Does love come back/what do I do

[helplesshopeless]

Nc for this.

Advice needed please, I've created a huge mess and can't see a way out/what is for the best. This may be long.

I am married with a 3yo. DH has always had a nasty temper, I've suggested anger management counselling numerous times but to no avail. The last few years since having my child have been really difficult. He's generally spoken to me with contempt and disdain a lot of the time, with occasional temper flashes, arguments are always toxic, things could get very nasty (never physical). On a day to day basis we would be civil enough to eachother, but nasty looks and snappiness from him were definitely daily as well, with bigger flare ups fairly regularly. We have had happy family times too and we both dote on our child.

All of this treatment from my DH culminated in my withdrawing from him and ultimately having an affair the last few months, with someone who made me feel loved and cared for. It was mainly an emotional affair but there was a small amount of physical contact (we did not have sex). This is someone that I work with, so although we're wfh at the moment, he is in team zoom meetings etc.

My DH found everything out last week. He is angry but also devastated. I have never seen him so upset and it has shocked me that he cares that much about me. He has completely woken up to how he's been treating me and is committed to having anger management therapy and working on things with me. I obviously am ashamed of what I have done and there is no excuse for my behaviour, but he does recognise that his treatment of me took me to a place where I was open to someone else. I still can't believe I had an affair because it is so against my morals and I fully deserve to be judged for it.

We are working on things and will get relationship counselling. There's a lot of self esteem issues that my husband struggles with, especially since we had our child as he's felt like he's been stuck on the outside looking in, and he thinks this is why he's been treating me how he has. I do understand this and it makes sense, but it doesn't change how he's treated me in the past and how damaging I have found it.

My husband wants me to leave my work so there's no interaction with the other man. I totally understand his point but am reluctant to do this as I'd then feel trapped.

I want to get back to a happy place with my husband. I don't want to feel trapped with him. I don't know if I can find my way back to loving him, whether all of this is coming too late after years of awful treatment. I accept I have behaved in a disgusting way and deserve all of this fall out, and am so worried about the impact on our child and how I'd manage if we separate. I am also concerned about the impact on my husband if things don't work as he has been explaining how it will crush him and he'd never be able to trust anyone again if we don't manage to work through this.

I just don't know if my heart is in this anymore, I want to be able to be happy with him and love him and our family deserves for me to work on this and fully commit to getting back on track, but I have no idea if I'll ever get back to where I need to be.

I am ashamed to admit I still have feelings for the other guy. I could obviously never be with him anyway so that is irrelevant, but it's clouding my judgement. I need to hear from people who have learnt to love their husbands again. Is that a thing? Will we ever get there?

I still can't believe any of this is happening.

@helplesshopeless I just re-read your original post and you mention

There's a lot of self esteem issues that my husband struggles with, especially since we had our child as he's felt like he's been stuck on the outside looking in, and he thinks this is why he's been treating me how he has.

This to me underlines that he expects to be the central focus of your attention.

As time goes by, none of this is going to help his "self-esteem issues." They're likely to get worse, in fact, because even he must know, at some deeper level, that forcing someone who doesn't love you to stay with you is a hollow victory. He'll need more and more "proof" from you that he is the centre of your universe.

BTW, I wrote the spell check wrote musical earlier, I meant mystical !!
why can't we have an edit button ?

Finally managed to refind this thread after it dropped off Threads I'm On. Sorry to hear you're still feeling stuck OP.

I was thinking about someone I know the other day, who I now think has narcissistic tendencies - and it suddenly came to me that the really weirdest thing about her is that she always wants to control how others feel about her. And she clearly believes its her right to do so. So for example she'll be horrible to someone, and then act as the injured party because she genuinely thinks she should get to choose and demand that they're not cross or upset with her.

Catching up with the thread this really reminds me of the way your husband comes across. He is sulky, needy, upset, angry etc etc because you're not "showing love" that he knows you don't feel. He is filled with frustration and hurt that you aren't willing to obliterate the horrible things he's done to you over years and years because he's mostly been ok for a few weeks. He seems to think you're a machine that if he acts nice for a day, you have to like him back. And if he is nasty (or as you put it, has a bad moment) he seems to think your mechanism should override the natural reaction to be treated like crap and realise it's all your fault and you have to be nice to him anyway.

Honestly his belief that you should forget years of contempt, swearing and cruelty in light of his Born Again Not a Twat regime is deluded. If he'd given you a Chinese burn each time instead of being horrible verbally, and now - having dropped his Chinese burn routine for a few weeks - was aghast that you ever worried about him hurting you again, and found it hard to forgive and forget, you'd see how RIDICULOUS AND UNFAIR AND NARCISSISTIC HE WAS BEING.

