Bastard bingo around the campfire

[helplesshopeless]

Hi everyone...creating thread number 2 (or at least, attempting to...!) Link to old thread here

If that link doesn't work, I'll be forever indebted to any of you more mumsnet savvy folks helping me out!

I'll come back in a bit to post properly, thank you all again for your help and support

It is intentional, though.
Are you seriously trying to tell me that he does not know that controlling your movements and ignoring your privacy and demeaning you (talking at you while you are in the shower is a power play as you are naked, cornered and have nowhere to go without trying to get past him soapy and dripping wet) is wrong? He is using your affair and all these spouse must surrender their privacy post-affair as justification and you are accepting that, but it is very surely intentional. You do not have to accept it.
As for the idea that somehow this storm will pass, it seems to me that what is happening is bad behaviour is being heaped on bad behaviour on his part, and actually it is criminally bad because coercive control is a crime, which means more and more for you to try and get over to love him again.
His behaviour is appalling, shocking and awful and yes, he knows that, which is why he is blaming you. But he is the person responsible for his actions. There are other paths open to him. He is choosing the controlling one. It is intentional.

Bloody hell, you can’t even have a shower in peace? Are you actually saying you ‘can’t’ lock the door?? And why is everything about your affair? Is that his get out of jail free card for all his vile behaviour before and after? He has you so ground down you can’t see this. There really is nothing to save in this marriage. He KNOWS exactly what he’s doing as @KatySun and @@FoxgloveSummers have pointed out so well. I can’t bear to read your posts op, it just gets worse and worse.

I think the key problem with all of this situation is that I am not ready/able to let go of this marriage until I know I've got peace of mind over how I'm feeling. His current behaviour is pushing me away (and mine is for him), but if we give up now, I'll feel like we gave up before the storm passed, and won't feel like I've had any closure on it.
What would "peace of mind over how you're feeling" mean?
It sounds like you want things between you to be in a calm, relaxed state with no anger/control/pressure, and for you then to be able to step back, look at the relationship and say - this isn't what I want. And then you'll feel leaving is justifiable?

But the reason it's not what you want is because you've never been in that state, not really, from all you've written. It was similar in one of your older posts, asking can a relationship "get back to" a good place, from such a situation as yours. But it sounds like your relationship has always had major problems, as a result of your H's behaviour?

Sorry I hope it doesn't sound like I'm attempting to tell you what your relationship is like! But this is what you wrote at the start of your original thread:
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.

If you "get back" to that situation, are you going to feel differently? Because that situation is what drove you to have an affair.

So really you are relying on the fact that your H has truly had a road-to-Damascas moment, and all his work on himself will result in a changed man, and you'll wake up one morning and discover you're married to a new person. But a) given all you've said, he's certainly not fundamentally changed much over the last 2 months, and b) If he miraculously does change, how do you know that this New Husband will be able to give you what you want or need in a marriage anyway? Is he going to also have a personality transplant so that you have the same sense of humour, he knows how to comfort you when you're sad? Will you start to actually like him?? Because ultimately it sounds like he needs to be a fundamentally different person, for the rest of his life, for you to be happy (again, why you had an affair).

But, I don't see how things are going to improve. He needs love and affection to move forward, I cannot give him that, I need time and mental space, he cannot give me that.

I agree.

I am starting to see it as coercive control now, even though it's not intentional for the most part.
Maybe it doesn't help to think of coercive control as, you know, a man in a black swivel chair with a scar down his face and a fluffy white cat on his lap, cackling as he plans your doom.

It comes from a deep place within him, a lonely unspeakable place of darkness and fear. (Think: Terror/Rage/Vigilance on the Emotions Wheel.) This core of [dis/un]ease controls him as much as it controls you. He probably feels more helpless than powerful.

It's a bit of a lose–lose situation when your relationship dynamics have inevitably shaped around accommodating his need for as much [illusory] control as he can grab onto for a sense of safety.

it's just at the moment with the stress that it brings post-affair and my need to keep the calm.
I don't think your "need to keep the calm" is a new development post-affair, is it?
"The calm" is a magic place you both long to reach one day. A place where you both feel safe and cherished.
In this sense, you both share the same vision and relationship goals, and maybe that's what keeps you both going.

