SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am adamantly against name calling and anything that can be classified as bullying. I have a strong aversion and total dislike for bullies. By your description, your husband, through his pain and anger, is bullying you. I am not siding with you against him. Not ever. I am saying I am against bullying. The tragedy in this whole situation is that non of the animosity, hate, and hurt being heaped upon your husband, you, and your children would have never happened, at all, without infidelity. Infidelity with a POS that could care less what happens in the wake of his actions. He probably hopes you will leave and come to him so he can move away from his mom and have someone who will pay the bills. You may not be able to help what happens next in your life but, maybe, one day you can help someone else before they destroy their life.

[This message edited by anoldlion at 7:30 PM, August 13th (Tuesday)]

Maybe his lying comes from a place of shame for his actions? Much like our lying in the aftermath? I'm not trying to justify his actions.. just trying to understand. Coping is an art, it doesn't come easy to most. Some simply can't.

Draw the line where you see fit. It's okay. It's hard to survive this shit no matter which side you land.

I am a BS. I am glad you and your children are safe. Your infidelity has had a devestating impact on your BH. I understand his pain and rage. But physical violence and threats and intimidation are never okay. Anyone who condones such behavior is dead wrong. It is inexcusable. Always. Be safe.

You need to leave.

Why didn't you mention in your first post that he hit you?

[This message edited by HellFire at 7:34 PM, August 13th (Tuesday)]

The short answer to your question is that you draw the line where you want the line. You do not lose your autonomy simply because of your circumstances.

Your BH is in a great deal of pain. More pain than you will likely ever understand.

However, I am a BH, I understand his pain, and I will say that it is never okay, NEVER. for a husband to lay angry hands on his wife, or to demean her in front of the children.

I strongly recommend that you take steps to create space and distance, at least until he is no longer dangerous.

On JFO there is a technique called The 180 often recommended to newly minted BSs. This is a way of distancing ones self psychologically, to find mental clarity. Your BH very much needs that.

Edited Later:

I agree with posters below that an anonymous forum in not a place where factual reality can be debated. We have no way of discerning truth when all we get are posts from anonymous strangers. It would appear that at least one of you is manufacturing at least some facts, for the benefit of readers of this forum.

I don't know if you truly desire R with your BH. Based on what we understand to be the details of your A, you have crossed lines of harm and emasculation that many men, perhaps most, cannot ever come back from.

You need to try to understand that, right now, your BH loves you, and yet, because you have intentionally hurt him more than he thought he could ever be hurt, he hates you. This creates a cognitive dissonance that his mind cannot reconcile. He can't understand his feelings for you because they don't compute. His brain is like a computer with software that won't boot up, stuck with a little rotating colored disc. He looks at you and doesn't know what he sees.

If you want a chance at R, it is incumbent on you to help him re-boot and understand what he sees. You are free to draw your "line" wherever you want it. You are an autonomous adult. Each spouse in a marriage is free to leave the marriage at any time. However, you're here because you say you want an opportunity for R. In your case, due to the extremity of what you have done, that path is going to be unbelievably difficult. I would expect at least a few marathon "stay up 48 hours as he looks at you with wild, unseeing eyes, grasping for some toehold on reality" sessions where all he does is repeat some version of "why?"

The answer to why is of course because you wanted to. You wanted to explore your old love to see if there was any "there there". You wanted to cheat on your husband. You decided that whatever pain you would certainly cause your BH, and whatever integrity you would surrender by intentionally breaking your marriage vows, was not as important to you as your desire to see if there was any fuel left in the fire of your old love.

By making that decision, you also decided that you would be exactly where you are now with your BH. You need to accept the reality that what happened in your house last night, that was your conscious choice. In our culture we often use the word "Karma" incorrectly to connote some form of revenge or payback. In its traditional sense, "Karma" merely describes the logical sequence of events, once one makes a decision that starts such a sequence. The encounter with your BH, that is the Karma, the logical conclusion of the events that you chose to set into motion. If you were a thinking person who reasoned through this, you should have anticipated precisely what occurred.

I wish you luck. At the same time, I have to admit that my gut is telling me that you really don't want R with your BH, that in fact you are playing games with him, and with us. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe what I'm viewing as dishonesty and manipulation is part of the so-called infidelity "fog", where you yourself have allowed your mind to create an alternate reality to justify your wicked choices. Either way, my advice to you is that your question -- where to draw the line -- is the question that is asked by somebody who fails to grasp the reality of the situation she created. Your BH's emotions are at a point of exploding. You decided this. You chose actions specifically calculated to make your BH feel these things. You are the one who now must decide how you will deal with him, if that is what you want to do.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 5:33 AM, August 14th (Wednesday)]

After reading your last post, describing what happened, you do need to leave and stay gone. I have an autistic toddler and *I* would probably be the one “creating a crime scene” if my husband EVER did anything like that in front of her.

