SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Thank you so much for all your replies on my previous thread. I have taken your advice and paused the mc so would appreciate some more advice.

The problem now is that my partner asked me if I loved him and I said no, that I cared about him but he had done a lot of damage to our relationship and hurt me so badly. That I needed to wait and see but we have young children together so as I have said before, I want to give it my all for them. Anyway he is very hurt by this. Since your brilliant advice to focus on myself, I have been doing that and this for some reason means I have started to physically withdraw from him in every way.

I think because he lacks coping strategies and feels alone and isolated. Last night, he started to comment on my physical withdrawal from him I got defensive and then I made a snidy comment about the ow. This the resulted in the usual verbal tongue lashing and swearing at me, I used to answer back but didn’t last night.

I guess my question is, is this just our negative cycle as a couple as the mc would say? I have read up a lot about eft and negative cycles couples can get in. I can notice myself physically withdrawing, I flinch when he comes near me and my husband is getting rejected, saying I don’t meet any of his needs and I didn’t before and am worse now. Is this normal post affair to withdraw physical contact and since this is such a priority for him how do I manage this while I work out what I want to do with this marriage. Is his expectation too much or am I being unfair?

I know some of you will say, as you did before he is abusive but I wonder is this just part of our cycle, I can be cold and not very affectionate and I also tend to hold my feelings in and then explode but since I started to withdraw and focusing on me I am managing this alot better. He can be really kind and very helpful and has made loads of good changes .

Again I heard some of your advice that I should separate, but at present I live in a different country to where I am from and I feel safe here at the moment. When I did temporarily leave him and go back to where I am from it really traumatised the children so don’t want to do this again unless I know for certain what I want.

[This message edited by Lemonpie at 7:11 PM, Sunday, March 3rd]

Ws ere, I would say your behaving totally as expected. Now it is hard being rejected and I have really struggled when my BS has said how she doesnt love me etc but I do realise this is just the hurt talking ...does that at the time make it easier to process, hell no it is horrid and sucks HOWEVER he has to realise it's just the hurt and that given you are still there, talking and trying is a sign that somewhere you do still care....

My bs also flinches .... but only at times, when she is either angry or has a bad day that being said we are a super close and affectionate couple and then all other times we are close and and there is still hugs, cuddles, kisses etc.

I know my BS has previously mentioned to me how she knows that she still wants to try and reconcile..our closeness/her liking my company and therefore it does help me to understand. Honestly though even when she does flinch and pull away I wouldnt dream of then saying she is rejecting me, or drawing some sort of comparison to the past etc usually I will leave her be and then try and revisit later. That just seems like he is trying to blame you for your pain....that he caused!!

Anyway he shouldn't be blaming you and being like a Child. I have in no way been the best WS, christ I compared myself to a broken microwave the other day but he does need to work on his behaviours. Is he on here? Doing any work or reading etc?

All the best and good luck

Tiny Tim,

No he refuses to read anything about infidelity and hates that I do. I think it reminds him of his shame. He isn’t doing any work (therapy) on himself but he is treating me better. He does recognise that some of his childhood trauma may have led to this. I think he wants us just to forget about it and move on and it has been a traumatic time for him with everyone knowing about it.

Sometimes I feel like I live with two people, the helpful supportive person and then the very needy, as you say like a child that gets aggressive when these needs are not met. It is hard as I have three young children as is.

Lemonpie, your husband sounds like my wife. Treating me a little better but not doing the work on herself. I do love my wife, and if she asks that, I tell her so. I even say I love her when she doesn’t ask, but it’s one thing to love someone, and another to be "in love" with someone. That’s where I’m finding struggles. By her not putting in the work, it makes me feel like I’m not worth the effort, and if she truly loved me I’d have thought she would have been willing to go through hell for me. I guess not, and it makes me question how much she loves me which in turn makes me go into protect mode and when there, I begin to really feel like we are falling out of love, but I do still love her. This was probably a ramble, but it’s what’s in my head.

