SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

There was more before DDay than after, though it continued for the first week or so after DDay and him ending the affair.

Most of his cruelty was in the form of coldness and indifference. Telling me how little I or our life together meant to him, and that he just wanted to get away from it all. Turning away when I needed to be held. Leaving the house when I was in tears about how lonely I was, and how much I missed him (he'd been spending a LOT of time on outside activities). Refusing to include me in activities when I practically begged to be invited (in retrospect, obviously I know why).

And after DDay, even as he chose to stay, telling me how she inspired thoughtfulness and empathy in him in a way that I don't, and how much more she meant to him than I ever had.

As the fog has cleared, and he's realized just how easy it was to get over her and how much he cares about staying together, I know that he regrets those things. And at the time, I think it was "necessary" for him to shut off any empathy for me, and to convince himself of a revisionist version of our relationship, in order to justify what he was doing.

We're not separated, and we're trying to get past this. I even think we probably will, if he continues to do the work to address his own issues. But the fact that he could treat me like that when I so desperately needed him will be the hardest thing to get past, even more difficult than the affair itself.

My WH has admitted that he has unexplained bouts of anger - at times he does not understand why he is even angry - but he is. Granted he's messed up in the head pretty severely.

I agree the cruelty post D-Day killed my M. I was never allowed to discuss the A without him getting upset or me getting upset. It was either "Stop focusing on the past" or "I was driving him away."

After False R one of the cruelest things he said to me as he watched me screaming and balling my eyes out was "Nobody cares to hear you anymore." After that I died a little each day until I became nothing inside. Felt nothing.

STBX STILL thinks I can't get over his A's. It is him that I have had the hardest time wrapping my mind around.

[This message edited by crazyblindsided at 1:43 PM, January 13th (Monday)]

I have had 21 months of alone time to process my six-year marriage and the cruelty in it. My ex said a lot of horrible things to me to justify his behavior. In 2015, he wanted to sleep with someone else, but that darn pesky wife was in the way. So he picked a fight and said awful things to me in order to leave me, and he did leave me - he GHOSTED me - for two months while he pursued this other, younger woman.

Whenever he would do or say something hurtful, and I'd react with sorrow or silence, he wouldn't try to console me or apologize - he'd say how miserable I made him.

In fact, "miserable" was the word he used to describe how he felt about our marriage. It made him miserable. Because it prevented him from pursuing other women. He didn't want to be labeled a cheater, so there would be stretches where he couldn't figure out a way to justify leaving me in order to pursue someone else, and those were the times when he would bitch and moan about being "miserable."

On our final DDay, over the phone, he told me he wasn't seeing anyone else (I had proof that he was), and he said he had just 'hit a wall.' He said he hadn't been happy in a long time (that standard line), that he was "jaded" by my slow weight loss. When I cried and didn't slink off and disappear quickly enough, he told me that "I just don't want to deal with you anymore."

I wish I had had more self-respect. I wish I had annulled our marriage and disappeared from HIS life the first time he screamed at me and called me names, months after we got married. I wish I hadn't forgiven so often, begged so much, or taken the blame for things that had nothing to do with me.

After d-day1 I got tears and then the silent treatment and then yelling/screaming about how I couldn't just drop it (this was like week 8 post dday). Then, I got more distance and silent treatment, and fuck yous, and more "you will never let this go" and/or "you just want to point out how horrible I've been to you to rub it in"...for the next year, which of course was False R, the cruelest thing he could have done to me IMO. The words were just words - the actions - those were the gut-shots. Oh, I also got told from time to time that "I am not sure about us. I'm worried I don't have the attraction for you that I used to and I am trying to make it come back." Sigh - all this while he was balls-deep in the OW (or at least imagining himself to be during their multitudes of phone sex episodes).

After d-day2 I got tears and an actual 3 months of NC w/the AP aside from her late night messages to him which he showed me. I also got irritation and some anger from him and "I don't want to do this anymore." He actually seemed to be less angry/irritated with me but more distant after he broke NC and started his A back up. One the beauties was when during a fight he said "Why don't I just go fuck [OW] again now and get it over with?"

Post d-day 3 was when the shit really hit the fan. I was told over the course of several months:

- I don't want to do this anymore ("this" apparently being any contact with me at all as we were not in R - he literally wanted me to move out in a matter of days)

- I hate you

- You're a bitch (or insert any number of other terms at random there)

- You've changed

- You are just trying to torture me

To the point where he "dumped" me (again, we were not in R so it was the point where he decided that he did not want me in his life, at all, and that I needed to leave ASAP - my job and any ability to plan my departure be damned) he was still insisting that he loved me, and wanted to be friends.

I personally believe that they can become so cruel because they are comparing us to the OS. I think that the affair makes them more focused on what they don't like about us! I am sorry. I know that verbal abuse is so painful!!!