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I think the dynamics of any relationship are hard to shake. Did you acknowledge her birthday in years past? We expect cheaters to think, feel, and interpret situations as we do since, they’re the jerks that cheated and f’ed it all up. (Okay at least I felt that way for a long time) Truth is, whether remorseful and trying, or still f’ed up assholes, they are still human with their unique set of thoughts and feelings. I think it might make you feel a lot better for her to know exactly how you felt about her birthday, your expectations of IHS separation surrounding such events, and how you view this as a "her" problem.

I’ve absolutely typically recognized her birthday, but a big hurt is that I threw her this huge 40th birthday party during the affair. I just hate it, like deeply resent that. And one of their rendezvous was right in the timeframe of her birthday. She says it wasn’t related, my heart says otherwise.

This is what I would say.

You are being authentic to how you feel.

Not as a punishment to how she is dedicated to her own authenticity. But she needs to understand she is asking you to do things you don’t feel like doing and she has learned she is not supposed to do that herself.

And while she might feel hurt, I am assuming if she sits and thinks about it, it’s probably her reaction to the situation at large. She is getting a reality check (even though that’s not what you are intentionally doing to her) and she doesn’t like it.

Tough titty said the kitty. This is IHS. I would feel differently if I thought you were playing games or being punitive.

Now on the other hand, she has a right to feel however she feels and at least she is expressing herself. Is this new behavior?

I would probably have responded about how YOUR feeling hurt and ignored due to her affair and her failure to work through it with you.

Inkhulk, I get that. I have a similar feeling about something I did for my husband during his affair. Reconciled and almost 6 years later I won’t entertain doing something similar for him. He knows exactly how I feel about it and knows it may always be this way. He also knows that any hurt he feels concerning this boundary of mine is his problem to deal with alone.

Man, just that quick opening of the window to her and getting a shitty response has thrown me off. She is such a threat to my peace.

Unfortunately this is IHS and birthdays don't get celebrated as if you were happily married. IHS means very limited conversation and 180. Her reaction sounds selfish in that she expected something else. Birthdays were always a trigger for me when I was with my ex both mine and his. He cheated during a birthday party he threw for me and has always cheated throughout major holidays, birthdays, celebrations. Tainted all of it for me. I still cannot forget how he harped on about why I didn't want to celebrate our wedding anniversary calling it a "me problem."

IHS is not easy so I feel for you there. I did it for almost a year and it practically made me insane. I don't suggest doing it for as long as I did. Better to try and figure out which direction you want to head in as soon as possible. When I moved out the peace of mind and happiness I felt told me which direction to take next which was D. I have never regret my decision.

Well, let me put this out there and you can decide if this is valid for your situation.

You authentically didn’t feel like going all out for her birthday. Completely valid and understandable.

She feels threatened and hurt. Also completely valid.

This could spell out the end, and that is obviously an acceptable choice.

But this could just be healthy conflict that has never occurre because it’s always been about one person winning and one losing. And I am not assuming that one of you consistently held the winner or loser pot.

I know that in the lens of where you are you see this as she is taking your peace because she has taken your peace in general. But her standing her ground and you standing yours is part of a normal healthy relationship too. You just don’t have one of those right now to have the perspective.

She may not realize at the time of this exchange is that she is grieving the loss of her marriage. You have been at that for a while and it’s valid you don’t feel like bending. You shouldn’t. I meant what I said when I said tough titty. But that was my way of saying do not abandon yourself to rescue her. And likewise, I would t tell her to abandon how she feels but to stay with it and listen to what it’s telling her.

IHS is fucking hard. We did it for a very short period of time. But I do think that for the first time we both showed up without abandoning ourselves. sometimes change can feel negative at first.

That being said, I am not telling you not to be done either. Just giving you perspective on that fighting is maybe a good thing. I know you are tired so it can’t feel that way.

