SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi all. I feel different things each day at the minute. Each morning is most odd as I must be processing overnight and I have weird thoughts on waking. I seem to have different musings each day. I am over 1 year out but trickle truth has trickled into this year, so let’s say 3 months.

Today my thoughts have once again turned to ‘I think his behaviour was pathetic’.

He has had self esteem issues and He apparently used to think I thought he was pathetic - I never thought this of him. I really didn’t. I loved him and accepted the flaws I saw. The fact he thought that I saw him as pathetic came out in counselling and the counsellor questioned it and he realised it just wasn’t true. He didn’t just say pathetic it was far more than that but he now knows it wasn’t true just how he felt.

However now I do think he has been pathetic.

He mentioned something a while back and I now wonder if he thought an affair demonstrated he wasn’t pathetic, that he was capable of cheating so therefore desirable and brave? enough to cheat. I am struggling to word this but I do know he cheated out of spite and anger and I think this is also pathetic.

I am annoyed that I am here thinking stuff like this. I am pretty sick of it all to be honest.

Can I get over this particular feeling?

My other thought is I used to be so proud of him. I’m not now and it makes me sad. I struggle to even talk about him to other people (I haven’t told a soul - except you guys).

I went through something like this, but I called it 'contempt'.

I fell for my W in 1965, and I never lost the in-love feeling, in part because she was so smart. Her behavior during her A was about as stupid as I can imagine. A little after a year out, I felt contempt for her. It didn't last.

If you're looking for advice, my reco is to monitor yourself. You might cycle back and forth a number of times, but my bet is that you'll eventually settle one way or another. If you settle on viewing your H as pathetic, maybe R isn't the right choice for you.

R isn't better than D in general; D isn't better than R in general. One of them is going to be better for you. Your task is to figure out which one that is. Have faith in yourself to do that.

Thank you for your reply.

I have read about the four horseman ones n Gottmans books. I can definitely spot them and we both call them out and discuss them regularly. We have both matured/grown a lot. We are both a lot more aware of what we should and shouldn’t do. What behaviours help and hinder our relationship. I tell him when I don’t like him (which is still a lot of the time) and he reassures me ( he would have been defensive and contemptuous before). In a way I wish I had met him now - he (and I) are more aware.

I wasn’t ever great emotionally, I know I could have been better (history of sexual assault/partner violence). I never spoke about some of it and I should have done. I have read a vast quantity of literature in the past year - easily 60 books - I have more tools at my fingertips and I am better at so much stuff. As is he, he has read 10 or so books and watched a lot of material. The counsellor he had was mainly a waste of space but he has spent time using the bits that worked and ditching the many bad bits (counsellor was a marriage is to blame person). The only good thing about this was I hit rock bottom. I was lower than rock bottom. I had to address the issues that have allowed me to be so low. I’m improved but I don’t think I’ll ever be fixed sadly. I probably wasn’t great marriage material myself!

I have fun with him. I know he can be a good person, I hope he doesn’t let himself down. I think I may keep a diary and see if there is a pattern or more of a gap between thoughts etc. Im very good at blocking out bad things (see above I never had counselling until last year) despite assaults etc. I managed fine and rarely triggered. But I need to go through the motions on this.

Thanks for your input I really appreciate it. I enjoy reading your responses - very comforting. Thank you for taking your time to share.

I think that if pathetic evolves to flawed you may have something to work with. Then maybe you have to figure out if his set of flaws is a reasonable match for your set. If he has the same flaws as before but is working on them and he is never going to repeat the behaviors he engaged in will that be enough? I also had my husband on a pedestal which is now completely gone. Maybe it isn’t fair to put someone on a pedestal anyway. You were proud of him before - did that include a full awareness of his flaws? Sorry you are spending time pondering. It can be tiresome. I am not far enough away from D-day #2 to know if it becomes less tiresome with time.

Thank you for your reply.
No it didn’t include full awareness there was one detail which would have meant we were never together. He admitted this a while back (I would never have known about it - impossible). He had other things from the past that I could live with and I knew about them. I knew he had faults but I could accept them. I had him on a pedestal because I thought he was kind, caring, loyal etc. I liked his values and integrity i thought he was far better at emotional stuff than me. I find it really hard and I have to think rather than just react. I was never bothered about wealth etc, I am successful myself and it’s hard to be with someone career focused if you are too. I don’t need taking care of financially. I just needed a solid person. I guess I asked too much.

Today is okay.

So a few weeks have passed since I last wrote here.

I feel less angry. More together I guess.

Today I’m thinking this isn’t the marriage I signed up for and my needs aren’t being met because of that. Which is laughable in this situation! (I have a dark sense of humor). I feel calm in my thoughts and I meditate. I’m hoping we can build something new.

