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.

@ImNotWorthy

On this thread I am one who defends myself. It was intended as a place to discuss, but those who want to argue have honed in on the thread and hijacked it with complete nonsense and that's fine. Although the stuff about my children gave me chest pains earlier. It was truly vile garbage and the people doing it and playing innocent should be bloody ashamed.

@ChristmasCrumpet

Thank you :)

Back to the topic in hand, I think you should ask yourself a few questions. If this works out with DH, fine. But if it doesn't, be prepared

I am definitely feeling pretty doubtful right now about things. I couldn't sleep at all last night. Horrible insomnia. I am away for a few days so I wasn't with him and then I ended up sleeping late. I woke up to about 14 missed calls and lots of texts. He's worrying about me. He knows I'm drifting a bit here. Losing faith.

How long are you going to give him to address this deflection of his actions?

I will try and talk to him soon. We have rules not to do it when the kids are here and they go to their grandparents every Saturday night so probably then, but I am sort of dreading it because he just panics and doesn't know what to do and I know he's doing his best but it isn't really working. I still really love him, I think he's great. This is just hard.

What would divorce look like? Are you financially secure?

After this happened I actually got my ducks in a row. I remember the day I found out about the affair being so completely terrified and I wanted to make sure I had a plan. So we got a country house, framed as a weekend pad but it's a second home really. I'd have some logistics to work out. Thankfully we still really get on. I mean, we are really kind to each other day to day and we both really care about the other one and I can't see that changing.

Can you imagine being a single parent?

Yes, I was once! Raised my eldest (he's 19 now) from a previous relationship on my own for quite a few years. Really enjoyed it actually.

Can you imagine dating again?

Not for a very long time. Completely uninterested.

Logistically how would things work for you?

No idea, need to think.

What would you advise your best friend, if she was in your situation?

I wouldn't. I don't think anyone can live this kind of thing on anyone's terms but their own. I'd just support her, because it's one of the completely most shit things you can ever go through.

Kindly, I think you need to leave this thread. You have enough to deal with rather than respond to MN posters who know your life better than you do. You are understandably hurt and angry and I know from experience that MN can make you feel worse when you’re already feeling vulnerable.

@Sensoria Thanks. I was fine and enjoying a bit of banter with some of the silly stuff calling me a slut and so on, but the stuff about my children made me feel quite physically ill. You're right and it's not good for you when you're going through already distressing things. I am talking to someone who's been fantastically helpful, but I'll head off shortly.

All the best OP.

OP, there are a few posts that are harsh, but mostly people have been supportive. They have just said things that you aren't ready to hear.

You're focusing on anything negative and then refusing to listen to people when they explain what they mean.

EarringsandLipstick has posted many times to try and offer advice and compassion. She shared her experiences with you to try and help and then you go off on her when she says something you don't want to hear. That is really shitty and mean. You barely acknowledge any posts apart from the ones that you want to argue and fight against. Taking your anger out on people who have shared their pain to support you isn't the way to go.

You refuse to believe that your children are impacted by your marriage in any way? Why?

You don't seem like you are 'healing' to me. Far from it. You are flogging a dead horse here and I think you know it. I hope some of the posts may at least be helpful to you at some point; there is some really good advice and support here.

What caused me to get pissed and give a stranger a blowjob in the garden doesn't need deep unravelling. We know why (my DH had a long term affair and after promising to never hurt me again, he met with his affair partner behind my back). I had reasons to do what I did.

Take that attitude and he could start saying various reasons why you caused him to have the affair. You both need to take responsibility for your actions!

It doesn’t take a genius to see that your “therapist” is not helping you.

Whatever you take from this thread I think you should reevaluate your therapist because 60 hours to get to where you are now doesn’t look like effective therapy.

You keep telling us your self esteem is solid- because your therapist told you so , but your own words and your reactions on this thread show a very different woman, and I am not saying that to be nasty to you , I’m saying it because it’s what it looks like.

If you take anything away from this thread please ditch the therapy and find a qualified and registered counsellor.

@Naomi189

Some of the things said here have been truly preposterous. Saying my kids are being unknowingly abused for example is just really toxic internet behavior.

I'm the one who made the 'stately homes' remark, because I was so chilled by you shrugging off the point that your kids will have been affected by this with a "well yes that's my husband's fault so what am i supposed to do about it", and your total conviction that because you've done "EEEEVERYTHING you're supposed to" they have no reason (right?) to be anything other than absolutely fine. This is the same rigidity that you shoe re your husband's upset over the BJ - you had every right to do it, it was his fault, therefore he has no right to be upset, the end, no nuance, no allowing for the fact that (most) humans aren't terribly logical and feelings don't exist on the basis of their justification. It's that kind of telling people what they are 'allowed' to feel, and discounting, even dismissing the possibility, of feelings you think aren't justified, which could result in your unintentionally failing to meet your children's (emotional) needs during this very difficult part of their lives.

