SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Like seeing him loosens the tight bands across my chest, but then it puts me in such a terrible head space right after and that bad head space stays with me for days. I sometimes think it's not worth feeling the bands loosen around my chest if the fallout is so painful and long.

And this is why it is important for you to start getting a grip on the things your WH should be doing to show you he efectivelly wants to change for good. I personally do not believe the amount of deceiving and cheating your WH put you truth can be fixed, but anything is possible and only you know where you really stand on that. Being so, that would at least put you in a position were you would have a ground start from where to work on. Palpable information fron where you could use information to suit your needs going forward.

Because those feelings will always be there - specially when one is not full NC for a long time. And they are hard feelings to deal with. One gets the sensation that "anything his still possible" when the two get together, we create scenarios in our head that usually end up hurting us even more because many times they do not correspond to reality at all.

That is why it is SO IMPORTANT to establish rules and apply them in the context. Without an inch put out of place. That way you get pragmatic info which can be used going forward. Which can help on the decisions ahead. Not doing so and one can go on and on and on eternally on a limbo. And the "triggers" will keep coming back. And each time they come they will feel worse.

Keep going strong. You are doing great.

[This message edited by justanotherperson at 6:58 PM, Monday, November 7th]

I agree w what the previous poster said, when we were all in the beginning and in shock we just could not figure out how to "stop" being who we are. So you did the bare minimum because that is who you are, he asked for help and even though you wanted to probably punch him in the face (maybe, not sure) you still reached out to do something.

But I will also say that with time (there is that dreaded word) and also being detached from him you will start to notice the patterns of manipulation he uses on you, or even how to deflect or even just to try to butter you up to get you to do something he wants done. When in what we feel is a loving relationship we do it because we care, we feel we are a partner, we want to help. Took me a LOOOOOONG time to figure it out (and what I mean by that is to actually have that "lightbulb" moment where you really get it)into how my need to help or do things for loved ones was switched around on me and I had become this "go to super Mom, hard worker, bill payer, decision maker in our family. As I look back it was like water torture in that you just don't see it right away, until the days come where you know you feel exhausted, yet you go to put another load of laundry in or run to the store to make sure dinner is on. Cuz you have become so damn good at it. In a sad way.

Then you find out your spouse has cheated on you.

And this person that you are that is a caring and loving person and is also in shock and trying to hold their world together finds it really hard to shut it off on a dime. Because there is still confusion and there is pain, yet you have a child w this person and your child has now been thrust into this by this same person that you still don't know how to totally shut down right away. Its just a horrible place to be.

I will say that I am pretty sure he has not stopped doing some of the things he has been doing, he is all alone w access still to the outside world and a computer, so who knows how many he is still chatting with at the moment, his "other world" will still be his fix in which you will never really know what has gone on. What he needs would take years of therapy to try to work thru and only if he actually wanted to fix himself. He is still in denial and hoping he can somehow get you back and have his fantasy world come back again. That is one thing I will tell you for sure as many told me, unless your WS TRULY gets it and understands what he has done and stops everything he is doing and gets some serious help for himself, it will not change. Sadly.

With time you will see this picture so much clearer. Your work right now is to figure out HOW to get out of infidelity. Your head and your heart will be 2 different things. Keep listening to your head part. NC w him as much as possible so you get that detachment to work on healing, keep working w the attorney and keep taking care of yourself.

Hey there. I just read this thread and want to compliment you on your amazing bravery and clear thinking. I wish I had a fraction of your strength and rationality when Dday #1 came. I was pregnant with our third child when I found out ExH secret second life. He worked every other week in a different state and was "dating" a much younger woman and talking to her about being a "second" wife. I wasted a LOT of time trying to save our marriage. Like your WH, he spent a lot of time trying to bring up how he was really the victim of his sad childhood. He continually cried over how lonely his childhood was, how neglected emotionally he was, how sad sad sad he was.

I ended up in the CCU twice during that that pregnancy and eventually had significant cardiac damage that required procedures to repair. He spent most of his time on his phone texting her and then putting on this concerned mask when others were around. Behind closed doors he seethed with rage that I would not permit him "One true love" and "stop being so selfish, Tukotsubo!"

I dragged him to marriage counselors, weekend intensives and thought I had "saved" our marriage while he passively came along for the ride. I thought I had "won." Years later I got pregnant with twins and found him sexting a co-worker. Here I was pregnant again and he decided to chase Strange. We are divorced now. In the end I needed to do it on my own time. I did not have nearly half the strength and clarity you've shown here. I thought I could change him. But in the end he wasn't interested.