@helplesshopeless you have my every sympathy. My ex is a total narcissist. Despite the tears and drama and victim playing and long letter about seeing the light just after we separated, he is still every bit the abusive fuck he ever was. In fact, in retrospect, I think he was actively trying to push me into leaving. He said a couple of things during our last year together that are, to put it mildly fucking odd for a person desperately in love with his wife eg "If I was single pushing this buggy with babyeverything in it, I would get a lot of attention". wtf?

@TheThermalStair, yes. "I SAID you are over it now".

Brilliant posts from @Cavagirl, @Alcemeg and @TheThermalStair

The analogy of trying to find your way out of a maze while drugged really resonated with me.

Op, your life is not a democracy. You get to say how you want to spend the rest of your life. Scary stuff but no-one else gets to vote, just you.

I think the idea of being your own jailer is very pertinent and takes a lot of unpicking. As l said before you will get there, l feel certain. It might not be right now, or even in the near future. You have many years of ‘grooming’ to first of all recognise, challenge and then overcome.

For me, things become quite abruptly intolerable when he ramped up his sexual coercion to the level that l no longer felt safe. That was a real trigger for me. I actually felt like l had no choice if l wanted to remain sane.

I found once l moved out to initially give myself a couple of weeks space, my mind really started to clear.

I haven’t been able to see him and now just communicate through emails.I have a feeling l might cave if l saw his face and see the hurt in his eyes.

I would reiterate perhaps the idea of having a bit of a mini break away or as another poster suggested even a trial separation. The Lundy Bancroft book “Should l leave or should l go” covers this idea in really good detail and is so worth reading.

Take lots of care xx

On a happier note!

I hope this isn't stalkerish of me, OP, but I had a quick look through some of your earlier posts and this jumped out at me:

I feel like the OM (who I know I need to forget about) really saw me and got me, in a way my husband probably never has.

Years ago, DH#1 introduced me to someone he played sports with, let's call him "Andy." Andy and I got on like a house on fire. This developed into a major crush, for me, one day when something fairly trivial happened that DH#1 blamed me for. He was screaming at me, and Andy came out and made the whole situation better. I'd been close to tears, and he made me laugh. I found myself thinking, "Why can't DH be like that? Why does everything have to be such hard work?" I was so grateful to Andy, I was properly in love with him from that point on.

Andy had a girlfriend and I was loyal to DH#1, so although we did lots of adventurous activities together (our partners weren't interested in the same things), I never let on my feelings to him. In retrospect, I know they were reciprocated. But nothing ever happened. We never even had that conversation. And then we ended up living in different countries. But we stayed in touch.

Fast forward two decades, and he has been a steady and true friend all this time. We've supported each other through everything life has thrown at us (he's now divorced). If I wasn't so happy with DH#2, I dare say we'd have got together by now and had a good life.

What I'm trying to say is that someone who "gets" you like that is a rare treasure, and a relationship worth cherishing.

It's very revealing that you say your husband never did get you in quite the same way. That means even when things were good, they were never that good.

Have you seen "A Room with a View"? It's one of my favourite films. Imagine the storyline if Lucy were to suppress her own instincts for happiness, determined to honour to her betrothal to Cecil. That would be a tragedy, not a triumph.

Morning everyone. Thank you for all the latest posts, I am so grateful that you're all sticking with me!

The thing about sacrificing your own happiness for his, though, is... that he's not really happy, even when you do, is he? Your earlier posts confirm that he was never exactly relaxed and full of delight. So your self-sacrifice is not actually going to achieve what you want it to.

If I knew that would be the case then I think that would almost make it easier for me. But actually he really is on a new lease of life, and I genuinely do think if we got past the affair and I could find my way to loving him then he would be so happy. I really struggle with the idea of tearing that potential future away from him. Like you said, it's so unnatural to be considering doing something that hurts him!

A situation like this is only partly about escaping external circumstances. More than anything, it's about escaping internal prisons.

Absolutely! And the worst part of it is that I feel like this is a prison of my own making. I still struggle to put any blame on him for this situation, even though logically I know how his treatment of me has got us to this place.

If he'd given you a Chinese burn each time instead of being horrible verbally, and now - having dropped his Chinese burn routine for a few weeks - was aghast that you ever worried about him hurting you again, and found it hard to forgive and forget, you'd see how RIDICULOUS AND UNFAIR AND NARCISSISTIC HE WAS BEING.

