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Why are people still arguing the point if it’s the same or not the same? What’s worse? Nothing of this is helping her deal with what she needs to deal with. We can all go rounds with the subject and everyone eill have their opinion but it’s not going to be any help to her. Let’s help her focus on what she needs to be doing.

People are still arguing if it's the same, or not, because the OP has stated she believes it equals,and somehow justifies, what she did.

Some agree. Some don't.

That his offense was ten years ago, and she stayed, and is now using that as a justification for her actions, is also an issue.

I wanted out of the marriage,you he was very controlling with finances and decision making of purchases.

Had you attempted to file back then, or expressed your desire to end the marriage?

He could never give me an explanation on why he so freely whored me out to the internet.. This has deeply hurt me over the years and has only made me think I am nothing but a sex object for him..I gave him numerous opportunities to explain why he would do this.. There acts were sacred to us.. And he would always walk away from the conversation..

So he never gave an explanation. Did he acknowledge the wrongness of his actions?

I told him I made that decision to give my body to another man because I wanted out..

Do you wish you had made a different choice now? Or do you still feel your choice was justified?

I'm trying to put myself in your life, total disregard for your feelings and outright humiliation and enduring for years and years. Suddenly he's going to turn it all around and you're supposed to deal with years of abuse from him. Abused people finally get angry and strike back. They have had enough. Can you get past your pain? Is he truly sorry for driving you to the edge?

It sounds like he's going to dismiss years of mean behavior to you. I believe if not for that, there would be no A. Now it is what it is and you don't have to compare. I think you never deserved it, no wife should be treated like an object. If he starts drinking, will you get treated even worse? Will he always play the you're fooling around card? I'm worried for you.

[This message edited by pureheartkit at 9:49 PM, July 23rd (Monday)]

Hellfire agree.

disregard for your feelings and outright humiliation and enduring for years and years. Suddenly he's going to turn it all around and you're supposed to deal with years of abuse from him.

Thats just it. She could have left. I have seen it. It is possible. She chose to abuse back instead of getting out. She is no better than him. Which is at fault? The first abuser and everything the abused does is absolved, just because? The abused for staying? The abused that turns abuser? She chose to stay and that is on her. I have seen women willing to take the financial fall just to get free. Very brave and selfless woman. I have also seen selfish women that weren't willing to leave abuse due to financial reasons. They put their children through Hell because they didn't want to let go of the lifestyle. Eventually a person has to own their choices. Regardless of the stimuli. She chose to endure it for years and years and that is on her.

I believe if not for that, there would be no A.

I disagree. She cheated because she had the character to cheat just like the character to stay. One in the same. The same character that kept her there choosing abuse enabled the cheating.

Zug, I think that’s a generalized statement. Maybe it had nothing to do with lifestyle and everything to do with feeding her kids? I had a cousin who stayed with her abusive BD because she’d left so many times and went back to him that her mother told her not to ask again to move back home.

I think, too, that people can be driven to desperate acts that they otherwise would’ve never considered.

I think what you said upthread is correct, neither of these folks is ready for a relationship with anyone at this time.

She said he controlled her financially. This is about her personality and character. The same character that led her to do things to please him, to stay, and then to cheat, then to ask if they can work things out only if he changes and doesn't say her cheating is worse. She is not a victim. She chose to stay. 10years. Like I said in another post, our family through my wife's church works closely in hand with a domestic abuse shelter and you can leave.

I had to go back and read the first post again.

He stays at home so I take it he didn’t work but how was he controlling of the finances? You get a check in your name and he was the one that handled it? How did this go?

AlyssaD

Do not reconcile with your H right now. You had an exit affair because you couldn't take it anymore, right? Stick to the path you have taken.

Look, right now he is trying to get help to stay sober and the road of true sobriety (and not just a dry drunk) is very long. Many alcoholics never reach true sobriety regardless of the number of years they spend in AA. He is at the beginning of his journey. Drinking was a symptom of his issues. The symptom he used to escape and cover for his issues and problems. Those issues are what caused him to treat you like a commodity rather than as his most cherished partner. It will take time in the program for him to reach into himself enough to start to unravel those issues, clearly look at them and actually see that he did years and years of damage not just to your marriage but to you as a human, his wife and the mother of his children. Often that can cause a relapse because it is hard and the go to for so long has been escape so as not to deal with it. 12-18 beers a day is a pretty bad addiction. Did you feel like you were living with a ghost? it sounds like it since you repeatedly tried to connect to him and he cut you off repeatedly just to drink himself into oblivion every day. It will take time to fix his own character flaws.