Protect your children, please. From one autism mama to another.

Where to draw the line

Where ever you feel you need to, but do this with the full understanding that if you plan to reconcile "drawing the line" will likely dash any hope of that. If you truly fear for you and your children's well being than you did the right thing. To him you taking verbal abuse is the consequences for what you caused., You need to remember if you hadn't slept with someone else and given yourself emotionally to them, none of this would be happening. That being said you need to keep you and your children's true best interest at heart even if it results in divorce. In my opinion that is what would probably be the best for both of you anyway. I pray you never have to experience the pain you have put your husband through because until you have experienced it there is no way you can even come close to imagining it.

This was posted at 4:00. I went home, assuming he’d never touch me. The physical altercation happened around 5:00.

Don’t tell me what happened in my house. You defend him all you want. Paper trail doesn’t lie.

You cheated, your attitude now is anger, regret and a hint of remorse. He is very broken and his reserve is gone to deal with the pain. Violence is never justified. You both did despicable things in front of your child.

Separate, do the 180, initiate divorce, go in ic, the both of you. Your husband is on the breaking point also, I would get someone to watch him. He is in danger of self harm more than harming you in my opinion. He has nothing to lose.

Sorry Iam.. I completely missed your post before both of mine. No, that's a line for anyone to cross to be enough. I don't think you need us to tell that though. You also don't have to defend yourself to us. Do what you need to. Again, it's ok. Not everyone survives this.

Iamtrash, honestly, the best thing for your kids and both of you is some time apart. This period of time post dday is very, very raw.

I dug 500mg out of Morphine out of my WW's mouth after she downed them in front of me. There is nothing she could have done with a thousand AP's that would have deserved that. After that, a big realization hit me. We took a break from the constant A talk/fighting and took time for each other.

An anonymous forum isn't the place to fight. You need to put the kids first, no matter what. If there is physical violence on either side it needs to stop right away. There were times I had to leave my house because of what was going through my mind.

Him doing what he did in front of the kids isn't acceptable, neither is what you did. Take some time away and let things cool down for a while.

When people fight, emotions run high, each party see things differently. You view things one way, he views things another way. You say one thing, he says another and forum posters cannot really know the truth.

Like the others have said, put some distance, come to an agreement that is in best interest of your child.

Oh and here’s an observation that could help you with your whys...:

You said you cheated because of a "an emotional void". You also said that you posted in JFO, intentionality breaking the rules because you were furious. You "I’ve always been the straight and narrow" but you lied to your husband for 9 months because.... You never stopped loving the AP but you professed love and fidelity on your wedding day because you didn’t have closure I assume... You want to help your husband heal but when he asked you to leave you didn’t because...

Is this a pattern? Follow the rules except when they don’t apply because...?

I find waywards are usually full of contradictions and have lots and lots of becauses

[This message edited by ShutterHappy at 6:32 AM, August 14th (Wednesday)]

For what it's worth, and it's really not much, I believe that both of you are telling the truth (or close to it) about what the other one did and minimizing your own actions. It doesn't help that you're singing the same tune you've sung over and over here, which is that you don't care what we believe, you know the truth, we don't have the full picture, and you can't be bothered to give it to us because you have more important things to do.

Honestly, I feel like the only reason you're on SI is that you can't bear to think there's a community out in the world that's supporting him without you having a chance to tell your version of your side. It's a waste of your time and ours. And as everyone here has pointed out, it's far, far worse than a waste of time for your children.

Grow the hell up, and fast, because if both of you prove you can't put your kids' interests first and keep them safe, both of you may watch a judge ruling that they'll be safer with a third party. You are right. You have far bigger things to worry about this morning than what an anonymous forum thinks of you.

This is potentially a dangerous situation for both parties - whether it's legally or physically.

My advice is to lock both of your threads and leave the site. This is a fire, and we are a bunch of strangers pouring gasoline all over it. You both need a cooling off period.

I will answer your question though - after infidelity emotions run very high. I doubt you will find a WS on this forum who had a spouse that reacted calmly in the months after dday. I think the WS does have to try and de-esculate the situation the best they can by being empathetic about the fact that anger/rage is a secondary emotion usually used to protect the person from having to feel the deeper depths of the pain. It's been said many times anger is sad's bodyguard. When we have that empathy typically we have tools to calm down the situation, but in some cases that's not possible.

That being said, if the anger is out of control you have to leave the situation and let it simmer down. So, this is where you are. I located your husbands thread now (telling you for sake of honesty) and I know that there are people saying that DV is often used by a WS and WS lie. While that might be true, there is something on the news all the time about a spouse killing another spouse in a fit of rage. Infidelity is a trauma and abuse as an above poster pointed out, and there is really no telling how any one person reacts to that.

There simply is no way at all to for any of us to definitively tell and so for that reason I think we all have to be very careful of what we are fueling here. This is a potentially dangerous situation in which we have no true view of.