I like that example!!! I might actually use it next time we discuss this. I don't think he quite understands the impact of his behaviour (although on the surface he does acknowledge how bad it was) and so maybe this will help him see the position I am in.

I would reiterate perhaps the idea of having a bit of a mini break away or as another poster suggested even a trial separation.

Yes, I do think this could help. Unfortunately whenever we've discussed it, we cannot agree on the practicalities (he would want us to have an equal split away from our home and daughter, which is just far less practical for me with where my family are vs his, and so on). So we've just got nowhere on that.

Can you all indulge me in a little exercise to help me with my mental gymnastics? I am really struggling to marry up my perspective of my husband with a lot of the actions/terms that you're using to describe him. If I told you all of the below (which are all true and accurate) and you took them all at face value, would you still come to the same conclusion about him?

• he is hard working and generous with his/our money
• he loves our daughter and works hard to be a good father, plays with her, makes her laugh, and comforts her. He would do anything for her.
• he is very intelligent
• he can be kind and thoughtful, and puts effort into arranging fun things for us to do as a family.
• he struggles to manage his emotions and any anxieties/frustrations will be expressed through anger.
• he can be very impatient which could result in lots of snappiness. I would often be watching what I do if he is in an impatient or grumpy mood to make sure I didn't test his patience.
• he was often difficult about my friends/family visiting when our daughter was younger which meant I curbed having them to stay (pre Covid).
• since our daughter was born he has slid into the habit of not treating me respectfully, partly due to frustrations around not feeling involved and feeling like our relationship was suffering, but this would not be in an obvious or extreme way most of the time.
• when he is angry or we are arguing, he will be verbally abusive and deliberately say extremely unpleasant and hurtful things to upset me.
• post argument he'd often give me the silent treatment and/or get angry over my facial expressions if I still looked upset. Once he'd calmed down he'd be friendly again and act like everything was fine and I would not challenge him on that.
• he doesn't enjoy the above behaviours and previously has said he has no control over them in the moment. He typically would not apologise for any of the nasty episodes.
• since my affair has to come light, he has acknowledged his previous behaviour and is having therapy to help him manage his anger.
• he is very upset to think about how his past behaviour impacted me, and very apologetic.
• there is a marked improvement in his behaviour overall, even with general daily demeanour, and he continues to work on his emotions around my affair (which has caused some angry moments with him still). Outside of affair related emotions he is a changed man.
• he still loves me despite my affair and is desperate to make me happy and for me to love him again.

he still loves me despite my affair and is desperate to make me happy and for me to love him again
Hand on heart, is this because he thinks you are a great person, or because of his wounded pride and fears that he is not a great person?

If he has really acknowledged his previous behaviour, and has the therapy, and it works, and he makes an effort not to slip back into past behaviour, then his past behaviour should not be relevant.
But as soon as any element of his past behaviour was repeated I'd be out of there. The past behaviour was very, very bad.

It's a shame that the affair didn't cause a clean break. I wouldn't trust this guy for a moment. Even if his manipulation, control, disrespect and other abuse were due entirely to his insecurities, and not to his shit way of dealing with his insecurities despite supposedly being intelligent - even if he was a poor innocent who was forced against his will to act like a total bastard - why would you be obliged to put up with any of it?

angry over my facial expressions if I still looked upset
He's still doing this now, right, the little shit?

Yes. A lot of what you describe is emotionally and physically abusive. This is damaging to you. You are seeing the relationship like a pair of scales, where the good can outweigh the bad.

The reality is more like the broken plate. Every time he abuses you he chips the plate, the good bits are the glue but now you have a plate that's more glue than the original material. Do you still want a plate cracked and glued together or is it beyond repair?

Also - being hard working, generous, loving your children - these are all very common human attributes,not something remarkable or special.

Separating your wife from her support network, being volatile and abusive when upset are not common behaviours and are something you don't need to accept.

I feel like the book "too good to leave, too bad to stay" might help you get some clarity at least.

www.relate.org.uk/relationship-help/help-relationships/arguing-and-conflict/what-emotional-abuse

Ahhh he sounds exactly like my DH#1. A clone!
Yes, this is exactly how I thought he was. Nothing you've said makes me think any differently of him.
(I know you are now racking your brains to think of the things I need to know that will make me realise what a lovely man he is! 😋)
Don't let the word "abuse" confuse you. Abusive behaviour is often quite unconscious, not a deliberate strategy in the normal sense of the term. I prefer to think in terms of "emotionally damaging/destructive" behaviour.

