Husband’s confession of ‘minor’ dalliances

[Whatdirection]

My head is all over the place and l do not know what to do or think.

About four months ago my husband confessed to three ‘minor’ dalliances about 25-27 years ago. They involved him going out, getting very drunk and kissing three different women. The first time was when our oldest son was 3 months old. The other two occasions he cannot place but the last one could possibly have been close to when we got married. His memory is hazy and when pressed for details, he is unable to give much information. Therefore l know l cannot totally trust his version of events and there might be more to these stories.

For some context, l got pregnant very quickly into our relationship and we had only known each other a year when our son was born. We loved each other very much though and were totally committed to each other.

The first two occasions involved him going out with a group of men (one - a stag do) Although l feel sick about it, due to the intense pressure we were under and his relatively young age (he was 25/26) l do feel l can see how it might have happened.

However the third occasion involved him going out with just one other friend, meeting two other women and going back to their flat. He admits going into the woman’s bedroom but insists no more than a kiss happened. I cannot get past this - he has always been a very moral guy so l am staggered that he didn’t learn from the past two mistakes and repeated the same behaviour again.

My husband has said he has felt terrible about these events for years. He has apologised and expressed remorse. However he has also continually minimised his behaviour by blaming it on drink and saying it was not like he had an affair and he never planned any of it and has repeatedly said ‘ l am not like that’

He said these events have always haunted him and he felt they were a stain on our marriage. He said he didn’t want to die without telling me. He said he hoped as we had a happy marriage l would be able to forgive him. He feels he has been a good husband over the years. It almost feels like he thinks he now has enough ‘credit’ in the bank of our marriage to weather this behaviour.

I do not share such a rosy view of our marriage. He does have good qualities and he can be lovely. But he also can be grumpy, over sensitive , needy, demanding and there have been crunch times where it has felt his needs have triumphed over mine.

I feel l am questioning everything about him and our marriage. I feel so angry and am deeply disappointed in him. His ‘funny little ways’ that l guess we all have now seem intolerable. We have not been physically intimate since and the thought of being so makes me feel sick.

We have started having some marriage counselling. The counsellor thinks he was a bit young and a bit stupid but the drink affected him and he hasn’t done it since. She even used the term ‘mitigating circumstances ‘ to describe the context.

Please help me make some sense of all this. Am l over- reacting, should l cut him more slack? Or should l pay attention to my spidery senses that tell me that something is very wrong here.

I think he genuinely see himself as a ‘good guy’ who stands up for injustice in this world. He has got himself into trouble at work before for standing up for perceived injustices against himself and other fellow workers. He has described his behaviour as a flaw and feels it is because of the effect alcohol has on him. It turns him into Mr Hyde. He did stop going out and binge drinking many many years ago and he said that was in response to these ‘kisses’.

I think he knows he was wrong and has now put the responsibility onto you instead of dealing with the guilt on his own (which if he really cared about you he would have done - no way this wouldn’t have been hurtful to you, even all those years later).

So now he is minimizing, telling you it was a long time ago etc... so basically you have no other choice but to forgive and forget unless you want to look like a harpie.
He gets his forgiveness, he feels better and it’s you who has to deal with the issue (in silence and on your own because why would you want to bring up something so old when you have this perfect marriage?)

I am going to go against the majority here.

I think the explanation could be as he has suggested. Lockdown has induced a lot of introspection and he may have become fixated on this issue and his own mortality.

If over the intervening years his behaviour has never given you cause for a red flag then I would not automatically think the worst.

Sit him down and calmly tell him what you are thinking. Talk it through.

He has also seemed so moral with a really strong sense of right and wrong
Cheating men get described like this incredibly frequently on here by their wives / ex wives. Scarily frequently.

Btw your counsellor is crap.
In no way should she offer her pov or say what she thinks about it. Whether there are not mitigating circumstances doesn’t have a place there.
Either he has gone over your boundaries or he hasn’t. You are the one to decide. Not her (or anyone else or society etc...)

It also doesn’t mean that your feelings now aren’t valid. It’s all new to you. You need time and space to process it. And SHE should have provided that.

To be fair, he has been more than willing to talk about it. But every time we do, l end up virtually howling with despair and frustration. Because he cannot just listen to me without defending himself in some way. It’s got to the point where l do not feel safe talking to him about it because l have no confidence that the minimising will not happen at some point.
We haven’t talked about it properly for a few weeks now apart from one counselling session. I feel he is on tenterhooks almost wanting me to bring it up again.

I think l am at the stage where l do not believe he has the ability to fully acknowledge and recognise the damage he has caused. He is so invested in this Mr Nice guy image who accidentally slipped up oh so long ago. He has even said things like ‘ l made a mistake, l am only human ‘

So instead of your needs and feelings being included in this discussion he's simply using it to "explain" his own narrative, to the point where you now feel uncomfortable discussing it at all?

I wouldn't call that "talking about it" - it sounds more like gaslighting, and this is where a skilled counsellor can sometimes help

Preferably a decent one this time ...

He has even said things like l made a mistake, l am only human
How do you see it? That he is fundamentally a bad person? That may be the only alternative he knows, due to his upbringing. No-one wants to think that of themselves.

Very, very few people ever find out exactly what a cheating or flirting partner really got up to. They don't want to admit to more than necessary. If you want to stay with him, that is necessarily going to have to involve accepting that you can't read his mind and definitively discover the absolute truth. Staying with him means accepting uncertainty.

