"I don't have to put up with you being verbally aggressive"

[Fortunatelymine]

Dh cheated, I found out last year, and have been through the rollercoaster of emotions ever since. We are trying to work through it, but every so often I will ask him about the ow and his actions, and get angry. Not physically, or throwing things around or anything like that. He says I have an 'aggressive' tone (I'm not shouting, although I have done when first finding out, but quite cold and cross) and ask him to confirm how he behaved etc. I will tell him he behaved like a shit, is selfish...

He has had no consequences apart from my anger, arguments, some boundaries regarding interaction with others, and my reduced opinion of him. We actually do get on well a lot of the time, but every so often something will trigger my anger about what he did, or I'll find out some new little thing, and I'll have a go.

There isn't a single day since finding out that I haven't been upset by some negative thought or another related to his cheating. Yet unless I'm discussing it with him (and it's by no means every day now) he's dismissed it. So in my mind, it is totally fair that he put up with my being verbally aggressive towards him every so often, if I'm suffering because of his behaviour. How else am I supposed to work through it? And tbh I don't see why I should go out of my way to hide the pain he caused, or only be pleasant to him, when he created this situation. Is that unreasonable of me to think he shouldn't get off Scot free and be able to ignore my pain and anger?

Like I said, I sympathise; I hated my ex a year after his affair. I wasn't over it. Not for at least two years. But I wasn't trying to work on our relationship.

After several years, he came to me of his own accord and said he was sorry that he'd broken up our marriage. That was the first time he ever admitted in any way that he had done anything unpleasant. That didn't happen because of me calling him names. It was because OW had dumped him

Your husband says he doesn't have to put up with you calling him names, and he's quite right: he doesn't have to, if he doesn't want to. He could leave at any time he liked. But he's still with you, despite you calling him names. Why?

You can call him whatever you like. He just doesn't have to put up with it.

You either need to leave, or let this go, or you'll destroy any chance, and anything you have left. Yes, he did something massively wrong, but you've decided to try again, so that is what you have to do, or leave.

Me accusing him of being selfish is in response to him telling me what he did and why
if I have a question triggered by something I heard/read etc, I'll ask.

So, essentially, whenever you have a question, you can make him reconfess and go through what he did, then you call him selfish.
Frankly I'm amazed he goes along with that. My ex would just have given me the stony face. But yours actually goes through the whole sorry affair again, willingly, knowing that you'll then call him names. And even gives you a proper explanation - "being too selfish to break it off with me before trying her out"? That's amazing. A proper admission of guilt. I'm honestly jealous!

I have to say, it does sound like he's really giving it a go; or are you not so sure?

Op this is why cheating isn't fair. Why so many marriages can't get past it. Because to the one who has been cheated on has had their life torn apart and the cheater won't feel pain like that.

However a marriage won't survive when the focus is on punishment. It doesn't sound like you want it to work. It sounds like you just want to hurt him as much as he hurt you. Your marriage won't survive that.

And no, no one has to accept verbal aggression.

He was selfish. No one is disagreeing. But telling someone to repeat their negative behaviours and then telling them their negative behaviours on an on going basis, isn't helping you and he doesn't have to accept it.

You clearly need more support. Your marriage will not be rebuilt on anger. You will never feel like he has been hurt as much as you and you are living in a toxic environment.

Sounds miserable sounds as if the relationship is over any way

If you're still with him then obviously you decided to stay and work on your marriage. No one is defending what he did, but unless he's forcing you to stay with him somehow then you need to let it go and stop casting it up on a daily basis.

you cant keep on going through the routine of asking a question him answering and you shouting - that it isnt fair on him

He did something awful but you can either forgive him and move on or you cant. You cant keep on reliving this.

You need some counselling I think for yourself your anger screams out from your posts. WHilsst understandable it isnt healthy

I don't think that displaying anger towards a spouse who has betrayed you is emotionally abusive. I think it's well within the spectrum of normal human behaviour and to be expected. There's nothing in your OP that would make me think that you are an abusive partner.

That said, clearly things are not working as they are. A year down the line you really shouldn't be experiencing such raw emotion and pain. You can't carry on like this. What has your husband done to try and fix your marriage? What steps has he taken? The fact that you feel he is dismissive of your feelings is a concern.

I don't think that working on a marriage after an affair is necessarily "stupid" as one PP said, but it's not going to work in every case. I couldn't do it, because I would be reminded of that person's betrayal every day and I know I couldn't move past the injustice of it. My DM is much the same, but still chose to take back my unfaithful and EA father. They have never been good at resolving their issues, and the aim seems to be for DM to ensure he suffers with her and doesn’t get away scot free. So they are both just perpetually unhappy, and to make sure she can punish my father, my mother is happy to also punish herself (and the rest of us when we were at home and had to live with it too). A tale of caution for you. I'm massively projecting, but if any of that rings true for you just have a think about it. If getting rid of him could allow you to be free of all this anger and sadness, don't stay together just because you don't want him to ride off happily into the sunset - you would only be preventing yourself from doing the same.

He was a bastard yet I shouldn't ever mention it? Really? I'm astounded.

Yeah, that's MN. Nobody should ever make men feel upset according to some posters.

Has he given you a real heart-felt apology, or does he side-step it by twisting the blame onto you and your behaviour instead? One of the difficulties I had when trying to process ex's affair was his insistence that it was 'negative' to look backwards and expect an apology, we needed to move forward. At the time he bamboozled me into seeing his view as the more logical, but emotions aren't about logic. He wasn't giving an apology because he wasn't actually sorry for the hurt he'd caused.

He cheated. He was a shit.
You can’t forgive him and move on.
You can’t verbally abuse him every day for the rest of your lives. If you can’t find a way of accepting what happened and letting it go then split up. This is a toxic and unhappy relationship.

