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.

No wonder "you made me do it" is a favoured sentiment amongst domestic abusers. Be careful what you preach @GilbertMarkham

Response to being abused, is entirely different from excuses for abusing others.

Your inability to understand complicated concepts is rather obvious.

And I don't nee to be careful about what I write; you however, seeing your opinions and language .... Need to take your own advice.

OP, if I’m ever in your shoes, I hope I can be as clear headed as you. You sound great. Well done on being so sure of yourself and your boundaries — and for refusing to let the trolls on here persuade you otherwise.

My DH and I almost always go to bed laughing and cuddling

Why OP? Why are you 'laughing and cuddling' with a man who is twisting his own infidelity to try and make what you did with Tinder Man equivalent? Who is saying you are responsible for this situation too, not just him?

I also get this - I would take every crumb of comfort available to me, including having sex till close to the end of the marriage, meaning I am one of those women MN wonders about, who went on to have more than 1 DC in a dysfunctional marriage.

You just want the marriage to be 'right'. I couldn't comprehend it would end. Like you, the idea that my DC would have to experience that was unimaginable.

And I live in an area where pretty much everyone I know is married with DC, MC, working and living the same kind of lives. There are very few separated / divorced people (perhaps a few more now).

I was surprised about how 'fine' it was - I mean the separation bit and how the DC coped. Lots of other things weren't fine! I didn't ever and still don't, find it easy to talk about, and my kids until their teens were very guarded about who they said it to. But they are honestly doing ok.

Why OP? Why are you 'laughing and cuddling' with a man who is twisting his own infidelity to try and make what you did with Tinder Man equivalent?

@EarringsandLipstick you do realise that the OP didn't come asking you whether she should get along with her DH or not. She's repeatedly said she's made the choice to try and make it work. Why is it anyone else's business if she goes to bed happy or sad?

I voted YABU for staying with him. Anything he does to hurt you after that is on you IMO.

He's shown you who he is. And who you are for that matter, too.

Your replies here are really odd. This is a forum. OP posts a question, which 14 pages later, has evolved, and posters reply.

OP has said she is trying to make it work. She has also described a car-crash relationship that is in no way progressing, thanks to her H, and she is stuck there in anger, pain and grief. Completely understandably.

If you'd read the rest of my reply, you'd see that what she is experiencing is, sadly, very typical for those in abusive situations, including me. It defies logic, but when one is desperate for comfort, one will take it where it is offered. Like I did. Like OP is doing.

@EarringsandLipstick Because if I was going to stay I was going to make an effort. So we do nice things and we have fun and we set aside therapy time privately. Like I said, this aside he is a great husband. If I was sad and angry every day I wouldn't be here.

I have not decided to stay or go. I decided to give it a try. A stumbling block to the healing is that I think he is effectively gaslighting me and trying to victim blame. That's why I posted.

Somehow we segued almost immediately into me being a cheating, terrible slag and child abuser!

It really sounds like there is no future for this relationship.

You are both still too interested in who is right, who is wrong and who is the most hurt.

You can't move forward as a couple unless you can both somehow let go of all of that.

@Naomi189 I agree with this poster 100%. I am so very sorry that your husband did this to you and your marriage and good on you for staying and trying to work through what happened

From your posts, you are clearly still absolutely raging about what happened - and I am not blaming you for that at all, I would be furious too, but if you can't get through the absolute rage and forgive him, your Marriage doesn't have a chance in Hell, of ever being happy, in the long run. I don't know if I could forgive mine, if I'm being honest, ever, for doing something like that. Only you know, whether this is something that over time you will be able to do. Would you consider going back for more counselling on your own, at least initially, to work through whether you can really forgive him in the longer term?

I wish you all the best, I really do

I thought this too… “look what you made me do”

I understand OP. However, the premise for you 'making an effort' is that the marriage is worth making an effort for, as is he.

It isn't, and he isn't, sadly.

He's not a great husband - and I don't mean the infidelity, though this is of course massively an issue. It's everything else he has done and continues to do, as you say correctly, gaslighting you and victim blame. Those actions are incompatible with being a great husband.

I'm really sorry that you've felt characterised as a 'cheating slag' or 'child abuser'. Gently, having read, I think, the full thread and all the posts, I don't think that's what even the harsh posts about the BJ etc were saying. I think on the BJ issue many posters addressed the underlying impetus for it, and I don't see anyone saying you are abusing your children!

I think you are doing amazingly well to be still standing. I know a big long thread on MN is not going to massively help, but even though I joined MN well after my marriage ended, I have had quite a number of lightbulb moments from reading threads here, which have actually helped over time (it's the good side of MN!)

I've no doubt you and DC would thrive outside of this poisoned situation - your DC are lucky to have someone has strong as you.