Keep your chin up, you are doing an amazing job of swimming in this cesspool he has forced upon you. I sense you will eventually divorce from him but need time to process the absolute mind fuck he has created. I am rooting for you.

also being detached from him you will start to notice the patterns of manipulation he uses on you, or even how to deflect or even just to try to butter you up to get you to do something he wants done.

One of the things that's killing me is that I do see patterns, I can look back and see the way he's manipulated me, the way he bends our marriage and our lives to match the things he wants, his preferences, his needs. I saw it in small and big ways, but I just thought to myself at the time - well, he feels more strongly than I do about where we should live, the kind of house, the kind of vacations we take, our lifestyle in general. I just wanted to feel safe and happy and had a wide range of places and activities where those feelings would be possible. I rationalized that the things WH was pressing for must be the much narrower environment in which WH felt safest and happiest inside himself. So we ended up in a bigger house than I'd wanted, in an area of the country that was different than I'd wanted, things like that.

What I'm seeing now is how systematic this was. Those were symptoms of a much, much deeper issue. It's not that these were his preferences, I'm now seeing, but that maybe his need to create a life that looked a certain way from the outside was nearly pathological. Like it was a facade that he needed? The secret keeping, the thrill? safety? power? he feels by withholding information from me. The way he was building a life that I didn't want on ALL levels, but then making me compromise into living the life he wanted, despite my own desires. I wonder if his second life wasn't an extension of that?

And while I'm trying to grapple with this the only thing that comforts me is that I was naively complicit, but I'm not naive now. Actually I probably still am, but I'm no longer totally blind to it. It's why my therapist talking about the lighthouse comforted me so so much. I'm questioning myself, I'm questioning other people's motives, I'm feeling like everyone is hiding ugliness inside them - even me - and that they have the potential to pop out like a jack in the box from any of us. The thought that my own needs aren't small, they're not dismissable, they don't have to be overrun by someone with really deeply ugly, damaging, sick needs... there's something in that that's empowering if I can only get myself in the right emotional place, but then I feel an immediate kickback right after like I'm leaving my WH behind. Like he has died, but I haven't. Like a kind of survivor's guilt? And then I rebound horribly and feel so guilty, I start dreaming about him again, idealizing who I thought he was, thinking I can reach back into his sickness and pull his essential self back out. Then I look at the screen grabs from OW, his chats, his smug "I only lie by omission" and all of my other evidence that comes straight from his life, his words, his body, his actions. And I get so filled with rage again, feel like I need to get free from his charade, I've been such a sucker, such a naive smear of a nothing in our marriage. I want to find myself, MYself, the person I've made smaller and smaller in my marriage. And then I get empowered (this is usually when I post here, I am not really doing as well as I come across I think) and then the empowerment rebounds into guilt for leaving my husband run over in the road, repeat, repeat, repeat.

My therapist says that cycling like this is okay, but it's a complete spin cycle inside me. I don't know which version of me I'll get on any given day. And I start driving myself crazy with things like leaving WH soup when he's sick - will empowered-me be disgusted by my nurturing? Or will guilty-me feel good that I treated him humanely? And which is the 'real' me and which will I be left with when this is over?

Oh, Sigyn. The post that you just wrote should be put somewhere just to validate and support BSs married to this type of WH and give them the words to express it. You have just described EXACTLY how it feels to be in the hurricane with a person who is disordered in these particular ways.

You just touched the ultimate dilemma and mindfuck that I have lived too. Thank you for that post.

Posts like that post are why so many of us say you are doing so well and are so strong and will be okay. NOT because you are okay right now by any stretching of that word, but because you are able to understand and (at least sometimes) respond in a way that protects you and your son when faced with this information. Because you look at it clear-eyed and honestly and are not so completely caught in the brain fog of severe trauma that you are unable to see through it at all. Because you see your WH and what your life with him has been so honestly at moments like this rather than being totally helpless against him in these early days.

It’s not that we think you are always so strong and decisive and emotionally stable; it’s because you are CAPABLE in moments to have this level of insight, clarity and openness to your own pain and its roots in both your WHs disordered life and your own "naive complicity," without blaming yourself for it.

I can look back and see the way he's manipulated me, the way he bends our marriage and our lives to match the things he wants, his preferences, his needs. I saw it in small and big ways, but I just thought to myself at the time - well, he feels more strongly than I do about where we should live, the kind of house, the kind of vacations we take, our lifestyle in general. I just wanted to feel safe and happy and had a wide range of places and activities where those feelings would be possible. I rationalized that the things WH was pressing for must be the much narrower environment in which WH felt safest and happiest inside himself. So we ended up in a bigger house than I'd wanted, in an area of the country that was different than I'd wanted, things like that.

