SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Still some things about being married haunt me and I'm told will take a long while to go away.

This subject came up periodically during M and if any on feels like replying, it would really help me-its an area where I don't have a lot of validation and makes me squeamish.

Throughout our M, STBXH would stare at other women when we went out together. This was as early as being teenagers and as recently as this past winter, during false F. That was particularly strange, because it would fluxuate from outing to outing-so that he would do it one time but I would also notice him really going to great length to not notice women, so that I knew he did.

Now on the other side of the M fence, I see that it should have been a red flag? but I was very young and naivly believed he was this super human charmer-that's his persona.

Anyway, when I would try to talk to him about it, each time he was angry and agitated and made excuses about looking at other things. It became something of an art, but really, its such a blatantly obvious thing someone does that it became a clue to how stupid he thought I was/am.

Looking back when I am stronger is helping in some strange ways, to see that this is a person who made an imaage of himself for me and the world to see, a persona, who, in reality, is not who really is there.

Some of the literature online for sex addition have five out of six pegs that he fits and it makes me sad but glad as well to realize that it may just have happened at some point anyway? That he couldn't have hid it his entire life and truly, though I worked like a dog to exhaustion, I think he would have kind of...erupted with it...anyway?

We got married so young that it never occurred to me to look at the stats of his large family more, or to view the core beliefs we both had more, but when a spouse hides so much about himself, his truest needs he or she does not tell, how in the world can a spouse help or work with that?

Again, many thanks.

Good post. I know exactly what you mean. Sounds a lot like my now EX.

All I know is now that we are TOTALLY NC; he is not a part of my life AT ALL. I don't miss the insecure feeling I'd get, and never should have let myself go there because of his disrespect and brokenness. There is no helping or "fixing" them. Only saving ourselves and our sanity by getting the F away from their broken toxic behavior.

I was young too when we got married, and obviously very naive.

Life lesson here. Many.

I hope you're doing great! It gets better and better everyday with that disrespect and the lies; gone baby gone:) thank God!!!

when a spouse hides so much about himself, his truest needs he or she does not tell, how in the world can a spouse help or work with that?

You can't work with it Ashland. Doesn't matter if they are NPD, SA, PA, or just a freaking ass. When they hide things from their spouse, there isn't a damn thing the spouse can do.

I know it's hard, but the bottom line is you need to stop trying to make sense of the crazy. You can't. Bottom line. It won't make sense because the other person hid stuff, acted one way in front of you and another behind your back, you don't know what's going on in their heads and you can't believe a word that comes out of their mouths.

Look, I'm 4 years out now, and there are STILL times that he does or says something when he picks up the kids that leave me looking at him like he has 4 heads, or shaking my head because he still doesn't get it.

I know it's hard to turn your brain off of them, but you need to try to just concentrate on YOU, and what you need for yourself to be happy. That's where you need to put your efforts, not trying to figure out them.

These are just things I'm trying to put away now. I'm not trying anymore to figure him out or by any means trying to fix something. It's far too broken.

I finally don't want him back and actually feel tremendous disgust when I slip and think about him or his life.

Simply, I search for validaton, that I was/am okay to think and react the way I did/have to some things, because so much blame was put on me and I was sold down the river,to a counselor and anyone who he could get to listen...I was made by him to be "incompetent and emotionally unstable."

But I don't think I am, so I thought getting some opinions on some of the things that stand out that he did, could help validate what I feel.

Does that make any sense?

My head was so messed with, that things got twisted for a while because my own fog, pregnancy, the pathological lying and my own pain and grief blocked a lot of my clear thinking, but I do believe in myself and always have.

So many things were turned against me or turned inside out on me that I'm left as part of my recovery, trying to sort through reality.

For instance, I've had arthritis and raynauds since I was 7 years old-doctors say its also lupus and runs in my family-but STBXH decided or believed in the end that it was me not caring for myself enough because sometimes the tests were "inconclusive".

So part of my search for sanity and security is also a route that includes a search for self-validation.

It's for me more than anything else, again, to try to stop always second guessing myself.