I found out my partner of 20+ years had been in a long term affair with an ex co-worker of hers. When I found out and confronted her it was a massive shock and although it was extremely painful, she was remorseful. She didn't want to break our family or leave me so I decided to work on our relationship.
The past few months have been great, her AP is off the scene and all contact was cut. We have been in a honeymoon period and spending a lot of time together...
Her Ex-AP then contacted me to tell me everything as he was upset that she had decided to leave him....he was given the impression that she would leave me as soon as she could financially so he was angry that she had decided to stay with me (after he had been told for years that she didn't love me, she loved him etc)
I found out that when I discovered the affair she went to his place in tears and confused because I was refusing to leave the family home, where we live with our 2 children.....this has made me feel that her decision to stay wasn't to make things work as a couple but more her own fear of having to move out of the family home and break up our family.
All of this has made me question the last few months - and her intentions - things had been going great, emotionally and intimately we were connected and having fun......this all feels like it has come crashing down.....
We argued quite heavily over the past few days due to my suffering a period of motor tics due to insomnia (I'm waiting for tests but generally the Dr said it's related to a lot of stress and manifests through bouts of not sleeping)
The motor tics meant that my partner was unable to sleep properly for two nights while the episode subsided...this made her angry and to start picking me up on things that she was or had been unhappy with during the past few years.
I explained to her that many of the things she was picking me up on were probably the result of or a response to her affair as although I didn't know it existed at the time - her toxicity towards me, gaslighting and emotional abuse would all have taken their toll.
This caused even more arguments as she claimed that I was obsessed with the duration of the affair and she refused to acknowledge any abuse towards me......(this was just after she had angrily hit the table next to me and had gone to lash out at me physically but stopped when I told her not to dare hit me......she has hit me in the past when she has been very angry, not often but on at least 3 other occasions over the past 20 years).
She was angry and accused me of being controlling, possessive, that I objectify women and that I have ruined her body and will pay for an operion (there is anger towards me due to the scars on her stomach from giving birth to our children...she put on a lot of weight and then lost it which left some stretch-marks and excess tissue).
Her claiming that I am possessive and controlling erupted after we did some gardening yesterday.....it was hot so she wore a little skirt to dig around the garden planting shrubs.
I joked that she would give some our neigbours heart attacks...as the neighbour in the property behind us decided to come out and mow the non existent grass next to the unscreened part of our garden repeatedly so he could have a good look at her. (I noticed him looking through a couple of times). This made her very angry as she claimed that no one was looking, that for me to think that is because I'm a pervert thinking that and that I clearly objectify women to think that anyone would do that..
Suffice to say - there has been a lot of arguments over the past few days - in part it reminded me of a lot of the gaslighting I had to deal with and when I mentioned this it all blew up.
How will we ever move on.....is it even possible