SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

We are 6 months out from the most recent DDay. Things have been improving in R, but we've hit another of many bumps on the road.

I had an online relationship off and on for a long time. Never met the person but it was definitely EA. I am ashamed of this. It was wrong.

WS had a PA/EA for about 4 years, then more recently an EA with an employee. He admitted that he was wooing her to replace me. He told her about his old EA /pA from 13 years ago before he ever told me. He took her out, bought presents, you know the drill.

He actually declined to help me with my online EA when I asked twice for help. He didn't care THEN.

Fast forward. He now says my EA was way worse than his because mine was sexual talk and he never had sex with his EA. (He wanted to, she didn't. She basically was stringing him along to get double the salary..)

In God's sight, what I did is just as bad as what he did. But it hurts terribly that he thinks what I did was worse.

He wouldn't have sex with me for years at a time, even when he wasn't in love with the first OW. He was mean and critical, increasingly so, over the last 13 years. I felt like I didn't really have a husband for years.

He has been a kinder, better husband than ever before during R. But he keeps patting himself on the back about it. He's got so much pride in general, it repulses me now, whereas before the A's, I could accept it.

I thought I was all in for R, but hearing him say what I did was worse makes me want to quit. He neglected me and the kids for so long.

He TTd me for 6 months. If it wasn't that I feel like God hasn't released me to quit, I do believe I'd quit tomorrow.

Thank you for reading if you made it this far! Sorry so long... Any insights welcome.

This pain stinks.

Um he is blameshifting, and trying to put the guilt on you. If your EA was worse, then how does he justify his PA?

I would say that you need to read up in the healing library. There is also a special thread for when both partners have A's be it PA/EA whatever. It is referred to as MadHatters.

I don't have a lot of advice to offer other than to say, stay strong, and DO NOT ALLOW him to make you take responsibility for his actions.

((((and strength))))

He needs to understand that your marriage isn't a competition between two people. It should be a partnership. You've both done things that were wrong and hurtful and you both need to sort yourselves out from that but arguing over who was worse is completely unproductive.

Sounds like he's using your A to dodge responsibility for his As.

In order to R, you both need to get away from one A being better or worse than another. You both need to take responsibility for conducting your own A, you both have to heal the broken-ness that led to your As, you both have to release the pain of being betrayed, and you both have to build a new M.

Your H doesn't sound like he's doing his side of the job.

I hope you feel free to choose both R & D soon - not because I think you should D, but because I think you might get to R more easily if D is on the table, but that's JMO (and it's not very well expressed, either).