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.

@D0RA

Your posts are all about how you are trying to make him change. Perhaps in return for you agreeing to stay with him

That is literally what staying after infidelity means. The person who was unfaithful has to change, because people who cheat do so because they have problems of some kind they need to fix. If he doesn't change, of course I wouldn't stay, that's the point.

No one here is “ judging you “ or “ shaming you “ for staying . You are doing that to yourself

Comments on this thread include:

"get some self respect!"
"I'd at least respect you if you'd had mind blowing sex with an adonis"
"I hope your kids couldn't hear you sucking cock in the garden"

Yes, they absolutely were trying to shame me :)

You are working so SO hard to swallow all your anger and heartbreak because you’ve made this “ rational “ choice to stay with him when you know , deep down, that you are flogging a dead horse

No, you've invented this. 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. I don't think I am flogging a dead horse - you might - but you've never met me so ......😃

So you get angry and lash out at the women here who tell you this

Err, no. I am getting angry at the people victim shaming on here. With comments like "I hope your kids didn't see you with a mouth full of another man's cock".

I understand why you did it - you wanted to hurt him they say he hurt you. You wanted him to lie on the floor sobbing

Also not correct. Had I wanted to hurt him, I would have kicked him out and started a new relationship with the other man. What I wanted to do was not jump in front of a bus that day. And perhaps also force him to feel empathy which I think at the time he was completely incapable of.

Anyway, I think you meant well with your post, so thank you.

In my opinion you were single at that time. He was not having a relationship with you at that time. He’s got a fucking nerve berating you for expecting you to be faithful to him when he wasn’t.

I did something similar, only I did it in front of him.

Lol he’s an absolute joke. How dare he play the victim!

And if he wants her to have closure then he could always block her on everything. That would be perfect closure for her. Meeting up for drinks to say their loving farewells isn’t closure.

@oipp

He did tell me. He had ended contact with her and she kept pursuing it and wouldn't stop trying to contact him. He had clocked her on everything but she kept creating new social media profiles and email addresses and she was threatening self harm etc.

She was asking him to meet her for weeks and I was finding it very distressing. He said "maybe I should meet her just to give her what she needs to move on". I said absolutely no way under any circumstances. No, I did not have sympathy for her. She had know he was married all along, he had never any point told her that he would leave me for her. She knew all along. So she had to accept she wasn't entitled to a girlfriend / boyfriend breakup because she wasn't his girlfriend. She was a side piece.

We spoke to our counsellor about it, and the counsellor said the affair partner is not entitled to closure and that a simple note (which had been sent) saying it was over and there was to be no further contact was precisely correct. The counsellor pointed out to DH that his loyalty had to be completely for me, and that the OW had to turn to her friends and her family for support and that he was the last person on earth who should be giving that to her.

I told him with complete clarity that if he showed more sympathy for her histrionics than for our marriage that I would leave and go and shag someone else within 30 seconds. I explained to him that if he had a private conversation with her without me, that I would be gone and he said he completed understood and then big, fat, did it anyway.

So yes, I was absolutely bloody fuming and when I left, I really didn't intend at that time to ever go back and I didn't think it was any of his business who and how I got comfort.

@Frogger8395 😆brilliant - more power to you.

@RenoDakota 😆Thank you!

I'm 100% with you OP. Quite frankly he got what he deserved, he brought it on himself and I think he's absolutely projecting because he betrayed you so many times.

You wanted to hurt him. You've said so on here. You made that choice, the bj, the text after. Fair enough. But now you have to own it . So just admit it "yes, I was insane with pain and grief and wanted you to feel at least a tenth of the pain you made me feel. " Be honest about it , it'll give you a chance to see if he really has changed and also put this issue to rest once you acknowledge it.

@Dolores87 You're right, but I have acknowledged it quite a few times and I have even said sorry several times. It's just that he won't let it drop. I'd say 80% of the time when we are trying to do the affair work he just tries to bring it back to how I damaged our marriage. Which just makes me go absolutely red faced.

@AllThatTwitters

There is slut-shaming going on in this thread that I would expect from teenage incels rather than supposedly fully grown women

Amen! I am quite tough, so I am brushing it off, but people should really think about the words they say on the internet to people. You never know the pain people are going through after their spouse has an affair and if I were a weaker person, some of the stuff said would be genuinely damaging.

Has he really learnt all that though? If he still went behind your back to meet the OW, for whatever reason, then how has he learnt the lesson about his actions having consequences? Both the hurt he caused you, and the fact that he brought about a situation in which you retaliated- something you wouldn't have done had he not been shagging someone else. I believe you do have responsibility for your actions, BUT he also has responsibility for creating the situation that you reacted to. Andif he refuses to admit to that at all, then, I'm sorry, but he hasn't fully accepted all of the pain he caused. Seriously worrying after counselling etc that he cannot see his part in your behaviour at all

I don't think your husband has a leg to stand on trying to blame you. Cheeky twat.

But I do think you need to end it. Relationships shouldn't be this hard.

I’m sorry OP
bit how you described your revenge gave me a much needed laugh. That’s not helpful.

There is no hypocrite greater than a man who has cheated on his partner and got away with it. What you did wasn’t great but it’s understandable. I just wonder, what did you even get out of it? He has to either suck it up or you both go your separate ways.

You can’t expect him to forgive you as you did him because he’s not you. Not that you don’t perhaps deserve the same forgiveness but we can’t force others to behave how we would choose to behave in a similar situation.

it doesn’t sound like this will last. It’s just how long will you both flog the dead horse before realising it’s done?

