SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I will admit that I didn't read it 100% because to be quite honest, the fact that he put all those people into a VERY private, personal, and intimate email concerning your marriage just BAFFLED me to no end.

Who involves basically every possible person in something that they have no business in??

As a fWS, i can tell you all he just spewed into his 'carefully thought out email to the whole world' was the longest most text book gaslighting email i have ever tried to read.

He's basically saying that because you didnt do/were/are/whatever for him, that gave him the justification to cheat.

You know what his email should have said to you and the world??

"Dear my loving Hurtyetstrong,

I am an ass, I know that we had a lot of marital issues but I weakly choose to be a selfish ass enter into the land of rainbows with unicorns that fart sparkles and cheat on you with Mrs. Glitterpuss. I am so sorry that I hurt you and I pray to all that is good in this world that you will be willing to walk with me as I make it my daily goal to make you happy and bring trust back into our relationship"

What he just slammed you with is "its not all my fault, you made me cheat"....

(((HYS)))

My sentiments exactly. I couldn't finish the letter because it was so offensive. Perhaps I am now extra-sensitive to gaslighting, the way some ex-smokers cannot tolerate being around cigarette smoke.

This letter would not fly with me. Try again.

So, if he was never physical with another woman, with whom, or what, did he "hit from behind with?"

Bill Clintonish, or what?

Please; read and re-read what caregiver has written. This email is a sociopathic rant. Even forgetting about the infidelity (just for arguement's sake), he feels that you've ruined his life, yet he wants to stay married to you? He admits to being 'hard' on your daughter and yelling at you?? That's a sociopathic admission of abuse.

If your sister or best friend were in this situation, what would you tell her? I would tell her to RUN.

Wow. I read the initial email, and for some reason I read it again. Makes me want to puke. Talk about blameshifting. I think he needs to strap a set on and grow up. At the end of reading the initial email, all I could think is that no matter how badly your feelings were hurt in the marriage, you don't cheat. Ever. period.

Sounds exactly like my late STBX - who was bipolar, OCD and narcissistic to boot.

GET AWAY NOW. IT WILL NEVER GET ANY BETTER. HE HAS NO BOUNDARIES AND IT WILL GET VERY VERY UGLY.

Get a Lawyer, get half the money and get out while you can. This kind can become very dangerous.

Good luck.

There are so many things wrong with this letter, I don't even know where to begin. He basically shared with you, your family and anyone else willing to pay attention that he is an incompetent father, husband and lover who is narcissistic, as well as, verbally and emotionally abusive. He is never happy or even satisfied with anything and blames you for everything, including his own sexual deviance and willingness to abandon his children. It's all right there for everyone to see... Including your lawyer.

There may be men who have committed far greater acts of adultery but we all pretty much know the A is the tip of the iceberg. The lying, manipulative follow up is what causes the more long term destruction. He's upset over you saying he is abusive but he has proven he is abusive with this letter and doesn't even know it.

I know most people here would not have stuck it our with my WH and I understand why. I wouldn't recommend going what I went through to anyone. I had my reasons for staying. I'm sure you have yours... But, I think this letter alone is enough reason to divorce this guy. Honestly, I don't see anything there that makes me think he has redeeming qualities.

I am so glad you have a supportive family you can turn to. I hope they are all as furious and disgusted by this letter as I am.

[This message edited by Ladyogilvy at 5:07 PM, June 13th (Thursday)]

However, until the affair(s) is/are dealt with, I can't see myself 'owning my issues'. I need to see some true remorse and transparency first.

Honey, regardless, you have to own your own shit. It will not work if you don't change either. You can't expect him to want to change if you will not change either.

I can see OP's point in not 'owning her own issues' at this point. I had the same exact attitude. Sultan had such messed-up perceptions that he hadn't just re-written our marital history....his f'd up head didn't allow it to imprint correctly in the first place. So there was NO way in hell that I was going to even entertain any type of complaint that he had about me until he had a whole bunch of IC and a *new* memory based on 'true' facts, not the twisted-up shit inside his head.

Remember in the Cheater's Standard Book of Spells, Chapter 2, it covers rewriting marital history. It might be His Story, but it sure as hell isn't your history.

I can't tell you what to do. However, I believe your mother hit it on the head a long time ago when she told him he was never going to be happy at any job. He's also never going to be happy with any wife. He doesn't take any responsibility for anything he does from his work ethic right down to his relationship. Everything is always someone else's fault or, when he does accept that he did it, someone else drove him to it.

My experience is that someone who is always looking for someone else to blame always finds someone. And because he can't actually accept real responsibility, he can't feel real remorse. I believe reconciliation is beyond difficult with someone like that.

His email doesn't require a response. His family members will take his side (after all, failure to take responsibility usually comes from a family that doesn't make you take responsibility). Yours will probably take your side. That's the way it goes with family. The ones who side with you will see his email for what it is. The smartest ones (for example, your brother) will ignore and take no side.

Your marriage is between the two of you. As long as there is no interference, there is nothing wrong with confiding in your family. If they can't resist actually getting involved, they shouldn't be confided in.

You always

You never

It always.....

You constantly

I never

These seem to be his favorite phrases and he sums up each point using them. That alone would send me running for the hills.

It serves a manipulative purpose....to put you on the defensive, to make you feel responsible for his problem and to make others feel sorry for him.

I don't know how you could R with NEVER and ALWAYS and if all his points were true (which I am certain they are not, based on his word choices) why would he want to R with someone like you who...Never, always does things the way he wants or needs?

I'd spend a good long while healing myself. I would not even entertain any ideas of a future with him unless he spends a good long while making steady progress in IC.

