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.

A really good response. OP, I hope you're able to read and absorb some of this.

I think this is an amazing post and well out.

I think it's what a lot of us are trying to say but not as well explained as this.

Please OP take this post and really absorb it.

My dh behaved very badly at the start of our marriage. We did recover and have been together happily for well over a decade since, but some things really helped me:

1. Taking responsibility for my own shortcomings and stopping framing things as he was 'bad' and I was 'good'. Instead we were both human and had elements of both
2. Seeing forgiveness in the old fashioned way, as a promise not to take revenge rather than never mentioning things again or getting angry
3. Letting myself feel as bad as I needed to but in a space and time it was safe to do so
4. Working on the things in myself I'd identified as wanting to change
5. Behaving the way I wanted him to. Showing love and kindness and expecting reciprocal change

Our marriage is really strong again now but it took a long time and a lot of work. Good luck

@itsgettingweird

No not at all. He was told it completely clear terms that if he went anywhere near her again I was filing for divorce. They were my terms. When he broke those terms, whatever I did was my business and none of his really. He made his choice and he can take his consequences. I was done working on my marriage the minute he did that.

He wasn't a decent person wanting to heal her pain. He was a deceitful cheat, who was still in the habit of being selfish and doing things to shatter me without the slightest thought of the consequences. He liked that she thought him a hero and didn't want to lose out on the opportunity for ego kibbles.

He was the last person on earth she needed to heal her pain. He was responsible only for me and his children. His mistress can call a counsellor or speak to a friend. And hopefully learn not to have sex with married people because it usually doesn't end well.

You're so disingenuous. Of course you did it to hurt him. Why else would you have texted him straight away after it?!

I don't know what he's not getting.

If someone abuses you for a year. Promises to stop. Then does again. Breaks you completely .

So you can't believe this is even happening, can't think, can't feel, can't cope, blindly stumble out, raw, in despair, fury, feeling like you can't go on, just completely messed up and disoriented.....get pissed, fall home barely knowing your own name, and scratch his car. Text him a picture of it. "Look what you've made me do. Look what you've done to me that I even was capable of this. Look at the person I become when I can't live with your betrayal again. Look what your betrayal has done. To me. To us."

That's not trying to hurt him. How self absorbed of him to say that. That's wanting him to see what he's fucking done, to turn you into this. He did that. He caused it all.

Given your latest post, OP, I think it's going to take time to be able to turn the mirror on yourself and take a good look. Perhaps your rage will need to abate first, which is understandable. But your marriage will not survive if you cannot accept responsibility for your feelings and your actions.

Excellent post.

@Alwaysdecorating @CeciNestPasUnPipi

This is getting very exhausting.

1. If you'd read the thread you would see I have said I am sorry he is hurt several times. He brings up my one 4 minute crime (which I disagree was even a crime) in every conversation that is meant to be about MY pain. He is not the victim here. I am.
2. I could apologise every day forever and he'd still keep bringing it up, because he is using it to deflect from having to take responsibility for feeling like a shit. He wants to make out we are both shits.
3. I am not saying I wanted to hurt him because as I have said a hundred million times, I didn't. I just DGAF if he was hurt. I wanted to feel better and the absolutely last thing I gave a rat flying fook about at that moment was his feelings.

I think HE has to do a lot of growing up and learn that when you throw a firebomb at your marriage a lot of times in a row then maybe some of those sparks are going to actually hit you.

If I were in his shoes it wouldn't cross my mind for 30 seconds to try and blame him. In fact I'd go out of my way to make sure he knew he wasn't at all to blame for any of it.

And I'd comfort him, and listen to him and apologise endlessly and not once would the words "but my feelings are valid too! You need to take responsibility for the damage you also did" cross my lips. Not in a bazillion years would that even occur to me.

I’m confused to be honest. You say you told him you would divorce him if he saw her again. He did that anyway. So he obviously didn’t care if you divorced.

Then you say at that point you stopped working on your marriage. So why are you still there? It looks like you are still working at it. Working very hard actually because he doesn’t appear to be doing anything.

I agree with PP. You are self harming I don’t know why. Maybe you think this piece of shit is all you are worth? Maybe you think you won? I do feel very sorry for you, but you are really deep in denial about your situation.

Life is so short OP. It’s tragic to spend it agonising like this.

It's clear through all this that you both still love eachother very much and there's a lot worth saving.
Now he's had a teeny tiny taste of his own medicine, and after he's had some time to heal from that then I think you are both going to be ok.
You've been amazing and mature dealing with everything so far and working through it with counselling (even with the BW hiccup) I would have reacted far more childishly and vindictively whilst also wanting to to heal our relationship and stay together as my DH is and always will be the love of my life.