But how realistic is it?
When is he ever going to feel safe? He didn't from the very start. Hence his "outbursts" now and then.
When are you going to feel safe? When he stops being him.
When is he going to feel cherished? When he stops being him.
When are you going to feel cherished? When he truly "sees" you the way the OM did.

I'm not pointing you back into the arms of OM, just noting that even a brief and relatively innocuous affair with someone from work was enough to give you a much better sense of having been "seen" and recognised than you've ever had from your husband.

My husband has read lots of articles about getting over affairs and they say things about the guilty party has to accept they have no freedom or privacy until the 'victim' feels like they can trust them again
Well that's your husband mangling things isn't it.
The "guilty party" could choose not to have the same levels of privacy or freedom to reassure their spouse they love them and want to stay. That's not the same as "the guilty party has to....."
Also I've been the "done to" in my previous marriage. My exH and I had the convo that I would sometimes ask to see his phone for reassurance. But part of that was a two way agreement that if he agreed that, I'd work on my trust and not ask to invade his privacy all the time.
As it was I asked 3 times in 5 years and he refused twice. One of the nails in the coffin of our marriage.

But anyway. If the shoe was on the other foot and he was telling you trust is essential for the relationship to continue so you had to show you were working to regain trust, I bet you'd be bending over backwards to do that.
He isn't doing the same for you. He has no respect for your needs, he doesn't believe what you say about contacting OM, he is contemptuous of you. How is any of that helping move forwards with repairing the marriage? He needs to step up too.

It just makes me nervous because it's likely to unsettle him which will do more harm than good. The counsellor will be able to help facilitate a productive conversation. If they can't, then in effect you know you can never talk about this with him so are destined to have your time and space dictated by him. Do you want to live like that,

Great post @Alcemeg - I think there’s probably a lot of truth in that.

And yes @QuentinBunbury - that is a key difference between choosing to give up some privacy and being harassed and railroaded into being kept under house arrest.

The problem with these articles about how the cheater should let the cheatee have access to their phone etc. is that this advice is for normal relationships, not abusive ones in which the cheatee has already been controlling the cheater's movements for years, since they first met.

Your husband is obviously not going to take that into consideration as he won't admit he has been exercising coercive control.

@ravenmum

The problem with these articles about how the cheater should let the cheatee have access to their phone etc. is that this advice is for normal relationships, not abusive ones in which the cheatee has already been controlling the cheater's movements for years, since they first met.

Your husband is obviously not going to take that into consideration as he won't admit he has been exercising coercive control.

Yes exactly. Which is indeed why so many posters expressed concern when OP said she was going through this process of counselling etc with H. Because this is where you end up

It is horrible to watch it playing out.

Oh, dear @helplesshopeless, it is so hard to see you going through this...and to see it continuing indefinitely until one of you either becomes ill with the stress of it or calls a halt to it to stop that happening.

The need for space - for both of you - screams out to me; I feel suffocated just reading your posts.

Is the need for space something you could discuss with/through your counselling do you think - it does look (from the outside) like an agreed period of separation is essential if you are going to step out of this current destructive circling. And if your husband, inevitably, says he won't/can't allow you space, then that sort of makes a decision for you...

I just want to come and get you and DD, pick up some essentials and say "come on, we're out of here..." just to allow you to breathe...and the mobile signal here is rubbish, so there'd be no chasing you on that either...

Why don’t you do an experiment today? If you’re posting on here and you realise you’re about to write “he feels” or “he knows” or “he would say” or otherwise give us his side of things - you just stop. Take a moment. And give us your side only.

that is a good idea. I struggle with that because I worry that I'm not giving the full context and that without that everyone's opinions can't be fully valid as I've not presented both sides.

Are you seriously trying to tell me that he does not know that controlling your movements and ignoring your privacy and demeaning you (talking at you while you are in the shower is a power play as you are naked, cornered and have nowhere to go without trying to get past him soapy and dripping wet) is wrong?

He just does not see it. The controlling elements he sees as being a result of my affair, and the other things around pushing conversations on me he sees as him desperately trying to discuss and fix our marriage.

But I am going to raise it in our counselling tomorrow, as a number of you have suggested, and I hope that the counsellor supports me in that conversation.