THIS IS ME! I realized early in our marriage that I was stronger and much more able to adapt to almost anything than my WH. I felt like I was being supportive and loving to concede those things for him to be happy. My safety and happiness were about emotional and financial security and having a partner (I know, laughable in hindsight). His always seemed to be about a million small details that he needed to control and things that he needed to have and avoidance of situations that made him uncomfortable (there were a LOT of all of these things), and his equilibrium was so much more fragile if any of these things was disturbed. So I began to concede and just never stopped until, as you’ve pointed out, I had become very, very small within our marriage—something that I "balanced" by not being small in the rest of my life and relationships although I’ll admit that I probably followed the flow with any of my high-maintenance friends, as well, at times.

It just seemed generous and caring at the time. It doesn’t now.

I'm feeling like everyone is hiding ugliness inside them - even me - and that they have the potential to pop out like a jack in the box from any of us. The thought that my own needs aren't small, they're not dismissable, they don't have to be overrun by someone with really deeply ugly, damaging, sick needs... there's something in that that's empowering if I can only get myself in the right emotional place,

This is the unfortunate result of feeling completely defrauded and traumatized by the person that you trusted most. As I said, i wasn’t just overly giving of myself with my WH. I have had exactly this feeling that EVERYONE is disrespecting and devaluing of me secretly instead of appreciating my kindness and caring thanks to what I now know. I have distanced myself from everyone at times in the aftermath of all of this because I felt so unsafe and so unable to trust anything. . .and ultimately so ashamed of the truth of what my life had been and what I’d allowed to happen to my family because I didn’t protect it from my own spouse. I still feel that particular guilt keenly at times.

It is REALLY important to begin to fully embrace the notion that your own needs and feelings are not small or dismissible. This will be particularly challenging since you are engaged with someone who has been and is COMPLETELY dismissive of you needs and feelings. Your post just resonates with the exact understanding of how utterly your WH dismissed any thought of your needs. I understand this realization completely, my sister. It is unbelievably painful. . .and also hard to really keep believing for some reason. We keep looking for some hint that we were really loved (the way we felt and were certain that we were) and valued for something beyond services rendered. Acceptance is so hard.

but then I feel an immediate kickback right after like I'm leaving my WH behind. Like he has died, but I haven't. Like a kind of survivor's guilt? And then I rebound horribly and feel so guilty, I start dreaming about him again, idealizing who I thought he was, thinking I can reach back into his sickness and pull his essential self back out. Then I look at the screen grabs from OW, his chats, his smug "I only lie by omission" and all of my other evidence that comes straight from his life, his words, his body, his actions. And I get so filled with rage again, feel like I need to get free from his charade, I've been such a sucker, such a naive smear of a nothing in our marriage. I want to find myself, MYself, the person I've made smaller and smaller in my marriage. And then I get empowered (this is usually when I post here, I am not really doing as well as I come across I think) and then the empowerment rebounds into guilt for leaving my husband run over in the road, repeat, repeat, repeat.

This just stands by itself. I can’t even express how reading this helped me and gave exact expression to the cycle that has haunted me. I thank you from the bottom of my being.

We took care of them for so long. We put their needs first. Our brains are imprinted with it, probably since long before we even met them. So any time that the repulsion to what they’ve done pushes us to put ourselves first and shut down to their dysfunction, our entire being rejects it and pushes us back into the guilt and fear for their welfare that has been our motivator for so long. It feels morally WRONG to abandon them even when they abandoned us so very long ago. And a WH like this will be the first person to see that and use it in any way possible to suck us back in.

The magnitude of it is socompletely disorienting and also so damaging ultimately. The cycling of this is what kept SO many of us here trapped for so very long, as we keep repeating in your thread. You have touched here on where the big danger is: your WHs goal will be to keep you cycling because it keeps you locked into his emotional control. He will be ruthless in pursuing it any way he can—and I mean ANY way. He will only see his needs and his wants. You are still thinking in terms of an "us," and he is not constrained by that notion. He only has to serve himself.

I don’t know exactly how to tell you to overcome the cycling. Part of me, clearly, was reluctant to give up the cycling because it would mean giving up completely on the vision of our marriage and our relationship and our family that had been the most precious and sacred value to me. The deep and irreparable emotional wound of realizing that that had been gone for a long time—and really never existed at all, as I had lived and envisioned it—is a pain that I’m not sure I will ever fully recover from.

I think that you will ultimately get there in your own way, and that is also why we all are here, not only supporting you, but gathering strength from your journey too. It’s the beauty of this site. As someone put it, it’s vicarious strength and healing and wisdom.

I’ll finish with a reminder that your WH is not safe for anyone emotionally. It’s not just you. I have made the mistake of believing that my WH loved his children and that would ultimately be the one sacred thing that he would protect. This was BROKEN thinking on my part. Our WHs don’t harm others because that’s the goal. They harm others because they are so completely incapable of what we think of as love. The only sacred thing to them is protecting and serving themselves. I don’t honestly know if this can be fixed or unlearned as an adult.

