SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hiking out- thx for the additional information.

In light of those facts, I still stand by what I say in regards to blowing up the marriage and consequences. My ex was also abusive (mentally and emotionally). I left my ex. Cheating and abuse in a marriage are still 2 people making poor decisions.

OP you arent shackled to the marriage because you cheated. If you are being abused please give yourself permission to leave this shitshow. You cheated but arent destined to be in a miserable marriage forever. I wish you peace.

Your first post on SI stated "I’m part of a couple who never should’ve gotten married in the first place." What's different now?

You don't like the taste of your own medicine? It's ok to serve it to him but you can't take it?

if he treats his "friend" better than he treats you, then it would be a hard NO.

He is showing you what he thinks of you. Believe him.

He is having an affair with this lady and rubbing your nose in it

Please consider leaving him, you deserve so much more.

Involuntary, I’d hardly call infidelity medicine.

Also, two wrongs don’t make a right.

Wayward or not, there is nothing wrong with choosing to remove yourself from an unhealthy relationship. Antihero should not be shamed into accepting this new and strange dynamic in her new marriage.

Anti- follow your instincts. Keep yourself accountable. Make healthy choices. Sometimes that just means choosing to give yourself time to process how these behaviors make you feel.

Do you meditate or practice and mindfulness techniques?

BH here. After learning of infidelity, i can tell you your ego and masculinity take a severe hit. You want someone, anyone, to make you feel desired and you are willing to cross boundaries you never thought you would to get that feeling.

Reading your post, my first reaction is thst theyve been sleeping together for a while and now he feels empowered to have it out in the open. I hope im wrong, but he seems to be throwing gasoline on the fire. Its definately not a healthy way to process what hes going through.

Good luck. I hope both of you get to a better place.

Wow, thank you so much, everyone, for your thoughts. I take to heart all perspectives here and hope that it will help lead me to a better place with (or without) this marriage. With my and my kids’ schedules, I sometimes find myself too exhausted to come online. I’ve been trying to write out this response over the past couple of days, so I’m sure there are things said that I still want to address.

I realize that I do not post much about my process moving forward after DDay, and just address what’s on my mind in the moment, so perhaps there’s not a lot of context to my posts. Thanks, Hikingout, for providing some of my background. It is a little weird to see it noted as “unusual,” only because I apply so much of what I learn from here, but it makes me question if I’m misguided. SI has nonetheless been an invaluable resource for my own personal healing. I remember really questioning how it could be possible to reconcile a marriage if you’re focused on working on yourself. And then I started to make changes that allowed me to see how that made so much sense. I have worked pretty hard independently over the past couple of years, and fully acknowledge that it’s a never-ending process. But I am certainly exponentially less codependent, controlling, resentful, and judgmental than I have ever been. And I’ve learned to be exponentially more compassionate, vulnerable, purposeful, honest, and grateful. My life is beginning to feel full and accepting of joy. I am establishing new boundaries on a daily basis so I can be my authentic self with the world around me.

The thing about my BH’s EA is that I have no proof of anything other than how it makes me feel, which I do believe is enough. BH insists that she is nothing more than a platonic friendship and trusted support resource, so I can only believe him until I definitively find out otherwise. So whether or not it’s an EA or if it’s become a PA or if he finds her attractive or if she reciprocates feels irrelevant at this point. Until I find evidence it’s either of the two, all I can do is continue to let him know how it makes me feel. This is what I meant be “leaving it alone.” If I knew for a fact he was having any form of an affair, I’m not trying to ignore that, and I haven’t decided yet how much energy I want to put into finding that out right now. Sooner rather than later, my boundaries will be completely crossed and he will need to decide which relationship he will give up.

One other thing I’ll add about my marriage is that I have love for BH. The love I have for him as the father of my children is immeasurable. The love I have for the person I chose to marry still persists. We were both raised to believe family comes first, so it’s incredibly difficult for either of us to make distinctions around what kind of love we feel. The issue here is not love, but trust. I have come to realize that I have never trusted BH, from the very beginning of our relationship. The same could be said about his trust of me. He was indeed abusive and has major anger management concerns. He has done a ton of work himself, but he still exhibits behaviors that trigger me. They range from a barely noticeable slight to violent outbursts. (An example of this, by my standards, is something like this: yesterday, he and our son were opening some packages for an online order he placed. Most of the items arrived damaged so, in front of our son, threw one of the items against the wall, breaking it even further and making it completely unsalvageable.) There are many other reasons I don’t trust him. I haven’t really had the chance to talk through those in MC because by me being the one who cheated, BH tends to go back to the affair as a sticking point and says that his behaviors are as a result of my infidelity, even though they existed prior to the affair. Of course he has every right to be angry with me, and to constantly point to the one thing that destroyed him the most, but it’s how he expresses his anger that I can’t tolerate. It’s a crappy situation to be in, but it has gotten to the point where, if he continues to turn to blame and anger, I will have to leave. But the question we keep coming back to is whether or not we can build enough trust to put any of that love in the forefront.