Thank you coping my best. I read some of your previous posts and a lot resonates with me. My husband just wants to do the same, bury all of this. I am not allowed access to his phone, or now his work emails. I think he has become depressed as he is not really leaving the house much anymore other than the one day a week to go to work so I don’t think he is still having an affair. He is finally changing offices but I have had 8 months of him working with the ap which has really damaged my feelings towards him (like you said in previous posts I questioned, does he really care about me that he couldn’t do this ages ago). Now that he is finally doing it, he wants big recognition for it without recognising the damage he has done

Lp,

I honestly think he should spend some time on here the one thing my BS has mentioned to me time and time again is this site (I actually signposted her here) she has made numerous posts whereas I sometimes struggle. There is massive amounts of shame that i carry for what I have done but tbf when I am on here and I either read stuff or comment it does help. I have been stuck in a real negative ass hole defensive cycle and would get angry and belligerent because of stuff I took to heart but honestly as I say the thing i realised is that this is just her pain talking, it's not her!! Whether she can at some point forgive me or can fully let her guard down I don't know but i am just grateful for the time she is giving me now.

He may have some childhood traumas and I dont want that to be taken away but how can he ever really say this wouldnt happen again unless he addresses them issues. I know when going through my whys the stuff that hasnt helped over the years and I have seen some terrible things in my current job but none of that would have been what caused this mess in my life that was just me and my broken morals.

Anyway in my opinion, he needs to accept he has hurt you and try his absolute must not to start lashing out and being defensive....no matter how hard it maybe.

Good luck with it all

What he is doing is not R. He is nor remorseful. He is not transparent. He is not getting to his why's. His lack of action on all these fronts shows you he is not a safe partner.
He wants you to shut up and move on. Which you can choose to do. However that means he is not safe and he will hurt you again.

Please please please start protecting yourself.

Look after yourself.

His behaviour is not like a remorseful, safe spouse.

Maybe he wants to rug sweep. He certainly has poor coping mechanisms. Alcohol now. He is secretive too. Insults as well. Of course you don’t want to go near him, the only surprise is that he is surprised. He’s not the prize. You are still deciding if he is worth being with.

He wants it to return ‘to normal’ that is not going to happen.

I regularly told my husband I don’t love him. He is aware I think that I will never love him like I used to love him. I do now tell him i love him but that’s because he has been open, given up all poor coping mechanisms, shown me things on his phone that he would have previously hidden and accepted me when I hate him. Which at one point was 99% of each day. I have told him I wouldn’t marry him if I could go back in time. His values obviously didn’t match mine and he’s a time waster with low integrity. He has accepted this and much, much more. He has had to deal with this rejection. Or he could have left. I was okay with either option but I wasn’t prepared to hide my feelings as MY priority was healing from the ptsd and breakdown he had caused. Me and my little ones are now my number 1 priority. I no longer save him the last or best of something out of kindness - I eat or drink it I now love me how I used to love him.

Unmet needs. He doesn’t meet your need for loyalty, being faithful and honesty - how will having sex with another human (an honest loyal human - like my accountant) help meet your needs? It makes no sense really.

I need to talk about the elephant in the marriage.

Alcohol.

He is drinking. A lot.

I read through many of your posts, and a main theme is that when he drinks, he becomes angry and verbally abusive to you.

I can only speak to my own history, not yours, so I will. Prior to my current marriage, I was in a long term marriage with a man who had similar behaviors. He was a really nice guy, soft-spoken and funny. He would talk about his dreams, we would go on adventures together, and had lots of good times - until he had some alcohol in his system. After a few drinks, his mood would change. For the first few years, he was just "mean" when he was drunk. He would do stupid stuff. He would take me home, then go back out. Turns out he was cheating on me, I had no idea at the time.

Those mean times turned violent later on in the relationship, when he slapped me. I accepted his apology, he said he was "just drunk" and didn’t mean it. Turns out he wanted me out of the way because he had made plans with her, and I wasn’t cooperating with going home. I didn’t know that at the time.

