SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I need help, I'm obviously doing something very wrong...

I brought up the MC again last night, because after saying it for what seems like the hundredth time last week (that I'm still hurting and need us to work through) he had again let the subject completely drop and has no intention on pursuing MC. He seemed very levelheaded about it when I brought it up and agreed to talk to me again, but I got hurt AGAIN when he closed his statement with "I just don't see the point of bringing that back up, it was almost 3 years ago and I don't see what's so bad, I didn't realize there was still an issue!" As calmly as I could, I told him it may not come into his head anymore, but it does. Mine and I never got ANY kind of resolution with him, that I can't just bury it.

It turned into a fight fairly quickly when he tried to answer a couple of questions, because he was trying to lie again about what had happened and told me our relationship had been broken long before he saw someone else, he even had the audacity to blame me and said he loves our children now but he can admit our first child was a "relationship saver baby", thats how bad we were and it was all news to me!!!

The talk ended when i told him i was getting angry and didn't wanna say something i didn't mean so we should put it on pause until we both calmed down. He said no i cant just turn the conversation off when i want to, theres no reason for me to be mad years later, and then said "I dont want to have to deal with this shit!" I was mad, i admit i went too far, but i said "Then you shouldn't have done it!" That sent him into a rage, he went out to the garage and hit the wall, etc, through a fit basically. Not a word since...

I want to cry reading these posts on SI about Reconciliation, and WS who are trying for their BS, and it seems so unfair that my WS wont even TRY to help! He was apparently scouring the internet recently to find ways to get me back to my sexual self (ive been very uninterested), actually tried several ways to make me feel sexy, wanted to talk that over and get our sexlife back, but doesn't even give my broken heart a second thought...

So your husband basically wants you to rugsweep and "Get over it" because it was 3 yrs ago and it's not HIS fault you can't just close your eyes to it and move on?

Uh, no. Doesn't work that way.

He doesn't sound remorseful to me. At all. He doesn't seem to care that you're still hurting.

I'm sorry. (((((((((longnightmare))))))))

I am so sorry that you are going through this so many years later. It proves that the work needs to get done one way or another and I applaud you for fight for it to get done even after all of this time. This is a testament to the strength of your desire to live a healthy life. It must be really hard to be fighting to get healthy with someone who just wants to bury it and move on.

I am wondering if the "hook" here for your husband, the motivating factor in getting help could be his desire to increase and improve the sexual relationship between you. I think that it is hopeful that he wants his sexual relationship to improve WITH YOU, and is not looking to make this an excuse to go outside the marriage (of course inexcusable) or to divorce. So this means that he is motivated to improve his life with you. In order to do that, he needs to understand that you need to feel good about your relationship in order for your sexual relationship to be healthy. Maybe you can talk to him about the benefits of counseling on your sex life. If he can see it from that perspective, maybe he will be willing to give it a try.

Ultimately, though, if he is unwilling to work on the marriage and the effects that his affair has had on it, you cannot do it alone. Maybe the 180 is in order? I am sorry, I do not know your story, but I feel for you; it must be frustrating not to be able to get him to see the devastation that an affair causes in the person betrayed. ((long nightmare))

I feel like in his head he believes that he did nothing wrong, because he has brought up so many things that apparently I did to push him away before the A! It is crippling having him say last night that our relationship (what I thought was an amazing connection and fairy-tale) wasn't like that to him... I feel so stupid!

He always has, and still is, defending AP, and says they had a deeply spiritual connection, and last night said they were still friends when the A stopped after he left us (as if they would still be close if not for me). OUCH!!! He apparently didn't feel that way about ME with what he has said, and he STILL doesn't understand why it hurts!!!

What do you mean NEVER, about the 180? All of this Reconciliation stuff is pretty new to me, since he's only recently agreed to talk...

He always has, and still is, defending AP,

gently, you're not in recovery. Draw up a list of demands and be ready to walk if he doesn't comply.

this is one of those instances where you need to be ready to give up the marriage to save the marriage.

and it would be a dealbreaker for me if my husband defended his AP.

He said . . . "I dont want to have to deal with this shit!" I was mad, i admit i went too far, but i said "Then you shouldn't have done it!"

What makes you think that your statement went *too far*?

I see it as a perfectly fine and reasonable statement to make in response to what he said to you.

The reason I knew it was me going too far is because he's like a wild animal when it comes to confrontation, ESPECIALLY this. I know that I have to be easy in my approach as to not provoke him, and when I get angry or corner him in a lie its like chasing the wild animal back into the bushes!!! I knew that would be the game-ender statement from me and I wouldn't get anything else...