You said yourself above, you had a very secure childhood. You don't know what it's like to be a child in a family where there is serious betrayal, serious discord, fighting after bedtime. You think you can keep all this from your children, you think if they're fed their favourite meals, if they're clean and pressed and at the school gate on time and you're doing "everything you're supposed to" then they will ergo be fine and happy.

And no I don't know your life and what goes on in your household (beyond what you've told us). But I've lived their life. I've been that child. You haven't, so I'm telling you something you don't understand and don't want to hear but need to. You can be bitter and sarcastic and oh so very smart all that you like; but you absolutely are letting your kids down if you think the status quo is acceptable for them, if you think you and your husband are doing right by them.

I'm sorry OP but I di agree with other posters. This is an absolute car crash. And this is coming from someone who cheated on their partner of 6 years. But the difference is we never argue about it. Its the past and we made a pact together to move on from it

Precisely because so little was said. For most parents the absolute most important thing here would be ensuring the wellbeing of the kids involved. The OP seems far more concerned with whether her husband praised her to the other woman he was screwing, and dismisses any mention of the kids with "well they're fine, and if they aren't it's all my husband's fault so not my problem to solve."

I wonder if in all the books the OP has written about saving a marriage after cheating, she's read one about how to protect the psychological wellbeing of children caught in the middle?

Because the OP described situations totally inimical to the wellbeing of children, but makes no mention of whether she's talked to her kids about the month she spent in tears, or how she explained it when their dad left the family home for an unspecified period and then returned.

The kids, if there are any, are never 'out of place' in a discussion of family breakdown. They are central, as their personalities will be formed by this environment. The OP - lucky her! - is very proud of the strongminded personality formed by her secure childhood. She and her therapist have talked about it at length! Have they ever, I wonder, discussed what her personality might have been if she had instead had to grow up in the home she is currently providing her children with? Or are they just going to be dismissed as conveniently 'resilient'?

And I have to say I feel very bad for @EarringsandLipstick because she only followed up n the 'stately homes' remark after I made it, has been nothing but generous to the OP and exposed some very private things for the benefit of the OP to learn from, and has been torn to total pieces by the OP for her trouble.

I'm very sorry Earrings, and I hope you're not too upset by being attacked like this; what the OP sees as 'projecting' and 'making things up' is actually, in a lot of cases, people giving her perspectives on the situation she is in she doesn't have from sitting in (in her mind) the very middle of it.

I can see how you tried to help, and indeed how you tried to moderate and soften the views of more forthright posters (self included) in the hope this would help OP take on some of these perspectives without so much defensiveness.

You absolutely did not deserve to be attacked the way you were and I'm sorry if any of that bile should more accurately have been directed my way rather than yours. Get well soon!

Seconded! Dear Earrings I hope you are ok. You were very kind to keep trying to contribute and I, too, felt safer because of your kindness and compassion.

@herewegoroundthebastardbush

You feel very bad for @earrings because she only "followed up" on the remark you made implying without any evidence of any kind that my children would end up on a thread for adult survivors of abusive households?

Wow. Just wow.

What the OP sees as 'projecting' and 'making things up' is actually, in a lot of cases, people giving her perspectives on the situation she is in she doesn't have from sitting in (in her mind) the very middle of it

What the "OP" sees as "Projecting" and "making things up" is what several users have agreed it exactly that. You have no information about my children, and have leapt to a very serious accusation based on thin air.

The bile is what has been directed at me, and several other posters have commented that what you said was a disgrace. You should apologise, retract and in future not make such comments to people about their children unless you have bloody good evidence they are engaging in some kind of abusive behavior towards their children.

All you've got is a set of parents where one of them had an affair. They are in counselling. No one is screaming and shouting or drinking or behaving in any way poorly to the children and they are being put first.

Kids come from families where a parent dies, loses their job, runs off with someone else, gets depression.... provided the children are loved, listened to, and provided with the physical and emotional care and support they need; there is absolutely no reason to think they will end up on the stately homes thread.

What you said was vicious, stupid and warrants and apology.

@herewegoroundthebastardbush

Someone has outright told you that your comments were wrong. Several people have in fact. They have pointed out to you that you have no evidence for what you said and you have replied:

Precisely because so little was said. For most parents the absolute most important thing here would be ensuring the wellbeing of the kids involved

Me not speaking on this thread about my children does not mean they are not the most important thing to me. It means they are not the topic of the thread and I do not wish to talk about them. End of story.

Because the OP described situations totally inimical to the wellbeing of children, but makes no mention of whether she's talked to her kids about the month she spent in tears, or how she explained it when their dad left the family home for an unspecified period and then returned

There is no obligation for me to talk about this. My thread is not about this. I do not need to explain any of that to you. "she makes no mention of...." therefore I have made up a complete load of bull shit projection is basically what you have done.

