DH extreme reaction to my affair

[affairdilemma]

Looking for advice as am tying myself up in knots over this.

DH and I have been in the doldrums for some time, he basically completely checked out when we had kids (we have 2 under 5). Don’t want to go into it too much as it’s not the point of this thread but short version is I work ft, he has a very part time job (usually about 5 hours a week, with the odd week 2-3 times a year of more), we have full time childcare in place and I do everything for the kids. We started fighting about that, he considered it fair as he was still funding the household 50% so it was his time to do with as his pleased, we needed to split weekend load 50/50 (lots of fights about petty stuff like me going to get a haircut AND go to the gym on the weekend and him going mad because he didn’t have a break that day and me pointing out he has a break 5 days a week which he didn’t accept). Anyway I felt completely neglected and pressured in the marriage and ended up having an affair of sorts - only met 3 times and kissed but it was very intense emotionally and happened over the course of a year.

Turned out that DH had been suspicious of me for a long time and was going through my emails etc. After I came back from the third meet-up he caught me (read everything including my diary) and went MAD. He went and burnt the clothes I was wearing when I met the om, verbally threatened me (said he’d smash my face into the wall etc) and on one occasion assaulted me sexually. It went on for about 5 days and a lot happened in the middle of the night. I was frightened and on the brink of thinking about leaving, police etc when he left for a week for a well timed work trip. While he was away he visited the OM and I think threatened him (I don’t know, the OM cut all contact after that meeting and I’ve never heard from him again).

When he came back he was more normal, not as aggressive anymore. We have been working to repair our marriage over the last 6 months and he has been in individual therapy as he now acknowledges the core issues of his selfishness and neglect of me and affair being a symptom of that. (Before anyone jumps on me, OBVIOUSLY in parallel I hugely regret the affair and the hurt I have caused and have taken responsibility and am doing my own work on this.)

But I am struggling with getting past his behaviour in the immediate aftermath of discovery. He was aggressive and violent and frightening. His view is that “people do crazy things when they find out about affairs” and is dismissive of it as in his view he was in so much emotional pain he went crazy. And of course he is sorry but he puts it down to just the emotion of the immediate chaos of discovery. Which I understand. BUT. I am struggling with accepting behaviour that, in any other circumstance, would be an absolute deal breaker for me.

what do I do? I want to get over it but I feel in a real dilemma and it’s blocking us moving forward.

Why are you punishing yourself?

You think you some how deserve to be terrorised and sexually assaulted by this selfish bastartd?

Your therapist is shit.

Your children deserve a better father than this in their home punishing their mother.

You have absolutely no reason to stay.

It's certainly not in your childrens best interests.

If you stay with him, one day your children will be witness to his behaviour, I guarantee it. Don't think he has 'changed' this is an underlying g trait of his that will be shown again.

Just end the relationship! It's clearly never going to work and no amount of therapy is going to help.
It will be hard OP, but as your already doing a hella lot for your child, your still miserable, I do believe the best thing I can do is start a fresh xxx

No couples therapist would be counselling you as a couple if it had been disclosed that he had sexually assaulted you.

What would you want your children to do if they ever found themselves in your situation?
It does sound like you and your husband are taking all the right steps to make changes after you both did very wrong but I’m unsure if those changes are 100% possible and/or worth it.
Take care.

There's no excuse for violence, but there's no excuse for cheating either.
You're both in the wrong, time to split up and be glad nothing damaging in the long-term happened.

you were wrong for cheating 100% but that doesn't justify his actions, they are both separate issues, his extreme anger, and SA is abhorrent and whos to say it would never happen again should you guys go through a tough patch or you do something that he doesn't like, best off out of there

There is no such thing as the right excuse for physical abuse and sexual abuse.
DO NOT stay in a marriage where this has happened, the sexual abuse is diabolical and you staying is only going to normalise this to your kids.
Leave. For God's sake. Leave

No sympathy, you should have left a long time ago
You have been playing him for a fool
I do not condone violence - it should never have come to that
Try being honest in future

He has shown no remorse for checking out either.

