To think anything I did was also his fault?

[Naomi189]

I'm about a year into recovering from my DH having an affair. We stayed together, and there's been generally good progress but we keep having the same argument and I get insanely angry when we have it and I just want to know AIBU.

After he cheated, for the first couple of months I was fairly calm. I was devastated, but I wasn't chucking his clothes out of windows or screaming and shouting.

The first 12 weeks was hell, but in a lot of ways we were closer than ever before and I felt like it would be a lot road but we'd recover from it. We'd been to counselling and attended an online infidelity course and things had been really positive.

One thing drilled into him was the need for total honesty going forwards. During that period, he met the OW for drinks to give her "closure" he felt she "deserved", after he'd expressly promised not to speak to her ever again.

To me, that was actually worse than the affair itself and I went absolutely postal, chucked him out, went on Tinder, got insanely drunk and gave a random date a blow job in the garden and texted DH to tell him.

I'm not proud of that, but he'd had an affair that went on for months and while I was in the process of giving him an opportunity to make amends (and while he'd seen me clearly devastated), he betrayed me again.

So we got through it all eventually, but now as we're trying to do the work on the affair, he keeps banhing on about how I "hurt him too" and how much what I did, damaged HIM.

To which I roll my eyes, go absolutely postal again and tell him HE is responsible for his affair and breaking our marriage and HE is responsible for betraying me again when I was devastated and therefore HE is responsible for any fallout or consequences.

He says I need to take responsibility and just because he screwed someone else 50 times while I was home cooking his dinner, that I still had "choices" and didn't need to behave in ways to deliberately hurt him.

I think I have absolutely zero responsibility for damaging our relationship and that he's lucky I didn't do worse.

Am I wrong here?

Largely we are doing well, but he just will NOT stop bringing this up during arguments which they turn very ugly because it feels like he's trying to act like I'm to blame for reacting to his shit behaviour.

It's all just terribly dysfunctional. This is one of those relationships that just shouldn't be. Wtf is wrong with you BOTH to just keep on filling this cesspit?

You don't need marriage counselling - both of you need some serious help with learning emotional regulation.

Report them then if it makes you feel better.

And you have no idea what she's being honest about or not.

You are judging her as not being honest but you're in no position to know.

People have all sorts of mixed up, overlapping, vague, sometimes contradictory reasons for doing things. And she was drunk.

Your view is way too simplistic.

And judgemental.

OP, is this really how you want to live your life? It sounds so demoralising & exhausting.

He will never change or take responsibility for his cheating & lying. He has a metaphorical stick to beat you with now. He only cares about himself.

Do the Womens Aid Freedom Programme & then make a clear decision on what’s best for your future.

I don't need to report them to "feel better" and you don't dictate what happens on this thread.

@gamerchick

Thing is you're locked in this moment. You want him to wear a hair shirt, you want to be able to being it up whenever you want so he can beg forgiveness. You barely mention your kids and how this is affecting them at all and it WILL be. It's not fair on them

We have been in recovery now for less time than he had the affair. I expect any feelings I am having to be dealt with for as long as they need to be. I expect him to provide generous and selfless support to repair what HE broke. I expect him to learn and grow and take responsibility for the wrong he did without blame shifting.

If he doesn't want to do that, he can pack a suitcase, fuck off, and I will replace him with a new husband who chose not to take his pants down twice a week and shove it in someone else's mouth. And I apologise ZERO for that.

Why on earth would I talk about my children? This thread isn 't asking a question about my children. Why do you people feel the need to imply things? What are you saying exactly? How has some thing I have done or not done affected them? I did not have an affair. I am the one holding it together after someone else did.

Can you be specific in terms of what you think I should have done for my children that I haven't done? Leave their father? What evidence have you got that would be better for them? What possible basis of fact have you got for anything you're saying?

I have done AAAAALLLLL the work, a hundred hours of counselling and done EEEEEVVVVERTHING I am supposed to do. Every bloody thing, day in, day out.

Jesus Christ.

Are you actually saying if Op had been sexually assaulted or raped, by another man that Op set up a date with, when the Op was not with her husband…..it would be the husbands responsibility?

What the fuck? If some commits sexual assault or rape it the fault of the person committing it. End of.

It would be in no way the fault of the husband.

Neither do you.

I honestly believe that OP is better off separating, it sounds very toxic and both of them are not going to stop taking shots at each other.

No he wouldn't, that's on her.

Yes, he would.

When you abuse people - they don't act neatly and responsibly and sensibly in response.

That's why reactive abuse exists as an accepted concept for example

This is perfect advice.

Your h sounds like a gaslighting idiot who is minimising what he did. I could NOT come back from that.

Dump his arse and move on.

I haven't tried to dictate to others like you have ... So irrelevant comment.