I am a BS but I am also the child of an alcoholic and I can tell you that my first deal breaker to any relationship has been addiction to drugs and/or alcohol. Being a spouse or a child of an alcoholic is no way to live. It is, at best, a half life and at worst a hell of being cut off and isolated from the rest of the world while dealing with daily pain.

Yes, you chose to end your marriage with failed coping mechanisms rather than healthy ones. Now you know that was the wrong way to exit your marriage although I suspect you did it in part because if he wanted out too that would make him amenable to you leaving and he would be less controlling etc..

What you can do now is work on being the best mother you can be to your kids, finding out why you didn't have the fortitude to leave authentically without hurting him and your own morals and values. Dig deep on what kind of woman, mom and partner you want to be in the future. Rediscover yourself and who you really are. Take the time to figure out good boundaries, healthy coping mechanisms and regain your honor and integrity.

Take time to figure out why you thought it was your wifely duty to allow him to take nude pictures of you and pictures of you performing any sex act on him. No spouse is entitled to that or anything else that makes you uncomfortable. You appeased him. Why? He took advantage of you and betrayed you as well, albeit in a different way by posting photos of you on the internet that were so intimate. BTW - for me the posting of those pictures on the internet would have been as massive a deal breaker as an affair, if not more so.

Let him spend a good six months to a year really working with a sponsor (90 meetings in 90 days is a great place to start) to work his twelve steps and get to a place where not only can he see the hurt you handed him but the hurt he also handed you. Then if you are both interested in reconciling you can take it slow and see how it goes.

Two very different betrayals. Two very hurtful betrayals and at present neither of you is healthy enough to recover the marriage without first working on yourselves. Take time to do that.

Hang in there Alyssa and please do not continue to let him determine your worth!

BTW - To those on this thread who seem to think that he blurred out her face to hide her identity, reread her post. She said he blurred out her eyes. I don't know about you but most people I know well could easily identify me with just my eyes blurred. The humiliation of someone I know seeing a picture like that on the internet is something I would NEVER forgive my spouse for. However, I am not Alyssa and she has to make her own decision on that. After she has done some deep work on herself.

Let me rehash this.. He posted nudes of me years ago on an amateur porn site..I found it because I found blacked out pictures of my head, eyes etc..I confronted him and he admitted but never apologized.. He also had an EA with another woman around the same time.. I'm still trying to get over this.. I'm not saying that I had an affair to get back at him and I'm not blaming my straying on him.. What I'm try to push across is that so those years of alcoholism, the posting of pictures, the EA all are signs of infidelity and he doesn't see it that way

Have you been addressing the video betrayal all this time or has the issue come to the forefront since your dday?

You can't control anyone but yourself. Now, you bring up he had an EA. You have been asking for answers for 10years and still haven't gotten any..So, you will not. What are you going to do about it. You can't make him think like you. You can't make him answer. You either choose to continue on your path or leave. IMO the EA you now bring up is infidelity. The other two things are big deals too, but I wouldn't consider that cheating. Yet, you still chose to put up with that treatment for 10 years. If he isn't going to own that those things impacted the marriage relationship, then there is no chance of things truly changing. So, again back to only being able to control yourself. You had an exit affair. So exit. In his opinion your physical affair will always trump it all. So that makes the options pretty clear. Take him out of the equation and do something about what you can control. No one here can tell you if he will ever get it. After this many years, my opinion would be no and especially now that you added your trangressions to the plate that he considers is worse. Nothing else will exist or matter to him except that you screwed another man. So, focus on why you choose to be treated this way and fix yourself.

OK(?) This looks more like a completely changed story than a rehash. In any event: Work on yourself and divorce him. Your departure may be added incentive for you husband to continue his sobriety. If he does happen to stay sober, remember that it does not mean that it would have happened, if you stuck around.

You may both be better off without each other, and maybe, sometime in the future, you could still reconcile, if its in the cards.

[This message edited by toughtotrust at 4:42 PM, July 25th (Wednesday)]

AlyssaD, I understand about staying with your alcoholic, I did too. Alcoholism is a family disease, everyone in the family is affected.