Food for thought. Your wife is for the first time maybe realizing she could lose. I don’t see that as a bad thing at all. It just triggers you because it makes you feel like the bad guy which adds insult since she is the one who created this whole mess.

Honestly, I love you guys for not taking this chance to just dump all over my wife and tell me I’m amazing. Mad respect.

Edit to add: I do love the “tough titties” though, that has made my morning.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 4:48 PM, Monday, January 29th]

Man, just that quick opening of the window to her and getting a shitty response has thrown me off. She is such a threat to my peace.

Yes. As always, I'm of the mindset you should tell her this - more communication is better than less. Not in a giant vulnerable window to your soul sort of way, but in a matter of fact detached way, "Look, this is about me trying to manipulate you and make you feel bad. It's not about punishment. It's about me protecting myself. This is separation - it's about detaching. I have tried to be vulnerable with you previously but my attempts at doing so are met with defensiveness and anger and it's too scary to continue bare my heart to someone I don't trust to take care of it. I understand you're working on yourself, and that that works is important but I am no longer okay with my hurts being secondary to yours. I understand if that hurts you, it hurts me too. This is not what I would have chosen, but here we are."

Send it in a text message if you think you're going to need to in order to avoid the emotion involved or if you're going to find her reaction triggering. I used to find that it gave my husband an opportunity to think about the words rather than focus on the emotion/tone. I wonder if that's helpful here.

Now on the other hand, she has a right to feel however she feels and at least she is expressing herself. Is this new behavior?

I hear you looking for a silver lining here. I’ve been thinking about this question and while I wish I could say yes, I can’t. The one way that has always been guaranteed to get some kind of complaint/hurt out of her is for me to express mine first. She has proven faithful to ensure that mine is unaddressed and trumped. This morning was more of the same. It felt like a mini-betrayal that she did it after coaxing me out by asking me about me.

Thanks, Emergent. I did already send a text in line with that. Got an ok response, saying in effect that she hopes someday I can be free of the pain and triggers. And that is all well and good, but what she really needed to say is that she is sorry for causing them and that she is willing to live with them. The willingness to live with them, that seems like a major piece of amends for a wayward.

I used to find that it gave my husband an opportunity to think about the words rather than focus on the emotion/tone. I wonder if that's helpful here.

Emergent, you are becoming my soul mate!

Everything you said is excellent. Especially this last bit. I felt as the ws I was suddenly aware that my reactions were always lacking. I think I was always an empathic person unless it effected me personally. Then I couldn’t get off the me train long enough to see the him train. Part of my emotional immaturity.

My IC had me to say things to validate my husbands feelings "that makes sense" but I couldn’t see the big picture in the individual exchanges. I couldn’t see the lens he was viewing me through. Often when I had time to process, I could get there. And the more that happened the better I became at responding appropriately more quickly. It took practice. It also took him sticking to his guns.

[This message edited by hikingout at 5:04 PM, Monday, January 29th]

I’m new to this detachment and 180 stuff, but let me try to analyze this. It DOES make sense that a person would feel hurt if their spouse doesn’t celebrate their birthday. HOWEVER, we are in frikin’ IHS, for goodness sake, and I just described (and have before in the past) these awful things she has done to taint this for me. What does she expect me to do, just eat the deep emotional pain she put there so she can feel special for a day at my expense? Again, go out with friends, go to a spa, I don’t give a shit. But to mope around and then come to me as if it was my job to save her from it. This is all fucked up, right? Remember, I’m a very recently recovering codependent.

She’s just not getting it.

I feel your frustration and pain IH. I have lived through much of that myself. My WW has zero natural ability to experience empathy. She can’t seem to imagine how she would feel if something happens to her. Something similar almost HAS to happen to her for her to truly "feel" it. It sounds like your wife may have some of those same tendencies. If my wife says anything about feeling "hurt and ignored" I use it as an opportunity to say "OK, welcome to MY world around your affairs. Think about how that would feel for 20 years". She literally had to be gaslighted by her older brother when she confronted him about his SA of her as a child to say "holy shit, this is EXACTLY what I do to you"….