It makes me utterly sick when he defends what he and AP had together. I was asking him last night how it ended with her to see what he said. I already knew, because I saw thelast messages between them, he spilled his heart out to her and she shot him down and stopped talking to him. While that is DEEPLY funny and satisfying for me, I wanted to hear him tell me what happened. He lied, told me they were still close friends, life just got in the way and they lost touch. He looked so humiliated when I told him what I already knew, but STILL stuck by his homewrecking AP!!! I told him his dishonesty hurt more now, with him saying he would be honest finally, and how will I ever know what would've happened if she returned his feelings back then???

That was the turning point in the conversation, I guess he doesn't like me making valid points...

I smell a serial cheater.

Sorry, but tell us again WHY you want to stay in a relationship with an individual who does not respect you, has no regret or remorse for his actions, will not accept responsibility for his actions, will not fix what is broken inside himself that allows him to feel his actions are OK, and sounds like he keeps you around because you are comfortable and take care of him.

k9

The 180 is an approach that may Betrayed spouses use to take back their power in a situation where their Wayward spouse does not show remorse for what they have done. It is a series of actions that can be taken by you to take care of yourself and begin the process of healing yourself. It os 100% about taking care of you. You can find this in the Healing library I believe. It does not help your marriage per se, but sometimes it does have the added benefit of causing the Wayward to re-assess what he/she wants once the betrayed shows strength and focuses less on the wayward. I hope you can look at this approach and be empowered.

"I dont want to have to deal with this shit!"

That's really the crux of the matter. He knows what he did was wrong and he doesn't want to deal with it, doesn't want to look at it, doesn't want to fix his broken self.

I notice how he didn't respect your need to pause and cool off when the discussion became more intense. He was pushing your buttons and trying to control things. He then had a temper tantrum as part of his attempt to control and intimidate you.

I think it's time to 180. Decide what your boundaries are and the consequences, and stick to them.

It doesn't sound as though it went horribly wrong, to me.

It sounds as though you did something that MUST be done: you pulled back the corner of the rug because you've discovered that his infidelities can't be handily swept beneath it.

Your husband turned into a bully as a result of your expression of pain, creating yet MORE pain. Why? So he would be spared a bit of self-reflection? So that he could avoid even a few minutes of accepting responsibility?

Why is HIS comfort more important than your well-being? What partner would want his wife to be in pain? Who would not move mountains to reduce that pain? What kind of man adds MORE pain to avoid his own discomfort?

Did his bullying work? It sounds as though it did, at least a bit, because you're viewing a perfectly reasonable expression of pain as "horribly wrong." The only thing that was wrong is that he chose to harm you further rather than address your pain and accept responsibility for his part in creating it.

Unfortunately, some people do not have the emotional resources to examine their own behavior. They find it intolerable, and can become quite vicious when asked to face the consequences of their actions. If he is such a person, it's his job to figure it out, and to make necessary changes so that you are not further victimized by his actions. If he expects you to stick around after the greatest betrayal of your life, he damn sure needs to stop harming you.

Can I make a gentle recommendation? Find an excellent IC, and forget about MC for now. There is no sense in MC with a man who is not remorseful.

Instead, focus on yourself and your own well-being.

Sounds like he is still having an A. Back to rewriting the marriage history. Back to being defensive. Back to showing no sympathy or remorse. Refusing MC to help you.

Sorry, read more of your posts. Now I am just so angry that he has the nerve to act this way. If he has never looked at the A as being bad...he was never in R. If anything, he has been still fostering resentment for you for bringing it up and attacking it.

No wonder there is no sexual interest. There isn't any intimacy in the marriage. Even worse you are being abused by him. He is using his anger as a way to control you into submission. He is still calling all the shots and has complete control.

Of course he doesn't want MC. He knows that the therapist will challenge his control and make him own his shit. He doesn't go, because he doesn't think he was wrong (still blaming the affair on you) and doesn't want to be put in a situation where a therapist will tell him he is wrong. Classic narcissist.

You need to leave. He doesn't love you. He loves himself and anything that will give him a good image.

Its terribly painful, but an eye opener to hear these responses. I feel like I took him back and tried to work with it because I thought we were perfect together with exception of the A, which I'm now learning from talking here and his own words last night that I was being very naive and those feelings were one-sided for a lot longer than the A... its devastating. I know I don't have to explain the hurt here, everyone here is hurting or has hurt. I just don't want to accept that he isn't who I thought he was and he really doesn't care!!!

K9, I too have smelt the serial cheater in him, after last summer when other women contacted me saying they had also slept with WH recently, which he denied and again it ended in a vicious temper tantrum blah blah blah.

I don't know what I'm doing anymore...