Separately, we went to MC yesterday. I didn’t have a chance to bring up my concerns about the EA because BH started on a different topic, one that shocked and devastated me and questioned my judgment as a parent. He basically insinuated that I was sabotaging his relationship with our kids by poisoning them with thoughts that he’s a bad father. By all means, I make a lot of mistakes and BH and I frequently disagree about how to parent our kids, but the one thing I take pride in is being a good mom. And that includes never turning my kids on their dad. It kills me to see them get hurt by some of the things he says in anger, but all I can do is walk and talk them through it. For reference, I have spoken to attorneys and Child Protective Services, and there is not much I can do legally, other than file for divorce. What I am constantly weighing out is would I be able to trust him more (or less) with the kids if I removed myself from his picture. It was a huge reminder to see how I destroyed his trust and how it manifests in all aspects of our lives. Even though since DDay, the one thing he keeps saying is that I’m a great mom, it’s my opinion that affair triggers lead him to believe that all I’m capable of doing is hurting him. I’m finally starting to come to terms with the fact that our chances of survival are pretty slim.

[This message edited by AntiHero at 8:39 AM, October 22nd (Tuesday)]

BH here. I just wanted to chime in. What your BH is doing is bullshit. He needs to end this friendship with this woman. Your adultery doesn't give him license to treat you disrespectfully as he has been doing, even if he was hurt terribly by your actions.

I don't have female "friends". I have female colleagues and co-workers, and there are women who I went to high school with who I run into at times and have fun conversations with. But I am not friends with them. The only reason a guy wants to be friends with a woman is because he wants to eventually fuck her. Your husband wants to have sex with this woman. Do not kid yourself. I'm a guy, I know how we think.

It is a little weird to see it noted as “unusual,” only because I apply so much of what I learn from here, but it makes me question if I’m misguided.

No, I am sorry. The reason I said that is because often there is one way we respond to waywards here and it's for them to be introspective and fix their stuff. We often look through the lens of the BS being in the right because for many of us (including me) the BS was the healthy one. But, in marriages where both are terribly unhealthy, I think we don't always know how to deal with that because it kind of goes off script. I was pointing out that this is not one of the situations that we would normally see (or maybe acknowledge?) Thus it is unusual. I am not saying you don't have work to do (I don't know enough about you) but there is a lot more to unravel in this situation past someone cheated, or both cheated, etc.

There were posters chiming in kind of with a what's good for the goose is good for the gander type of thing. But, honestly, what BS do you know that we would not tell that they need to insist on NO contact with the AP? None that I have ever seen. You are right, you don't know what level this is all at, whether it's truly a friendship or an EA or even a PA.

BUT, at the same time, this friend is definitely not a friend to the marriage, and it sounds like she is sitting in your house helping your husband mentally abuse you. Look, if your husband was my friend and he was using my presence to mistreat his wife, I would be super uncomfortable with the situation and talk to my friend about my own boundaries. If nothing else this friend is contributing to the dynamic that goes against reconciliation, and at this point is still making his relationship with her more important than it is with you. And, if she is allowing it, it means that she is doing her own amount of encouraging him in directions that might be unhelpful for the marriage to begin to thrive. I could see that maybe she just sees you as a terrible wife for her friend, but that lens has no opportunity to change. Maybe it's good she is visiting both of you so she can be more objective about the situation (assuming no A which I am not convinced) which may or may not help your husband.

To me, those feelings you are having are valid. At the same time, I can appreciate that you are waiting it out a bit, considering that he has been working on things in therapy that may help things.

You had mentioned you thought you were in a codependent relationship with a narcissist. The idea that you are turning the kids against him (parental alientation) could be a form of gaslighting if no one can find any validity in the statement. He may be doing that because he knows his outbursts with the kids present isn't healthy for them and he resents that you do not have that sort of record with them. I think he is gaslighting you about his relationship with this woman as well and I would look for some bigger moves the minute this hits the therapist. In fact, I am not so sure that he didn't bring the kids thing up to avoid discussing the other issue with the therapist. You said trust has always been an issue from both sides, what has made you never be able to trust him?

What your BH is doing is bullshit. He needs to end this friendship with this woman. Your adultery doesn't give him license to treat you disrespectfully as he has been doing, even if he was hurt terribly by your actions.

I don't have female "friends". I have female colleagues and co-workers, and there are women who I went to high school with who I run into at times and have fun conversations with. But I am not friends with them. The only reason a guy wants to be friends with a woman is because he wants to eventually fuck her. Your husband wants to have sex with this woman. Do not kid yourself. I'm a guy, I know how we think.

Well, I'm speechless. And that never happens to me, as many here know. Just re-read what's been said above with some bolding added by me, it's dead accurate for me, and for a whole lot of guys that I know.

Being "friends" with women you find attractive isn't actually being "friends" at all in my case. It's just sitting and waiting, hoping that the woman will eventually find me attractive enough and then, of course, becoming "more than friends". I suggest you do a quick Google for "can men and women be friends" and watch some of the videos where they ask guys that question and women, and see how different the answers are.

LD - Your BS did not break up the family, YOU did. A large part of the problem is you are still not taking ownership of the A or the TT afterwards. If you ever want another change with your husband, you need to take responsibility for your actions.