@CeciNestPasUnPipi

I do take full responsibility for my actions. I gave someone a BJ, after HE smashed my marriage to bits.

He's responsible for smashing the marriage to bits.

I am responsible for the BJ.

Which I don't regret in any way, shape or form because I owed him absolutely nothing.

What you (and he) are actually trying to do is make me feel like I was wrong for giving someone a BJ.

On what basis do you feel I was wrong?

My DH had just had a long term affair.

He had been told if he ever had contact without my consent with the OW, I would leave him.

He had contact with the OW without my consent.

And I left him.

So on what basis do you feel I was wrong exactly?

@itsgettingweird

*itsgettingweird · Today 07:53
It's a bit weird that I've said about 30 times I didn't do what I did to hurt him and people keep replying "you did this to hurt him".

You've said you did the BJ with a stranger to make you feel better*

Yes, to make ME feel better. I do many things to make ME feel better like get my hair done or phone my counsellor. They aren't to hurt him! I know exactly why I did it and what was going through my head because I was the person doing it.

What you are all doing is taking how YOU would think and feel, projecting it onto me and insisting I think and feel things I don't think and feel. Can you picture how that might get annoying?

Do you want me to just pretend I think and feel things so you feel better?

He was told it completely clear terms that if he went anywhere near her again I was filing for divorce. They were my terms.
And off he went and yet you're still with him. Divorce isn't shameful or the end of the world.
You seem very dramatic with talk of throwing yourself under a bus, crying on the floor for a month. Can you really not imagine life without this idiot?

I don't think anyone says you're wrong for the tinder date and BJ.

But you have him terms that if he met her you'd serve him divorce papers.

He met her. Having read what you said about him not being responsible for her feelings I do actually agree with you despite having a different mindset before that.

But you didn't get divorced. You have another man a BJ and text Dah to tell him. I expect in your moment of understandable rage you wanted him to feel how he made you feel. That's not even something I can hold against you!

But you then made the decision to stay with him despite this. To allow him to move back home.

No I don't think he should throw it to you every argument.

But I also think you want him begging for your forgiveness every waking moment and that you can bring up his affair whenever you want and he needs to be forever apologetic. These are things I'm getting because you are saying them.

You can't move on. However much you say you have and are trying you keep going back. You're understandably still hurt.

He's hurt by what you did. That's fair enough. Accepting he's hurt doesn't mean people cannot empathise why you did it!

Your stuck in a never ending historical argument of how he made you feel and him trying to minimise it with your actions.

Probably because he doesn't feel he can be forever begging for a forgiveness you offered and you can't forgive him easily despite saying you can work on it.

It can't work if you aren't both on the same page. You are too hurt for that.

It's not about making me feel better.
Yes, I wanted to hurt him and while I am not proud of what I did I think he pushed me to the edge and is lucky I didn't just leave him permanently.

This is what you said. Tbh, given the complete mindfuck he put you through, both reasons (and many others) are perfectly valid. You were a complete mess (no offence meant, been there done that) , with a billion feelings swirling inside you.

I also saw in a later reply that you did acknowledge what you did and how it made him feel, so you did your part. At that point, you did nothing to harm your marriage because there wasn't a marriage left. Just hurt,anger,resentment,pain. He needs to understand that and drop it. You are not "even" and him bringing it up is just him trying to absolve himself of some of the responsibility. You probably need to go back to counselling, because these constant argument and his arguments are just hurting you and breeding resentment and anger so they're not going to fix anything.

If it’s exhausting that people aren’t agreeing with you, there’s not much anyone can do and maybe the thread should stop there.

You did want to hurt him. That’s why you text him. You can’t even own up to it yourself. So while you have said sorry…..you still aren’t taking responsibility for your own actions and adding it to his list of (already awful) crimes.

Saying ‘I am sorry you are hurt but it’s your fault’ isn’t accepting responsibility. My suggestion of what you could say didn’t include a an apology. Because I don’t think you need to beg his forgiveness.

But saying sorry and accepting responsibility for your own actions (justified or not) are 2 different things. Which is why I was very careful in adding that you can take responsibility for your own actions but make clear it’s not the same AND it doesn’t absolve him of it.

At the end of the day, you want your marriage to work. I think you should leave. But that’s not what you want.

So either you can carry on in denial, pretend you actions weren’t designed to hurt him, pretend you have no responsibility, spend the next few years in this ‘well you hurt me’, ‘well you hurt me more and it’s not my fault I deliberately hurt you’. Then split up when the toxicity gets too much. Which will cause more pain and damage, especially to your child. Or split now. Or actually take responsibility for your own actions, whilst acknowledging that doesn’t reduce the harm he caused.