I really struggle with the idea of tearing that potential future away from him.
Sacrificing yourself on the altar of someone else's potential is never a good idea.

He still loves me despite my affair and is desperate to make me happy and for me to love him again.
If he were really desperate to make you happy, he would give you free rein instead of putting such pressure on you to "love him again." (I'll draw a veil over "despite my affair" as we've already discussed how he drove you to this -- it's the last thing you'd have chosen to do!).

You talk about him being "on a new lease of life" as though that automatically overrides any right you could claim to such a thing for yourself. I completely understand this. Your job is to service his needs, not your own.

Re the trial separation, Unfortunately whenever we've discussed it, we cannot agree on the practicalities (he would want us to have an equal split away from our home and daughter, which is just far less practical for me with where my family are vs his, and so on). So we've just got nowhere on that. -- I'm pretty sure he knows how to make this impossible for you (in much the way he managed to discourage friends and family from visiting). He must have a pretty good idea that once you're outside his immediate control, your vision will start to clear.

One thing I would say is that whatever he actually says to you at the moment, about making things work, he knows perfectly well that you are both dangling over a precipice, clutching at loose vegetation. He will prefer to give you the impression that everything is fine, and that any decision of yours at this stage would be overturning something stable, trusted, solid. That's not the reality, and deep down he knows it.

OP, have you spoken to any of your family or friends about this? Or have you sort of lost touch with them over the years? Is there one person you trust to share some of this with?

Thank you, I'm not sure if it makes me feel better or worse that is has not changed anyone's assessment of him 😆

If he has really acknowledged his previous behaviour, and has the therapy, and it works, and he makes an effort not to slip back into past behaviour, then his past behaviour should not be relevant.

He has, and while I don't think he fully grasps it, he is making huge efforts. Which brings me back to thinking that this should all be enough for me now, given the past is in the past.

@QuentinBunbury thank your for that link, I hadn't seen that before in my various googling.

• Ahhh he sounds exactly like my DH#1. A clone!Yes, this is exactly how I thought he was. Nothing you've said makes me think any differently of him. (I know you are now racking your brains to think of the things I need to know that will make me realise what a lovely man he is! 😋)*

Ha! Absolutely! I just re read my list to see if I'd balanced it fairly or maybe put too much emphasis on the 'bad' stuff.

Don't let the word "abuse" confuse you. Abusive behaviour is often quite unconscious, not a deliberate strategy in the normal sense of the term. I prefer to think in terms of "emotionally damaging/destructive" behaviour.

Yeah, I struggle with that word, as ultimately it 'just' comes down to him having a temper and being an arsehole.

If he were really desperate to make you happy, he would give you free rein instead of putting such pressure on you to "love him again."

When he's said he wants me to be happy, he also says he wants me to be happy with him and he wants to be the one that makes me happy. In contrast, the OM used to say he wanted me to be happy, he knew he could make me happy, but if I thought my husband could make me happy then that's all he wanted for me.

What I'm trying to say is that someone who "gets" you like that is a rare treasure, and a relationship worth cherishing.

That is very true...I don't think anyone has truly seen me like he has. Or maybe my husband does too, but he focuses on my negatives and often reflects my own bad parts back to me when analysing who I am!

In terms of anyone I can share this with, I am close to my family but have not spoken to them about any of this as I don't want to worry them. My two closest friends (who are amazing), know everything and are very supportive. I don't think they grasp the extent of his behaviour either though as I didn't share every detail and always came across fine and happy.

Missed the bold on the first below point sorry

If he has really acknowledged his previous behaviour, and has the therapy, and it works, and he makes an effort not to slip back into past behaviour, then his past behaviour should not be relevant.

Being honest - out of the top four positive qualities you have listed, l am going to challenge two of those.

Being generous with money - well he’s not going to be generous if you split is he? Hasn’t he said he won’t give you maintenance? So that’s hardly an act of a loving father ( which is another of your positive points)

Being intelligent - this is a characteristic that you may indeed wish for in a partner. But he’s not very emotionally intelligent is he?

Also you say he’s on a new lease of life. However he’s also in ‘limbo’ due to the uncertainty of the situation and this is causing him considerable pain to the point of pressuring you for a timeline.

So the positives seem really thin on the ground to me. The negatives are frighteningly high. It would need to be the other way round for the relationship to be healthy.

Sorry if this comes across as brutal.

Thank you, @Whatdirection, no I definitely need the honesty!