IMO, yes this is a red flag. He is getting emotional security somewhere else because he sees you as danger ad she is a safe zone due to she has never hurt him and you have.

Despite her being a safe zone, the way he is going about this is NOT okay.

I am slightly in the same boat. My BS, upon DDay, reached out to a female friend he cut contact with and started re-talking to her. His reasoning is 1) he always liked their friendship and 2) she is safe to him where I am not. The issue in MY situation is they have been intimate in the past and she crosses the line with her language with him. Not okay. He said he will not end their friendship as if he does, "there is no coming back from that, their friendship will be forever over".

I, being the cheater, does not feel like I have much ground to stand on telling him to stop talking to her because I put us here.

Its a VERY tricky situation to be in, I agree. If your H really wants to R, he needs to acknowledge that this woman is not good for your M. Period.

Being "friends" with women you find attractive isn't actually being "friends" at all in my case. It's just sitting and waiting, hoping that the woman will eventually find me attractive enough and then, of course, becoming "more than friends". I suggest you do a quick Google for "can men and women be friends" and watch some of the videos where they ask guys that question and women, and see how different the answers are.

This is pretty much what I told my wife when she tried to tell me the standard I thought we could be just friends bull crap, even though when she wanted to be just friends all kinds of emotional boundaries were being crossed.

[This message edited by Hallmack at 12:00 PM, October 22nd (Tuesday)]

you don't know what level this is all at, whether it's truly a friendship or an EA or even a PA.

What reasons (or evidence) do you have to make you think it may be more than a friendship? Apart from the fact that you dont like him being friends with a woman?

If he hasn't been inappropriate with females before, why does he need to be held to the same boundaries as you, who have?

Nevermind. I think you are not being totally honest here. Just my take. I had a long post with points where my wife thought I was sleeping with other women. Also talking about myturntohurt who is doing the same thing self sabotaging.

You seem to have a never ending faucet of detest for your BH. Is this residual from the affair or has this always been there?

As far as the other woman. Just don't worry about that now. As you said, you have never trusted your husband and he is never going to trust you if you won't be vulnerable for him.

From the outside, it sounds like you are inches away from calling CPA and mention his anger all the time. The talk about compassion and understanding while mentioning in a post earlier where you were judgmental and mad at him for not healing enough. Focus on your marriage first. Leave this woman's relationship with him out of things. You need to fix you and him first.

Maybe talk briefly about his boundaries and let him set boundaries for you. Even mention what he does if she crosses those boundaries.

Don't make her a problem until she is one. Even brought her around for you to meet. Why would he think that would improve his chances of seducing her? I think you have never been vulnerable and hence can't be trusted. Just my take.

[This message edited by DoinBettr at 4:48 PM, October 22nd (Tuesday)]

never mind.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:37 PM, October 22nd (Tuesday)]

BH tends to go back to the affair as a sticking point and says that his behaviors are as a result of my infidelity.

This is a red flag OMI. A victim mentality. He will blame others for his bad choices and thus, he doesn't learn from them. He will blame you for his affair too.

I have spoken to attorneys and Child Protective Services, and there is not much I can do legally

You talk about trust. Does your husband know that you went behind his back and talked to Child Protective Services to get him in trouble??

[This message edited by pandawasta at 4:31 AM, October 26th (Saturday)]

BH tends to go back to the affair as a sticking point and says that his behaviors are as a result of my infidelity.

This is a red flag OMI. A victim mentality. He will blame others for his bad choices and thus, he doesn't learn from them. He will blame you for his affair too.

I agree with both viewpoints. I suspect teh A is the cause of his behavior, especially if you didn't see it before. But I also agree that can quickly cross into "I'm a victim" or "I deserve this" and result in a RA.

I'm not sure how I feel about it overall. There's "victim mentality" and then there's "victim". Your BS is a victim, so, is it victim mentality when he displays signs of that? At some point, I think the answer is "yes", especially when the behavior is deeply negative (like a full blown RA, for example). But it's a fine line; if I were run over with a car and laying on the couch 6 months after complaining about pain, you might say it was victim mentality. And it might be; it could also be the broken femur and the fact that I can't walk anymore, no matter how much I might try, because of the damage done during the injury. It could be either, I might be fine and "playing it up" and I might be crippled from the waist down and not able to walk no matter how hard I try.

Not sure this helps, but I just wanted to throw it in there, a victim can display victim mentality, no doubt about it. But it might also not be a mentality, just damage from being a victim. You have to look at it both ways, this isn't an imagined injury, it's just a question of how severe it really is.

Not sure this helps, but I just wanted to throw it in there, a victim can display victim mentality, no doubt about it. But it might also not be a mentality, just damage from being a victim. You have to look at it both ways, this isn't an imagined injury, it's just a question of how severe it really is.

I agree. I believe the distinction can be made with proximate causation. In your analogy, the car is proximate cause for the person's inability to walk because the it is impossible to walk when you have a broken femur and the femur was broken due to the impact from the car. An affair is not a proximate cause of a subsequent RA. The the emotional turmoil is a direct result from an affair; however, feelings cannot compel subsequent actions.