So really you are relying on the fact that your H has truly had a road-to-Damascas moment, and all his work on himself will result in a changed man, and you'll wake up one morning and discover you're married to a new person

Yes, that's pretty much my hope. If I can keep him calm long enough for me to get a clear mind, then maybe i'll also see some better behaviour from him and that will make me able to feel closer to him, which will in turn make him happier etc. Basically the opposite cycle to the one I am in! But yes, like you've said, the core elements of him won't be changing, and so I suppose what I am hoping for is enough calmness for me to determine whether that is enough for me. And I don't think it will be

It comes from a deep place within him, a lonely unspeakable place of darkness and fear. (Think: Terror/Rage/Vigilance on the Emotions Wheel.) This core of [dis/un]ease controls him as much as it controls you. He probably feels more helpless than powerful.

That is exactly what drives this for him, and why I'm finding it so difficult to separate myself from it because I feel so sad for him. He's ultimately very sad at the moment and it's so difficult to not be able to make that better for him (without basically lying to myself).

I just KNEW you’d start feeling soooo sorry for him as soon as I read that bit about him ‘a lonely unspeakable place of darkness and fear’. This man has serious problems and it’s not your job to sort him. His problems are impacting your life to a hideous degree and causing you both major problems - but, he has to sort himself out. You can’t. And perhaps a separation would give you both time and space to reflect and move forward. At the moment you’re going round in circles going nowhere with increasing impact on your mental health. And let’s not forget the little girl watching you both, absorbing all the tension, and watching this car crash of a relationship.....you think you’re hiding it but your dc isn’t getting the best of mum or dad through all this.

Giving people what they want is not the only way to make them happier. Sometimes it is even bad for them.

That is exactly what drives this for him, and why I'm finding it so difficult to separate myself from it because I feel so sad for him. He's ultimately very sad at the moment and it's so difficult to not be able to make that better for him (without basically lying to myself).
I knowwwwwwww... it's the hardest thing in the world.

I think you need this creepy-looking / corny / super-cliché poster on your wall... 😁

He just does not see it. The controlling elements he sees as being a result of my affair, and the other things around pushing conversations on me he sees as him desperately trying to discuss and fix our marriage.

“It’s not happening. And if it is happening, it’s your fault.”

Come on he’s probably quite bright and I think we all know bursting in and berating someone in the shower is outside of normal behaviour. But it can’t be his fault obviously because that would damage his own precious view of himself, so it must be you, the person in the shower, LURING him in and forcing him to berate you?

I just can't get my head around why you are trying to find a path forward with a man whom you have nothing in common with and nothing to say to, on top of the fact that he is controlling, nasty, abusive and a creep.

Honestly it's a bit gobsmacking.

There is no connection between ye beside your poor child in the middle of all of this.

Mind boggling.

I really think a reasonable response to anyone intruding on a shower the way he does in such a threatening abusive way would be to scream at him to get out.

Your passivity to his utter disrespect for you as a human being is chilling and I would fear for your child and your ability to defend your child against him.

You are utterly terrified of this man which makes your affair even more baffling, whilst I wouldn't condemn you for a second for it.

So many conflicting elements to this.
It's hard to convey how odious he sounds.
🤷🏻‍♀️

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2018/02/04/am-i-codependent-10-signs-you-might-be-according-to-experts_a_23352771/

@goody2shooz
I just KNEW you’d start feeling soooo sorry for him as soon as I read that bit about him ‘a lonely unspeakable place of darkness and fear’. This man has serious problems and it’s not your job to sort him. His problems are impacting your life to a hideous degree and causing you both major problems - but, he has to sort himself out. You can’t.

Exactly.

Sometimes when we're mid-discussion (me and my husband), I wish you were all here with me to witness the conversation, so you could tell me whether I was overreacting and in fact my husband is a normal hurt person, or whether he is indeed all of the things you say he is! I'm sure you'd all come up with excellent retorts to his points too 

@billy1966 just the point about my daughter, if there's one single thing I won't stand from him it's any behaviour towards her that is not fair or kind. I'm absolutely not afraid of standing up to him on her behalf (although as mentioned he is a good dad so this has rarely been needed).

@ravenmum thank you for that link. I definitely meet a good chunk of those. I am now googling how to break co-dependency!

Lovely, stop bloody listening to him...listen to yourself...if you can find yourself underneath all his screeching and beseeching!