See I found it helpful to recognise and name exH behaviour as abusive as it made me face up to the fact that by staying I was a) allowing myself to be abused and b) letting my children grow up thinking it was normal.

When I was in the phase of calling it "unhealthy behaviour" I couldn't bring myself to leave because I felt it would be an overreaction.

Facing up to what he was doing was a big step for me.

"if we got past the affair and I could find my way to loving him then he would be so happy"

WOULD HE THOUGH? He wasn't happy before when you did love him and put up with all his crap? You weren't happy then, and he clearly wasn't exactly overflowing with bonhomie was he, or we wouldn't be having this conversation. I think this perspective that you going back to loving him is the simple and complete solution to this problem is barmy, to be brutally honest. I presume this is what he's said and not what you really think.

"So the positives seem really thin on the ground to me. The negatives are frighteningly high. It would need to be the other way round for the relationship to be healthy."

I totally agree with this post. Right now to give it a workplace analogy he knows you - his partner - have been offered a position in another company with better pay and conditions and have been really considering taking it. He's been trying to react to this and get you to stay by improving your current working environment by being on his best behaviour, trying to engage with you rather than dismissing you as usual, working on improving himself like mad in a very visible way.

But EVEN NOW if you read back you'll see all the times the mask is still slipping. He'll literally never have more reason to try to keep you happy and make you forget the other offer, and he STILL CAN'T DO IT, can he?

I suggest you literally go back through and make a list of all the times he's failed to live up to the "new him" in the recent days and weeks. It's more than a few isn't it? And this is him at the peak of trying.

When it comes down to it he enjoys being an arsehole to you and has got into such a habit of it, he'll never really change consistently. No wonder you can't bloody relax.

...needless to say, your list didn't change my mind one bit. When it comes down to it I think nice people like you, OP, should live with others who are nice as well and treat them with respect and kindness. It's not a very high bar but your husband fails the test.

Oh and lastly "I really struggle with the idea of tearing that potential future away from him" - he tore it away from himself. You promised to love and cherish him and he promised to love and cherish you. Only one of you has kept up that bargain.

@TheThermalStair

...needless to say, your list didn't change my mind one bit. When it comes down to it I think nice people like you, OP, should live with others who are nice as well and treat them with respect and kindness. It's not a very high bar but your husband fails the test.

Oh and lastly "I really struggle with the idea of tearing that potential future away from him" - he tore it away from himself. You promised to love and cherish him and he promised to love and cherish you. Only one of you has kept up that bargain.

I'd just like to second all of that...

*If he has really acknowledged his previous behaviour, and has the therapy, and it works, and he makes an effort not to slip back into past behaviour, then his past behaviour should not be relevant.

He has, and while I don't think he fully grasps it, he is making huge efforts. Which brings me back to thinking that this should all be enough for me now, given the past is in the past.*

Even now, with a gun to his head, and with him making a superhuman effort to be a completely different person, he doesn't fully grasp what went wrong. And do you really want to spent the rest of your life with someone who has to make "huge efforts" just to treat you kindly?

I don't think anyone [but OM] has truly seen me like he has. Or maybe my husband does too, but he focuses on my negatives and often reflects my own bad parts back to me when analysing who I am!

That just makes me want to weep for you.

You've internalised all of this icy criticism and think you deserve it.

Fuuuuuuucccckkkkk

he doesn't enjoy the above behaviours and previously has said he has no control over them in the moment

Do you believe this? For this to be true, he must behave in the way you've described with anyone he has a falling out with. Is that what happens? Do his friends and family also experience this behaviour? Or is it only something "he has no control over" when it comes to you, apparently? (Will it also be something he "has no control over" when your DD grows up and starts to have her own mind, with her own ideas, and challenges him?)

When he's said he wants me to be happy, he also says he wants me to be happy with him and he wants to be the one that makes me happy. In contrast, the OM used to say he wanted me to be happy, he knew he could make me happy, but if I thought my husband could make me happy then that's all he wanted for me.

What do you think about this difference? What does it tell you about how your husband views you, of what he believes love really is?

I really struggle with the idea of tearing that potential future away from him

I will rephrase - when it comes to the idea of leaving, you struggle with how prioritising yourself above him makes you feel

If you someone could tell you, you could leave tomorrow and you won't feel any guilt, your husband would rage at you and you'd feel nothing at all, what would you do? Would you stay or go?

My two closest friends (who are amazing), know everything and are very supportive. I don't think they grasp the extent of his behaviour either though as I didn't share every detail and always came across fine and happy.

I think, sorry, you should tell them more. x