The slapping escalated. He tried to throw me out of a moving car. I actually apologized for making him mad. Yes, I did that. Why? BECAUSE EVERYONE CONVINCED ME IT WAS ALL MY FAULT FOR NOT MEETING HIS NEEDS.

I wasn’t being "understanding".

Sound familiar? That’s what your therapist told you? You’re the one whose moods are up and down? Gee, I wonder why.

Anyway, he kept drinking. And his gaslighting continued. I was the one who MADE HIM DRINK. Yeah, I did that. I was the cause of his alcoholism, because I wasn’t being a good enough girlfriend. I was crazy, I was moody, I cried when he screamed at me. I was accusing him of cheating all the time (even though he actually was cheating, didn’t matter).

I apologized to him after every beating. I even apologized to him the morning after the police put me into a jail cell in protective custody overnight to keep him from killing me - I apologized while my face was cut, both eyes blackened, my throat bore the imprint of his hands, and my groin was black and blue from his boot kicks. Yes, I apologized to him for "having to beat me" and embarrassing him in public.

No, he wasn’t arrested, even then.

I only left him because of divine intervention, having met someone else who led me in another direction. At least I learned that love doesn’t have steel toed boots.

He went on to marry his AP. They had a short marriage, until he hit her and she left him.

He apparently got into a program, remarried, and had a kid. My brother said he seemed to be doing well. I was glad to hear that, because he truly was a nice person when dry.

That is my story. Not yours.

Alcoholics escalate. They just do. Verbal abuse is still abuse. It grows in its anger and fury.

Your WH is blaming you for HIS behavior. That is where this begins. You’re not in a negative cycle IMHO. You’re in an alcoholic cycle - his.

Don’t accept his blame for him. Stand up. You do not have to accept his responsibility.

Am I saying he will beat you? No. I’m saying his alcoholism IS THE MAJOR PROBLEM YOU HAVE RIGHT NOW.

You cannot, and will not, solve any other problem until and unless he stops drinking.

You cannot argue with someone who is in a chemically altered state of mind. You cannot help them, either. They cannot help themselves, either. When they are drinking, they cannot make life decisions with logic or reason. They cannot make life changes that are meaningful. They cannot make commitments. They most certainly cannot possibly make the changes and commitments needed for reconciliation and recovery for the damages they have done due to their infidelities - nor can they possibly make the cognitive and emotional explorations needed to repair themselves.

If I were in your shoes, I would not make one more step towards reconciliation until and unless he stopped drinking and was in a structured program with at least a month under his belt.

[This message edited by 5Decades at 4:08 PM, Friday, January 26th]

5decades, thank you for your reply and I am so sorry you have been through this. It sounded awful and glad you got away.

Thank you for all your other replies

I know the alcohol is a problem, I don’t think he would ever hurt me like that but his drinking does lead to mood changes and I guess I get more resentful as he doesn’t help as much with the kids.I guess what I cannot convey in my posts is that when things are good, he can be an amazing dad and husband but I feel
So hurt and traumatised by what has happened that I hold back from being vulnerable because I remember the bad times. Thank you for normalising some of this stuff for me.

Please don't show your ws this site. Showing an unremorseful ws your safe place never ends well for the bs.

He will use it against you. He will learn to cover his bullshit better. He will blame this site,as the reason you won't just sweep it under the rug.

Does he need SI? Yes. But,until he is the one actively looking for resources to heal the damage he's caused, he isn't safe to bring here.

He's unremorseful. He's abusive. He refuses transparency. He is showing you he doesn't care about how this is hurting you,only how he's tired of dealing with it.

He may not want a divorce. That's not the same as wanting reconciliation. He's showing you he has zero interest in healing. He's showing you he isn't safe.

And you aren't safe with him.

No. You hold back from being vulnerable because..

This the resulted in the usual verbal tongue lashing and swearing at me,

He's abusive.

So what if he's great when he's not trying to coerce you into sex,verbally and emotionally abusing you, abusing the kids(hurting their mom,physically in their presence is 200% abuse),etc etc.

Have you ever heard a woman say her husband is great when he's not hitting her? Your husband is that husband.