It’s really up to you. But you can’t carry on like this and have your marriage survive. It’s not fair. But it’s reality.

Your actions were in no way as bad as his. You weren’t even together, but they were your actions. You know you wanted to hurt him. If you, at that point, didn’t give a fuck if he was hurt you wouldn’t have text himZ people don’t text an ex to say they had given a bloke a blow job, when they done care.

It’s almost like you don’t want to admit you could have, understandably, behaved in a way that’s perceived as negative. You don’t need to be perfect, for you to be the victim of your husbands affair. You can also have acted in a way that wasn’t the best, but still hold him responsible for his affair.

The BJ is irrelevant. Regardless of your reason, he had just double fucked you over and you had told him you were divorcing him. So apologies, no apologies, who cares its completely irrelevant. He is not owning his mistakes, and until he can do that in his own right without trying to drag you down with him then this marriage is doomed. The question is, how long do you hang around hoping he will finally change. If he can't own such a marriage shattering act, twice, then I'm not convinced there's an ounce worth saving. He's not your person. He doesn't have your back. Instead of grovelling for his disgusting mistakes he's hell bent on tearing you apart instead. WHEN SOMEONE SHOWS THEIR TRUE COLOURS YOU SHOULD LISTEN. Sending love to you x

My view, based on experience. You will forgive him fully and will want to draw that line and move on because you are an emotionally intelligent woman. But he will always resent you for betraying him on that one off occasion because he is a man and his ego has been dented. This is my scenario five years later (and my one off ‘betrayal’ was far more PG). I have lost complete respect for him because of how petty and childish he is to bring up a meaningless incident after such a long time given his behaviour. I hope this doesn’t happen to you, but unfortunately it isn’t unlikely.

If he cheated again how would you feel?

I think you're very lost emotionally. You are probably grieving for your relationship and the trauma of being lied to when you'd been very clear.

How long do you want to feel bad for? Can you speed up the recovery with counseling or time apart.

I'm not judging you for the blow job and in the circumstances neither should your H. You do need to be honest that you were trying to hurt him though. You've admitted that here then denied it. Maybe the blow job wasn't explicitly done to hurt him but telling him about it afterwards certainly was. Again, I'm not judging you for it but you won't help yourself by not being honest.

I'm not sure this marriage is salvageable in any meaningful way tbh. You might stay married but you're not a partnership as it stands and I don't think either of you sound particularly committed to genuinely improving it all. It's all about throwing jabs at each other. Justified or not, it's not a good way forward.

It's very sad and I'm sorry you're going through this.

@ChristmasCrumpet

If someone abuses you for a year. Promises to stop. Then does again. Breaks you completely

So you can't believe this is even happening, can't think, can't feel, can't cope, blindly stumble out, raw, in despair, fury, feeling like you can't go on, just completely messed up and disoriented.....get pissed, fall home barely knowing your own name, and scratch his car. Text him a picture of it. "Look what you've made me do. Look what you've done to me that I even was capable of this. Look at the person I become when I can't live with your betrayal again. Look what your betrayal has done. To me. To us.

That's not trying to hurt him. How self absorbed of him to say that. That's wanting him to see what he's fucking done, to turn you into this. He did that. He caused it all

EXACTLY

You're one of the very few people on this thread to get it. Thank you. All the rest are insisting I did it to hurt him. Which is so fucking stupid I can barely even respond to it anymore. Obviously if I wanted to hurt him there is about a hundred much more effective ways to have done that. I was fucking devastated, and I wanted him to know what HE had done to ME and to US and actually I was also really alone and scared and just wanted to talk to him. It was one of the worst days of my entire fucking existence and the idea I was exacting some sort of vengeance that I need to apologise for is just patent horse shit.

What a mess! So in the end you both cheated and you chose to do it also time to move on

This is one of the most dysfunctional and toxic things I’ve had the misfortune to read on here. I’ve no idea why you’re both clinging on to something that’s got no chance.

and performing oral sex on some stranger in the garden as some form of revenge act, Christ, it doesn’t get much classier. No that’s not his fault, you made that decision. Just as his affair isn’t your fault. He made that decision.

@Alwaysdecorating It is not exhausting people do not agree with me. It is exhausting that they are not listening to me and are trying to tell me what I was feeling when I have explained around 75 times that it was not. @ChristmasCrumpet explained how I was feeling perfectly. You can accept it. Or not.