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.

@Alwaysdecorating

You take almost everything I write about twist it into completely irrelevant bollocks.

1. Someone said it was being kind to give the OW closure.

1. I said she didn't deserve closure

1. They said he'd probably bullshitted her and lied to her too

1. I said I knew for a fact he hadn't and that she'd very willingly gone in with her eyes open

That is all.

No one has said anywhere any of the things you've just invented in your head.

I don't think I couldn't have been any clearer through 14 pages that I blame HIM for his affair.

I've blamed her nowhere.

Your initial post states you are one year into "recovering" from your hs affair.

But you aren't, are you?

All the best, op x

Why did you go back to him OP? I just can’t understand this part.

Was it for financial reasons? I can’t imagine having sex with someone who had betrayed me as you have been betrayed.

Honestly all these daft comments saying how angry you sound are a bit baffling.. of course you’re angry!! Your husband had an affair for 6/8/whatever months and you found out less than a year ago (unless I’ve misunderstood, but either way, point still stands!), you have every right to be absolutely fucking furious. I understand that you’re trying to make this work, but I don’t think your husband really is. It just sounds like he is going along with what you’re asking of him (counselling etc) but only if it suits him. He went to see the ow because that’s what he wanted to do and he didn’t care that your marriage was on the line… again. He’d seen the hurt it caused you, him having an affair, and he chose to double down on that hurt despite knowing you said you’d be done if he saw her again. That’s not the actions of a man who actually regrets what he did and is willing to make it work and put you above all else. Nor is bringing up a one-time act you did while in a world of hurt and confusion caused by him. If he was bringing it up separately and saying ‘I want to talk about this, I feel xyz’ then fair enough, but he’s using it as a deflection from his own shitty actions, dragging you down to his level. I just can’t see how your marriage will ever work out when he’s still not taking full responsibility and accepting the devastation he caused.

@Skybluecoat I already did explain. Because I was hopeful that things could be repaired and I still loved him.

@ToughFuss thanks. Neither can I, which is why this issue feels like a deal breaker.

Hi, OP -

I am sorry your fellow MumsNetters are giving you such a hard time here. I am also shocked, but not by you. You’d already told your husband to leave, for good reason. You were a free agent.

First things first: your husband is being unreasonable.

Beyond that, I think that you do seem clear and focussed, and incidentally I am outraged on your behalf by the PPs rather sanctimoniously wondering about your drinking habits and childcare arrangements. But I also think that a certain level of confusion is built into the human condition and almost nothing is entirely black and white. That’s as true here as anywhere. I am not talking blame; I am talking complexity.
I am glad you are back in counselling and glad that you haven’t made a final decision.

You mentioned your DC who of course feature hugely in your thinking. Being there for them through the worst of the pain and shielding them from the fights is a great gift that not all DC of marital affairs are lucky enough to receive. But when my BF went through this her counsellor demonstrated that at some level the DC usually know something is wrong.

As with most affairs, there's just no going back to how things were, because if it did then it would just be the situationwhere theyd cheat again. He is forever that guy who can cheat and you're naturally furious he's not who he claimed to be and you've found a kind of anger neither of you knew about.

I wasn't suggesting you move out - kids need their mum. I was suggesting he move out, which he already did before when you chucked him out though you don't say for how long.

The idea that you go to bed laughing and cuddling every night, then have these vicious rows every month or so, really doesn't help your case that everything's fine actually. Kids need consistency.

And I am not talking about films and threads. I'm talking about my lived experience as the child of a fucked up, broken relationship, with the fake niceness I longed to believe in, the periods of reconciliation, the inevitable breakdowns and rows that I was supposed not to notice or know about because it happened when I was supposedly asleep. Feeling on edge, anxious, unsafe, pretending to be totally fine because that was so obviously what my parents wanted and needed me to be and I didn't want to make anything worse.

You can ignore all this if you like and probably will as you seem very bullheaded. But I wish someone had spoken up for me and my siblings and told my parents to stop exposing us to the mess of their relationship.

I am sorry your fellow MumsNetters are giving you such a hard time here.

Where have you seen this?

There have been some blunt posts and some overly focused on the BJ (but OP had made it a thing in her post).

I've seen lots of advice, empathy & support here.

But when my BF went through this her counsellor demonstrated that at some level the DC usually know something is wrong.

Hilarious, poetry. You've misrepresented most posters in the first part of your post, only to come to the same conclusion as most posters expressed regarding the DC's awareness.