Yes @billy1966 I think the shower behaviour is excusably only in an emergency eg “what are you doing leaving our toddler in the garden with some fireworks and a box of matches?!!” - in any other situation I’d 100% tell my beloved to Fuck. Off.

@helplesshopeless

Sometimes when we're mid-discussion (me and my husband), I wish you were all here with me to witness the conversation, so you could tell me whether I was overreacting and in fact my husband is a normal hurt person, or whether he is indeed all of the things you say he is! I'm sure you'd all come up with excellent retorts to his points too 

@billy1966 just the point about my daughter, if there's one single thing I won't stand from him it's any behaviour towards her that is not fair or kind. I'm absolutely not afraid of standing up to him on her behalf (although as mentioned he is a good dad so this has rarely been needed).

@ravenmum thank you for that link. I definitely meet a good chunk of those. I am now googling how to break co-dependency!

Helplesshopeless please please please realise after reading all these comments that, if we were in the room with you, any one of us on this thread would tell you in every single conversation you have with your husband that you are NEVER overreacting !!

the other things he sees as him desperately trying to discuss and fix our marriage

But that is the point. He alone cannot fix your marriage. It is not in his power, because you are an autonomous being with your own thoughts and views. He cannot control, cajole, persuade, manipulate into it, if you do not want to be in it. He should not be locking you down practically to make sure you stay in it. Doesn’t matter how good a sad face he can do.

Desperately trying to discuss and fix your marriage through forced conversations is just another way of saying imposing his views and feelings on you. It doesn’t matter how desperate he feels, he doesn’t have the right to control your behaviour, erode your privacy and force you to listen to him when you are in the shower.

And it is not just about whether you stand for behaviour towards your DD that is not good or kind, it is that your DD as she grows up will witness behaviour towards her mother that is not good or kind, think that men have the right to barge into the shower and berate women and stop them going out; and that it is okay for men not to have any boundaries because they are so sad and desperate. Or do you think that somehow this behaviour towards you will stop and he will learn some boundaries before your DD is old enough to learn about abuse in PSE at school? He does have a while, to be true, but his progress is pretty dismal. He seems to be reading up to learn the opposite lessons.

I am so sorry but you don’t need us in the room with you. You just need to learn to trust your own thoughts, feelings and instincts. The ones that made you want to go and sit on a bench away from him when he had corralled you in the shower.

so you could tell me whether I was overreacting and in fact my husband is a normal hurt person

Sorry OP, everything you've said on this thread and the previous one shows that he's not a normal hurt person. A normal hurt person is someone who responds to hurt by doing their best to find resilience within themselves. As they adapt to whatever life throws at them, they grow and become stronger. They don't need to control/abuse others in a desperate attempt to feel bigger and stronger without putting the effort in to truly grow.

Besides, your husband's "hurt" began long before you ever hurt him!

I'm afraid he has a core of absolute mayhem that you can't do anything about. He could try doing something about it himself, but it would take years, possibly with the help of medication (anti-anxiety, anti-depressant...), and may have limited success. Meanwhile, having you in the picture is not going to help matters.

The reason you're not helping is that your entire relationship has grown around his need to control/abuse you to make himself feel better, and you have both convinced yourselves that making him feel better is the ultimate goal in life. It's not doing either of you any good, I'm afraid.

It sounds like the only way he will be 'happy' will be once you fulfil the role he has in his head as perfect wife including a list of job requirements in his commitment rules! You must quit your current job, never attend the office or work/social functions, in fact never leave the house unless pre approved. You must constantly be available for his gawking, affectionate pleasure and sex despite the fact he doesn't seem to respect any of the boundaries he agreed to. And these goalposts he has set will constantly keep moving to suit his latest worry to keep you under his control.

He might be working on his anger now, but you mentioned you asked his countless times to attend anger management previously to no avail. There still seems to be constant tension and daily bickering coming from him which is aimed to knock you down a peg into submission. Did he give you a timeline for when he will stop all of this for once and for all?

Can I ask what is your end goal if you stay with him? To grow old and be buried together? To divorce and move on when your daughter is an adult, a teen, a child or while she is too young to remember a life with two cohabiting parents who just exist together for the sake of the perceived happiness of your daughter. How many years can you reasonably expect to be tiptoe around each other?