what you will do.

Name-calling does not get anger out of one's system; it gives voice to the anger while holding it in.

You've labelled yourself in one way. You are a lot more than what you did during a portion of your life, but you chose to label yourself in accord with a small number of actions. That allows you to tell yourself, 'If that's who I am, I can't change, and I will waste any effort you spend on changing.' Are you using your label as a way to avoid doing the work of redeeming yourself?

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:28 PM, Saturday, June 4th]

I just wanted to update since writing it helps.

How?

As everyone here sees clearly... My wife doesn't care about her kids, me, or our sham marriage.

You just had to be the dick.

Get your shit together dude. You are out of control.