What I know is that my WH did great harm to my kids because he wasn’t capable in any way of distinguishing between his needs and theirs. If it served his needs, his mind just magically and unconsciously convinced himself that it was the right thing to do FOR THEM, or at the very least, that it couldn’t hurt them. This from the person who on DDay presented it to me as absolutely logical that the kids had not been affected in any way by his betrayal, infidelity and dishonesty. He had convinced himself of this for years. When I asked him how putting in jeaopardy the marriage that formed the heart of their family and security would not affect them, he honestly looked stunned and baffled.

So you should be watchful. I honestly can’t give you great advise about how to keep your WH from doing this because he is your son’s father. He will be alone with your son at many times in the future. Even when I have hit my WH over the head with how something he’s done or said has caused harm, he never seems to internalize that and do the work to become vigilant and careful about not repeating it. It’s almost if he thinks that it was an accident or an isolated and unintentional one-time occurrence that he doesn’t have to address in a bigger way. And that means that it is always repeated.

I’m not saying this is your WH. I’m just saying that a person who has lived his entire life operating on the unspoken principal that others exist to be controlled and keep him comfortable and safe and happy isn’t easily able to see others as separate beings with their own needs and wants that contradict and supersede his own. He confuses his needs with theirs. He believes they are the same. ALL beings around him serve his needs and purposes if he can just exert the right control and influence. And I’m pretty sure he believes that serving his needs will serve THEM. We can’t understand how their minds work. We just can’t.

I will say again, in spite of how it all feels, that you and your counselor and your support system are so solid and that your ability to honor your health and well-being are serving you well through this shitstorm. It’s still a shitstorm. It takes a lot of time and there is so much pain to walk through. I’m so sorry for that, for all of us.

Strength and peace to everyone. Sending you huge hugs of support, Sigyn. Keep going. Trust that you will get where you need to go in your own time and way.

Like he has died, but I haven't. Like a kind of survivor's guilt? And then I rebound horribly and feel so guilty, I start dreaming about him again, idealizing who I thought he was, thinking I can reach back into his sickness and pull his essential self back out. Then I look at the screen grabs from OW, his chats, his smug "I only lie by omission" and all of my other evidence that comes straight from his life, his words, his body, his actions. And I get so filled with rage again, feel like I need to get free from his charade, I've been such a sucker, such a naive smear of a nothing in our marriage. I want to find myself, MYself, the person I've made smaller and smaller in my marriage.

Oh my Lord, this. I am going through this EXACT same thing with my WW as we speak after D-Day2 in July. I am still utterly bewildered that she chose, day in and day out, for over a year - to pursue a doomed relationship with her workmate/AP knowing full well with the clarity of the full fallout of her previous A in the workplace 9 years before, of what it would do to me and the family on discovery. Everytime my WW starts to send me memes, funny memories, or even photos from her current worktrip (I know, right?), I remember the texts to him I found on her phone. I remember her almost boasting to her best 'friend' about his 'skills in bed' (despite the fact it was NEVER a PA apparently, just an EA....lol and I'm Anne Frank!) What you mentioned about 'finding yourself after being made smaller and smaller in the marriage' is profound.

In this regard, one of my biggest triggers of anger has been my WW's constant disdain/contempt for my love of skiing. My entire family skis. I have always skied. The mountains are my happy place. I want my ashes spread in the mountains. SHE KNOWS THIS. The entire marriage, I was bitched at constantly of the 'stupid cost' of going skiing; despite us earning more than enough to do it. It was a constant whinge to her best friend too, 'Hurthalo and his family all ski, I don't understand it. It's such an extravagant past time.' Yet where did she dutifully go on a dirty weekend with her AP during the affair? Skiing. Suddenly she was the greatest fan ever, all because HE was. THAT has actually in all honesty angered me more than any horizontal folk dancing she took part in with said-parasite. Everytime I start pining for her, or missing her company; I focus on that fact.

I guess I am saying, it's not wrong to still feel for your partner. It's natural, and the survivor's guilt you feel is because you are a GOOD person. You feel empathy for your WH's emotional death, because you naturally wish he wasn't going through it.

I’ll finish with a reminder that your WH is not safe for anyone emotionally. It’s not just you. I have made the mistake of believing that my WH loved his children and that would ultimately be the one sacred thing that he would protect. This was BROKEN thinking on my part. Our WHs don’t harm others because that’s the goal. They harm others because they are so completely incapable of what we think of as love. The only sacred thing to them is protecting and serving themselves. I don’t honestly know if this can be fixed or unlearned as an adult.