You said the marriage was bad before the affair. He blames you and the marriage for cheating. He's physically assaulted you in front of the kids. He doesn't help much with his own children. The kids are in a toxic environment.

Why do you want to R?

Also..he got defensive over the snide comment you made about the ow? That's typically a sign he is either still in the affair, or still has feelings for her.

Hi Lemon,

While I want to reassure you that the way YOU are feeling right now, is totally normal, I want to do the opposite of normalizing your husband's behaviour, because I think that for whatever reason - probably a combination of being in this relationship for so long or never having grown up seeing what healthy relationships look like - you have become accustomed to the unacceptable. You now how it is impossible to see in the dark if you've just come out of the sun, but when the lights have been dimmed slowly your eyes gradually get used to it and it's not a problem? Well your ability to function in this relationship is like that, the dysfunction of it has happened over such a period that you've gotten acclimatized to functioning in the dark.

Whether he's physically cheating or not, he's still communicating with her and lying to you about it. He refuses to show you his phone because he's obviously still activity communicating with her. He clearly has a serious problem with alcohol - 9 bottles of wine/week is. He is verbally abusing you and he's managed to convince you that it's YOUR fault because you are not a perfect ray of sunshine ready and willing and able to meet his every physical demand 24 hours/day. He sees you not for who you are, but for what you can provide HIN and HIS ego. He's not worried about how YOU are doing, he's worried about how your behaviour effects him. He's worried about HIS hurt (by your reactions). His consequences. Nothing about this is R. The fact that he's nice sometimes and showers you with gifts sometimes, doesn't excuse his actions - neither does the fact that you are not always the "perfect victim" - it's all just part of the cycle of abuse. That is the negative cycle you are describe.

I get it, you're not ready to leave right now. It sounds like you live in a country that you would likely need to leave if the relationship were not to work out. Is that right? You likely do not have family nearby who could help you out. What about friends (or has he isolated you entirely). But please stop saying it's because of the kids - be honest with yourself. If he's drunk all the time and verbally berating their mother, he's NOT being a good father to them. I imagine they probably love him with their whole gigantic innocent/trusting hearts, because that's what kids are born to do. He's teaching them that abuse is normal in a romantic relationship and that they should not expect better. He's teaching them that if they wish to be loved, they need to shut up, hide their negative emotions, and lower their standards - the way their mother has learned to do. He's reinforcing the cycle that (I assume) has convinced you that you don't deserve better than this. Both you and your kids deserve better than this.

I'm not saying any of this to be mean. I also get that this may be hard to hear. I know you want the best for your kids and your husband. But wishing that he'll get it is not going to make him get it. The fact that he's already back to drinking is Even if you're not sure you want it yet, please start taking steps to protect yourself. What are your options if you leave? What would that look like legally - have you spoken with a lawyer about your options? Will you be deported? Will you be able to support yourself? What would child support look like - could that be enforced from a distance? Leaving is scary - but it's less scary when you have knowledge/a plan. Having a plan doesn't mean you actually have to use it, it just means that you can make educated decisions form a place of power. Please continue to take care of yourself.

Lemon pie,

The very last thing I wanted to do was normalize any of this.

Abuse. Is. Not. Normal.

Read my story again. I believed I owed the man chance after chance. I believed that I owed him an apology because he "had to beat me in public" and that may have caused HIM embarrassment. Him. I was apologizing to him, after a beating so bad it left me bleeding and bruised.

You know what my father asked me? "What did you do that made him have to beat you?"

Think about that. The people around me believed I deserved this. I believed that, too.

Why do you believe you deserve to be abused?

I know, now, why I believed it. My father physically and psychologically abused me and my brother growing up. He was a terrorist, who was unpredictable and a gaslighter of the highest order. It’s not a surprise, looking back, that I thought it "normal" to have a violent love relationship.

It is NOT NORMAL.

Loving relationships are not violent. They are not abusive.

Loving relationships do NOT include the father being drunk and verbally assaulting the mother in front of the children, nor at any other time for that matter.

