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Please, don't fall for this manipulation and stay on course, what she does at the therapy is pure blameshifting, it's so transparent it's just ridiculous. Of course some things can be true, but twisting them so, she is a victim?! Don't fall for it!

I'm glad that you can see this yourself, you just need a little confirmation. Don't let her guilt-trip you into doing something you know is wrong. You will be ok, just go NC or at least gray-rock with her. Good luck!

[This message edited by bookworm19 at 4:35 AM, September 24th (Tuesday)]

She has been meeting with her therapist and she has recently told me that I had very high standards and treated her like she was never and couldn't ever be good enough for me. She says she would have weeks where she would cry about this at work every morning. Call her mom and cry about it. It tore her up. She felt that I hated her and she would never be good enough.

This is blameshifting. It won’t surprise you to learn that my WW has said almost precisely the same thing, almost word for word (except for the embellishment about calling her mom and crying every morning — by the way I don’t believe your WW when she says this and it seems like a bald faced lie). This is a pity party. This is rewriting the history of the marriage. And it’s not true. She felt you hated her and she would never be good enough because you’d had enough of her problem drinking, staying out late and not coming home? Put that in perspective. It’s utter horseshit. Don’t fall for it.

So it's now all your fault? Blameshifting and rewriting the marital history...both straight out of the Cheater's Handbook.

More reason to stay on the path to D.

She has been meeting with her therapist and she has recently told me that I had very high standards and treated her like she was never and couldn't ever be good enough for me. She says she would have weeks where she would cry about this at work every morning. Call her mom and cry about it. It tore her up. She felt that I hated her and she would never be good enough.

This may be true. I'm sure if you use some retrospection, that you could decide if this had validity or not. But what does that have to do with this betrayal? Like it was mentioned, this was a marriage issue. And by the way, if this was true, she sure as hell should of thought about that BEFORE she married. But just like the dirty dishes and half-done laundry, these are marital issues that could have been addressed.

I'm more concerned of the 'you're not giving the marriage a shot by not working on OUR issues' talk. Infidelity is a bona fide, straight-to-divorce-with-no-explanation-necessary type of betrayal. You don't need to justify anything to her.

[This message edited by Vomitousmass at 10:48 PM, December 10th (Thursday)]

Blameshifting, as others have said, Awful.

I recommend you do not go to couples counselling or marriage counselling until a lot more IC has been done by your WW. Couples counselling (MC) would probably focus on marital issues and not her issues. All marriages have issues. None are perfect. Some are far from perfect. Marital issues should be shared in some proportion.

Your WW committed adultery. That is 100% on her. It sounds like your WW is using her IC sessions to expound on all of the things she's irritated about in your marriage and not on the mindset/belief system that she used to commit/encourage her adultery.

IMO, if you go to for the couples counselling it will focus on marital issues, her issues will be rugswept and you will be further traumatized. If you are going to D why MC?

I recommend you get IC for yourself. I'm sorry I didn't read back to see if you already are. If you aren't I recommend it.

Blameshifting.

Shutterhappy and jb3199 nailed it. These are marital issues. She admitted that these issues of “not feeling good enough” were not an excuse for cheating. She’s not blaming you for her infidelity but trying to put some guilt on you for how you treated her during your M. It’s a backhanded slap like: “ hey you weren’t so nice either”.

First of all infidelity trumps any and all marital issues. We are all imperfect spouses. She could have tried to work out these problems earlier. But it makes no difference now because she decided to cheat on you. Everything else becomes a secondary problem once trust is destroyed. For what it’s worth, your WW sounds very immature. Staying out late, getting wasted, half done laundry and other shared housework. If you were critical, it sounds like a reasonable reaction, and she decided to pout about how unfair you were rather than growing up and doing her share.

I believe you are doing the right thing moving towards D with her. Good luck.

[This message edited by fareast at 6:48 AM, September 24th (Tuesday)]

There is also re-writing marital history. IMO, re-writing marital history is based on real events or feelings. However, in the re-write mole hills become mountains.

Were there things in your marriage that bothered you? Did you cheat?

She is using this as justification even though she is saying she isn't. When someone says "all of this is my fault BUT..." the BUT negates everything before it.

