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.

@Peach1886 I know that feeling well! For 17 years, I went round and round in circles. A "big" thing would happen, but I'd tell myself I was overreacting and carry on. Then a "smaller" thing would happen, and when trying to measure whether my degree of upset was "reasonable" or not, I'd think, "Well it's not as bad as that big thing that happened a while ago," so it would seem illogical to act on it.

All I can say is that when you're happy in a relationship, you don't find yourself constantly contemplating whether you should end it or not! Ending a relationship is just about the most awful thing to go through, so it's not as though we think about doing such a thing just for the fun of it.

For me, a crunch did come. A bottom line was violated. It still took me 2 years to act on it, though.

I said this before though, fortunately waiting for the crunch moment, is possible.
You can leave when it gets bad enough & if it doesn't you stay put. But surely just being in the position of waiting until the scales tip is treading water.
This sub life can continue for years, 10, 20, 30 years

X post !

I linked one of her talks and it has a transcript. Basically she's saying marriage has moved from a legal contract to being about happiness and our expectations have changed as a result.
I actually think she talks a lot of sense as often people don't split up after an affair and feel guilt and shame as a result. She's trying to help those people put the affair in context and see if there's a way to move on.
The reason I linked it here though, is she also says Every affair will redefine a relationship, and every couple will determine what the legacy of the affair will be. But affairs are here to stay, and they're not going away. And the dilemmas of love and desire, they don't yield just simple answers of black and white and good and bad, and victim and perpetrator. Betrayal in a relationship comes in many forms. There are many ways that we betray our partner: with contempt, with neglect, with indifference, with violence. Sexual betrayal is only one way to hurt a partner. In other words, the victim of an affair is not always the victim of the marriage.

That helped me when my exH was making everything about him being the victim because I had feelings for someone else

And I cross posted.
I think that's the step that I'm sat on at the moment...and possibly @helplesshopeless is too, unsure whether we should climb up, or down...
I know that feeling. What I learnt through going through it was if you don't know what to do, the time isn't right to decide. Trust yourself to know when it is the right time.

If your partner is pressuring you, that's all artificial and tells you something about their motives.

Mix56 my comments were really for perdito who raised the question about sacrifice so I was thinking about different scenarios. The first I don’t really see as a sacrifice if it is a choice by both parties out of mutual respect and trust. The OP’s situation is clearly in the second scenario I gave, in my opinion at least.

Sorry, posting in haste.

Don't apologise Katy !!!!!!!

Re sitting on the step not being sure what to do, my only advice would be to try and keep focused on YOUR truth... (which might require some detective work to find out what it is, as you may have forgotten it over the years!) ... and express yourself as clearly as you can. And remember that you are saying these things.

Because if and when you do get around to taking action, he will say it's a slap in the face that came completely out of the blue and you must have lost your mind.

However he reacts to what you say and do, every time, believe me, he understands more of it than he lets on. He just won't give you credit for making sense.

Imagine if you could just sit down and have a sensible conversation in which you felt completely understood and respected! The funny thing is that he probably thinks that would lead you straight out the door, and in fact nowadays it might. But it's the inability to have that kind of conversation that gets us into this fix in the first place.

@QuentinBunbury

Very interesting and true "betrayal comes in many forms..."

Alcemeg It's easy to "rekindle" that kind of thing, especially as physical attraction can be persuaded to thrive on conflict and polarity.

that quote is you paraphrasing Esther Perel ,right ? It's not your view ?

Oh OP, I've been reading your posts and I see so much of myself and my situation 4 years ago in what you write. I also had an emotional affair after many years with a DH who was very controlling and offered me so little love and support (including through 2 very traumatic experiences). I went through exactly the same as you are now describing. The refusal to give me space, the insistence on counselling to 'correct' me, the vague acknowledgment that he hadn't been great, but I was the one who had the affair so whatever he had done didn't really count compared to that, that he was trying so hard to make it work and I wasn't doing enough ... Basically he wanted everything back to 'how it was' with all the fault on me - and me therefore scampering around to make up for my bad behaviour - and no recognition of what had me to that point it need for change from him. I was also told that if his behaviour was that bad I should have pointed it out to him, how was he to know otherwise, etc, etc.

I had 6 months of that and it was absolute hell. Periods of 'I'm being nice and understanding' from him, interspersed with anger that I wasn't getting with the programme and showing appropriate regret and commitment to making my marriage work.

What I see now is that I didn't love him any more. He had treated me with such disregard over the years that it had eroded my love and it had been emotionally over for me for a long time. It took meeting someone who actually 'saw me' to show how paper thin it all was. But I stayed for those 6 months because I felt guilt, because I was scared of taking the leap, because I didn't want to break up our family, because he wasn't good for me but to the outside world our marriage looked perfect, because I knew that for him if I did leave he would have a neat 'she had an affair' story to explain it to everyone, whereas my story is complicated and messy.