Loving relationships do not include physical assaults of any kind.

Your husband remains in contact with his affair partner. That is not recovery.
Your husband is refusing counseling, has not allowed transparency with his devices, and is aggressive. That is not recovery.

Your husband is not showing remorse, regret, nor true attempts to understand what YOU need, want, or are going through. So far, this is not a recovery on his side.

So far, it seems like you’re trying to fix a living situation for yourself and the kids, for stability. And it’s not stable.

Nor is it normal.

He is relying on your empathy and compassion, I assume, and doing the push pull victim stuff to activate it. Your best friend is detachment now, and a dispassionate analysis of the possible risk of escalating abuse. Ths acronym, DETACH, ‘don’t even try and change him’ needs to be your byword. At this point you are responsible only for you and your children, and your healing, which is hard work in itself. You could give him a copy of Not Just Friends by Shirley Glass, along with an ultimatum to read it and get healing for his trauma wounds, as they are killing the marriage. And leave it at that.

Love isn't enough reason alone to R, but I do think it is required. I've always said you also need practical reasons.

If you don't love him, it's over.

People stay in materially bad conditions because of love. I can't imagine trying to stay solely for practical reasons.

Hi everyone, thank you so much for your messages. I have found you all so helpful and this might be just a rant. I am not sure if anyone will see this as it has been a while.

I just want to get a sense again, if I am being unreasonable as I don’t like myself much now. I keep making these snidy comments. Did others do that? Like for instance the other night, we were around the dinner table talking, about friends of mine who have had children really late.

Anyway, I made a snidy comment about how this could have been my husband (as he got his ap pregnant, I don’t know if he made it up and she colluded with it as I caught staying the night with her three weeks after I first kicked him out and he told me he had ended it. He said the reason he had to see her was because she was pregnant which was a huge shock to me.

My husband was very angry by this subtle but snidy comment, my young kids were there but they didn’t notice but he did. He pushed the dinner I had just made away and then declared I had turned him off his food. Then I tried to say well it could have been but I was sorry for saying it, he started to call me names. He then refused to help put the kids to bed. I then realised he had been drinking a lot and made that comment to him, that he was drinking a lot on a Sunday night, a bottle of wine followed by a glass of whiskey. He got more annoyed. I tried to apologise but he told me not too. He is now giving me the silent treatment which will probably last a day until this evening tomorroe.

I don’t know, I am just ranting but also, I get so confused because he can be so nice and lovely and sometimes I wonder if I am the one that starts arguments by picking at a scab. Maybe the MC would help us address this

[This message edited by Lemonpie at 7:15 PM, Sunday, March 3rd]

I also probably said the drinking bit in a snidy passive aggressive way as I was annoyed by what he had called me and his refusal with helping put the kids to bed.

Lemon pie,

As I said, the elephant in your living room is alcohol.

You won’t recover until that is gone.

He won’t change until that is gone.

And your children are growing up with an alcoholic parent. That means they have a father who is volatile, unpredictable, and scary to them. They will learn to avoid him, apologize for things they didn’t do, apologize for being a bother, and will have their self-esteem eroded day by day.

They will learn to walk on eggshells.

They will watch YOU and learn how you fight with him, how he doesn’t talk to you, how he cheats on you and then has no remorse, and how you blame yourself and apologize to him for his cheating.

And they will learn that they are to blame for bad things that OTHER PEOPLE DO.

Right now, you have a small window of opportunity to change the trajectory of that cycle.

Don’t ignore the elephant.

Gently, you seem to take responsibility for his not eating and for calling you a horrible name.

That's way off, Lemonpie. That's your H, not you - but you're letting him do these awful things, and you're letting him teach your kids to do or accept them themselves. That is meant as an observation and as some incentive for changing. It's not meant as criticism, because you're being abused, and it's hard to fight abuse.

Can you get to an abused mom & kids shelter? You are being abused, and you deserve better.

(((Lemonpie))) - a hug, if you want one

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:50 PM, Monday, February 5th]