It sounds like cheating is a complete deal breaker for you. I don't think your opinion will change with time Best to move on. You now see her as damaged goods. You saying she ruined the marriage pretty much proves that...

There is no "high standard" for expecting fidelity in marriage. Fidelity is the ONLY standard. Period. End of story.

Any further discussion on this would send me straight to an attorney.

[This message edited by k8la at 7:08 AM, September 24th (Tuesday)]

If she didn’t think she was good enough for you before the affair, she’s certainly proved it beyond a reasonable doubt now.

You had reasonable expectations that she stop acting like a barfly whore, stop being a slob, clean her crap up around the house, and have a modicum of respect for you. That’s not a marital problem; it’s her problem.

Maybe she didn’t feel good enough for you because she knew what a lying, entitled narcissist she was and is. Now she’s confirmed it.

So it's your fault that she cheated?

She's attempting to manipulate you back into the marriage with what is actually an irrelevant observation about her not feeling good enough.

Assuming that one issue is true (and I'm sure it's more complicated) she has failed to explain why she chose to cheat.

Like all issues in marriage she could have resolved the issue without cheating - but she chose to cheat.

Distance yourself ....stop contact.

I want to dive into two issues:

An alcoholic is an alcoholic and will be controlled by his/her disease be it drunk or sober. Not drinking as a sole solution to alcoholism will not work. I don’t have any science behind this statement, but I venture that 95 out of 100 alcoholics that simply don’t drink and don’t do anything else are doomed to drink again.

Alcoholism is a bit like an allergy, only with a craving for the cause of the allergy despite the side-effects. If you are an alcoholic, you are an alcoholic and always will be an alcoholic. It only remains to be known if you are an active alcoholic (drinking), inactive or dry alcoholic or if you are a recovering alcoholic. The last will acknowledge that they never become “recovered”, although the odds of a relapse can drop to very low levels.

Your WW might act the same sober or drunk because she is an alcoholic in both instances.

I want to add regarding the alcoholism. My W best friend is a recovering alcoholic. We were quite surprised when she told us she was entering rehab, hadn’t noticed any problems. She told us she would drink 4-5x a year and sometimes black out and wake up beside someone other than her husband… She now leads an all-female AA group that all had comparable drinking behavior.

I strongly suggest your WW look for a powerful and active AA group – preferably a gender-divided one.

Second issue:

There is no way ANYTHING you did or did not do made her have to cheat.

If you accept even one iota of blame, then there is nothing you can do that will prevent her from cheating again.

What if you ignore her one evening 6 years from now? Would that justify a short fling?

How should I take this? On one hand I'm concerned she is manipulating me and her friends by telling herself and others this and blowing the reality out of proportion. But I also want to improve for my next partner. And I recognize that it could be a total blind spot for me and a really big problem that I need to address asap.

I don't know how your WW was when you met her but it really does sound like she has no business being a wife or partner right now. She's acting like a single 21-year-old. She doesn't have the energy to put into doing her share of chores because she's spending it all going out, drinking, and being hung over. You don't have a spouse. You have a teenager. Everything you've said to her are things a parent says to their lazy, petulant child.

It sounds like to me she isn't being truthful with her therapist. What therapist says your standards are too high when your WW fails at basic adulting skills? Does her therapist really expect you to allow her to be coddled and have zero responsibility to you or the marriage? That's insane. Chances are she's spinning the truth and making you look dissatisfied with everything when all you're doing is holding her accountable.

I think you're getting a raw deal from her. She cheated. You've made it clear that you need to be convinced to stay married. So she blames you, talks about how miserable she is, says you need to change too for her to stay, and doesn't even guarantee that she will commit 100% until you get your act together? WTF? This is DARVO at its finest - a manipulation tactic used to try and take the offender status off of her and place it on you so that she can pretend the be the victim. Don't fall for it!

R never works with a WS who sees themselves as the "real" victim. You would be drawing out a long, slow D if you stay. And hey, she made it clear that even if you do everything right from here on forward and let her continue to act like a spoiled, drunken child, she may still decide to D you. Don't bother waiting around to find out. Start the D process now.