The kids, if there are any, are never 'out of place' in a discussion of family breakdown

This is not a discussion about "family breakdown", it is a discussion about a specific argument I was having with my husband on a public forum. It does not involve my children by MY choice. I discuss my children with my husband, with my friends and family, with my therapist. Not you. Accept that.

They are central, as their personalities will be formed by this environment

What environment? I can't fucking disappear what's gone on in my life but those kids have come first at every fucking step and will continue to. You have no evidence of any kind to support your vicious theories.

The OP - lucky her! - is very proud of the strongminded personality formed by her secure childhood. She and her therapist have talked about it at length! Have they ever, I wonder, discussed what her personality might have been if she had instead had to grow up in the home she is currently providing her children with

Yes, extensively. They are provided with a similar, secure childhood. They get every one of their physical needs met. Their Mum is always there for them. She listens to them, she supports their emotional and physical development, she has fun with them. She gives them freedom to express themselves and she tells them and shows them that she loves them and they are safe every single day of their lives. Their Dad does the same too. And despite an affair being part of their marriage, they speak to each other and treat each other a damn site nicer than most parents do! My "secure" household and stable upbringing involved all those things too.

Or are they just going to be dismissed as conveniently 'resilient'?

What a truly cunty thing to say. I hope you feel proud!

@Naomi189

(Puts on stern matronly voice) Stop engaging with people goading you about your children!

Anyone can see it's not the case. They are just amused by the reaction. And some people just have to be right, even when it's completely contradictory about a total stranger.

I do think first steps are to remove this round in circles "but you hurt me too" that your DH is stuck in. Because in another year, that will have become engrained so much in his thinking, that I think you will start to resent him for focusing on poor him after everything he did to you. And he really has to remove that, not just pay lip service then start straight up again every time you argue.

What does he say, when the counsellor tells him he needs to be fully accountable for his long term deceit, and that you technically haven't done anything wrong, as you weren't together at the time? How does he respond to the counsellor?

OP if how you've interacted on this thread is similar to how you interact with your DH, then I hold out no hope for your relationship - unless you both enjoy arguing. Sometimes you have to not respond. It's called "dropping the rope."

@EarringsandLipstick

@pikkumyy77

Seconded! Dear Earrings I hope you are ok. You were very kind to keep trying to contribute and I, too, felt safer because of your kindness and compassion

You came on my thread and called my home (with no evidence) a "house of horrors" and said my kids would end up on the stately homes thread for survivors of childhood abuse.

I hope you're okay lovely, it must have been really hard for you without getting the support you needed to say completely unfounded and mean things to strangers 💐

OP, you sound like really hard work and I think your husband will be better off without you.

@U2HasTheEdge

You refuse to believe that your children are impacted by your marriage in any way? Why?

"impacted in any way" is not the same as saying they are in an abusive household U2. People have not said they are "impacted". They have made up very unpleasant stories with completely unfounded accusations.

This thread is not about my children and I choose not to discuss them - that does not mean I don't love them, put them first or that they don't have a very loving and secure home where they are getting the best possible care. Obviously.

@jazzyfips

OP, you sound like really hard work and I think your husband will be better off without you

This is about in keeping with the quality of some of you folks.

@ChristmasCrumpet

Stop engaging with people goading you about your children!

Anyone can see it's not the case. They are just amused by the reaction

Thanks Christmas. I appreciate your time a lot, but I am going to leave the thread and not read anything else because the comments about my children are a step too far. I suspect a few of these people are at home living very lonely, angry and bitter lives where they get a sick amusement from it and I actually feel quite sorry for them. What a way to waste your life.

Ok OP you win, i drop the rope. Best of luck to you. What the hell I'll even apologise for the stately homes remark. Not because "several people" have agreed with you (several have also agreed with me, this means nothing on a forum - people say things, other people say the opposite, happens all the time). But because you really seem to need it, and it costs me nowt. I withdraw the remark. I really do hope things work out for you.

I’d feel exactly the same as you. He broke you, you got yourself up and patched yourself together and then he shattered you all over again. There is no comparison. If he really can’t see this I couldn’t move forward

Oh gosh op, I've read nearly the whole thread. You do come across as extremely defensive and angry.

As anyone would be in your situation

This paragraph you wrote really stuck with me

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.

If that's what you really think value yourself and your children and take them out of the door 💕

It's so sad that you feel you need to accept this and forgive. You really don't and your children aren't fooled by you plastering a smile on your face and cooking dinner. I promise.

You deserve better. You've set a standard so don't disrespect yourself. He keeps failing to live up to a reasonable expectation so ditch him and move on. Your children and you will be ultimately better off.