What I know is that my WH did great harm to my kids because he wasn’t capable in any way of distinguishing between his needs and theirs. If it served his needs, his mind just magically and unconsciously convinced himself that it was the right thing to do FOR THEM, or at the very least, that it couldn’t hurt them. This from the person who on DDay presented it to me as absolutely logical that the kids had not been affected in any way by his betrayal, infidelity and dishonesty. He had convinced himself of this for years. When I asked him how putting in jeaopardy the marriage that formed the heart of their family and security would not affect them, he honestly looked stunned and baffled.

Again, my WW is doing this as we speak. She's overseas on a work trip, and I have the kids. She's been away for 5 days and she hadn't even contacted them to let them know she'd made it. I messaged her today and reminded her that she needed to call them, as they are too young to go without hearing from their Mum for that long. She called, but only after making barely believable excuses about her phone battery. One of my five year olds has been bed-wetting since DDay, and when I mentioned this to my WW, she sent me an article a few hours later triumphantly about 'Toilet Training Regression and Divorce', like she'd just solved the theory of relativity. Of course her actions have impacted our daughter in this regard. Of course it's the divorce. She literally thinks that depriving the kids of our combined family was for the best because she got to experiment how it felt to date someone else and 'f%$K around for a bit.' I've given up hoping that someone approaching 40 can change her spots in this regard. And you know what? Not my problem anymore. Your WH isn't yours either. Because he won't change. But you know what? We have. I'm going skiing with my brother in 2 months. And I won't feel an ounce of guilt or like I am walking on egg shells filled with yolks of contempt either.

You are doing well Sigyn. We are more than allowed to ride the peaks and troughs; and while this situation is far from normal, flittering between a spectrum of sorrow, anger and flashes of optimism surely is.

[This message edited by Hurthalo at 12:42 PM, Monday, November 7th]

What I'm seeing now is how systematic this was. Those were symptoms of a much, much deeper issue. It's not that these were his preferences, I'm now seeing, but that maybe his need to create a life that looked a certain way from the outside was nearly pathological. Like it was a facade that he needed? The secret keeping, the thrill? safety? power? he feels by withholding information from me. The way he was building a life that I didn't want on ALL levels, but then making me compromise into living the life he wanted, despite my own desires. I wonder if his second life wasn't an extension of that?

More than him creating a bubble around himself to get the life he wanted I would widen the "definition" and say that that was him being the real HIM = a selfish person with marcisistic behaviour. That is WHO HE IS. And not the person he presented himself to you.

I'm going to go on a small crusade here, with the perspective of someone with a few years with timely experience over DDay. What I can tell you is that the egoism in him goes to a point that you no longer (if ever) are that loved person he is willing to sacrifice himself for. Like in couples love - full of common interests, dreams, care for each other and the likes. Because that idea of love is gone as soon as the real curtain went down. Yes he still "loves you" - in his compartimentalized polygamus way. Ask yourself the question: "Is that the kind of love I want for myself?"

... but then I feel an immediate kickback right after like I'm leaving my WH behind. Like he has died, but I haven't. Like a kind of survivor's guilt? And then I rebound horribly and feel so guilty, I start dreaming about him again, idealizing who I thought he was, thinking I can reach back into his sickness and pull his essential self back out. Then I look at the screen grabs from OW, his chats, his smug "I only lie by omission" and all of my other evidence that comes straight from his life, his words, his body, his actions. And I get so filled with rage again, feel like I need to get free from his charade, I've been such a sucker, such a naive smear of a nothing in our marriage. I want to find myself, MYself, the person I've made smaller and smaller in my marriage.

And that is why it is SO important to detach. Go NC as most as possible and check the ACTIONS, never the words.

Betrayal like this tends to leave the mind in the shitshow of a mess you explain above. We still feel special. We still feel owed respect, interest, that "look at me because I DO deserve so after all this years" mind thinking screaming in our hearts. We think we somehow had something going on which was diferent from the other people. It was "our beautiful thing" afterall.

Let me tell you Sigyn, the quicker one gets to afirmatively abandon that mindset the quicker one reaches the path to healing.

The quicker one really puts a grasp on the ideia that pragmatism is "the order of the day" from now on the quicker one starts to clear the fog in our head and in our heart. And that is the time for LIBERATION. You will then start to see things clearer, with a bigger distance from the "crash scene", and only then will you begin to understand that not only were you involved in a serious chunt but you can then also understand from where the accident came from - what caused it - and what will be the consequences of it going forward.

Investing personal time to really understand the actions being made to CHANGE rather than involving oneself in the mess of trying to patch the exposed bone fractures/wounds (consequence of the crash) with small medical patches (listening for the "easy as silk" words only) is the ONLY way to go.

