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My husband said this during our fight yesterday and generated a lot of rage. I don’t know if some of you may also have had the experience of feeling so much anger in such a sudden rush that you can’t think straight. Even a little under a day later I can still feel my brain is sort of "buzzing" and I’m not thinking completely straight yet.

The context was him saying that way back ten years ago he would pull away more when I would get "angry" at marriage counseling because I was mad about his secretary. I wanted him to fire her (not really fire but just be moved to a different part of company to work for someone else). I ‘knew’ but didn’t ‘know’ kind of thing. I certainly had my suspicions as they had gone out on our boat and a few other suspect acts. He had at that point agreed to get her transferred in the next 8 weeks or so and we were in counseling. (Sorry for repeating myself, like I said I’m so angry I’m not thinking too straight).

I said he wasn’t a real man at the time for pulling away from a wife he knew was angry about something that was TRUE. I said I had my suspicions but he knew it was true. This is when he said I couldn’t have it both ways. He was referring to the fact that I claim to have been sort of destroyed 3 or 4 years ago when he told me the whole truth, about the physical encounters in the office and all the rest, some meetings in the park et cetera. I believe that is a true statement. I think I was destroyed at that point. I guess it gets fuzzy (2nd d-day?) but I lost the 30lbs again, couldn’t get up, couldn’t work couldn’t speak. Even now am I certainly still quite damaged.

I guess the rage I felt yesterday was sort of…"who are you to tell me I can’t ’have it both ways’." Yes i had a sort of knowing then. But the knowing knowing is the thing that cuts your life out from under you. Nothing old ever seems true again. The family pictures all seem make believe.

I’m trying to heal and most days most weeks we’re pretty good. Something set off this "talk" and it went very south. I am sure he was insulted by the "not a real man’ comment. I guess it was a low blow. I guess I thought he could weather it. I thought he could say "yeah, the man I was then was not a real man…". He is always saying how he is a completely different person now. Shouldn’t that make it easy to own how bad you were back then in that moment or during those months.

What a mess. I’m sure this moment will pass, but it was a painful conversation, for both of us. I don’t know if I initiated these conversations as some sort of reality check. To be sure he still gets it. To be sure he’s not slipping in some way back to a more dangerous version of himself.

Yes i had a sort of knowing then. But the knowing knowing is the thing that cuts your life out from under you. Nothing old ever seems true again. The family pictures all seem make believe.

I really felt this part Stillconfused2022. as there is such a huge difference between sensing something and then having the full reality placed in your hands in a way that changes everything.

I have had some of that experience myself where later information changed the meaning of earlier instincts,and the full knowing lands in a completely different and much more devastating way. That is not having it both ways as that is the difference between living with suspicion and having your life cut open by the truth. I can completely understand why that comment would generate rage because it collapses two very different experiences into one and they are not the same at all. I am so sorry and the way you described the family pictures feeling make believe is painfully accurate.

You are entitled to be angry at all of it any time you need to.

IMO the cheater just has to accept the reality of the situation. All of it. For however long it takes.

I understand why his comment set you off. I experienced the same situation as you where you knew something was going on but the cheater lied, stonewalled and gaslit you.

And now there is additional damage because the cheater chose a snarky comment to defend himself.

Just another finger pointing out that cheaters really do not understand the trauma and damage they inflict on the betrayed.

When rage hit me a few months after DDAY, it was amazing. I had never had such unbridled anger in my life. It shocked me (and WS). When I described it to my therapist, he said "maybe he’d never given you anything to be that angry about before". I think it also was the accumulation of the years of knowing something was off and his years of lying and gaslighting - all together it lit a fuse in me that we didn’t even know existed. So maybe you have been bottling up some anger and resentment?

find an outlet for the anger- workout, walk, punch pillows, cry in the shower. You must process it emotionally and physically. that is a lot of adrenaline coursing through your body, and you need to work it out.

And your anger is justified. 100%. WS just hate seeing the consequences of their behavior, even years later. And yeah, one low blow is pretty tame compared to all the deceitful actions and potential diseases he subjected you to. But hey, you insulted him (and pretty tamely at that).

Are you still in MC? IC? Has your communication gotten better overall and this is a rare blip?