No...
But I've been cheated on (twice)
Once by a fiance (with my bf at the time)
Even in my pain, I could see he was cruel to both of us. She fell for his bullshit too. I didn't feel sorry for her exactly, but when he ghosted her, I realised we were both his victims (for want of a better word...he was abusive. I wouldn't wish that on anyone)
It's interesting because your anger and pain are so tangible...yet you seem to want to rage at posters who are pointing simple out facts.
I felt exactly as you did - in my case, I slept with his brother (huge sibling rivalry issues...it was honestly the worst thing I could have done to him...)
Did I enjoy it? Like you, no, I didn't.
Did it help me? No,it didn't.
But if huving that bj helped you, I don't judge you. Far from it!
I hope your marriage is salvageable if that's what you want, but the facts and stats don't bode well.
Sorry.
Tale that as a personal attack if you want 🤷

@EarringsandLipstick I will be honest in that he is pretty much lovely to me and it's obvious his suffering is pretty genuine, but I have felt worried several times that I am being psychologically abused because he occasionally makes statements that defy reality for me. It makes me feel ill sometimes like I can't breathe when he's talking and I think thee must be something wrong with me. Yesterday he said that one of us must be mad, so I genuinely posted this thread because he'd made me feel a tiny bit of concern that it might be me.

Gaslighting.
Not uncommon.
I think you deserve more from life op but best of luck to you x

@Jackydaytona

No...But I've been cheated on (twice). Once by a fiance (with my bf at the time). Even in my pain, I could see he was cruel to both of us. She fell for his bullshit too

Okay, but I think what you've done is projected your ex boyfriend on to my husband. This OW was not bullshitted. I read the messages. He was telling her he was married and had to stop because he loved his wife and kids and she was sending him photos of her pussy in response to that. When that didn't work she was threatening to call me or one of the kids. He tried to stop the affair several times, she begged and pleaded to "just be friends". She also set up a fake Facebook profile pretending to be one of my friends and pilfered off all our family photos and started sending me anonymous abusive messages. It is NOT the same situation. She is NOT a victim. She is a massive arsehole and did not deserve closure in any way shape or form.

I was just about to head away when I saw your post. I'll admit to being a bit over-invested in this thread because (even though the situations that led to it are different) what you are experiencing really resonates with me.

None more so than this post.

See, that's how abusive men work. They are not universally awful to you - as you'd see it and react accordingly. They instead have episodes of kindness, loveliness and reasonableness, interspersed with these gaslighting moments - and that's where they get you. You are discombobulated and unable to trust your instincts - you end up not even knowing what they are!

My marriage ended in 2013. A few years later, about 3, I finally started therapy. I had to stop and start 3 times. For about the first 18 months, when my counsellor would suggest my H was abusive, I looked at her in disbelief. I knew he was an awful human, had behaved terribly, was financially reckless - but couldn't accept he was abusive. It took several years more before I could see it. And more time again before I stopped letting him have the control he still had, even after marriage.

It makes me feel ill sometimes like I can't breathe when he's talking

I felt exactly like this. It was like a waterfall of dissonant statements that my brain could not reconcile - what was he saying? how can he even make those statements?

One time I actually fainted while this was happening - it all became too much and I fainted, fell, hit my head and was out of it for maybe 5 or so minutes. He stood there looking at me and then when I came around, laughed at me, stepped over me, and walked off.

I'm not saying your H's actions are anything like mine. I'm not saying he doesn't have many positive attributes, maybe in terms of how he is as a father or certain things that he does for your wellbeing.

But as much as a stranger on the internet can be sure, I'm sure this man is abusive and so many of your sentences jump out to me as feelings and thoughts I too had.

Have you access to your own counsellor, that you can see alone? (I know you are having couples' therapy).

Are you sure this is what he was doing for the duration of their relationship? I mean that’s quite unusual. I can’t lie about that.

OP, your husband knew the score.

He's a selfish immature waster.

He felt more compelled to do right by her and give her "closure", than doing right by you and his children.

He's scum.

Do not take on those that somehow always try and blame women for something.

However, this is toxic and I really hope you reflect on the huge distress this is bringing you and your children by extension.

You both deserve so much better than this utter loser whom cares only for himself.

The issue is your DH continuously re-creates himself as the Victim of other people's bad behaviour.

He's allowed to create absolute havoc by shagging the OW.
But apparently he's the one who's been hurt.

Now, if he was always the Victim/Child in your relationship and you were always the Rescuer/Parent figure, then it could be the case that he is incapable of ever becoming your Rescuer.

It's like when a 2 year old kicks their Mum on the shins. She might say 'oh poor Tommy is very tired and cross, that's why he kicked me. I'll forgive him'.

Then that woman takes the same approach with her partner from the get go, even her 45yr old (whatever) husband.

The wife keeps being Mummy no matter what.
Husband knows she'll tolerate ANYTHING from him and still be loyal to him.
And thus it was after the affair.

But then Mummy was disloyal with another boy.

DH was absolutely shocked and horrified.

It had never dawned on him that you two were adults with equal choices.

That's what you are seeing now.
The reality of the roles you previously both played are being revealed.

Next time say to him:

'It seems that you think you are the only victim here. You keep trying to cast yourself as the person who needs sympathy the most. Unfortunately we are both victims here and there are no winners. The only way we will win is to stop blaming each other and move forward. Are you prepared to do that?'