It hurts having to do so. It hurts like a mothertrucker! But it is really worth doing so - if one wants to get rid of the pain and leave the infidelity train behind.

Not doing so will take us to the limbo carrocel, spinning indefinitely, with loads of fog always present - never clearing out.

It really is worth to act pragmatically and not emocionally the most we can in these times of provation.

Remember these phrases:

- He did not care for your well being when he betrayed you over and over again.

- He did not care for your emotional and physical needs/health.

- You now know who he is. Consider that a good think. You are able to get out of that lying world of his now -because you know now what the hell is going on. No more blind side for you!

- He is a polygamus person at heart. His he willing to change this mindset? Do you even want him back if he changes, after what he has done to you and to your family?

You have all the right to be sad, hurting, pissed, confused. But DO ACT. PRAGMATICALLY. ACTIONS NOT WORDS. ONE STEP AFTER THE OTHER. I guarantee you - one way or another YOU WILL BE ALRIGHT in the end.

You are doing great.

[This message edited by justanotherperson at 8:44 PM, Thursday, November 17th]

Hey Sigyn, just checking in. Hope you are doing well, at least as well as can be expected. You and your son sign up for anything fun yet?

Sending good thoughts as we head into the weekend, Sigyn. The holiday season can be really rough, especially in this first post-betrayal season. And hyper-vigilant fatigue can set in as being on the horrible rollercoaster drags on into months.

I hope you’re finding some joyful activities to share with your son these days and finding ways to detach and pursue your own joy.

We’re here if you need us. Hugs to you along with hope that your absence here means that you’re doing great and finding some peace. NW

Hope you're doing ok Sigyn!

Hey everyone thanks so much for all of your thoughtful and thought provoking replies and also just for really getting it and relating. I'm coming to realize there are so many of us who married similar people, just these destructive children gorging themselves like gluttons and crying when they're called out. And that we did so many of the same things, made the same choices and reacted the same ways in our marriages to keep things steady and happy all the while. I wonder sometimes if my WH hadn't been a serial cheater and liar, would that have made my shrinking of myself to keep him happy in our marriage worth it?? If not for this sick wakeup call would I have been happy being the anchor and counterweight and eternal compromiser in my marriage forever??

I just read back over my last post and I'm like WTF, less than two weeks ago I was actually feeling sorry for WH?!?!? I can't believe how much of an emotional roller coaster this is. It feels like it was a month ago that WH got Covid and was pleased as punch to have a reason to be a victim, cared for, coddled and immune from this nightmare he created for us. Yes, I'm back to f-ing furious with him, furious with his smugness, his privilege in getting to be what is essentially a forever child with his wife holding down the fort taking care of the family responsibilities as he flew around sampling from various all you can eat sex buffets and then coming home to kiss me and engage in all those totally bullshit pointless conversations about how lucky we were to have a good life and love each other so much. Probably laughing at my ignorance, texting his girlfriends from the bathroom, feeling like king of the world.

I feel so over everything this week, I just keep hearing myself saying "I'm done I'm done I'm done" every single time I talk to him. I think I'm actually just DONE with this farce, done treading water and waiting for lightning to strike or a miracle to happen or a light to shine in front of me with a big arrow pointing me out of this emotional cesspool. I feel like an invalid, like I'm walking around with a debilitating illness! And I didn't do anything wrong! I don't deserve this! My son doesn't deserve this! The life we built didn't deserve to be fake. I wanted that life and I was living that actual life. WH was the outsider, the faker, the imposter. I'm so furious with him and so disgusted and just so so so DONE. Done listening to him twist everything and done having every conversation turn into a competition, arguing over semantics, having the 'why did you do this??' conversation become completely shut down by his proxy battles over marriage counseling.

So this last week I did a few things on my wave of fury and honestly I hope this holds up. First, I called our son's therapist and asked her if either I or both me and WH could come in to talk about our part in helping our son with our separation and then I said "...and potential divorce" out loud for the first time to anyone but my sister and my own therapist. His therapist said absolutely we could, and that we should meet with her first without our son. Next, I told WH that it didn't matter anymore if he signed the separation agreement, he's invited to come with me to son's therapist to talk about the best ways for us to help son moving forward, and then we could either together - or separately with our attorneys - work out a "real plan" for custody, time, and finances. I couldn't bring myself to say the D word to WH in person, but the implication of "real plan" was clear. Once again when faced with this, WH suddenly insists he'll sign the separation agreement without marriage counseling. He seemingly cannot just participate in this in any reasonable way without there being someone with more power than me (I guess my attorney??) involved. I hate that so much. I cannot believe how dehumanizing that is!