Oh. One of THOSE letters. Yep, I agree with the analysis that -

1. If he wanted to truly communicate with YOU, he would have emailed just you. This way, he's talking AT you and grandstanding. The only reason he copied it to everyone was to start his campaign of trying to discredit you. This looks a whole lot like NPD-ish gaslight-y behavior.

2. He references abusive behavior - the yelling, the willingness to abandon everyone if it doesn't go his way, the admitting contacting other women - but only does so to make it your fault. I don't see any remorse or taking responsibility for what he's done.

People that build their lives through a structure of lies tend to buy into their own deceit. They spend so much time justifying and shoring up that wobbly structure, they're quick to snap and punish anyone who threatens stability. It's always someone else's fault that made that structure start to tip.

Don't buy into it, too. I understand wanting to look for the best (I hold the Guinness World Record), but he's not saying "Yeah, I screwed up." He's saying "You made me screw up and it's all your fault."

So there was NO way in hell that I was going to even entertain any type of complaint that he had about me until he had a whole bunch of IC and a *new* memory based on 'true' facts, not the twisted-up shit inside his head.

Yep. I'm owning my own shit, now that I'm away from that NPD, gas lighting, blame shifting abusive asshole and can actually figure out what my own shit is without him clouding everything with his manipulation..

Yep. I'm owning my own shit, now that I'm away from that NPD, gas lighting, blame shifting abusive asshole and can actually figure out what my own shit is without him clouding everything with his manipulation..

Amen to that, Sister!

/signed to both ButterflyGirl and Nature_Girl.

Funny how things start making sense when the gaslighting is revealed as the self serving bullcrap it is.

And it's a lot easier to own your own than take the fall for all of theirs.

[This message edited by Reality at 4:50 PM, June 13th (Thursday)]

Yep. I'm owning my own shit, now that I'm away from that NPD, gas lighting, blame shifting abusive asshole and can actually figure out what my own shit is without him clouding everything with his manipulation..

It makes the pile of shit a hell of a lot smaller, don't it?

(Sorry-not really funny, but mine is like that too.- )

That he sent this email not only to you, but to others, is unconscionable. He took your concerns, pretty much mocked them, and wrote a PUBLIC "response" in which he showed himself to be a score-keeping blameshifter. I agree that it's a sociopathic rant. I have a personality-disordered husband with strong antisocial (sociopathic) traits--and I see an awful lot of him in this letter.

Honestly, if my husband did this to me----involved so many people in an issue the surface of which we had not yet scratched---in an effort to deflect attention (because now you'll be managing everyone else's responses rather than getting the answers you need)---I would tell him not to come home.

I would go NC except for kids and finances, and I would work on healing myself. I'd assume he had no intention of addressing my concerns, or working toward R, since his intention now seems to be blowing it up in a MAJOR fashion.

For me, one of the hardest things about infidelity was the private stuff about me that my husband shared with others. Real or not. It was an enormous violation----and I think this email ranks right up there with that.

This was a betrayal.

If you had any questions about the lengths to which he will go to cover his ass at your expense, I think they've been very amply answered with this missive.

Millions of hugs to you. You must be beside yourself.

[This message edited by solus sto at 5:05 PM, June 13th (Thursday)]

I read this hours ago, read the first page of replies, re-read it, and then just repeated the process again, to make sure my impression was correct / that I stand by it.

This guy is a sociopath. Or, okay, fine, I'm not a psychiatrist, but he at least has sociopathic tendencies.

He TEXTED your BROTHER when he was thinking about divorcing you??? Excuse me???

And YOU bring your family into the marriage too much, yet he just sent a three-page missive to everyone detailing all of his complaints??

What planet, exactly, does this guy hail from? What the hell?

Okay, yes, marital/relationship issues are 50/50. (A's, as we know, are 100% on the wayward party.) But the fact that he keeps saying "never," "always," etc. tells you that he is exaggerating (if not completely making things up). Any detective with knowledge of statement analysis would read this crap, throw it out, and tell the suspect (in this case, your WH) to try again, because it is obviously a load of exaggerated & biased crap.

This guy needs counseling. INDIVIDUAL counseling, not MARRIAGE counseling, because how can you repair a broken relationship when you are a broken person?

Okay, yes, marital/relationship issues are 50/50

No, they're not. They may be 100 percent on the BS. They may be 100 percent on the WS. They may be somewhere in between.

We're all 100 percent responsible for our own behavior.

But no, we are NOT always responsible for 50 percent of marital issues.

I have my own issues, but my marital issues? 100 percent on my husband. I had no idea they even existed until it was far too late to do anything about them.

And I'm not an anomaly.

Solus has a good point. The 50/50 supposition is that both people are working equally in a relationship.

But we're all here because that's not the case. In the email posted, that wasn't the case, however hard he tried to spin it back at her. If quid pro quo was cool, we'd all be having revenge affairs or other destructive choices.

But we're here trying to understand. Trying to get advice and have feelings and experiences peer reviewed.

Give credit where it's due, to all the posters who find their way here, and NOT credit to the people who chose the terrible things.

Ugh. I'm so sorry. This is really typical WS fog. He is blame shifting. Everything he did is your fault. You were an awful wife and the marriage was miserable so cheating was the most logical choice

Most BS get this to some degree at the beginning, it seems. I will say that he does give the emotionally abusive vibe. He wants to just beat you down until you agree that YOU are to blame and that if YOU work a little harder your marriage will be better. I grew up with a father like this - don't do it to yourself and don't do it to your girls. They will grow up with severe self esteem issues as a result.

I don't see that you have a lot to work with in terms of reconciling your marriage. I'm sorry.