SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I did go in and read her other posts. 3-4 months out from DDAY.

And...a collective "Ohhhhh"

Still not saying it isn't abuse, but yeah, I think it's expected that the anger and rage would be within normal expectations.

With some examples we may still say abuse, but expecting him to be calm this far out would also be a stretch.

We only know what posters tell us, and OP here hasn't told us much. It is reasonable to expect that a BS will feel rage and pain and such, and in general I believe it is best for the BS to get it out rather than keep it in, including all of the horrible derogatory names and such.

Here, though, the OP's various posts suggest her BH is going down a rabbit hole of self-induced pain where he is imagining all manner of horrors that did not exist in reality, and further that he is gradually sinking in a quicksand of second-guessing, leading to third-guessing, etc., to the point where he is losing grip on reality.

It's worrisome.

Y'all. She used the word abuse in her original post. Enough said. Period.

Not necessarily enough said.

I have been accused of abuse and not by my wife but by her mother.

I almost lost my job. If it wasn't for some really solid people who were unbiased, I might have lost a lot.

I think you're right that it shouldn't be immediately dismissed. That wouldn't have served me when I was accused.

I think it's also right that it shouldn't be immediately believed. That would definitely not have served me.

It's confirmation bias (I think that's the right one). We too easily see a situation only from our bias.

Since I was wrongly accused, I would be wrong to assume that all the accused are as innocent as me.

Others that have had their legitimate claims ignored are going to find it easy to assume that dismissing claims is unjust.

WS or BS - we all only know what the other internet stranger is willing or able to share. And often we share it at our highs or lows.

Suffice it to say from my perspective:

If it's abuse - get help. Don't perpetuate further harm by continuing in an abuse cycle.

If it's not abuse - get help too. Because prolonged anger isn't going to help either the BS or the WS.

Professionally, I am a mandatory reporter and have reported before. And sometimes it is better to remove doubt by getting others involved.

But I wouldn't want the accusations of my MIL to be conducted by internet strangers that only hear her point of view - or mine. For all y'all know, I'm not innocent of the accusation.

Right. I'm going by what she posted. She would need to determine her next steps and if indeed she is being abused, and in what way, then get the appropriate help.

Thank you all for some very thought provoking posts. Train of thought is difficult right now. Abuse I’n my mind....all mental. There’s never and will never be anything physical. I don’t believe him to be capable. DD was in May. A kiss. That led to to inappropriate texts for a two week period, and one physical encounter in sept that was discovered two weeks after the fact. There’s been no TT. I have been open and transparent as I believe a huge factor in his own affair was that I never had the strength to bear his truths. So I didn’t ask. I rugswept and tried to deal onmy own. It was disastrous. The total wrong way that has, I feel, led to a mental deterioration that has gone acknowledged for 5 years. I don’t want him to endure the process I have. I want to let him vent. I want to be strong enough to bear his anger. But when he throws my words to my AP in my face. Repeats them, screams them at me and wants to watch my pain in full glory. But won’t discuss anything regarding moving forward. What he’s lacking. What I am lacking. It’s so hard when you have to admit you are a fucking mess because it makes it about you and not then. I’m just terrified to move as everything is conveyed as me before him. And that’s the last thing I want.

Thank you all for some very thought provoking posts. Train of thought is difficult right now. Abuse I’n my mind....all mental. There’s never and will never be anything physical. I don’t believe him to be capable. DD was in May. A kiss. That led to to inappropriate texts for a two week period, and one physical encounter in sept that was discovered two weeks after the fact. There’s been no TT. I have been open and transparent as I believe a huge factor in his own affair was that I never had the strength to bear his truths. So I didn’t ask. I rugswept and tried to deal onmy own. It was disastrous. The total wrong way that has, I feel, led to a mental deterioration that has gone acknowledged for 5 years. I don’t want him to endure the process I have. I want to let him vent. I want to be strong enough to bear his anger. But when he throws my words to my AP in my face. Repeats them, screams them at me and wants to watch my pain in full glory. But won’t discuss anything regarding moving forward. What he’s lacking. What I am lacking. It’s so hard when you have to admit you are a fucking mess because it makes it about you and not then. I’m just terrified to move as everything is conveyed as me before him. And that’s the last thing I want.

Am I correct that you had sexual contact with the AP in September? Of 2018?

If so, this isn't a few months out, but just a few weeks out. I may have read that wrong.

Not trying to add to your load. But an accurate timeline can help the SI folks tailor fit their posts a little better to your needs.