I will tell you from my experience, recovery is a long road. My WH husband quit almost 3 years ago and he has worked relentlessly to make himself a better man, husband and father. But in the first 1.5 years after he quit drinking, I endured the worse emotional abuse and the worse damage to our relationship. His mind was so messed up from drinking for so long that he became delusional in his thought processes. We went round-and-round arguing about past and present hurts just as you and your husband are doing. I also realized and learned how my role in the relationship caused my husband hurt, confusion and pain in his heart. Something you may also need to understand is that your husbands drinking caused his thought-processes to change but it is reversible. He can become clearminded again from abstinence and working at understanding how he got there in the first place.

Without you and your husband wanting to commit to change, this crazy cycle will continue. And know that you and your children have been affected by his drinking also and it is important for you to get help from outside sources in having clarity.

I attended Alanon for several years and I also sat in on AA meetings to seek understanding of alcoholism and how it affected his behavior. I was so desperate to seek understanding in how our marriage got so out of control. Alanon could be a good place for you to learn how you've been affected by his drinking.

Today, my husband is very remorseful for the pain he caused me and my kid's and to himself. It's a burden he will have to carry for the rest of his life but he is willing to accept the burden of this pain and use it to make himself into the better man he was meant to be, each day. And because of this, I've begun to heal. This path has not been an easy path for us but with the work and determination, we have been able to overcome a lot of our past hurts.

Go back and reread Kat's post. She has a lot of good things to say about alcoholism.

In the end, it is your choice whether you want to stay in the marriage, or not but it will take a lot work on both your parts to make things right. The burden to make things right lies on both of you, not just your husband. I feel in my case that it is by Gods grace that we've both been able to see how each of us contributed to damaging the marriage.

There is hope if the two of you choose to reconcile. Damage is damage in a marriage. It is up to each of you to see how each of you have hurt the marriage. And to tell you the truth, if things weren't so darn painful, I would be in awe of the miracle of the two of us healing and being able to learn forgiveness.

Again, I am going to remind you that recovery on both your parts will take time. I would expect at least 1.5 years for your husbands thinking to begin to have clarity and this is with work, IC, AA or whatever he so chooses to do to get healthy again.

Hope this helps.

Zugzwang, not every woman is able to avail herself of resources that exist or there might actually not be any in her sphere, either geographical or for other reasons—some, especially poorer, don’t have easy access to the internet to Google shelters or victims’ advocates, or even a car to get there, and not every church will have a program such as you describe. It’s a generalization to say “well they can just leave” and not always easily true. Just my two cents....I used to think that way; “just leave then”, until a woman in my life who has seen a LOT more than I have educated me on the reality.

[This message edited by Darkness Falls at 9:00 AM, July 27th (Friday)]

AlyssaD,

I am sorry for your pain and trauma. How are you doing? Your husband does not get it. I do not know if he ever will. His pain and trauma from infidelity are valid. What is not valid is denying years of abuse and alcoholism and betraying you by posting intimate pictures of you on the internet and having an EA. He needs to stop with all the what you did was worse crap. It is faulty thinking in my opinion. He needs to get his head out of his ass and figure out his addiction and why the hell he thought it okay to post intimate nudes of you on the internet. He needs to address his need for an EA. He has to fix himself before he can think about you and the marriage. He has plenty to do without worrying about your healing. He seems very entitled in his thinking from your posts.

It seems you have owned your affair. Please own your issues and get the help you need so that infidelity does not become a continuous thread in the fabric of your life. What I suggest is that you identify healthier coping skills.

I do not feel it is beneficial to tolerate abuse as you have done or fall into the role of an enabler because alcoholics always want one. Nor is it good to have an affair in response to difficult circumstances. These issues are what you should address in your healing IMHO.

I feel you should become the woman you want to be .... for yourself, for your next partner, or for your WH if he does the work and proves consistently over time he has it together and will be the spouse you deserve.... and most importantly you want to be in a relationship with that enhances you. Be extremely cautious of this last scenario because it seems he has really brought you down. Believe nothing he says only his actions over time. He has to address his addiction, betrayal of you, and the EA.

If you move on. That is fine. I understand. But, I feel you should do the work to become the best AlyssaD possible. If you enter another monogamous relationship you do not want the shame or pain of infidelity to interrupt a very good thing because you have not healed yourself.

Please stay with us. You have a tremendous amount to offer. I hope we at SI are helpful to you. We will stay with you on your journey as you heal.

Best wishes. My thoughts are with you.

(((AlyssaD)))

[This message edited by Ripped62 at 9:30 AM, July 27th (Friday)]