SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

The only thing I am able to tell you is that I am a stranger on the internet and I can’t claim I know your situation. All my feedback is based on what I am reading from you.

The things that you report him saying do not sound abusive. Maybe it’s that I can not hear his voice, or feel that tension, I do not walk in your shoes.

The more you say the more it read like he is dealing with a level of trauma that you don’t relate to. I believe you have said in the past that you don’t really value honesty, but you can provide it and will do so with him. I sort of think it’s similiar about his reaction to the cheating.

The issue when two people do not value the same things, or feel the same things are wrong, is that it effects the person who does feel impacted by it a lot more deeply than the other can understand. And then the person who can not relate to it can’t interpret a lot of the bs’s behaviors to be a trauma response.

I have been emotionally numb before, so I think i can relate to the relationship you are having with your remorse. I also know how having abuse and toxic shame in your developmental years can make certain triggers heightened. Like when he criticizes the house or how much you do laundry. So it’s not just annoying to you when he does it, it makes you feel as if he is saying you are worthless because it touches your trauma. And maybe he is, I don’t know him.

But I have read a lot from you now and I think that the reason this bothers you so much is that wounded part of you agrees with him and it be ones so painful it feels like abuse.

You defend your behaviors that are in my eyes extreme. I can see that it comes from deep pain you have experienced in the past and so when he says things to you it’s not just what it is in the moment it’s triggering a lot of deep trauma that makes you react in ways that might seem extreme in others.

The truth is the things you are doing are not going to make him see himself or the ways you perceive him to be. It shifts his focus to you not seeing his pain, and probably triggers a lot in him because in his life, you are the source of his most recent trauma. And so you antagonize each other.

It’s completely impossible for you guys to work through the big things if you can’t work through the smaller stuff.

One of you have to let go of the defensive, and you are the only one of you here that I can tell this to. What you wrote is clearly your coping mechanism and to most people it can only be interpreted as you have an extreme need to be validated, seen, understood, or be right. And again, I understand this is a deep rooted issue that you may not feel you can control. And so you justify it by turning it all around. There is a lot of fear controlling that.

I can only tell you from his standpoint, you cheated on him, this was deep trauma to him that you can’t connect with which concerns him deeply, and his reaction to it makes you feel deeply insecure in the relationship. And it also makes him feel deeply insecure because until he believes you connect with it he will continue to be antagonistic back.

And the truth is you can’t make him believe anything, even if you truly do connect with it. Even if you were the most perfect at every single thing need for reconciliation. It takes a prolonged period of time, most bs’s report needing 2-5 years to heal, and some longer. Some of that is for him to sort out, it’s only your job to heal you and if you want reconciliation to lead the way towards better communication and cooperation. You are obviously bright and capable and I think you can do that from your end if you can get some of your responses under control. You may need to learn to reframe a lot of his criticism as his problem not yours and I know you have a lot of work to do in order to tackle the way it touches you much more deeply.

But you do not have any control over whether he heals, or making him see you the way you want to be perceived when you are on the defense. You have no control over him at all. You can only control yourself and what you choose to do.

I don’t think you are intentionally doing anything to him, I think your defense mechanisms are likely long ingrained. In an abusive situation, I think you would actually fear him- you would fear recording him or labeling the clothes to prove something to him. This is your own driven need to be seen and understood, which we all have that, yours is simply much deeper and stronger because of your own trauma that I am very certain isn’t easy to heal or resolve.

Would he go to MC with you so that you could possibly gain some tools to try and navigate from this dynamic? If you could find a way together to maybe communicate differently so that you are feelings seen and understood, and you in turn are giving him the things he needs to not trigger his trauma response, things might be calmer to be able to make better progress.

I simply think you have some very specific defense mechanisms that keep the relationship polarized and makes it hard ti feel like you are on the same team. And I am sure you are reacting to similar things from him because it’s impossible for a bs a year out from infidelity to believe you love him and are on the same team. So essentially you two walk around all the time triggering each others trauma response of the deepest trauma of your life.

Unless you have more specific ways in which he is abusing you, I think you simply don’t trust him because of this dynamic and it’s emotionally exhausting to keep coming back to him and trying to be there for him when that little girl inside of you needs someone to show up for her. You have to figure out how to heal that little girl and I am sure you are working in that in therapy. Until you do, I don’t think you will find peace in a relationship that I believe you deeply want and need.

[This message edited by hikingout at 2:54 PM, Friday, May 15th]

I ask you this with kindness (I am a WW too). Was having an A treating your husband with "basic decency"?

Thank you for asking with kindness. No, of course it wasn't. I have said on my other post that I have come to consider infidelity to be abuse as well, and on this one, that I have gone from seeing my husband as a pedestalized angel to a mutual abuser who's down in the muck with me. However, I believe we still love[noun, and sometimes verb ?] each other and want to be with one another. I am grateful that he gave me another chance -- multiple chances, actually-- for reconciliation, and I have owned up to what I did and ceased the infidelity pretty much immediately (no relapses so far, thank God, therapy, and this site. Took a while for me to realize that recollection and full disclosure of every prior incident was necessary too, but I did it.) So I am trying to give him multiple chances to own up to the manipulation tactics, and stop doing them. We need to get out of the muck, one way or another, with or without one another. I just really fucking hope it's "with."