🤦🏻‍♀️

There is a lot of support,@EarringsandLipstick but the OP has had to defend herself against repeated questions and expressions of feeling about where the DC were That Day, her drinking habits, suppositions about her childrearing practices, motives for the BJ, etc.

It has waxed and waned. If you highlight the OP’s posts you will see what a lot of energy she had to put into replying to this stuff. It is the last thing she needed. The thread is so long this co-exists with the support.

I imagine more counselling is definitely needed for both of you so that you can move past it and I admire you for trying to make it work instead of taking the easier option of leaving.

What made you change your mind after the meeting and carrying on trying to fix it after specifically telling him you would file for a divorce?

@poetryandwine

I see your point but OP sort of took on those posts to answer rather than others, and did very much start with her proposition that the BJ was no issue, and used it to set up the discussion on 'fault '.

That's why so many posters addressed it.

Your previous post was really unfair deciding that MN had had a go at OP whereas, broadly, that's not at all the case.

It truly wasn't his fault that did what you did.

It was your choice to get drunk and do the deed.

You're in a toxic situation that will have this wound festering away forever and you'll keep bringing it up.

Split.

What pseudo-psychoanalytical guff.

From what OP has said, she understandably wants her DH to hear her pain and said "I am not swallowing my anger or heartbreak. I am going through a long period of expressing those when and how I want to and fully expect him to tend to them for as long as I need him to"

So he hears her pain, acknowledges it and takes full responsibility for it but will then say "yes I did it, it was all my fault and I'm taking responsibility for it but also, your actions caused me pain and I don't blame you for what you did, you didn't do anything wrong but it did hurt me"

And OP says "what I did was your fault. I'm sorry if you felt hurt but it was all your fault you were hurt. I didn't hurt you, you hurt yourself by betraying me and making me go mad and do that. And you are also responsible for all my anger, no matter how damaging it is, it's your fault and I will never take responsibility for it because it's you and your actions that makes me angry"

Which is why the relationship is dead
They're at an impasse.

OP wants her DH to take responsibility for absolutely everything, including her behaviour and responses and DH wants her to take some responsibility.

So they're done.

Every few weeks when OP wants him to hear her pain and absorb her anger, hurt and betrayal, he'll say 'but also..you' then OP blows up, the arguments get ugly by her own reporting and there is no way to resolve it as OP will never back down and they both see the scenario differently.

It is. And OPs confidence that she knows the dynamics of the relationship rests on that her DH showed her all of the messages or she was able to access all of them. None deleted etc. Plus confidence of no other 'phones or SM communication. Plus they presumably talked a lot in person while conducting the affair which OP wasn't subject to.

Of course there are some 'mental exes/other women' but it's also pretty much the script for cheating partners or abusive men. "She was obsessed! I had to keep shagging her because she was so unstable and said she'd do x, y or z if I didn't, I kept telling her she meant nothing to me and my wife was so amazing but I was scared she'd do something'.

Like I said, it does happen but most often, it's the men creating that narrative.

What did I make up? Let’s look at what I said

After you posted about how she ignored his pleas to stop the affair, abused you over fb and indulged in all sorts of crazy behaviour I said

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.
Where have I made anything up here? Despite her insane behaviour the women he had an affair with, whilst not wanting an affair with her, displayed awful behaviour and he still out her first. Non of that’s made up. That’s exactly what you said. You told him not to see her and he did anyway. And you did go back.

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.
You said that he kept trying to stop the affair. He told her he loved you. She just kept sending pictures of her pussy and started stalking you on social media. if he didn’t want an affair with her he would have stopped it. She didn’t wear him down or force him into an affair. He could have just not shagged her. Where have I made anything up?

And she did all this, but after a 2 hour conversation just stopped all this behaviour? Stopped contacting him? Begging him?
Again, she stopped contact after this 2 hour meeting up. Very unusual for someone so batshit crazy and awful to just stop when she refused to stop for moths. Again, nothing here is made up.

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.
This is my opinion….based on what you said. A man who has a crazy women who stalked him and his wife, who he has doesn’t have feelings for doesn’t not risk losing his wife to meet up with her to make her feel better. He put her first, even after seeing the pain it caused you. Not sure why you would be so upset about me pointing that out.

Do you really believe he hasn’t had any contact with her?
This is a question. Do you really believe she went from that awful behaviour to just disappearing completely because he met up with her for a 2 hour chat?

Don't take this the wrong way OP but I think you sound a bit mad, going on and on about how you're both in a 'healing process' which is 'going really well' as if you've both had a lengthy bout of chemo which you're now in recovery from.