I said previously that I had it pretty cushy and I can tell you my h threw things back that was said to the AP. He was sarcastic. He would mock the “relationship” with AP. He still does that sometimes and has nicknames for him. I could not even begin to say abuse. I still have a hard time qualifying what you are saying as that. He didn’t scream in my face so maybe that would make it more so. I think as early as you are all are out he hasn’t found his equilibrium unless you have other things to offer as examples. If you really think you are being abused I Will not discredit it but I think you should seek professional advice. I was in IC for almost all of my first year and when those things happened the IC would evaluate it and give me tools to help my husband with it.

You say dd was in May. So you mean dday? Then there was inappropriate texts, and sex(or a physical encounter) in September..that was discovered two weeks later?

So your husband is about a month out, and is bringing up the things that were said in texts, angrily, and you're wanting to know when it's appropriate to tell him to shut up and move forward?

Good Lord.

This is why I asked for examples. Considering the timeline, I will just say it's not time to move forward. You're wanting to rugsweep. Just because you chose to rugsweep his affair, doesn't mean he's obligated to do the same.

Yes the one sexual encounter was only in September

Don’t use the word “only”. Your minimizing what you did.

Your dday is so fresh out. My H threw AP in my face all the time. He called me names. He yelled. He screamed at me. He was mad. He was in pain. He can’t move forward right now. He don’t know how. Sounds like he don’t want to talk about it. That’s ok. He needs his space. You have to understand what infidelity does to a person. Your H is MAD and trying to process this right now. Your expecting him to handle this with grace and be nice about it. I can’t not express this enough you need to understand the damage you created.

How do you think he should be handling this?

The fact that you had a dday, and continued on with the affair, and have given your husband another dday is adding to that pain, and that anger.

Rather than wanting him to move forward, you need to get to work on yourself. You need to become a safe partner for him. And you need to do the work for yourself.

What you need to understand is..he doesn't know if he has the truth. Why would he think he does? You took the affair underground,after dday. He is questioning everything. And he will for a very long time. Taking it underground,and making it a sexual affair, has done enormous damage to your husband,and your marriage. And yourself.

Did he know the OM?

Have you provided him with a detailed timeline? Have you given him full access to all of your accounts? Have you been tested for STDs? Does the OBS know? Did the physical encounter happen in your home? Car?

It's hard to advise when we don't know your story.

[This message edited by HellFire at 5:20 PM, November 1st (Thursday)]

Wait... you had a A but you continued the A when your H found out NOW your upset because his calls you names and can’t move forward???

Really? How do you think he can move forward when you take the A underground? Seriously? It’s like you stab him the back, his bleeding all the place, THEN you stab him again and his bleeding more but your telling him to get up and walk it off. Let’s move forward from this. How?

The only way he can move forward is when you stop lying and work on yourself. Are you in IC? Learn your whys and why you thought it was ok to cheat.

Y'all. She used the word abuse in her original post. Enough said. Period.

I don't think it's that simple. In an otherwise healthy relationship, yelling/screaming at someone, calling them awful names, mocking them, accusing them of lying about everything, interrogating them for hours a day, snooping through their phone/computer/e-mails/whatever else, tracking their movements via GPS, dictating the terms of their social life, forcing them to quit their job, and a few other things I'm probably not thinking of would absolutely fit the definition of abuse/abusive.

However, these are the things that BSes often do and need to do in order to work through the pain and grief and rage that being betrayed in this fashion causes. It's nigh-impossible to look someone in the eye who you loved, who you trusted, who you gave your heart to, and who repaid you by mercilessly abusing and betraying you in one of the worst ways humanly possible and not be filled with such profoundly intense rage that it just has to come out. It feels like it'll kill you if it doesn't. And the WS needs to see it, to be exposed to it, to be made to endure it, because it's a necessary part of understanding what they've done. The same is true of the grief that follows the rage. All of that poison has to be drawn out and poured out upon the person who so gleefully injected it, otherwise they'll never come close to understanding the depth of the agony it inflicted.

Gravycake, you just subjected your BS to two DDays in the space of a few months, and the fact that you took your affair underground and escalated it makes it even worse than the usual pattern of multiple DDays due to TT. He's going to be angry. He's going to be mean. He's going to throw your lies and misdeeds in your face constantly. He's going to mock you when you try to apologize or empathize and then call you a liar. How you handled his A isn't of any consequence here. He's not you and he's not obligated to handle it in the same fashion you did. All you can do is decide whether you're willing to endure this until he's worked out enough of it to go back to being in a more stable, rational mindset.