You have to follow your gut it really doesn't matter what a bunch of people on the internet says, you have to protect yourself and take these threats seriously. On the other hand, if any part of you knows this this is exaggerated (not accusing you) I would tell you to stop escalating and go to that empathy that I already talked about.

I think this site is stoking both of you and making it harder for either of you to think clearly. Get live resources involved.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:24 AM, August 14th (Wednesday)]

BraveSirRobin, this is one of the few times I wish these forums had a like button!

Allegations of DV on both sides. It's not acceptable from either party...

Honestly, I feel like the only reason you're on SI is that you can't bear to think there's a community out in the world that's supporting him without you having a chance to tell your version of your side.

I get the same impression. This isn't the first time I've seen a WS join SI "to set the record straight." Posting on his threads in the JFO forum belies an uncommon sense of entitlement.

Your BH has asked you to leave and you come here asking us to help you get him to respect your boundaries?

This is the problem with “being asked to leave,” as I see it.

I did leave, back in 2010 when D-day occurred. We didn’t have kids and the “marital home” was actually my husband’s premarital property and my name was not attached to it in any way.

When a WS is “asked” (threatened) to leave but she has kids or the marital home is jointly owned or rented with both names on the mortgage/deed or lease? To me it’s a different matter. Neither spouse has the right to force or intimidate the other out. Neither has the right to separate the other from the kids. If the marriage is going to end, then the filing spouse can go to court and get a judge’s orders WRT custody and disbursement of the home. I know it’s a common thing to advise the BS to tell the WS “GTFO,” but it doesn’t work like that, any more than the WS can tell the BS “GTFO.”

[This message edited by Darkness Falls at 10:42 AM, August 14th (Wednesday)]

Woah! IamTrash, lets just lay out a few facts and perhaps some actions that need to happen like yesterday.

-You cheated, partially blamed your husband, and performed sex acts you refuse your husband

-You involved the children by introducing them to your AP (Some people think there was more. No one trusts you because you are in lie to cover one's butt mode, ease off that)

-You were caught, and came to this forum, then lied a few times and came a little clean

-Even people like AnOldLion who I disagree with a lot tells your husband to leave you

-You don't address your "whys" and continue to talk about how you loved this AP to your husband. Also mention pre-affair issues which would have stopped you from cheating (WTF)

-You don't give your husband any space and force him to eat the shit sandwich you gave him in front of you (Are you a sadist?)

Yeah. You need to learn you have the entitlement issues. You feel his superior in so many ways. It is probably one of your main "Whys". I bet you see most people as disposable as well because they don't know your struggles.

So lets see what we can do to fix things.

Stop the police report. (Too late, you sent him to jail! Then took the kids away for how long and kicked him out.)

Apologize to him now!

Apologize to his mother now!

You should then start lining up a way to give him a day with the kids to cool off and fix what happened. He loves those kids and wants to fix his relationship with them. You ran off with them and I bet felt so great about them being afraid of him. You need to let them have their dad or they will hate you forever when they grow up. This is the kind of thing that leaves kids scared for life.

Then find a way to get the kids watched by someone else for a time. This should be more than 1 day. This is a must so you 2 can fight in a constructive way.

Now the rules for your fight (Others help me with this as you want. I did this like 15 years ago with a couple of friends):

-Go to 2 separate rooms

-You each write down 30 words (Count them) you want to say to the other person

-Play music while you do this (Don't argue about this, let him pick)

-Separate the rooms (Writing rooms and shared room) in half with a "do not cross" line

-Then you exchange the pieces of paper and read what is written out loud (No refusing to, that is being petty)

-No hand gestures or throwing things (Save it for the paper)

-Then you both scurry back to your rooms and do it again on new sheets of paper

-After 5 rounds of that. You each hold hands and say sorry. Then proceed. Even the forced sorry will help. (Yeah, those "sorry" start to take on undertones)

-You need 1-2 referees who have the rules and can send you both back to your rooms like children

I haven't used this crap since high school when we were trying to get a buddy and his pregnant girlfriend to figure their crap out. After about 2 rounds of the sorry part, I bet you 2 become better at writing, but also you get to keep all of what the other person wrote. Stop and go for a walk, separate places then come back. Mix up the pages and reread them together. You will learn a thing or 2.

Trust me.

I was going to write out about your fight, but lets say, I think you should have stepped outside when the fight accelerated. You know the moment. Instead of staying in front of the kids and focusing on fighting back.

[This message edited by DoinBettr at 4:52 PM, August 14th (Wednesday)]

Grow the hell up, and fast, because if both of you prove you can't put your kids' interests first and keep them safe, both of you may watch a judge ruling that they'll be safer with a third party. You are right. You have far bigger things to worry about this morning than what an anonymous forum thinks of you.

Amen! Also, listen to Hiking out. This is one occasion that I believe that your being on SI is dangerous.

Stay separated from him for a time.