[This message edited by nekonamida at 11:37 AM, September 24th (Tuesday)]

She may be manipulating you or her therapist is helping her rationalize her own terrible Behavior. Or she may be distorting what the conversation is with her therapist and rationalizing and manipulating you separately. Any or all of those things could be true as she is desperate to keep you in the marriage. I think the desperation often drives people to do things that they don't realize the impact of. It's not that I applaud this Behavior but it's almost understandable in a way when someone has f'd up so badly and now wants to preserve a marriage that is most likely going to end.

Now there is a possibility that she actually felt this way. I really appreciate your introspection and I think that it will help you move forward either with another relationship down the road or if for some reason you decide to give your current WW another chance.

The marital problems are like a room in your house with a leaky roof. She may have been more to blame or perhaps you were more to blame. It is good, even when you divorce, to understand your role in the leaky roof. Her Affair, however, is like she ran over you with her car. So here you are damaged and traumatized and she is telling you that we need to fix the leaky roof. It just is not the priority. You have to get out of infidelity, she has to fix her "driving skills" and you have to heal. Those are the priorities. Now, if you were thinking that you might give R a try then you could make a plan to fix the roof at some point once your healing had made significant progress and she had also made progress in fixing herself. But fixing the roof either first or simultaneously makes no sense when the patient is critically wounded.

Your therapist will help you think through this. If you wanted to put the energy into it, you could speak to her therapist for a short while and listen to their perspective on the dialogue. That would help you understand if this is being driven from her therapist or her directly. You could also share your point of view directly with her therapist and perhaps that would help your wife understand the situation she created more accurately. It still seems likely you are moving toward divorce but sometimes I think an investment of time like this is worth considering. It may help you feel like you are at least offering your WW something which might help her learn and eventually fix herself... even if she is never again married to you.

Just want to add my voice to the many saying the same thing. She is blameshifting... If you want to you can tell her that you will take 50% of the blame for problems in the marriage but the affair is 100% her.

Most WW say it was a lack of affection or they wanted to feel appreciated or... a long list of excuses. The truth is that they wanted validation outside of the marriage and that is what lead to cheating. She grasping at straws to try to blame you for her affair.

On one hand I'm concerned she is manipulating me and her friends by telling herself and others this and blowing the reality out of proportion.

She's just as scared as you are to go back out in the world alone. It's an irrational fear as you both will do just fine and a couple months after you divorce you will wonder why you hesitated at all. When you are young and don't have children, staying together after such a horrible, traumatic event like infidelity it just plain stupid. At best it will be a dark scar on your marriage and your soul for the rest of your days together. At worst you will have a couple kids and then realize that you can no longer look at her as anything but a disgusting, cheating slut and end the marriage at that time. Yes, she is manipulating you but you can't blame her because, lets be honest here, you are manipulating yourself too. Most men suffer from the "inertia of life" and hate the thought of a change this radical. You want desperately to believe that things can get back to "normal" and are trying to convince yourself that fucking another man really isn't all that horrible. Well, the fact that you are here and suffering with the pain of her cheating and trying to find others who can validate your decisions is enough for me to know that you are not going to just forget about this and move on like nothing happened. Do the divorce - it's really the best thing for both of you. Your WW deserves a chance at happiness without this terrible baggage as much as you do.

Wow, what a great deal for your WW. She cheats, keeps her marriage, and is now in control of it because the problem was the way that you treated her the whole time.

Friend, I am not going to tell you what to do, but you do NOT want to see the marriage that you end up with if you go along with this.

So she felt she wasn’t good enough for you? Well since she had sex with another guy, then yea I would have to agree with her.

She is definitely nor good enough for you.

I do hope you explore in IC why you picked your WW, knowing that she had these characteristics of sloth, disorganization, selfishness, etc. In earlier posts you mention that you knew these things going into the M; you also posted that many of your arguments were about the effect of these things on you and you chastising her and "parenting" her.

Sometimes we pick someone troubled because deep down we don't feel good about ourselves, and correcting and "fixing" them makes us feel better about ourselves.

You seem like a very insightful guy, so I hope you explore this in some depth. I may be completely wrong, but if, in fact, your chastising her constantly feeds some need of your own, then you want to address that, both as part of a decision whether R is even possible, and so that such needs don't lead you to a new, flawed partner.