And the reality is that I was not bluffing. I am not using the threat of divorce as a lever to make him do things. I don't want a divorce, but I think I actually need a clean slate from my marriage. I need to remove myself from this limbo relationship filled with power issues, control issues and lies. Also I keep using the word cesspool to describe my current situation! I was searching in my Evernote journal for something I'd written a few days ago and I remembered I'd written 'cesspool' about my marriage and so when I did a search for that word to find the entry, it returned 43 different results, ALL in the notebook I started post-discovery!! Apparently while writing about my marriage, cesspool imagery abounds! Charming. And it only comes up once in any of my 2012-2022 journals and that was when I was researching literal septic system pumping companies. So my current status = treading water in a cesspool I used to think was a marriage.

So the last thing I did was gave my attorney the go ahead to start writing up the divorce paperwork. She'd already said when I first retained her officially that having the documentation ready and actually filing for divorce are two different things, it's not a point of no return, our finances have a couple of tricky legal issues that require some extra work and that documentation should be taken care of sooner rather than later "just in case" and then she overloaded me with homework and I get emails asking for things from her every other day. I think she knows my finances, life insurance, retirement etc better than I do at this point.

I've become fixated on having WH pay back his sex work money and though I have no way of knowing how much he spent since it was all cash, my sister and I still have tons of conversations about creative places to donate that money, should it ever be repaid. I think a women's shelter makes the most sense?? If any of you have any creative ideas of where a lying, cheating husband's repayment of marital funds for sexwork would be best used, please share!! I want to flip it into something positive - and since he confessed he saw "30 or 40" sexworkers, some of those regularly for years, it might actually be a nice chunk of money. I don't want it for myself. And I have nothing at all against sexworkers. I just want to fantasize about something positive happening that is also something of an F-you to WH.

Regarding where to donate if you do get a chunk of money: I wonder if there is a nonprofit specifically dedicated to providing legal assistance or fee relief to women of limited means trying to leave a bad marriage. And I don't mean abused women, necessarily, but more those who just need to leave with as much of themselves intact as they can manage.

And congratulations on your newfound clarity.

[This message edited by InRetrospect at 7:33 PM, Thursday, November 17th]

and since he confessed he saw "30 or 40" sexworkers, some of those regularly for years, it might actually be a nice chunk of money. I don't want it for myself

30 or 40 sex workers? Yikes. He particularly mentioned "sexy massages" when confronted. Logically, some of these women were possibly trafficked. He didn't give a hoot about this possibility. Women are simply a commodity to be used for his ego fortification and comfort. The inherent ethical choices when choosing to participate in the sex trade didn't trouble him! How about donating to a non-profit organization dedicated to sex trafficking prevention and intervention? Search online and you'll find dozens of organizations that fit the bill. There might be one close to home. Polaris is one well known organization to consider.

Or, with acknowledgement that sex work is "the world's oldest profession" (which isn't going away anytime soon in spite of persistent criminalization), there are MANY organizations that work to provide free, nonjudgmental medical care, counseling, and other health and social services such as HIV, hepatitis and STI testing/education/prevention by and for sex workers. St. James Infirmary (in SF) and California Prostitute Education Project CAL - PEP (in Oakland) are two examples. The possibility of catching STIs (or giving Sigyn or unborn son STIs) wasn't a concern for this guy. Google "genital herpes third trimester" to get good and angry.

Donating to a women's shelter also encouraged. But doesn't provide the obvious F-you punch as donating to sex trafficking prevention/intervention or an organization like CAL-PEP. Maybe split your donation?

[This message edited by BoundaryBuilder at 7:50 PM, Monday, November 21st]

Yes, I'm back to f-ing furious with him, furious with his smugness, his privilege in getting to be what is essentially a forever child with his wife holding down the fort taking care of the family responsibilities as he flew around sampling from various all you can eat sex buffets and then coming home to kiss me and engage in all those totally bullshit pointless conversations about how lucky we were to have a good life and love each other so much. Probably laughing at my ignorance, texting his girlfriends from the bathroom, feeling like king of the world. barf

At one's core we see it as wasted years. Wasted time of our life dedicated to a lie we thought to be true. It hurts. But unfortunately it does happen to people and it also happened to you Sigyn. It happens more often than we think about it . It is just human nature to react like that.

He may even "care" about you (in his mind) and not have reacted the way you think (laughing at you behind your back). But that "care" is the cheaters kind of care. The compartimentalized one. "Now the OPs, then wife. Now wife, then the OPs." The "I have got LOADS OF LOVE to give in me to all them women" kind of atitude. You have to ask yourself if you do even want that kind of "love" for you going forward? Poligamus relationship to much maybe?...