Can I make a gentle recommendation? Find an excellent IC, and forget about MC for now. There is no sense in MC with a man who is not remorseful.

This this this. Cmego is right on target here, honey. ((((longnightmare))))

Is it just me, or does it sound like you tried to reconcile this the wrong way, by letting your husband call to many shots. Like TT, Not wanting to talk about it anymore, not creating boundaries between you and the AP, etc.

I think you need to find out the right way to increase your chances of reconcile this marriage. I know that once you find the way it will cause more hurt at first, but at least you know the right way to do this. I am reading "Not just Friends" by Shirley Glass. It is a long read because of all the information. I believe there is a quicker book to address your issues that your husband and/or you can read. I think it is called, How to recover from your affair? I have not read it yet. It is on my to do list though.

I just don't want to accept that he isn't who I thought he was

Well, sorry, but you have to.

And he is going to be plenty pissed that you've seen through his charade. Knowledge is power.....and you now know that he is using his temper tantrums as a means to an end -- to make you shut up, basically.

*Change* is very hard, and a lot of the time it only comes about when remaining the *same* becomes too difficult or painful.

Maybe I can get some point-of-views as to whether or not I went about the conversation properly... maybe i am going about this all wrong.

One of my openers was the reasons that I am reminded regularly... I told him that it still hurts me all the time to see his family. When he left us, they also turned their backs on me and condoned his actions, for whatever reasons he told them and knowing he had been seeing someone else. It is painful to be around them still! His response to this was that it's equally uncomfortable being around my family knowing how much he was talked about and them thinking he was a POS. I felt like saying "duh", but i held it back.

One of my second points was that when he left us, he stopped paying for the house and he took the car when he moved to his parents so my son and i had to move in with my dad. He has always said in conversations with family and friends how much we loved the house and that LOSING the house was one of the biggest mistakes WE'VE ever made! So in his mind and what he tells others is that we share the blame for losing our house as if it was out of OUR hands. His response was that he cant very well explain to everyone what really happened whenever they talk about our old house, it would be uncomfortable and unnecessary.

There are so many more reasons that i didn't get the opportunity to tell him, because of his temper tantrum...

How do i bring these things up??? How do i explain to him that he isnt being understanding? I agree that some IC is in order here.

I just don't want to accept that he isn't who I thought he was and he really doesn't care!!!

This was profoundly difficult for me, as well. It's tremendously disillusioning to discover that you are married to a person you really never have known.

Is it just me, or does it sound like you tried to reconcile this the wrong way, by letting your husband call to many shots. Like TT, Not wanting to talk about it anymore, not creating boundaries between you and the AP, etc.

I think you need to find out the right way to increase your chances of reconcile this marriage.

It's comforting to believe that the BS has much power over the WS. In fact, none of us has ANY control over anyone else's actions.

We tell ourselves that, if we do things the "right" way, we can successfully reconcile. But if you do not have a remorseful WS committed to R, it really doesn't matter what you do. You may stay married, but you won't reconcile.

The things we do in the aftermath of infidelity can definitely affect how we feel about ourselves, however. In that sense, we can direct outcome.

Please, longnightmare, PLEASE do not assume responsibility for the state of your "reconciliation." It is NOT your fault that your husband lacks remorse and empathy. It is NOT your fault that reconciliation has not occurred. You have had little to work with.

That your husband is not committed to a marriage in which you feel loved, valued, and safe is not the result of anything you did or did not do in response to his infidelity.. Do not assume that responsibility; it is HIS to own.

It may be a natural impulse to blame ourselves. It's WRONG.

Millions of hugs to you.

ETA: I just read your last post. You are spinning your wheels, trying to find a way to make your husband GET it. He's not going to. He's either incapable or simply does not want to do the work. It's not your job to figure out which. It's not your job to make him do anything.

What IS your job is to find a way to accept the reality that you are married to a man who does not value you or your marriage enough to do the work necessary to make it a loving, safe, mutually rewarding relationship.

Can you accept living with him, exactly as he is right this moment, for the rest of your life?

Because THAT is all you can count on.

You cannot change him. You may be able to distract yourself from decision-making by looking for ways to do so---I know I did. The result? Well, it didn't save the marriage. But it did leave me struggling with anger toward myself for accepting so little for so long.

[This message edited by solus sto at 11:38 AM, March 10th (Monday)]

I agree with gonna, cmego, NIK, and solus sto.

I'm concerned about your H's temper tantrums. It sounds like he uses these to control you and the situations. He's made himself invulnerable to normal communication and problem-solving. He's impervious to the influences that normally get people to change.

Are you danger of physical abuse?

At this point, he's a lost cause, and I think you should see a lawyer, as well as an IC.