I’m so sorry for what you’re going through. I remember so well being stuck in what seemed like endless pain and betrayal and letdown over my WHs behavior after discovery. So first, let me just say that I hear your pain, confusion, and weariness. I so get it. I wish I could swoop you up for coffee so that you could just talk it through and vent away from the source of all this.
Discovery can really produce an endless torrent of defensive, dysfunctional behaviors and patterns in waywards as they try to regain control and manage the situation and their betrayed partners. Deflecting, counter attack, gaslighting, claiming victim status, turning everything you say back on you, manipulating. All seem to be fair game in a wayward that’s trying to regain the upper hand. It’s selfish self-protection. It can be truly vicious.
I really see that in your partner’s behavior. He has had complete control and freedom in very bad behaviors. He has behaved like a spoiled, entitled child. And it has worked for him. He believes that he’s the victim. That is such a dangerous and destructive position for a WS to dig in on after an A. It is crushing to the betrayed.
It sounds like he is bargaining fiercely over something that isn’t negotiable. But he has always been able to negotiate and get what he wants, right? He hasn’t yet accepted that everything has changed because of his own behavior.
Analogies can be tricky and inept, but I"m going to try one here. Your partner decided one day, without thinking it through, just for his own fun, to race his car around the yard, doing doughnuts. Of course that’s dangerous behavior. Of course someone could get hurt, but he just did it because it was fun. He didn’t think. He’d done that kind of thing lots of times and it was usually okay. Sometimes you got mad. Sometimes he had to lay low after, but ultimately there weren’t serious consequences for him.
But this time, he ran over you and injured you horribly. He stood around wringing his hands for a few minutes about how bad this was going to be for him and how bad he felt and how it was going to affect him, and he waited for you to get busy taking care of yourself. He helped you up, but he had a very important coffee date. He’d be back soon, but he really had to go.
In horrible pain, you are now in your bed, trying to heal. But your WH is still there too. He’s complaining to you a lot about how bad it is for him with you out of commission. He’s complaining because you’re taking up a lot more of the bed than usual. You’re not the only person with problems, after all.
Every time he moves, it causes you pain. So you ask him to leave the bed. He says well he doesn’t want to, but he’ll move over a bit. He moves slightly to another spot—the movement also causes you pain—and your pain still isn’t relieved.
You ask him to give you medication, but he doesn’t want to get up, so he suggests he give you a massage. Which is excruciating, but he enjoys giving massages, so he decides that will be better for you. You tell him that he is hurting you, but he tells you that he is helping and gets butt hurt that you’re not appreciating his efforts.
You ask him for a pillow to improve your position. He complains that you’re keeping all the pillows for yourself and making him uncomfortable. You don’t ever think about him now that this happened. You don’t consider HIS pain. He has a right to be comfortable too. You’re so selfish. He is suffering too.
You finally tell him that he HAS to leave the bed so that you can heal without his presence exacerbating and worsening your pain, without him impeding your healing. He proceeds to argue that you don’t understand what will be best for everyone—for HIM—and offers a thousand options that are NOT him leaving the bed: changing sides, different blankets, he’ll move over but not off of the bed, he’ll only sleep there half of the day, he’ll get more pillows, he’ll get himself a new TV to distract him so he doesn’t move around as much.
He’ll offer lots of "compromises," but the one thing he won’t offer is WHAT YOU’RE ASKING FOR AND WHAT YOU NEED. Why? My personal take is because he is strongly committed to maintaining power and control in the relationship. He is selfish and un empathetic to the exclusion of being able to consider anyone’s feelings as real and valid. He is focused still on himself and does not care or listen to what you need and want AT ALL. He still wants what HE wants and needs above all else. You needing things is not working for the way he wants things to be going forward.
I don’t want to assume that your situation is exactly like mine, but your WS seems to be clinging desperately to the power and control that you have allowed him to have throughout your relationship. This was me. Without even knowing it, I had conceded every major decision to my WS, not because he was right, but because he was weak and needier than me. I was strong. I didn’t need the decisions to include what I needed. I could make do. He needed to be indulged and coddled and prioritized.
Mine just wasn’t able to accept losing the power to tell me what to feel about his crap decisions after the A. He wasn’t able to accept that I no longer considered him a poor victim or a special unappreciated flower. He couldn’t accept that I was actually the real victim of his abuse. It didn’t work for his life narrative. It didn’t work for him still getting his way. It didn’t work for him dictating the conditions of recovery, especially when it came to telling me what I needed and what I was feeling (cause yes, he did try to tell me that I was wrong about my own feelings and needs over and over.).
So I’ll just repeat another of the really annoying sayings on SI: this stops when YOU say it does. You don’t have to negotiate or let him bargain for what HE needs or keep listening to his crap. I know you’ve said that you want him to leave, but it sounds like you’re still asking. It sounds like you’re still asking him to see how devastated you are. I so get this because not having my pain be acknowledged by the person who caused it produced massive, ongoing trauma for me. I never, ever got it because it just wasn’t in him to stop thinking of himself as the poor child. Ever.
It really stops when you just make it stop. Period.
And maybe you’re not there yet. It took me years. Trust that you’ll get there when you’re ready, but as I’ve said before, it’s important for us as betrayeds to look at ourselves and the behaviors that we have that continue to hurt us. Mine was always, always choosing someone else to prioritize, and choosing to keep things calm for the kids when he would in no way commit to that. It left me wide open to his abuse.
Mine was saying what I needed and not following through when he just ignored it or bargained with it or gaslit me that I never actually said EXACTLY what I said I needed. I kept thinking that he got a say in things too, but what I was really doing was hoping that the light was going to dawn and he was actually going to be someone that he was clearly telling me he would NEVER be.
This is a journey. A marathon as they say on SÍ, not a race. Keep moving forward. At some point, you will get to where YOU need to be to get out of this without his permission or input. Give yourself grace and have faith in yourself that you will get there. In the meantime, be kind to yourself. Take care of yourself and your kids. Keep coming here when it helps. Take what helps you and leave the rest.
Sending you huge hugs of comfort and support today, user. You are important. You are strong. We’re here.
