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WS often perceives what he thinks are people's good intentions, even when their actions show otherwise. Normally, you’d think that this would be a positive trait. And often it is. But I notice that it also shows that he can be too trusting of potentially dangerous people. Yesterday we were with our young kids (K and 2nd grader) at the beach. They were playing with another kid close to their age, but then another person started to join in. He looked to be about 17 years old and mentally off, not sure exactly how, but definitely off. The older kid was running with them, throwing sand, playing rough, growling (and why is he playing with little kids anyway?) and immediately my mama bear sense kicked in. I was very alert and kept a very close eye. I could see the parent of the other kid did too. I said something to my H and he was pretty nonchalant about it and shrugged it off, laughing even. Later, the older kid pushed the child my kids were playing under the waves in the ocean. The other parent called to his kid and told him to keep away from the older kid. At that point my H started to get it. But before, he didn’t, even when I alerted him. This concerns me and it’s not the first time I’ve noticed it. Since everything is filtered through the A lens these days, I see a relevance to that.

The first time I met OW I told my H that something was off about her. He didn’t see it. Even her then-H had said “don’t get sucked into her shit” to both of us. I ignored my gut and developed a friendship with her, even though I felt it was not quite right. While the A was going on, she invited herself to my house several times to hang out just the 3 of us (me, H, and her) and she asked me to babysit her kids (1 night after she had fucked H). These betrayals are probably the most painful part of the A to me. That H let her come in my house and piss all over me, which is exactly what she was doing. After Dday, H told me that she “felt nothing but empathy” for me during the A since she was my friend, and that she felt so bad about what they were doing. Of course I called bullshit. I mean, to actively seek out opportunities to sit with your AP and his wife over bottles of wine, while wifey cooked and washed dishes, and watches your kids? To me, that’s pretty vicious and sends a clear message. I am stuck on this. I know I have to get past it but every few weeks I get snagged, mulling and mulling—how could my H allow this? Did he really not see her motives? Did he get something out of it like she did? I feel like if he didn't, then why didn't he just keep OW away from me as best as he could?

We’ve discussed this a lot and he says that before and during the A he was very angry at me b/c he felt that I had emotionally abandoned the M, which I pretty much had. But he maintains that him allowing her into our house (instead of telling her not to come) was not an act of aggression toward me. He says he just didn’t see her actions as a power play at the time but he thought she was just trying to “hide in plain sight” by coming over. We weren’t that close of friends and her inviting herself to my house did not give me any further impression that she was just a friend. In fact, her behavior at my house was questionnable and I had said to my H after she left that I don’t feel like she is a good person or really my friend. He maintained the position of OW’s “empathy” for me for about 6 weeks after Dday, until our MC laughed in his face essentially (but not when I did). Now he sees that she was conniving and bullshitting.

Yesterday sitting on the beach watching my H’s reaction got me wondering whether it is possible that H was so blinded by OW’s words that he didn’t or wouldn’t see her aggression. Would seeing it be admitting to himself that he was being aggressive too, using her and the A as a passive aggressive way of directing his anger at me? H def has passive aggressive tendencies. I’ve seen emails between them in which she jokes about texting with me and he calls her gutsy. Like it was a turn on for them to be duping me. So he wasn’t entirely blind, was he?

I’m probably overthinking and this is probably doing nothing for my healing. I guess I’m just a little fearful of this personality trait of his. It doesn’t seem like it’s something that one can really change, since it’s not really behavior-based, but belief-based? IDK. If his gut isn’t going off about the 17 year old kid rough housing with my kindergartner I mean… I have no clue about what can be done about this or whether anything really needs to or should be done. H is trusting and that’s who he is? Or is there something deeper, like living in denial, going on? Maybe I’m overanalyzing. I guess it’s something to talk about in therapy?

[This message edited by veronique12 at 11:37 AM, June 9th (Monday)]

WS often perceives what he thinks are people's good intentions, even when their actions show otherwise. Normally, you’d think that this would be a positive trait. And often it is. But I notice that it also shows that he can be too trusting of potentially dangerous people. Yesterday we were with our young kids (K and 2nd grader) at the beach. They were playing with another kid close to their age, but then another person started to join in. He looked to be about 17 years old and mentally off, not sure exactly how, but definitely off.  The older kid was running with them, throwing sand, playing rough, growling (and why is he playing with little kids anyway?) and immediately my mama bear sense kicked in. I was very alert and kept a very close eye. I could see the parent of the other kid did too. I said something to my H and he was pretty nonchalant about it and shrugged it off, laughing even. Later, the older kid pushed the child my kids were playing under the waves in the ocean. The other parent called to his kid and told him to keep away from the older kid. At that point my H started to get it.  But before, he didn’t, even when I alerted him. This concerns me and it’s not the first time I’ve noticed it. Since everything is filtered through the A lens these days, I see a relevance to that.

The first time I met OW I told my H that something was off about her. He didn’t see it. Even her then-H had said “don’t get sucked into her shit” to both of us.  I ignored my gut and developed a friendship with her, even though I felt it was not quite right. While the A was going on, she invited herself to my house several times to hang out just the 3 of us (me, H, and her) and she asked me to babysit her kids (1 night after she had fucked H). These betrayals are probably the most painful part of the A to me. That H let her come in my house and piss all over me, which is exactly what she was doing. After Dday, H told me that she “felt nothing but empathy” for me during the A since she was my friend, and that she felt so bad about what they were doing.  Of course I called bullshit. I mean, to actively seek out opportunities to sit with your AP and his wife over bottles of wine, while wifey cooked and washed dishes, and watches your kids? To me, that’s pretty vicious and sends a clear message. I am stuck on this. I know I have to get past it but every few weeks I get snagged, mulling and mulling—how could my H allow this? Did he really not see her motives? Did he get something out of it like she did? I feel like if he didn't, then why didn't he just keep OW away from me as best as he could?

We’ve discussed this a lot and he says that before and during the A he was very angry at me b/c he felt that I had emotionally abandoned the M, which I pretty much had.  But he maintains that him allowing her into our house (instead of telling her not to come) was not an act of aggression toward me. He says he just didn’t see her actions as a power play at the time but he thought she was just trying to “hide in plain sight” by coming over. We weren’t that close of friends and her inviting herself to my house did not give me any further impression that she was just a friend. In fact, her behavior at my house was questionnable and I had said to my H after she left that I don’t feel like she is a good person or really my friend. He maintained the position of OW’s “empathy” for me for about 6 weeks after Dday, until our MC laughed in his face essentially (but not when I did). Now he sees that she was conniving and bullshitting.

I’m probably overthinking and this is probably doing nothing for my healing.  I guess I’m just a little fearful of this personality trait of his. It doesn’t seem like it’s something that one can really change, since it’s not really behavior-based, but belief-based? IDK. If his gut isn’t going off about the 17 year old kid rough housing with my kindergartner I mean… I have no clue about what can be done about this or whether anything really needs to or should be done. H is trusting and that’s who he is? Or is there something deeper, like living in denial, going on? Maybe I’m overanalyzing. I guess it’s something to talk about in therapy?