SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Last week my H said to me, ‘would you mind if we had dinner a little earlier please because I keep being late for work’. Usually Bruce would say of course and do as I was asked but Bruce has changed and said……..first of all, you are lucky you still have a wife let alone one that is providing a warm meal before work 9 months post DD. Secondly the reason you are late for work is because you don’t come in to eat on time, your dinner has been on the table the same time every day since forever. Thirdly your father is an entitled, nothing is ever my fault blame everyone else prick, you are also an entitled nothing is ever my fault blame everyone else prick. NO!, not anymore, NO. He came in from work that evening and said he was sorry and he realised that he does tend to blame me or others for things and he’s going to work on that. It’s quite alarming just how much I’ve allowed him to get away with until now.

I’ve spent years bending over backwards for my H, at the expense of my own happiness, I eventually ended up in a place where I do everything, kids, house, cars, phones, bills, insurance , holidays, trips, medical, birthdays schools, everything, absolutely everything is done by me, all to make life less stressful for him, the only thing he did was go to work and bring home the money, at times I was so resentful because I wished I could just go to work and that was it. I used to say to myself one day he’ll realise just how lucky he is, one day he’ll show me the love I deserve. He did. Only it came with bullets.

Last couple of therapy sessions I’ve hated, since we started it’s just been me offloading and being the main priority to our therapist but last couple of sessions she’s started talking to my H about his childhood and honestly I hate it, I feel so bad and uncomfortable, I just want to remove myself from the room, he broke down last week it was awful.

I think I’m struggling to believe that my H loves me, or loves me in the way I love. My love is ‘I would rather die than do anything to hurt this person’ my H obviously doesn’t love like this, this is not his version of love. I think he loves the service I provide, I have to admit, I do provide a pretty good service. I wanted my Version of love though, I don’t understand how you can love someone and commit the despicable acts of betrayal. I wonder if he’s ever really loved me at all over the past 20 plus years since he only woke up 3 years ago and realised what he had.

It is good you drew a red line in the sand. It may not bring you the love you deserve and have earned but maybe it will wake him to at least respect you and your time. Well done!

Bruce123 - very interesting development in your life. You finally said and did something just for you!!

And you are right - he’s darn lucky you still cook for him. At all. I can tell you the only time I booked for my H after dday2 is if the kids were home to eat dinner with us.

It’s been 12 years and I no longer do any errands for him or his laundry. I re-established our roles and I was no longer his maid - I was going back to when we were dating and I didn’t do his laundry or errands.

I hope your R continues to move forward. And while I understand childhood trauma I’m just tired of people using it as an excuse to cheat.

He goes to work every day, brings his earnings home, and stays faithful to you. At the very least, he has been a responsible husband and provider. If you let things slide too much, he may not fully appreciate your love and everything you do for the family.

Bruce123 - your last paragraph about him loving you really hit home. 2 years out now I’ve accepted my WH can not love me the way I love, not how I want to be loved. I now know our marriage is very transactional. And TBH that is also how I treat it now.

Is this what I wanted? Absolutely not but as I am choosing to stay and I know who he is now then I have to accept it. Does that make me sad? Yes, very often.

My WH comes from a family where they don’t talk about anything emotional. They don’t communicate about anything until they need something from each other. All his siblings are exactly the same as is his mother. A great example, recently his brother and his GF broke up, they have a 2YO. All his mother could say is oh well shit happens. I asked another brother who he now lives with, how is he going - he replied, I don’t know, I don’t ask! It breaks my heart. I come from such a loving caring family so I honestly just don’t understand.

Sometimes I think he honestly wants to be more, he wants to know how to love like I love but he just struggles to know how. He has changed a lot in the two years since D-Day but I just will never get over the betrayal. I just can’t.

Webbit,

I think in order to be able to show love you have to have been shown love, I wasn’t shown love from my parents but my grandmother absolutely drowned me with it, she was a massive part of my life and my version of what love is obviously comes from her.

It’s very apparent that our husbands have clearly not been shown how to love and even worse not ever been really loved at all, well not in the way we love. I can’t blame my husband for being unable to show love in the way I expect it, I know he’s more than capable because i see how he is with our boys, he’s just going level up because im not willing to settle for less anymore.

Our therapist asked my H why he hadn’t raised our boys the way he was raised, he said something that I’ll remember for the rest of my life and now I also wear as a badge of honour, he said ‘because my wife would have never allowed it’. Damn right I wouldn’t and it makes me so proud that I stopped the abhorrent behaviour he was subjected to from ever being passed down, it ended with me.

I do agree with the1stwife with regards to their FOO issues not being used as an excuse, that is completely and utterly true but I think that weakness and lack of morals comes from lying to themselves, telling themselves it’s normal to be weak, lack morals and be a loser because guess who taught them it was ok?, fine?, shit happens?.

Something you said Webbit got me thinking, I love the beauty and uniqueness of how everyone’s brains turn differently and how different things are easily processed by some that are by others like trying to get blood from a stone. You said you can’t get over the betrayal, I’m with you, I too at this moment in time can’t let go of the betrayal, there’s nothing wrong with that but, one day I am going to. Had I not thought I could let go of it, I wouldn’t have chosen to stay, why would I put myself through this torture if one day I couldn’t be at peace.

Everyone has had shitty things happen to them in their past, I think anyone who hasn’t is a very blessed individual, I know I’ve had my fair share of shit shows. The last major shit show I went through was as shitty as infidelity but in a completely different way, I was affected for years but eventually I’d had enough, it was affecting my life and I knew 100% that there’s not a thing I could have done to prevent it, not a thing I could do to prevent it from happening again and the painful memories were exactly that, memories. If someone were to ask me if I could go through that again I’d say please let me die next time and yet here I am, here I am with another shit show suited and booted.

I think with the under the right circumstances a person can get through almost anything if they want to.