A protracted affair isn't an illness, it's a moral failing. Applying the language of sickness and health to it lets your DH off the moral hook. Which means he can do shitty stuff like talk to the OW. And then no doubt attribute it to the fact that he's still 'healing'.

If you're going to apply that faux-therapeutic language to him, though, at least have the decency to apply it to yourself and not dismiss the BJ in the garden as being 'done for obvious reasons'.

You seem very angry and I'm not sure that forcing your DH to join you in this shared mischaracterisation of wrong-doing as some kind of hippyish therapeutic journey, is helping your marriage.

I think you kind of need to take the hippy dippy rose tinted specs off and look at things as they really are before you decide what to do.

PS - your marriage counsellor is bilking you. "2 years to heal"??? I want two years of your fees more like. A decent therapist will set a time limit for their interaction with you that will span weeks or months, not years. Are they the person who's given you all this guff about healing? Another reason to sack 'em off.

OK I'm struggling to understand what's so great about this cheating, moaning, blame shi, weak man.

You sound all at sea and like you've swallowed every self help book out there trying to prove your marriage is amazing and worth serving.

I'm sure you'd be happier without him.

Blame shifting that should read.

These blame game rows are toxic, and well before the end of our marriage (I divorced him once DC grown), this was the default mode for any disagreement we had. It made me ill.

You have tried your best, and it hasn't worked.

Do you really think this relationship is working out? It doesn't read that way from your posts. Couples therapy might be a good plan.

What he did is worse, but you are also responsible for your actions, which were deliberately done to hurt him. Two wrongs don't make a right.

It doesn't sound like you are anywhere near moving on. It's clear you have discovered you are both capable of hurting each other, and that's a tricky foundation for a relationship.

@EarringsandLipstick sadly the post just after yours is more of the same.

I see many PPs telling OP to leave her H. She isn’t interested in hearing that, so I don’t find it supportive even if it implies that SINBU. Others are ‘explaining’ psychological dynamics on the basis of incomplete information which also isn’t supportive.

I agree the OP drew our attention to the BJ in a dramatic manner. Her feelings seem complex and interesting. The vibe on some threads is quite liberal and might lead to a fuller understanding. Unfortunately for OP this wasn’t one of them. (Perhaps OP isn’t sharing all, obviously fine also)

So to me the true, deep support here is surprisingly thin.

Wow @Naomi189 what a rough ride you’ve had here, and I’m so sorry that so many comments have focused on the garden BJ and rather than what you originally asked.

Your DH took something that was precious to both of you and smashed it with his affair and his betrayal. Despite the incredibly about of pain and hurt you were feeling you decided to allow him the opportunity to repair what HE broke, and made that opportunity conditional on breaking contact completely and permanently with the OW, he promised and agreed, and then took that olive branch you had extended snapped it in two and betrayed you yet again!!! Why and how on earth could be so stupid and flagrant as to do this and risk your forgiveness a second time!!!

I can absolutely and completely understand why you went postal and did what you did. I don’t think you did it with the express intention of hurting him, I think you did it to regain some power, power he took from you by having the affair in the first place and for smashing up your life as you knew it, and for then further smashing it with an unbelievable act of betrayal by doing something you had specifically expressed he not do in order to move forwards together. He literally blew your life apart not once but twice, and I think you doing what you did was you simply taking back the power to deliver the final blow.

You say he understands this, in theory perhaps that’s true but in practice the fact he raises it and uses it as a tool to as he puts it ‘even things out’ makes me doubt how true or deep his understanding is.

It is not equal or even comparable and the simple fact is, is that you would never ever have done this otherwise, it was purely borne out of the consequences of his actions and behaviour towards you. You already had a mountain to climb on the road of forgiveness and healing which he was lucky to get following the first betrayal and then he literally lumped a whole other mountain on top of that what he betrayed you for the second time. He is beyond extremely lucky that you are still around, still prepared to do the hard work of repairing you marriage, which you did not break in the first place. The very least he could do is not to try and get you to share in the responsibility and the hurt of the betrayals that followed! He is entitled to feel hurt, in fact in your shoes I would be sad if he wasn’t hurt by it, but that is a far as it goes because at the end of the day he is responsible for causing that hurt in the first place. He knew that would happen, you told him what the consequences of his actions would be and he still did it anyway. He has no right to assuage any guilt or share responsibility for this, he needs to carry it all and willingly so!!

In short, no you are not being unreasonable!