I finally left because my mental health was in tatters. I felt that I was being torn apart by the pressure to make it work, but with my needs yet again at the bottom of the pile, and knowing that he would forever hold the moral high ground over me, because of my affair. The trigger point was me cooking dinner and him coming up behind me and groping me, (I was expected to be affectionate and have sex with him as an indication of 'trying to make it work'). I slammed the pan down and went hysterical, screaming not to touch me and that I was leaving. I found a flat and moved out. I'm so much happier, our DC is happy and my EX DH is basically the same person he always was.

I see so much of what I went through in what you're describing OP. It's hard because you feel guilty, you're cast in the bad guy role and he makes it all sound so reasonable- of course you should be making it up to me, look at how much I want our marriage to work and so on. Yes we shouldn't have had EAs, but you need to take that out of the equation. It doesn't change WHY you are unhappy, and if you stay you being unhappy is not going to change. You sound so lovely and it's such an awful situation to be in. It might be that (like me) you need to work through some of these things to get to a point where you feel you can leave. But please don't stay out of guilt xxxxx

Mmm ,I don't feel putting someone else's needs before my own is a sacrifice .

It feels like breathing in and out ,just what anyone would do .How would life/society function if everyone put satisfying their own needs as a priority ?

I'm sure I'm not unusual and I probably hold on to this view simply ( and fortunately) because I've not had to cope with situations where my goodwill has been stretched too thin or tested to the limit .

It's so interesting ,we must all have different limits that we can cope with . I think the OP has reached her limit .

Mmm ,I don't feel putting someone else's needs before my own is a sacrifice .
It's not a sacrifice and for most people there's an assumption that's how your relationship works. You put their needs first, they put yours first, that's what love is.

The problem comes when you meet someone who is not like that. You put their needs first and they put their needs first. Their needs are more than met and your aren't. It's insidious though because "they love you" so therefore you can't believe they wouldn't place any importance on your needs.

I no longer believe putting others needs first is something I should automatically do for people I love. Because people have used that belief to manipulate, exploit and abuse me.

Now I'll only do that if someone's also doing it for me. They earn that from me by treating me lovingly, rather than me giving it by default to people I love.

It's sad but ultimately I need to protect myself from abuse.

Oh Quentin yes you're right ,of course .It's a question of balance isn't it!

I see that now .

Sorry I am jumping in again. perdito I think the key is in what you say about goodwill not being stretched too thin or pushed to the limit.

Taking abuse and coercion out of the picture, I suppose my view is that we all within us have our own needs and wishes, and in a marriage or family situation, there will always be the need to compromise because that is how families work. But ideally, there would be give and take, not just one person giving the whole time or having to argue their corner to have any time or space and being then punished for taking it. I am a bit with Evan Stark here, who argues that if women do not have autonomy and equality in the private sphere then their ability to have this in civic and public life is compromised (I paraphrase, probably badly). I do not think that equality necessarily means both partners being and doing the same, though, but equally valued and with equal opportunity should they wish it and with equal provision. That would be my ideal but there is always compromise so the issue is how far you are individually prepared to compromise.

I think if I have got quite used to being single and managing on my own, so I don’t know how much I would be prepared to sacrifice of my own independence now, because I have things I want to do with my life which I have not managed due to dealing with lots of things to this point. So I would not be compromising there. The price of that is being alone, though, which can be a bit tough at times. And of course if I did meet someone I loved and trusted, then who knows? I cannot imagine it at the moment though.

I took so long to jump in and see that Quentin has said it better than me!

Katy you've added another dimension to Quentin's post .

Bless you both - and others - this is one of the most helpful ,kind thoughtful threads I've read on MN .

It's insidious though because "they love you" so therefore you can't believe they wouldn't place any importance on your needs.*
Or just generally "they are not an obvious ogre" so you assume they will have the same attitude as you. Then when they just blatantly ignore your needs, it's so baffling that you don't know how to read their behaviour - the obvious explanation that they are selfish makes no sense, as you have them down as a different kind of person.

Having experienced this disparity, now I have met someone who is considerate to me, I worry about taking it for granted, in case I am accidentally not equally considerate to him.

In a difference of opinion once, I said accused my P of always putting himself first, he looked at me with astonishment & said, "of course", as if doing anything else was unthinkable, he said, don't you ?
I said no, I always put everyone (him & DC) before my own needs.
It came to me as a Eureka moment. It helped me profoundly, as I now saw the bare bones of our relationship & could act accordingly.

@peridito

Alcemeg It's easy to "rekindle" that kind of thing, especially as physical attraction can be persuaded to thrive on conflict and polarity.

that quote is you paraphrasing Esther Perel ,right ? It's not your view ?

@peridito, I must confess, I am guessing! I am paraphrasing the sort of thing I imagine Esther P saying, but of course she might say no such thing. And @QuentinBunbury, I totally get you sharing the bit you did!