But you cannot expect your husband to express himself in a way that is convenient for you or how you would express yourself. He could be saying the same about your copying mechanisms.

You wrote "IT COULD BE SO EASY". As waywards, we know that it's not really that easy, don't we? It wasn't easy for us to stop the A happening. This is not to push ourselves down, but to give you another perspective on what it may be going on right now (and hopefully for you to get out from this hellish loop).

Why not? I am actively trying to stop with the triggering coping mechanisms because I understand that they hurt him. It's that mutually reinforcing cycle rearing it's head again-- the more shit from him I'm getting, the more stressed out I am, and the harder its is to quit doing those things. I'm still trying, and I'm doing better... I don't expect him to be perfect right away if he does take ownership of the manipulation tactics and attempts to stop, either. I just need him to care enough to try. Pushing back on the resolution steps I'm asking him to take and a general unwillingness to admit to anything pushes me towards believing he's doing it on purpose, doesn't regret it, and doesn't want to stop. Maybe he believes that it's justified. I need to see evidence that's not the case... It does remind me of being stuck in the affair fog.

This is not to say you have to accept everything. But try to actively listening to what is happening around you. You may feel he is attacking you, but try to stop and think: is he really attacking me or is he hurting so bad that it's his pain talking? Is he really dismissing me or is he asking for help?

Do you think it would be a good idea to verbally ask him those questions in the moment, when he engages in the tactics?

Please read this post as kindly as you can because I'm aware of read in the wrong temperament, it could be triggering.

You need to look at this situation with cold, clinical honesty because the narrative you’re spinning is becoming a cage for both of you. I am not at all convinced that what you are labeling as "abuse" actually meets that definition. My reading of this is that, subconsciously, it has become easier for you to define your husband as an abuser because your ego simply cannot handle the weight of being the only moral inferior in the relationship. You clearly despise the fact that he holds the high ground, and as a result, you are dressing up the messy, jagged, and entirely predictable disputes of a traumatized marriage as "psychological warfare." Nothing you have referenced—from his shifting memory to his defensive tone—comes anywhere near the actual, calculated abuse you inflicted on him when you chose to betray him.

​To put this in perspective, your current logic sounds like a reformed wife-beater claiming his partner is "just as bad" as him because she promised to take the bins out but is now "gaslighting" him by claiming he agreed to do it. You are equating a catastrophic breach of life and soul with the mundane, frustrating friction of a couple who can no longer communicate. It appears you are searching for any evidence of his "toxicity" to balance the scales so you don't have to feel like the only villain in the room. If he’s "just as bad" as you, the shame becomes manageable. But that is a lie that will only lead to more resentment.

​Perhaps it is time to consider that you simply do not have the fortitude, the compassion, or the specific temperament required for reconciliation. This isn't meant to be nasty; it is a recognition of human limits. Most people do not have the emotional endurance to spend years absorbing a partner's trauma without lashing out or checking out. I know for a fact that I wouldn't have the qualities to pursue this path either. If you are already feeling "disgust" at the basic requirements of providing him safety, and if you are already "fresh out of spoons" for his pain, you are essentially admitting that you are done.

​If my assessment is correct, why are you prolonging the inevitable? You are both currently leading miserable, litigious lives where you record conversations and he reacts out of a shattered nervous system. If you truly believe he is an abuser, then you should not be tethered to him for another second. But you have already admitted to being his abuser first. Rather than staying and weaponizing "tactics" against one another in a race to the bottom, you should have the courage to free each other. If there is no longer a path to mutual grace, then the most merciful thing you can do is end the marriage so you can both find a life where you aren't constantly fighting to prove who is "less wrong

Notarunnerup

you are asking him to experience the same treatment (punishment) you are getting for your affair.

I'm not trying to punish him, ffs. I am trying to collect evidence of the truth. He doesn't have to say anything he doesn't want to on the recordings, or allow me to record, or listen to them at all. But it is awfully suspicious that he doesn't want to, and refuses to explain why he doesn't want to, isn't it?! What exactly is he afraid of hearing himself say, do you think?

If you cant trust HIM because of YOUR affair

Where tf are you getting THAT from?? I can't trust him because HE is employing ABUSIVE TACTICS. HIS ACTIONS are causing my distrust. He is well aware of my history of childhood trauma from that and he's still doing it to me. Prior to that behavior, I trusted him completely. Like I get it, you don't believe me and half of the population here thinks that BS can do no wrong, but you are so off track here it's not even funny.

how he is being short and not nice to you

.

Way to minimize what's actually going on. Imagine if I referred to my affair as being a bit "short and not nice to him?" I'd be eaten alive!

I empathize with you, I really do.

No, you very clearly do not.

And Drsoolers....
I am going to make this marriage work if it's the last thing I do, if only out of spite for you. Ta

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 4:05 AM, Saturday, May 16th]