If OP had gotten raped, that would be on the rapist, not her husband.

He knew the damage he had done. And he had promised me, looked me in the eye and told me he would never lie to me or see OW again. And after months of that he decided to meet her to give her closure. For me, that was beyond the pale

That was the point you should have left him.

Sexual predators are everywhere.

Sexual assaults etc are common.

People who end up putting themselves in vulnerable positions - due to abuse & instability - are even more often victims of sexual assault etc.

I have seen this personally numerous times.

The people who abused them are indirectly responsible, but it's still responsibility.

It's best to get away from such individuals and try to heal.

You won't agree with all opinions on this forum, neither will I.

"A cheated on partner getting involved with someone else is not cheating."

Of course it fucking is! If you are together and you are involved with someone else that is the definition of cheating, it is absolutely irrelevant what the other party had done! My fidelity is MINE, just as my partners is his. It is the moral code we hold our relationship too, and just because one side breaks it does not render the terms by different. Not that I would find out, as I would have far more self respect than to stay with someone who had been shagging around for months...

Having read the entire thread I think it is clear that this is a car crash, I really hope you don't have children mixed up in this tit for tat mess.

@QueenCamilla

It's all just terribly dysfunctional. This is one of those relationships that just shouldn't be. Wtf is wrong with you BOTH to just keep on filling this cesspit?

This is a thread where I have explained my husband had an affair and I left him. And that he keeps bringing up something I did whilst I had left him to deflect from dealing with his affair.

The majority of the thread has been people slut shaming me, accusing me of not looking after my children and implying I am a cheater because I sucked someone off after I had left my cheater husband.

Nobody, after 10 pages has actually asked a sensible question here (or really any questions) about my marriage. No one has asked what it was like before the affair. No one has asked about the affair. No one has asked about our day to day life or the work we've done, or what out intimacy is like or how we get on during the day or anything really on which to base any sort of reasoned opinion.

What is a toxic cesspit is this thread!

Of course it fucking is! If you are together and you are involved with someone else that is the definition of cheating, it is absolutely irrelevant what the other party had done!

People agree fidelity on conditions.

He broke the conditions.

She was therefore no longer obliged to fidelity.

End of story.

@OrlandointheWilderness Good job I was single then!

youre so angry and refusing to accept any responsibility for the utter toxic shit show that’s your marriage

youre so angry and refusing to accept any responsibility for the utter toxic shit show that’s your marriage that was caused by DH.

That's more like it.

Are you really equating an affair with a ONS whilst separated?

It does feel as if some pp have little understanding of the absolute heartbreak and devastation an affair causes, but are coping on to kick op anyway.

Bg which I mean him agreeing to not seeing his affair partner again, not even the initial months of infidelity.

The two things; what he did and what you did, are completely separate. He should not be saying "but you hurt me too", even if it did hurt him that you gave someone a BJ through utter misery and despair.

I can't believe some of the responses on here. I think what you did was as a direct consequence of him saying he'd never speak to OW again and then doing it anyway when he knew what kind of fragile emotional / mental state you were in.

Bringing it up to deflect the conversation away from the real issues of why he cheated and why he will never do it again is a dick move. He's actually happy you did it so he can use it against you to make you jointly culpable for the state of the relationship. It's nothing but a red herring. A drunken blow job is nothing compared to months of deceit and shagging. It's pretty irrelevant. He's trying to make it equivalent. It isn't.

The thing is @Naomi189 , you played right into his hands didn’t you?

Now he gets to
a) Play the injured party because you had sexual contact with someone whilst you were, what? On a break or something, not quite sure.
b) By playing the injured party, he gets to pretend that he gives a shiny shit about you. You think his anger and hurt about the BJ shows he cares. It’s absolutely tragic.

At some point soon, he will probably decide he’s had enough of being told, quite rightly, all about how disgusting he is, and he will be off.

This relationship is dead in the water.

It's interesting that many people are assuming that the OP cheated as well. I wouldn't view this as cheating tbh. Marriage is based on a mutual expectation of fidelity. If you cheat, you lose the right to expect fidelity from the other person, at least until the other person, knowing everything, agrees to continue the marriage. The OP's husband was still cheating by seeing the OW and had no right to her fidelity.

Whoa absolutely fucking not!

Someone who is drunk and gets raped is a victim. People should be able to be drunk without fear of getting raped.

Getting raped, regardless of how drunk you are is the fault of the rapist.

There’s no indirect responsibility on the part of anyone. Not the Op, not the Husband. It would be entirely the fault of the rapist.

Your opinion is factually incorrect. An ex isn’t responsible if their ex is emotional gets drunk and then is raped. The person responsible is the rapist. Trying to portion some of the blame elsewhere is disgusting.