It's just that there seem to be a lot of books etc advice generally about "rekindling" a marriage by focusing on recreating some kind of romantic spark of attraction. I think this is dangerous territory, because it's not incompatible with someone treating you like shit.

Or maybe I just read too much DH Lawrence at an impressionable age 😋 so in my post-divorce "sexy" phase, I'd often find myself tolerating arsehole behaviour from my next partner, on the basis that the sex was great. I could sell the idea to myself in DH Lawrence terms, that it's all in the nature of male and female to be in opposition... all "I am a dove and he is an eagle, swooping, swooping" etc 🤣 whereas if you put me back in time now I wouldn't tolerate that relationship for more than an hour or so. It was yet another way of selling myself short.

Re compromise and self-sacrifice, I was a bit like @KatySun in that I eventually chose to spend a few years alone and did not want another bloke in my life to mess things up (as I saw it).

I honestly never expected to meet someone as compatible as DH#2. By that, I mean that there is no putting his needs or my needs first; there's no struggle to establish a hierarchy of needs. We love each other's company, but respect each other's space. Just little things, like if he wants to do something noisy on the computer while I am working, he will wear headphones. He does most of the cooking; if he's knackered, I do it; if we're both tired, we eat out. I can't think of more examples, but you get the idea: common sense and goodwill make solutions simple.

I think if you're both considerate people, and neither of you is an attention seeker, and you enjoy doing the same sort of things in your leisure time, and appreciate similar food / music / films etc, then the overlap in the Venn diagram is such that compromise and self-sacrifice are no longer an issue.

Of course, children are a different matter; I can't comment on that as DH#1 did not permit them and I am now too old. Not that I mind; I like having the freedom to make up for lost time, doing what I enjoy instead of running around after others.

Katy, I think you're right about Evan Stark. Certainly, once I freed myself from emotional slavery to my ex-DH, I found myself enjoying far more success in other areas of my life and now make a good living I'd never have dreamed of back then.

Or just generally "they are not an obvious ogre" so you assume they will have the same attitude as you. Then when they just blatantly ignore your needs, it's so baffling that you don't know how to read their behaviour - the obvious explanation that they are selfish makes no sense, as you have them down as a different kind of person

YY. So many threads here on MN with women saying “ my DH/DP/BF/ man I’m dating does / says X. What does it mean ? “.

Then 90% of replies say “ It means he’s selfish / an abuser / a player / an arsehole “ and the Op replies

“ But you don’t understand, he had a horrible childhood / his ex cheated on him / his dog died / he lost his job / I think he has depression / dyslexia / ASD/ anxiety / a fear of commitment. Please tell me how I can fix him and make him treat me well because I love him”.

It’s very hard to accept that someone you love ( and who says he loves you ) is treating you badly because he’s not a very nice person.

We scrabble around looking for another explanation.

Absoltutely, @IND1A!

But not a very nice person is where we get into trouble. I sometimes wonder if I gave to partners what I most wanted for myself: understanding and tolerance.

Part of me must have thought: If someone had only listened to me, or respected me, instead of putting me down, imagine my potential.

Therefore, imagine THEIR potential if I do that for them!

Of course, it really doesn't work that way.

So... back to "looking after yourself above anything else" being crucial.

OMG, I love you guys. Op thank you for starting this thread and all of you amazing women who come here and share their experiences and their wisdom with us, thank you, than you, thank you. Being one currently dealing with separation after being with my STBX for 26 years your posts are like a medicine for me. I wake up every day eager to read this thread.

@IND1A
It’s very hard to accept that someone you love ( and who says he loves you ) is treating you badly because he’s not a very nice person.

This is so true. For me it was a sort of a revelation when I realized that my husband is not a "nice guy". It was years ago and I was really angry at him over something, I do not remember what, and I was constantly talking to myself in my head, over and over, this and that and this was so tiring for me, draining my energy. At one point I made my self stop with the thoughts and said, "all this is true but deep down he IS a good guy". And then I stopped and thought, "no, he really is not". Not only that he did not treat me with love and compassion, he really is not someone who likes to help, who offers help or gives it wholeheartedly. He does not think about other people in terms of what they need and how he can make their life better. It is very difficult for him to sacrifice anything for others, money, his time, his attention.

But this revelation was really hard for me, it still is, to accept, that the person I love and chose to have kids with is not even a "nice guy". Even though he hurt me so much so many times, the fact that I could not at least say that he is a nice guy, generally, to others, was so painful for me. But this definitely helped me in this process of deciding weather or not to leave him, although it took a few more years to get there. I think this is the problem for many women that no matter how unhappy they are they keep telling themselves that their DH is a "nice guy", he is "not so bad" and such. It is sad, though, that it is easier to accept that he is bad if he is not so nice to others, as if the fact that they are being mean and abusive to us is not such a big deal.

@loveyourself2020

Hang on in there! Hurraaaaah for our virtual campfire 🔥