You either leave him or out that behind you
I think that’s a very naive way of looking at things.
To b able to put something as big as that behind you takes time. There is clearly a lot of hurt left and I wouod have expected HIM to try help alleviate some of that hurt.
You can, I think, also see it as a grieving process. Grieving for the man you thought you had married. And again, like any grief, you have time of deep anger.
As you haven’t said how long ago all this happened, it’s hard to see whether your anger is totally justified.

Having said that, i would advice counselling. NOT to help you so that you are not aggressive anymore (I have a major issue with the ‘poor him’ story line in those circumstances). But to
1- check whether you are actually verbally aggressive. Or is it him nit liking to hear, again, that he has been shit???
2- help you process your feelings. Both of you as well as understanding each other pov. I’m not sure he has any idea of depth of the pain you have and are feeling. I’m not sure either you understand thé Whys of him cheating or that he does
3- to help you two moving forward.

A year down the line you really shouldn't be experiencing such raw emotion and pain
I think it is well within the spectrum of a normal human response to being deliberately hurt by a life partner.

I’ve also noticed you think he hasn’t had any repercussions for his behaviour.
Like the cheating actually hurt you, hurt your family but somehow he has gone through it unscathed bar a few more boundaries.

It makes me wonder if
1- you want to punish him (who wouldn’t?)
2- if something does need to change. If everything has stayed more or less the same in your relationship, what is telling you things aren’t going to happen again? It’s like he has never had his big wake up call who made him WANT to make a huge effort to save his marriage.

Fortunatelymine - I feel for you. I'm a bloke and my wife had an affair 15 years ago and I'm still going through all the pain. Lost all of my friends because I have lost trust in EVERYONE.

WizardOfToss - The cheater gets a lovely sexy affair, gets to stay in his marriage, very little in the way of consequence. The betrayed partner is broken and traumatised, and has to try to put themselves back together with all the hurt and anger they feel.

Yep, exactly.

I've done the counselling bit, didn't help at all. I stay for my children. Rightly or wrongly, that's what I feel is best.

So if someone fucks someone else behind your back, you can't call them selfish?

I didn't say that. I was referring to you calling him a bastard. Calling him selfish is understandable but calling him a bastard is not okay, is name calling and emotionally abusive.

I’m a year out from DDay.
I’m not angry anymore- my angaer didn’t last long - I think because my husband showed so much remorse, he was open and ‘honest’, answers questions whenever they drop up and is genuinely really trying to make me want to stay. He knows he fucked up big time and he wants to win back my love. He knows that just because I stayed doesn’t mean I will forever.

Gently I would suggest that neither of you is trying to heal.
He should read ‘how to help your spouse heal from the affair’, you should have a look at the surviving infidelity website and get some therapy if you can. Go to your GP and get on the nhs counselling waiting list of you can’t afford private counciling.

Be kind to yourself. You have experienced a trauma and if you caught them at it rather than finding out after it was over I can see why you are still angry.

You are not to blame for your feelings but you can control how you behave. It sucks being cheated on and it does change you completely but you don’t have to live angry.

I think in your mind you are completely right in what you're doing. But as others have said, you decided to work through it so you can't keep throwing it in his face.

I believe that it's your issue now, you forgave him, now you need to deal with the affect it's had/having on you.

If you decided you couldn't forgive him and broke up - I'd be calling him a cheater every chance I got until it made me feel better, but you didn't break up and it's unfair for you and your family to have to endure this every time something 'triggers' you.

I completely get why you're upset, I'm not condoning what he's done and I really hope you can move past it if it's what you want.

I agree with the others on this. It’s not the way to deal with this and verbal abuse is not ok.

You mention wanting to find out more about what he did
but at the same time you talk about wanting to make him feel pain or least to understand your pain. So I suppose the question is do these conversations achieve that? The sense I get is that they don’t and that is making you frustrated and angry. Making it is impossible for you to convey your pain and actually he resents it. Creating a worse cycle for you.

The simple answer to your questions is that he doesn’t know why he did it or what he was feeling. He could get therapy to help him understand it and himself more. But in a way his psych is repairing and patching itself to negate and forget what he did. He is overwriting his guilt into something more palatable.

Anyway his guilt was never going to match your pain. That’s the crux of things when someone has an affair. It’s why it is too much for a lot of people to live with.

I think you either leave or you get over it. Sorry, but it's that simple. There's only so many times he can apologise and if you are still miserable after a year maybe the relationship is past saving.

Thinking outside that box, there's counselling. Or maybe you both take a break from the relationship to explore other options so you can feel like you've had some 'fun' too? Or could you reclassify the relationship and make it an open one (if you struggle with jealousy though, that's probably a non-starter).

I believe that it's your issue now
Does it not depend on what her DH did to make things better?
Half hearted apologies and doing only as much as you are asked to do is paying lip service to making things better in the marriage.
If this is what he did, then why shouod it be now only the OP’s responsibility when he has done basically fuck all to repair his mistake?

Basically it’s impossible to tell from what the OP said. But certainly, just say8ng that yu are happy to carry in working in the marriage doesn’t absolve thé cheating oarther to make HUGE efforts. It doesn’t also also mean the OP has forgiven him (I doubt it seem the pain she is still experiencing)

Have you both been to relationship counselling because it sounds like it is urgent you do.

There’s that awful little Britain sketch where they are airline pilots and he has had an affair and “she” is with him but hates him. Its not healthy for either.

Think of it this way. What would you say to a woman posting who had cheated, but was trying to work through it but her husband was being repeatedly verbally aggressive and told her that it was a suitable punishment and she should put up with it?

^This. Either forgive and move on