[This message edited by firenze at 8:04 PM, November 1st (Thursday)]

DD was in May. A kiss. That led to to inappropriate texts for a two week period, and one physical encounter in sept that was discovered two weeks after the fact. There’s been no TT. I have been open and transparent

No sorry, you have not been "open and transparent", not since the first dday in May anyway. You kept the A going, intensifying it seemingly as it became more physical in Sept and by the time line you describe, your BH is potentially only a month out of dday #2. No TT? No truth at all I would suggest following dday in May.

His world was completely rocked twice in a very short time frame and gently, why should he believe anything you say? Your "honesty" can not be trusted now, you have very recently proven that. You kept the A going when surely you must have borne witness to his palpable and raw pain!

If your BH calling you names and parroting what you said to your AP is abuse, then I am in line right behind him as an abuser I suppose and actually, I can't say I would do it differently now. It was a somewhat primitive response in a time when I felt very little control over my life. I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, couldn't focus at work, all not my choices, just the physiological response my body had to my pain, same as the rage to a large extent. I felt very out of control of what I was feeling. Abuse? Maybe...but what I didn't do was expose him to STDs against his knowledge, stab him in the back and lie to his face.

At a month out, I had rage the likes of which I have never before known in my life, didn't even know I was capable. I also ran excessively and would go for drives by myself and just yell at the top of my lungs. All of it a release, which I absolutely needed to move through this horror bestowed upon me. With time AND the releases, I moved forward, we moved forward, because my WH stood there in my pain and my anger and did not tell me "you should be over this, move on", of "stop hurting MY feelings". Rather, he very appropriately realized I would be having none of this reaction if he hadn't behaved the way he did. I am in no way condoning physical abuse or even had I continued with the verbal abuse, but a month out? Sorry, it's pretty "normal" as far as recovering from this trauma (which it is) goes.

That said, you ask when to draw the line? Draw it whenever you like, you have control in that. You dictate what is acceptable to you and what isn't. For me, if my WH had said "I am feeling tired of you speaking to me that way and I need for it to end or I am done", I would have said, don't let the door hit you on the way out and we would not be in R today.

I encourage you to start thinking about your H before yourself. This really struck me.

But won’t discuss anything regarding moving forward. What he’s lacking. What I am lacking.

You write "what he's lacking" before you write "what I am lacking", which is interesting. I hope this is not implying that you blame his "lacking" on your choice to cheat. That's on you alone. Issues in your M are to be shared and certainly addressed, but he is not yet in any place to explore those yet at a month out. Your old M is dead, you have a choice to rebuild a new one if you both choose to.

Good luck

GC, I am going to try to pull all the emotion possible out of this, as I Am a BS who has had multiple D-days.

The angry reaction by your husband to the news of the sexual relationship you had is understandable. I would actually be very worried if he had sat in silence and not had an emotional response.

With that said, the question of where the line ought to be drawn is a very personal one. I had exactly one angry outburst that came in the heels of 3 days of lies and misdirection. I am not proud of allowing my anger to turn into rage. I could see that my wife was terrified. I understand why.

And I set my mind that day to never explode that way again. I got plenty angry. And I used a variety of techniques to calm my anger, to see past it, directly into the source. Anger is a secondary emotion that covers the true emotion below the surface. Iwont guess what that true emotion is for your husband because it will vary from event to event and from memory to memory.

With all of this said, it is not helpful, nor is it healing for either of you, if he continues to explode in anger and belittle/mock you. He is in desperate need of a good IC to help him through this initial period of shock.

While it is understandable that he has the anger, it is not something that you should have to "take". He needs to be able to properly express his feelings without the explosiveness. When the desire to explode comes to him, he needs to be able to let that out in a productive way. Working out, running, chopping wood, driving golf balls at the range, taking cuts in the batting cages, whatever. He needs to be able to get the anger and rage out in a way that is not harmful to the relationship.

If at any point, you do not feel physically safe, find a way to remove yourself from the situation.

After he has learned how to better handle his responses and has begun working through them with an IC, there are communication tools that will help you both to engage (and disengage) in a way that helps to rebuild the relationship.

I am sorry that he is exploding with his anger over and over. I know why he feels that way, but it doesn't give him the right to do it.

Do you feel comfortable with being able to have a non-explosive discussion about some "ground rules" when it comes to discussing A-related things?

[This message edited by CaptainRogers at 10:22 PM, November 1st (Thursday)]

Just in case it's not obvious, this is why I asked exactly what was he saying that she felt was abusive. He's mimicking her sexts to the om,and he's yelling them out at her. Not name calling. He's repeating the words she said to another man.