I no longer get as upset and can move my thoughts on (I see them as clouds). But I am still trying to work out who I am married to. I feel bad for him in many ways. He has realised the depth of his cheating. The actual damage it has done. We are so suited in so many ways. He has realised what he has lost. He can cope with the trust, his phone is permanently unlocked etc. passwords all open. To be honest I’m not really struggling with trust. I knew I’d be okay with that. It’s his choice to deceive me, more fool him if that’s a path he wants.

But I struggle to say ‘I love you’. I cannot use any words that I read in the texts as I would feel fake or I’d laugh. I feel a fraud. Affection is very important to him, it’s one of the things I really loved about him. Words, sentiments etc. Some people would hate it, maybe see it as OTT or clingy - but it was fine for me. Different people suit different people. He sold out my words and affection to someone (it’s looking highly probable a boiler room scammer playing the long game with good English skills).

On that note any ideas on how I can further check to see if this was a scammer? It makes not a bit of difference to how I feel but I’d like the truth.

I used to be so proud of him.

One thing I worked out philosophically and in therapy is that pride is misplaced in anyone but yourself. You don't control others. You can be proud of how you have acted. You can be ashamed of how you have acted. You can be happy or upset about how others have acted, but you shouldn't be proud or ashamed of them. You don't control them.

I used to be proud of my marriage and family.

I am and always have been proud of being a good husband and father. I'm not proud of my wife or kids, but I am happy with them.

Good stuff, Fine.

Thank you Fine - I will ponder that over the next few days.

I’m getting good at some stuff I wasn’t so good at before. I will take that tiny bit of positivity (there’s little else of positivity to take from the gift that keeps on giving). I’m proud of my handling of this situation- okay I’ve had my moments but in the main I’m proud of myself. So I’ll take that too. I don’t always think my response has been exactly what my husband expected - which contradicts the nonsense he said about me last year.

Any suggestions on my getting my words etc back?

I’m assuming when you say « getting your words back » you mean what you said about not wanting to say things that you read in his texts because it would feel to fake? Sad to say it always seems the answer is time. I wonder if the fact that it seems the whole thing was possibly a scam helps that at all? I imagine not really helpful right now. It sounds like you are still raw from the pain of what you read. My husband admitted at one point to having told her she was beautiful. Of note, she is definitely not beautiful. But, of course, that means that if he comments on my appearance I know it’s baloney too. But, in a way I feel maybe that horror over the word beautiful is going away. At a minimum it is not something I have thought of in months…except that your post reminded me. He claims to have said it when she was fishing for a compliment…along the lines of « no ever thought I was pretty before… » followed by a long pause.

I like the way you described the feelings as clouds and how you are letting them pass through. Need to consciously think more that way myself. Tonight was a bumming out kind of a night where i feel very sad for what he has done. But overall I can definitely see improvement in my healing process—it sounds like you can too.

I really relate to how you said he sold out your words and affection to someone else. I think my husband sold out something different to the OW but it gives me a similar feeling. He made her think she had a shot at taking my life, lifestyle, stability, money, his affection etc. I don’t he think he had any intention of ever giving her a darn thing. He used her and then sent her packing after a few months, taking her job in the process. But she targeted him, requesting to come work for him making less than she had in the past just to try to get him into a thing with him. I think she was hoping to pay for her kids education by remarrying up. They used each other. Pathetic as you said in your earlier post. But it was my life. It wasn’t his to dangle in front of someone else to get some sexual needs met. I’m bitter about that. Toward both of them.

You seem a little down. Seems like you blame yourself for being moody in the past. I hope you keep making progress. It seems good that you are posting your thoughts on your process. It’s nice to hear how someone else is working through stuff.

Best to you!

Right now he is a proven liar so his words are meaningless.

Everyone always says "watch his actions, don't listen to his words". Seems you are already doing that. You don't believe a word he has said to you about loving you (or being beautiful, or whatever other words of affirmation he gives you that he also gave AP). This notion of sharing your WS is very painful and it's just the damage an A does. After your WH does the work to become safe again, you can probably start to believe these words because he will be backing them up with actions.

An A sells out the specialness of your marriage, and I will suggest that a loss of sense of specialness is permanent damage. Others here might disagree. I'm ok being in a relationship that isn't special, that's just good. The sense of specialness may or may not have been naive to some degree in the first place. This is the "removal of rose colored glasses" we might have seen our relationship through before.

This is perhaps not as optimistic a view as what you'd like to hear, but that's what I've got.

For a slightly humorous take, another poster introduced me to Tim Minchin's "If I Didn't Have You".