My exH, when telling me about his affair, also said to me that he has always been a good man and that he has only made one mistake. I think that some men almost try to live a fantasy life of wanting to be perceived by others as being a good man, while really living a double life and not acting in a good way at all. Maybe they do this as a way of being able to live with their failings.

Would you consider offering an amnesty?

@Puzzledandpissedoff

So instead of your needs and feelings being included in this discussion he's simply using it to "explain" his own narrative, to the point where you now feel uncomfortable discussing it at all?

I wouldn't call that "talking about it" - it sounds more like gaslighting, and this is where a skilled counsellor can sometimes help

Preferably a decent one this time ...

agreed 🌺

Yes Puzzled, it feels more about his needs than mine. This is familiar behaviour from him. Over the years, there have been a number of distressing situations where it really felt that he was not able to consider my needs as his needs were overwhelmingly bigger. I don’t feel this was deliberate - just that he did not have the ability to do this. However there have been times when he has been very supportive. Both my parents have died in the last 5 years and he has been a real shoulder to cry on and very ‘present’ whenever l needed to talk.

He is not willing to talk about it.
He wants you to agree with him that he is Mr Nice Guy and he is only human. He wants you to absolve him...

I wouldn’t bring it up outside of counselling. And I would make it clear to your counsellor that THIS TIME, you want to talk about how YOU feel about it,, how you feel he is minimizing etc... you need the space to say things wo him shutting you down (because that’s what all his responses are about. Shutting you down so he doesn’t have to hear how hurtful it is to you - it’s not inline with who he thinks he is).

Btw did the confession come before the counselling or during?

Sending you a PM Op- I had a very similar experience.

Esther Perel is good at getting couples to talk to one another in a manner that involves more listening. Try getting him to listen to a good few of her podcasts - listen to them yourself if you're not familiar. Once you've heard a few he'll get the listening (without defending) technique better. www.estherperel.com/podcast

@Whatdirection

Yes Puzzled, it feels more about his needs than mine. This is familiar behaviour from him. Over the years, there have been a number of distressing situations where it really felt that he was not able to consider my needs as his needs were overwhelmingly bigger. I don’t feel this was deliberate - just that he did not have the ability to do this. However there have been times when he has been very supportive. Both my parents have died in the last 5 years and he has been a real shoulder to cry on and very ‘present’ whenever l needed to talk.

I suspect that’s because when your parents died he was out of the equation. He didn’t have any personal need to meet so was happy to look after you.

Whereas when it’s about his needs, then they always come first. HE always comes first....

Maybe what you need is counselling for yourself to clarify all that. It’s not just about the kissing, is it?

Thank you Raven for your comments. I agree about the having to live with uncertainty- l don’t think l will ever get to the bottom of it. He can’t even remember roughly when the incidents occurred just in a two to three years time frame. The trouble with an amnesty approach is l just don’t feel like l can get past it. I keep waiting for something to shift or change in my mind but it doesn’t.

This is familiar behaviour from him. Over the years, there have been a number of distressing situations where it really felt that he was not able to consider my needs as his needs were overwhelmingly bigger

I'm afraid it doesn't surprise me to read this, though I note you also said he was supportive over your bereavements

For me that would raise the question of whether he did this out of genuine concern for you, or if it was more about shoring up his internal "good guy image" ... not an act exactly, but a case of doing the expected thing without necessarily feeling any real empathy

Again, I expect that's something a decent counsellor should be able to help unpick

The trouble with an amnesty approach is l just don’t feel like l can get past it. I keep waiting for something to shift or change in my mind but it doesn’t.
I didn't stay with my exh, but I do think that something has changed in my mind over the years - I don't want to go back to him, but I can imagine it now, which I couldn't even begin to before. It has been a long time, though. The MN consensus seems to be that people who stay with their partner don't tend to get past it.

I would guess that if things are going to get better, it would have to be a deliberate effort by both of you, based on your true belief that it is worth it. That would take some work on the other issues you've mentioned. You would need a better counsellor.

I think if he truly felt so bad and horrified about his actions with women 2 or 3 then he would remember the dates. The things I've done wrong in my life, I remember with horrible clarity.
Egg I stole 5 quid from my older sister when I was 12 or so, I stole it out of her blue jacket pocket that she had kindly let me borrow, and I spent it on a magazine and nail varnish.

My best bet is that 2 and 3 were on important family dates like around christmas time, or one of your friends/a mum from school etc.And him admitting that would further tarnish the 'nice man' image

The confession came about four months ago while we were away. Again this was upsetting. We both so needed a break.The week before we left we had to cancel and change our holiday plans due to Coronavirus. He seemed so low about this that l moved heaven and earth to rearrange the holiday so we still had a break.When he told me l was hundreds of miles from home in a foreign country with no one to turn to. I had to carry on with the holiday even though my world had been turned upside down. I don’t know why l just didn’t get the next plane home. We decided to go to counselling after struggling with the issues for a few months. I felt we weren’t going to get through this without help. But it has just felt like she doesn’t think it’s a big deal.

What other people think is irrelevant. Your husband is married to you, and has to deal with what you think.

Yes Lolly - why can’t he remember the dates? The first one l worked out myself. I remember one night when my DS was three months old, he went out. He came back so incredibly late l honestly thought he had died in a road accident. I was beside myself with a 3 month baby thinking the worst. At the time l was pretty unhappy about it but never thought for a second that another woman was involved. I feel so naive for having trusted him.