IAMF, I’ve been reading along with your story. I’m not that far out in this journey and thankfully my BH has decided to attempt to reconcile. I’ve been talking your thread over with my husband and he encouraged me to share our story.
Your experience resonates with me. I slept with my rapist and former abuser almost three years ago, after the funeral of a mutual friend. I then lied to my BH about it for 1.5 years. while occasionally reaching out to my rapist via text message. It was the most destructive decision I had ever made in a lifetime of destructive decisions. I had an extensive history of shit - early CSA, FOO crud, you name it. I ran away from my BH- my high school sweetheart from 14 on- and chased down all the bad stuff I could to supposedly escape. Sex, drinking, drugs, moving to Texas for no reason. For years prior to sleeping with my rapist, I ran and ran. My philosophy was: deal with my issues? What issues? And if they do exist, well, they’re not my fault, so YOU deal with my entrenched victimhood. All of that avoidance and pain and anger that I chose? Right back to my rapist. I broke my husband’s heart. And sleeping with my rapist, after representing to my BH that I had finally gotten my shit together and we should get married, was the cherry on top.
In my selfish refusal to turn and handle the mountain of rot behind me, I disregarded and actively disrespected the man who I claimed to love. That was a lie, too, or at the very least a gross misrepresentation. What I showed him wasn’t loving. It was a denial of his agency. It was more grasping for control. It was casting him as the villain in my own story. And for what? I struggle for self compassion, because my actions are so senseless and selfish. I know they have explanations and not excuses, and yet I kick out at even explanations. Whys are only good to keep me aware and working on myself for the rest of my life. I hurt my BH, who I said was my best friend and promised to value, protect, love. I didn’t know what those damn things were or maybe more truthfully, I didn’t ever bother to develop better understanding. My pain was more important.
Here’s the tricky part. My BH and I are madhatters. Our mutual and final discovery was 9 months ago. We’ve known each other for half our lives. We’ve taken some breaks from each other but we always end up trying again. We told ourselves fictions about each other, long-suffering ones. I had him on a pedestal. He was perfect and loving and a martyr to my supreme fucked upness. He was a golden child and I was a pile of dirt. So when I found out about his extensive habit of getting pictures on Snapchat, I was floored. What! But he was pristine! Surely, the explanation must be my fault. I don’t deserve any better. And that was pretty convenient for my husband. He was absolutely hurt and angry. He could blame everything on me and I could fix it. I was the screw up. My BH was just hurting and needed to boost his confidence. What right did I have to ask for anything else?
Well, I did have a right. And more importantly, to truly love and care for my BH, I could flex my newly developing compassion and empathy. I could understand that I had given him a lot to cope with, and understand that how he coped was not on me. And so much to cope with!
I love my husband. He blamed his choices on me for a long time and that was really fucking hard. It fed a lot of shame. I had engaged in a lot of justifying and victimhood, too. Our relationship didn’t start to improve until I stood up for myself and started working on my codependency. Risking the marriage to save it, I guess? Because when I started to get healthy, one of the first things I worked through was that it’s not up to other people to save or fix us. This lesson was really difficult for both of us. My husband just recently started digging into his own individual trauma, which is extensive, too. It’s been a long road but we’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
My husband and I caused each other a lot of heartache in our attempts to fix our relationship. Hurt people hurt people, right? I think and hope that we are on a stronger/healthier path now, but it took a lot of crap to get here, and nothing is ever certain. I’m grateful that we are here today, trying our best to love and forgive each other, trying our best to grow and be better people. To build a better marriage and foundation for our family. That wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t put my foot down about his actions and resolved to fix myself. Our shit coping mechanisms solved NOTHING. They just made things worse.
IAMF, my point is that your actions hurt your husband, and you can and should strive to show him compassion. Empathize with him and walk in his shoes as best you can. However, I feel that to say it’s okay for your husband to do “whatever” is crappy for both of you. My husband regrets every day his justifications, his blaming of me, his eagerness to occupy a space of victimization in an attempt to avoid dealing with his real hurts. No one has the power to make someone else cheat and eventually, your husband will need to make the choice to own up, clean up his side of the street. It is absolutely fine to express your boundary with compassion, and to keep working on fixing you. Maybe he’ll be able to turn in and work with you someday, and maybe he won’t. He will go his own way, but how he chooses to cope is not your fault. Right now, it sounds like your husband is way deep in avoidance and if he was like this prior to your A, then he’s ducking his own stuff. You can’t build a marriage alone, R takes two, doubly so for madhatters. My BH had been coping for years in unhealthy ways with his trauma. It took us a ton of IC to get to where we are and it has been the hardest shit I’ve ever done. I didn’t want to walk away and lose my husband. I wanted to be better and I wanted to fix my marriage. I didn’t want to enable his avoidance and addiction anymore, either. Thankfully, he’s wading in. We both are.
I wish you both healing and peace. Sorry for the novel length post!
