I want DH to be tougher with me

[bananacrepe]

I know I may get flame for this. I know I should be thanking my lucky stars - and I am, but at the same time I want things to change.

Since I confessed to my affair two months ago DH hasn't shown he is angry with me at all. He is hugely hurt, I know that, and I am deeply sorry and regret it immensely. We are both aware of why it happened and I've been completely honest with him. I am finding it hard to let go of OM (who, incidentally, now pretty much hates me), partly because he seems to want to refuse to acknowledge his part in everything, and can't deal with the guilt, wanting to live on cloud 9 with his new gf (I still believe there was an overlap between me and her. She of course doesn't know this). He is also refusing to answer any questions DH has for him. I think he wants us both to disappear.

Anyway... One of the reasons for the affair - and in saying this I am NOT in any way blaming DH for it - my actions were and are my own responsibility - was because I felt (though I didn't realise this at the time) the relationship was unequal. OM challenged me in a way DH never has. I have suffered from depression and anxiety on and off for a few years, and DH has dealt with that by trying to keep me a calm as possible, which basically meant giving into me. I never really realised how much this was happening until the affair.

I have spoken to him about it but he is still doing it. I am trying hard to be better, to do more for him, to be less irritable and calmer, and I'm getting there. But if something isn't done or I he disagrees with me I wish to goodness he would say so! I don't want him walking on eggshells. I need to know that if I do something to upset him he will tell me. I have found myself pushing him in the past just to get a reaction. I realise this is my problem, and I am working on it, but equally I want him to be happy and I want him to say if I've done something that makes him unhappy. I am trying my best and making sure I'm not doing anything to annoy him or upset him but I need it to be more equal or it won't work. I don't want to be the boss. I don't want to be in charge. I want to be a team now that I have this chance (that I really didn't deserve) to make a go of things.

In that case, stop trying to turn your dh into a facsimile of the OM Rhett Butler and be as good as your word when it comes to treating him better than you've done so far.

You say you don't want to change him but you are rooting around endlessly for a reaction from him, and you assume there must be something that he cares about enough to mention to you -- why do you assume this? What if he is just a person who is happy in his own skin and genuinely not too bothered by anything you do?

You seem to be a person in endless search of validation from others and, unable to believe that this person might like you and be happy with you, you have set out to make him sit up and notice you by treating him badly in hopes of getting some sort of a rise out of him. You expect him to pour out his heart even now, when you say he has never done this over the years.

You should also consider the possibility that you have treated him so badly that he no longer trusts you with his feelings, or suspects anything he tells you about himself will be used against him in some argument. Or discussed with a new OM. If you have told him that you and your OM discussed your marriage, that the OM listened where the H did not, then by that betrayal you may well have scared him off any sort of emotional openness.

However, good that the OP recognises her bad behaviour and is looking to rectify this.
She's in a shitstorm of her own creation and is trying. Credit for that imo.

It seems to me that the OP's exceptionally trying, Lost, and she needs to remedy that aspect of her personality.

OP there is a difference between some one expressing when they are hurt. Its another thing for them to have to point out you are wrong.
Here is how I see this going. Dh doesn't want to tell you your failings because he has spent the entire marriage letting you have your own way and you being unreasonable. So dh changes and starts 'challenging' you. For a while its great, he is your OM replacement. This soon gets old and you come back moaning because he is constantly telling you that you are wrong and what to do.
You ARE trying to change him. You ARE trying to make a dh/om hybrid. The bits you like most from each.

Math makes an excellent point. Is it a surprise that a man you have spent years trying to manipulate how he feels and then have cheated on, doesn't really want to share his feelings with you?
How long is it since the affair ended?

OP maybe you just don't like his calm laid back personality? Why do you want to be challenged?

Why does your bit on the side have to acknowledge anything? It is between you and your poor husband. If he isn't what you think is man enough for you let him go to be with someone who will appreciate him.

I am finding it hard to let go of OM What do you mean by this?

The OM has dumped you. He has a new gf. Are you continuing to make contact with him and/or finding reasons to 'accidentally' encounter him as he goes about his business?

I think he wants us both to disappear Again, what do you mean by this?

Are you and your dh turning up on the OM's doorstep? Going to places you know he frequents?

I am finding it hard to let go of OM (who, incidentally, now pretty much hates me), partly because he seems to want to refuse to acknowledge his part in everything, and can't deal with the guilt, wanting to live on cloud nine with his new gf (I still believe there was an overlap between me and her. She of course doesn't know this). He is also refusing to answer any questions DH has for him. I think he wants us both to disappear .

Having an affair wasn't enough drama for you -- you are now seeking to involve the OM in the repair of your marriage by getting his to agree to answer questions your H may have for him? And you are also clearly still emotionally engaged with the ins and outs and rights and wrongs of your extramarital lover's relationship with his current gf. WTAF? There is a busload of histrionic behaviour here.