And the reality is that I was not bluffing. I am not using the threat of divorce as a lever to make him do things. I don't want a divorce, but I think I actually need a clean slate from my marriage. I need to remove myself from this limbo relationship filled with power issues, control issues and lies.

This. 1000 times this. The best way for one to get rid or the infidelity train. Get a grip on oneself psychogically anf physically and to start healing.

I never was a big fan of "marriages" to much hassle to get out of if need be. Do anyone needs any further evidence? But that is just me. To each his own. I'm a believer tha one can always start again. Start dating again. If it happens to be with the person we once loved and divorced for (for any kind of reasosn) so be it. What matters is the love and care involved at that moment.

I do understand though, that the finances are easier to manage being married (maybe) but joint accounts can also be a pain to deal with coming separation.

As said. Detaching is part of this life. It is not the end of the world. And if two people are meant to be together (both working the best they can being honest, faithful and loving) they eventually may end up together. No matter what time, space or ciircunsstances it may be. That is way I see relations outside of the marriage circle perfectly possible. Things come and go. Start and end. Born and die. Life is always evolving and we just have to go with it. And take with us our moral mindset, our values and our all being. And if one does that... One will definitely find happines after all. The mirrors truth we see everyday when we look at ourselfs in the mirror.

Take a step back. Look after yourself Sigyn. Look after the kids. After a while I guarantee you you will see things clearly and will then have way more tools to help you going forward. Be it the way you so choose to be.

[This message edited by justanotherperson at 9:23 PM, Thursday, November 17th]

If you were to ever get that money back, there's no reason why you can't keep it and spend it. It's YOUR money. It was always YOUR money. It's a trick of the mind that this money is somehow tainted and you that you wouldn't be able to enjoy it. It's yours. It always was. Hell, if it was me, I'd spend it on the French Riviera getting a tan and my first casual encounter after decades of being the only monogamist in my marriage. Your WH has stolen from you. Taking what's yours whether it be your money or your freedom is your right.

((hugs))

Oh.. and don't feel sorry for hookers. Yeah, some are trafficked, but most aren't. Most just don't have the ethics to consider what harm they do. I've waited too many tables, cleaned too many toilets, answered too many phones to feel sorry for people who would rather suck a stranger's dick than work. That was your husband, your family, and yeah, it was HIS responsibility to protect you. But taking money doesn't make any of these OWs somehow more noble than garden-variety homewreckers. They don't care who they hurt as long as they get what they want, be it kibbles or cash.

This is a terrific update. You are still doing what you need to take care of you and your son and that's all you can do. I 1000% agree that a charity or non profit that assists victims of trafficking or former sex workers to get them different employment would be the way I'd spend it. You can guarantee a lot of those women were not willing and that would be a big FU to your WH. I'm sure it never crossed his mind that he was paying a woman who was potentially being trafficked. That makes it even worse.

I second donating to international human trafficking organisation.

Yes he is a "forever child" - just a great big baby, waa waa.

"Arguing over semantics" = word salad, logical fallacy, etc.

I often read on here about how cheaters compartmentalise, so when they return to their partner, they are in some sort of dissociative state where they arent thinking about their other secret life. This, in my unprofessional opinion, is utter crap. I think unless they are severely mentally ill and have dissociative identity disorder, they get off on withholding information so they are in control and you are the loser. There is so much intent in the behaviour - they may not understand why they are doing it (for control) but they damn well know the what.

You write very well btw and are much more mature than I!

[This message edited by VezfromTaz at 3:55 AM, Friday, November 18th]

If you were to ever get that money back, there's no reason why you can't keep it and spend it. It's YOUR money. It was always YOUR money. It's a trick of the mind that this money is somehow tainted and you that you wouldn't be able to enjoy it. It's yours. It always was.

^^^This.

To maybe judge your deeper perspective and feelings…. calculate how much money you think it would be. Then take that much money and donate it now and don’t ask your WH to reimburse you.

Don’t want to do that? Then you either don’t see that reimbursement money as being rightfully yours…or you think you have to pay for a sin you didn’t commit.

Important here because it all plays into the recognition that NONE of this is on us. The more and more clarity you gain before the divorce the better you will get through that process.

You could also use it for your son's schooling, or as a down payment for a house.

My vote is your sons extra education, equipment you might not necessarily want to buy like telescopes, trips to other state natural museums &/or art museums, tutors for a new language then holiday to that country etc. Your WH broke your sons life with this money, with the same money you can enrich his life instead.

If you’re set on a charity then look for those who offer legal aid. Imagine being in your shoes but feeling you have zero options because all your money is controlled by WH, he has isolated you, you couldn’t even drive because he never let you take lessons. Legal aid is a lifesaver for these people.

But I still think put it towards your son to give him something remarkable.