Both of you are going to have to learn new roles* *that are equal. Where you learn to express your support needs clearly and the other person learns to hear those needs and be willing to support.

A child cannot provide emotional support to an adult.

If your DH is stuck in his 'child' role with you, then you can see how that won't work.

And yet he still went to meet her, without telling you until after, to give HER closure. Knowing you said you would leave. He knew you wouldn’t leave or wouldn’t stay gone.

She didn’t manipulate him into the affair. She didn’t wear him down. She didn’t threaten him into shagging her. He didn’t need to stay friends with her. And if he chose to stay friends with her, it’s really easy to not shag your friends.

And she did all this, but after a 2 hour conversation just stopped all this behaviour? Stopped contacting him? Begging him?

I think this is why you are struggling. Because you haven’t really faced up to who he is, what he did, who is still is. And the fact that after you found out, he still out her first. That’s not a man who doesn’t having feelings for the OW.

Do you really believe he hasn’t had any contact with her?

Okay, but I think what you've done is projected your ex boyfriend on to my husband. This OW was not bullshitted. I read the messages. He was telling her he was married and had to stop because he loved his wife and kids and she was sending him photos of her pussy in response to that. When that didn't work she was threatening to call me or one of the kids. He tried to stop the affair several times, she begged and pleaded to "just be friends". She also set up a fake Facebook profile pretending to be one of my friends and pilfered off all our family photos and started sending me anonymous abusive messages. It is NOT the same situation. She is NOT a victim. She is a massive arsehole and did not deserve closure in any way shape or form

Sigh.
You haven't seen all the messages op...
It didn't start out with him saying those things...
I'm not suggesting you should feel sorry for her btw...I can see how you might think that from what I've posted
What I'm trying to point out is that a man who does this to two women is not a good man
Shes not your responsibility at all but he should shoulder the responsibility of what he's done and from what you've said he's saying to you and how it's making you feel he absolutely isn't doing that.

Oh my goodness OP. Huge empathy here. I wanted to reply but really there’s nothing of real value I can add - you’re a strong, clever woman, you’ve done all the counselling and put in long, painful months of work so far. I imagine you have a much clearer/deeper understanding of your husband than he does of himself. You see what he is and what he did - you actually see through him - and yet you continue to work for your marriage. In my opinion that’s a very brave and difficult decision to make.

My situation was different, in that my cheating ex-husband simply didn’t have it within him to even attempt to put in the work to try to salvage our marriage. He “can’t talk about his feelings”. End of. So I told him to leave and that he would be having the DC every other weekend, and that’s exactly what happened. He’d admitted to two mistresses over a period of two years simply because that’s what I stumbled across evidence of. If I’d fallen over evidence of 18 mistresses over the 18 years we’d been together it wouldn’t have made one jot of difference or even surprised me much - because as soon as I realised what he’d been doing he was a complete and utter stranger to me. It was like I’d never known him and didn’t want anything to do with him at all. I was completely numb to him and his issues.

The fact there was no point in even trying to flog this particular dead horse of a ‘marriage’ made it so much easier - I can’t even begin to imagine the pain, misery and sheer emotional toil of trying to stay together and ‘work through it’. And then in the face of it all to have his pain thrown back in your face, repeatedly - well, there are simply no words.

YANBU. But he is. But very simply - from what I’ve read about the emotional dynamics and mental gymnastics of cheaters - that’s what I would expect him to do. Cheaters lie, minimise and blame others for the pain and damage they cause. It doesn’t matter how many times he apologises for his affair and then the second, ultimate betrayal, he still feels entitled to use what he perceives as a deliberate act to hurt him as a stick to beat you with and deflect your justified pain and anger. He mouth might be saying “sorry” but his brain is saying something very different.

I’m sorry your husband has done this. It’s desperately unfair when your life is torn apart by someone else’s selfishness/weakness/fuckedupness. I hope you find a way forward and a happy future (with or without him). Three years later, I’m very happy with a lovely Fiancé and DC are amazingly well adjusted, which I think is the thing I’m most proud of. So it doesn’t always end in disaster.

@Jackydaytona Sorry, projecting again. Yes I have seen all the messages. Right up from literally the first day. I'm not an idiot. I'm really not. I've been like Agatha Fucking Christie.

And then she got with another MM immediately after. She's not an innocent party is the point, and so I've got no empathy.

If I'd seen a single message that implied she was bullshitted, I'd have maybe a shred. She was a boink. She was told that upfront.

Lucky her. She at least got to make choices.

If your intention was not to hurt him, as you have continuously said, then why did you text him to tell him you sucked another man's cock? Simple question.

Yes, she did. You're right.
As did he.
Don't be fooled by his gaslighting to think you are helpless or powerless to make your own choices or that it makes you the bad person.
As for your dc...well, that's not something I had to deal with (thank god), but from my lived experience, I can tell you that your marriage will probably limp along for a while. Maybe even years... but your h is fundamentally not who you thought he was, and he has hurt you and your relationship irreparably.
You can't see it yet, but there is a future for you without this constant anger and his mind games.