She feels that after having a dday, taking it underground, escalating it to a physical affair, and being a month,or less, out from dday #2 when she was caught.... AGAIN...that he needs to shut up and move forward. Rugsweep. One.month.out.(Or less)

Again, a lot of WS claim abuse. And while I'm quite sure there are some who are actually being abused, this doesn't sound like abuse. It sounds like the very understandable anger and pain, coming from a man who just found out his wife put him through months of false reconciliation,lied to him, took the affair underground after seeing his pain, and had sex with this om.

Is this abusive? Yes it is. Her husband has been abused.

This is why it's important to ask what exactly the accused has said. This is why you don't just take them at their word and start vilifying the accused.

Hi Gravycake,

I would like to start over if we can. Now that you have come forward with all the details, I think there are a variety of ways we can help you move forward.

First, your last DDAY is Mid-September. Timeline is always important to be able to relate to where you are in the process.

Secondly, it's clear to me that you must have felt you had feelings for the AP. This is common, I certainly went through that as well. I can only draw a conclusion that you may be going through withdrawal from him at the same time having this experience at home. While we do bring this on ourselves, it doesn't make the pain and confusion less during this time.

So, I will simply make a few recommendations from someone who has been where you are.

1. Commit. The back and forth is really tempting in the beginning. During the A we often re-write our marital history (you are unlikely to think that is the case at this point). Read about cognitive dissonance. We justify so much because the A is a strong draw but it goes against what we have learned as right. For me, I committed fully, No Contact means no further hurts for anyone involved. I told everything. I worked through the pining and confusion in IC. It's not an easy time to navigate.

2. Start recognizing the reasons that you wanted to escape your life. What are your Whys? These should be things internal to you. You didn't cheat because of your marriage, your husband, etc...you cheated because you wanted to. Why? There are all sorts of standard answers that will help you dig. Here are a few common ones to start with:

Entitlement. Usually there is some sort of "I deserve this". Why did you feel you did? For me, I had dedicated my life as wife and mother, I had a tremendous amount more responsibility than my husband. I told myself I deserved something fun for me. The reality is, when I dug deep on this I realized that I had placed so much of that on myself. This is an example, you have to find what is true for you so you can fix it. I had to grow boundaries and learn to say no.

Validation. This is a big thing in an Affair. What did it do for you? Knowing that he was feeding whatever that was makes you start to understand that your feelings were not about him but how he reflected back to you the way YOU wanted to feel. That's not a genuine thing.

More _______. What were you looking for more of? For some it might be sex. For others it might be romance. For some it can be power, etc.

Keep looking for all of these things and then start creating a list from that of things you need to change. This will morph and change over the next year.

As for dealing with your husband, don't trickle truth him. Be calm. Don't be defensive. Don't defend the AP, your H needs to know you are on the same team and not AP's team. Make sure all your work aligns with the goal. If the goal is to keep your marriage then everything you do needs to align with that. If you aren't going to commit then just make the break now, no since in torturing your husband. I will tell you that I leaned a little that way early on because of all the self brainwashing I did.

Read all you can about infidelity, you will quickly learn what you have gone through and experienced is not unique to your situation.

And lastly, gosh try and see that your husbands rage is just coming from a deep sadness. Unless he's really over the top with it in a way maybe we don't understand, then just know this is completely normal. It might not have been your reaction to his infidelity, but it's a normal reaction. I think a betrayed husband especially has a hard time not using their anger as a bodyguard for their sadness. He feels humiliated, emasculated, scared, shocked, sad, angry, betrayed, and he doesn't know how to process all these emotions. When he lets it out, tell him that you are sorry that you have done this to him. Be there for him, try and concentrate just on him.

If the situation escalates or if you have children at home that you need to protect from these outbursts, then the two of you might consider one of you leaving the home for some period while this gets navigated.

I know that there are "two" threads in this post. But I couldn't stop thinking about some of the comments and wanted to share some thoughts. This is not a comment directed at the poster or the original post, it is merely in response to some of the back and forth about someone using the word abuse to describe their situation.

As someone who also works with people that are in abusive situations, I would like to say that taking someone who says they are being abused seriously, is of the utmost importance. But believing it is abuse without further questioning is a dangerous thing. The instances of an abuser falsely crying abuse are very high and taking them at point blank belief can enable them and put the abused in danger of further and now justified abuse. Asking questions protects and cares for the victims whether it is the victim saying they are being abused or the abuser, good questions like the ones that I have seen in this thread like "What exactly is being said?".

So, using the word abuse is not "enough said". Caring to ask questions and find out more is the right path. It helps to clarify the situation and offer proper support.