Anyway, you show you have reasonable expectations on what IHS should be? Does your wife? Did you proactively discuss how birthdays and such will be handled at this time? If not, now may be a good time to reset expectations. I have tripped many times expecting my wife "should know what this means". Her mental makeup just doesn’t allow it. So although we aren’t and haven’t been in IHS, I have set clear expectations around how Valentines Day, our "anniversary" and birthdays will look going forward. She may not like it, but she certainly can’t claim surprise or lack of clarity…..

If you did share expectations and that is how she STILL reacted (plus the "trump your pain" lack of empathy), your problems are immense my friend….

[This message edited by ImaChump at 5:28 PM, Monday, January 29th]

I feel the need to clarify: it would have been fantastic for her to ask me about my hurts around her birthday, have an emotionally appropriate response, apologize, and say she understands and will live with those consequences.

It also would have been a very impressive and brave thing for her to just tell me that she had hurt feelings from how the day went, that she wanted me to know that but she was going to manage them and she would like to be clearer going forward on both our wants and needs so we can both thrive.

But she didn’t do either of those. She drew me out, left me hanging, and then vented on me like her feelings were my responsibility and my feelings didn’t mean shit.

#notok

#toughtitties
#analyzethis

[This message edited by InkHulk at 5:41 PM, Monday, January 29th]

It's not necessarily about finding a silver lining. It's about figuring out what's going on. You are looking at one datum and some associations, and there's no way of knowing what the datum means at this point. It could, after all, be 2 people baring their souls in response to each other, and that could be a step in getting back together.

Following up with the SMS msg was a good next step. If you want to test her further - and I urge you to do so - ask her to say what you want to hear. If necessary, tell her the exact words.

The goal of the testing is to accelerate getting to the resolution. If she steps up, that's positive (though not conclusive) for R. If she doesn't step up, you're likely to speed up your detaching.

You may think giving her the words or asking for what you want is less than useless. It isn't. It gets you both closer to what you want. I've been hooked on my W since 1965, and we are pretty good with our non-verbals, but we still sometimes think we've communicated effectively but haven't - until we say the words.

Yep #toughtitties

If this marriage has a chance to move into a positive space she is going to need to learn new skills. By you not taking up her slack it will be interesting to see if it kicks in. This marriage for the last 18 months has gone because you have been willing to put in more than your fair share of gas in it. Now that you are done doing that, there is going to be a deficit.

Time for her to put in the gas. That’s going to create big emotional reactions in her that she doesn’t have the skills yet to balance. Been there, for sure. And it’s frustrating for both people….but I will say when he stopped doing it for me I learned a lot quicker.

Are you guys jn MC? I don’t always get in as frequently as I have in the last week so I miss details sometimes.

Fore some reason this made me listen to the Stones' "you can't always get what you want"

True wisdom from Mick.

Marriage can absolutely be a cage. But I tend to think of it more like a collapsed wave function. Sure, all the possibilities are obliterated into an outcome, but new functions arise in the aftermath. I have faith that you'll "find what you need" somewhere in there.

My bad for not responding to this earlier, any valid use of quantum mechanics to discuss these things deserves my admiration and attention. To new uncollapsed wave functions and the possibilities they hold…

She definitely could have handled this better, but I suspect your long marriage has developed a culture that was accepting of this behavior. Her unlearning this culture and leaning a new one acceptable for both of you will take time to learn or may not even be in her wheelhouse. That’s the crappy thing about attempting to reconcile. The new marriage so to speak may not be attainable or acceptable to both. But, when learning does take place and both are happy with it, then the new agreement can be wonderful. 🤷‍♀️

Sisoon, that sounds less than useless, indeed it does. And I can see potential harms, of her learning to fake me out by using exactly my own words, sounds like a good way to screw around with the gut I’m trying to learn to trust. Gonna need you to give a few more thoughts on that before following that advice.