Why should the OM now deal with guilt, and whose guilt are you talking about here, yours or his?
Why should your H have questions for the OM?
Are you pushing your unresponsive husband to contact the OM and humiliate himself by asking questions about how if felt to shag his wife behind his back?
Why should the OM answer any questions your H has?
Why does it either matter to you or surprise you that your OM cheated on you?

I think your DH deserves better.

If the OM came to you now and confessed that he'd been an idiot, his girlfriend had been a mere distraction, he was ending the relationship and wanted you back, what would you say and do?

That's one of the biggest problems here, along with everything else everyone's said about how your personality comes across in your posts.

Does your husband know that the OM dumped you and you would have chosen him over your spouse?

Your husband is frightened isn't he? You've taken all his safety away and he's terrified of rocking the boat and losing you. He needs some counselling on his own too frankly, to find out why he is trying to hang on to you.

Can you have an honest chat with some women friends who will tell you some home truths about how you come across?

OP the issues in your post are too big and complex and longstanding for a bit of mumsnet venting to solve. You sound very confused. You acknowledge you've don't something awful but look to prolong the agony by picking at it with the om/om gf/ your DH.

You've just taken your Dh's life and made it look foolish, you've humiliated him and hurt him in a way noone else has the power to - he cannot be the person to help you through this. You have to mend yourself.

This website will help you find a counsellor or psychotherapist. I'd really recommend you find one and commit to some regular long term therapy.

www.counselling-directory.org.uk/

You cheated on your DH and now sound like you're emotionally abusing him. Please seek help for his sake.

I'm sorry OP but you sound awfully immature.

Ok. I'm going to have to take the fact you had an affair out of the equation here - not to minimise what you've done - as the wife of a cheater, I can't minimise.

BUT I do think that if you are going to move forward as a couple, you both need to get some excellent therapy together. Relationships have patterns almost like a dance and if one person puts a foot here, it means that their partner puts a foot there in response and so on and the dance goes on. It is hard to be with someone who doesn't engage with you. (Again, not excusing - you know you should have sorted it or left instead of cheating).

Our relationship sounds a bit like yours and I was the 'do-er' and the talker like you. I get your frustrations with that. After my DH's affair we had excellent therapy which he still attends and our relationship is so much better for both of us and we are both better as people.

So yes, sort yourself out but he might benefit from help too.

Oh and if you can't get the OM out of your head - fast - you need to end your marriage as that's the deal breaker.

I am having counselling. I was not in any way trying to get a rise out of him by having an affair! I can't get OM out of my head not because of him, but because of the rejection - I thought he was my friend but it turned out he just wanted me to fill his own emotional gap, even way before anything happened. It was the sheer speed at which he turned that knocked me for six. I deserved it; but at the same time his saying he has nothing to do with any problems DH and I have is crap. I suppose I just want acknowledgment of his part really.

I do not want DH to be like him - there are many ugly aspects of OM's personality that I have since discovered, and DH hasn't really got any of those. I just need him to communicate more. I need him to feel like he can lean on me as well as me on him. I take your point about him possibly not wanting to open up to me when I've hurt him - that'd be fair enough - but he has told me it's not that, it was him trying not to burden me with his problems during my depression. What I've tried to explain is that makes me feel even worse because I want him to be able to talk to me. It shouldn't be a one way thing with him feeling he can't rely on me to listen - but I can't if he doesn't give me the chance.

Of course I don't need anyone to tell me that an affair is wrong. (For the record, not that it makes it much better, I didn't sleep with OM - my choice not to.) I have been on the receiving end of it myself - from dh years ago, actually, though not on the same scale. Makes what I did even worse. I am meaning little things. If you upset someone you'd expect them to tell you so that you could do something about it - wouldn't you? If DH hates me doing something - I don't know, leaving my shoes out instead of putting them in the cupboard - I might not see it as a problem but it might really wind him up. It's things like that - not all of them, as that's be ridiculous and the big things are obviously more important - but how would I know unless he told me? How would I know if it bothered him if I never came back til midnight if I were at a (female) friend's unless he told me?

sternface I'd tell OM where to go, and yes DH knows everything. No point in only being partly honest when I've screwed up this badly. In order for this to work - which i do - I knew I had to tell him absolutely everything. I've had a very lucky escape because if I had left DH I'd have found out further down the line what a twunt OM is anyway and I'd have hurt DH more and completely ruined everyone's lives for the foreseeable future.

So your husband knows that you would have left him for the OM then? And that you're still hung up about his rejection of you?

If that's the case, I expect he's in self-protection mode and still cannot trust you. If he was someone who found it hard to talk about his feelings beforehand and share his vulnerabilities with you, it's going to be doubly harder for him to do so now. Has he had any counselling himself to help him with his feelings? Will you encourage him to?

Have you told him why you think you had an affair? Does he want to talk about it and what it meant, or has he tried to bury it?

Ultimately, do you love him enough to support him in questioning whether a relationship with you will ever meet his needs? Do you love him enough to let him go?

You really need to take responsibility for your actions. Your attitude to the man who stood beside you even after a despicable act s appalling.