@Thatsridiculous

I think so many people on here think I did it to hurt him, and that's probably a perception that comes from never being in that position.

If I had wanted to hurt him, I would have left, taken his kids, taken half his money and he'd be living in a one bedroom flat eating pot noodles while I was out at the theatre with my new man.

I don't think you really comprehend, or many do, what it feels like in that moment that something like this happens to you.

It wasn't about him.

I wasn't thinking about what he'd think.

I was trying to soothe myself by having some man tell me I was beautiful and amazing. Even if it was complete bull shit. I wanted to believe I wasn't the worthless, ugly, disgusting piece of shit that my husband had just made me feel.

I wanted pain relief from unimaginable pain.

Telling him after was not really satisfying. I didn't get pleasure out of it at all. I was a total bloody mess.

😅

He is not taking responsibility for his actions, rule number 1 of making a relationship work after infidelity.

I've been there OP, it's the worst. I actually think staying with him for 2 years after the cheating was taking the easy option as I didn't want to face the reality of his actions and leave. Saying this with no judgement and from experience.

Whatever the outcome, I wish you all the best.

@Thatsridiculous No, because I read all their messages so he didn't lie to her at all. Not that this matters, but one essential reason I stayed was that the messages were "evidence" that exactly what I was being told was true - I couldn't have continued if I had any doubts on that.

You aren't unreasonable but you should leave him

@AngryGreasedSantaCatcus

You wanted to hurt him. You've said so on here.

I can lie if it makes you feel better, but the truth is that it was not why I did it. I wanted to feel better. If I have said that here I don't remember saying it?

There's not really anything to admit or not admit. If I had done it to hurt him I feel entitled to that too. I wouldn't think there was anything to be ashamed of. He would have completely deserved it.

I am just trying to answer honestly that on that night hurting him was not on my mind. There have been times I have wanted to hurt him, but that night all I wanted to do was feel better.

@SilverCatStripes

I have already forgiven my husband. That's why I make his dinner and hug him when he's had a bad day. What I haven't done is repaired the damage he inflicted on me and out marriage. If the actions and changes needed to repair those turn out to be things he's not capable of, then I will leave once I feel that's the case. Right now, the jury is still out: hence my post.

@Greetingsfellows

Ahh, thanks so much for your thoughtful post.

The thing is I have apologised (probably at least ten times). And if he wanted to start a discussion by saying "hey, that thing with the BJ is really playing on my mind...can we talk about it" and he wanted to explain how much it hurt him, then I could patiently listen, comfort him and apologise.

However, what's happening is that he's hijacking conversations about me and my pain with whataboutery. That's when I lose my temper with it.

I honestly don't think it's the BJ that bothers him - he has said many times he deserved it, and that he fully deserved for me to run off with the guy. What bothers him is that he feels I deliberately hurt him.

I will think a lot about what you said. The honest truth is that I don't accept responsibility for causing him pain (he wants me to), but I feel he caused his own pain by doing all of this. Maybe I am in the wrong on this, which is why I posted in AIBU.

If I am being a prick, I want to change that. But at the same time if he is takign the complete piss and trying to blame shift then I want to hold my ground.

Thanks very much for your great post and I'll think about it a lot.

@MsRosley

Thanks so much for being kind.

Of course, you are right, he is emotionally immature. People who have affairs always are. He knows that well enough.

The trust thing is going pretty okay actually. He does what he says he will do. He's proved quite a lot to me.

Therapy and self help and courses on infidelity are his worst nightmare, but he did it all and I think he learned a lot. Whether I end up staying or going, I think he's a different man - a better man - than he was before.

Of course you stay angry for a really long time, but I think the salve to that is the other person taking responsibility and so on, hence I get pretty angry about this topic. It feels like a stumbling block to growing up.

@Butterflywings2 Sorry you have been here. Wouldn't wish it on anybody.

I don't think you should regret staying two years and it not working out. My view on all this is that after what he did there was absolutely no way my life was ever going to be the same and nobody gave me a choice about that.

I also knew it would be years of pain whether I stayed or went.

I didn't stay for the children or money or ease. I stayed because I genuinely believed there was a possibility (just a possibility) that this experience would be transformative and he would learn, grow and we'd end up with a better marriage.

I wouldn't have stayed unless I'd believed there was a shot at a better marriage, and if that turns out not to be what I get - I will leave.

He was a damaged person who had unhealed wounds, and I realised that a few years into the marriage. There were problems, mostly from him having avoidant attachment (he had an alcoholic single parent) and I felt a lot was lacking.

Since the affair, that stuff isn't lacking anymore. We have a much closer relationship, he is much more loving, he is much more attentive, and I think he loves me a lot more deeply than he did before. We talk in ways we didn't before. He told me things about the past he'd never told me.

He is not taking responsibility for his actions, rule number 1 of making a relationship work after infidelity

Yes. I see that and I think he needs to see that.

He wants you to admit you done it to hurt him. It seems pretty obvious you done it to hurt him, but rightly so. Any man who could share my everything, my life, home, children, everything, wipe my tears away and tell me it's going to be ok, hold me at my worst, watch me in so much pain knowing he caused it, look me in the eye and make promises, then fuck off out to meet back with the OW, just unforgivable. I'd admit I done it to hurt him, but he could shove the apology he's looking for sideways up his arse hole.

The damage to me isn't healed by hurting him though.

It would be good for him to have empathy, to know how I feel and how what he did made me feel. That would be helpful and would make me feel better.

Hurting him doesn't actually make me feel the slightest bit better though generally speaking.

It never did.

I wish it had because hurting him would have been incredibly easy!