Grow up, have some fucking empathy for his pain instead of being so wrapped up in what you want and your needs. Be there for him.

But what makes you think you are annoying your DH by those little things?

How would you know? -- that is your own question. Why not just put your shoes back, or assume it didn't bother him?

Why do you have to be on the right side of people but keep on treating them badly (as you describe in your OP), almost guaranteeing that you will rub them the wrong way? Then when you have treated them badly, you want them to tell you all about their feelings, how badly you have treated them and how they feel about that not just want, but need. 'I need him to feel like he can lean on me as well as me on him.' This is not about reassuring your H that he is safe with you. It is about you needing him to be and do something be is not and cannot mainly because of the way you behave ... and so on ad infinitum.
You seem far too dependent on others to give you a sense of who you are and how you are behaving.

'How would I know if it bothered him if I never came back til midnight if I were at a (female) friend's unless he told me?'

Why do you think it would annoy him?
That pondering you are doing makes it quite obvious to me that the affair really was undertaken in order for you to get a reaction from your H. It also indicates to me that you don't seem to have any internal compass or sense of who you are and how you come across.

I think you have massive boundary issues if you can't figure out for yourself what sort of lines not to cross in your marriage and are waiting for your H to tell you that shoes left out are a 2 on a 1-10 scale of irritation but an emotional affair is probably a 9 or 10.

Reading this I think you are afraid he will leave you because of how you act. Your post is full or your needs. Right now it should be about his needs.
You seem to think that you must behave in a way that's 'right' and its everyones elses job to guide you to that.
The shoes for example. You leave them out but worry it might annoy him. Then put them away. If you think you may be doing something that bothers him. Stop it, don't wait to be told. If he shows no reaction then it simply doesn't bother him. I think you are living with the consequences of your own actions. You know you have fucked up be having the affair and with your treatment of him. Now you are scared any little act could end with him deciding that enough is enough. But that's what happens when you do what you did. Your dh need time to sort this in his own mind.
You say you don't want dh to be the OM. That's why I said you are trying to create a hybrid. You want your favourite bits of your dh and your OM. Your dh is a person and won't change because you need him to, especially with the way you have gone about it.
In all honesty I think you need to take a step away. You need to become a person that doesn't insist everyone else act a certain way around you.
You married a man that doesn't share much, then screwed him over and spent a good while trying to manipulate his feelings. That is why he doesn't share anything with you.

Sternface, as I said, he knows everything. I have asked him more than once if he wants counselling because I think it would help him but he is very against the idea. I have discussed with him exactlyj why I think I had the affair. He thinks a relationship with me will meet his needs as long as I talk to him more, which I am doing. I am trying to do everything he has asked me to.

Lurking I am not trying to shirk any responsibility. I haven't tried to justify or excuse anything.

math Of course I want to be needed. Who wants to be in a relationship where they think their partner doesn't need them at all? I don't mean being needy, I mean needing the other person because you love them. I'm trying to show DH that he can rant and rave if he wants to and I will still be there. With the things that annoy him, I know they do because we've talked about this issue and it turns out there have been lots of things that do annoy him but he just hasn't told me until pressed. He is better than me at rising above things, and that's something I'm getting better at, but there are other things that if he'd just told me I'd have been able to do something about.

Dprince That's not why he hasn't shared anything with me. As I said before, he has tried to shut things out in order to deal with my depression and the other crap I've been through (there've been several major negative events in my family in the past few years). He thought that shutting out his own feelings would help me - it's not his fault, but it has just made me feel worse, like I'm a big burden on him. It's partly his family's way of dealing with things - they are of the stiff upper lip ilk - but I was mortified to find this out. I want it to be more equal, not just me pouring out my heart to him all the time. This isn't just since the affair (which ended a few months ago) - he has done this over the past few years.

And yes, I do worry hugely about what people think of me. It's an issue I'm trying to address. I don't really have much self esteem.

There might be issues connected with low self-esteem, but you're coming across on here as though your ego is enormous and very important to you. At points you seem more concerned about the OM's rejection of you, than your husband's hurt.

What I'm finding difficult to understand is why you still harbour such anger and resentment towards the OM. He's done the sensible thing hasn't he? He ended a relationship with a married woman and found a single woman to be happy with. If there was an 'overlap' then you can hardly blame him, given that your entire relationship with him overlapped with your marriage. You're however cut up about the fact that he moved on so quickly and won't speak to you. Can you imagine how your husband feels about your anger, when the minimum he should expect from you is wanting no contact with this man and a desire to cut him out of your lives? If your OM was instead an OW, everyone would be saying that she had done the right thing in moving on with her life and finding someone who was free to relate, going no contact with the MM. That's all your OM has done, yet you seem to want to paint him as a nasty piece of work just because he's a man who rejected you.

Despite what you write, it's transparently obvious that you are still hung up on this OM. Focusing on the great injury he has caused you is just another sign that he is important to you. If we can see it, your husband surely can too.

What questions does he have of the OM then?

And what's happening at your counselling sessions and how many have you had?