Bin the lot off. Split as amicably as possible and start afresh. It was shit enough to have an affair but after he has abused you horrifically, for some reason you want to stay with him? No. One of you has to be the sensible adult in all of this and it won't be him and it won't be your child. Grow a set and do the sensible thing.

what an awful relationship. Disgusting people !

Well if I had caught my husband cheating I would have slapped him so.....

(Obviously don't at all condone sexual assault)

But at the end of the day you did have an affair and what you did was morally reprehensible

Also what's his job if he manages to pay half the bills and only work 5 hours a week??

If nothing like that happened before, or has happened after, then I would say you either both need to forgive and move on, or split up.
One side harbouring resentment won’t work.

Please don’t urge a woman to forgive an abusive and violent man who sexually assaulted her.

Your affair was wrong, let me say that right now. Turning outside a marriage to solve problems inside a marriage is never a solution and is always, ALWAYS wrong. If a marriage is in so much trouble that a person 'needs' to cheat then it's time to call it a day.

What you did was morally wrong. BUT, what he did was criminal. And I mean that in every sense of the word. And you are letting him get away with it. No amount of counseling, no number of apologies or tears will ever make up for it. Ever. You need to realize that, despite what he may say, he has justified it in his mind. To him it's 'wrong but justifiable'. And that means that he thinks that as long as he apologizes afterwards all will be well. And the reason his behaviour is, as you say, stuck in your head is because once a person gets away with criminal behaviour it's that much easier to resort to the next time there's a situation in which they aren't getting their way. What that means is you are waiting for 'next time'. And you will always be waiting for 'next time' no matter how much counseling you have.

"You teach people how to treat you" is very true and you have taught him that he can get away with criminal behaviour against you if he puts on the tears and the remorse. After all, 'it's all your fault' and thus his behaviour was 'wrong but justifiable', remember?

His trust in you has been shattered due to your affair. Your trust in him has been shattered due to his criminal behaviour. Without trust there is no going back. It's like a broken plate. You can glue it together but the crack will always be visible and the plate will never be what it was. Better to throw that broken plate away and get a different one.

This.

Truly alarmed at the posters holding the OP responsible for his actions, because she kissed another man outside of their marriage three times.

I’m not condoning that, but are there people on here so triggered by that that they believe a woman deserves to be violently and sexually assaulted by her husband? A husband who was already treating her appallingly?

Well this has to be the only time I've ever not had any judgement for someone starting affair. I'm willing to bet he was abusive before your affair too.

Absolutely no excuses for his behaviour at all. Contact refuge and Womens Aid for advice on leaving safely (refuge have more information about this, escape plans etc).

You absolutely need to get as far away from him as possible. Also look at getting an emergency non molestation / restraining order with powers of arrest (having powers of arrest is important as it means police can enforcement it).

Yes.

I get abused every time I say this on here, accused of being an OW, of having no morals, being disgusting, etc etc. But it's just true that not all affairs are the same. Sometimes, they're the act of a selfish nasty tail chaser who couldn't care about anyone or anything but themselves. And sometimes, they're like this. They are never right, but they aren't always the worst thing that's been done in the marriage and sometimes they're very understandable. It really all depends.

I'd leave. Regardless of you kissing another man which I'm sure you know is wrong, he sounds vile OP. No excuse for violence in any way shape or form. Get out while you can for christ sake! 😩

He raped you as punishment and then didn't even have the guts to own up to it.

What is it you think will make you get over that and find it ok?

What happens in the future when he's in a rage about something?

What will you do if something happens and you're worried he might misunderstand and get extremely angry?

You can say this was a one-off, but that's not a true statement, because you've no way of predicting the future.

He may never have done it before, but you're currently living with the fear that you never make him so angry again. He's not living with any fear of you smashing his face in or raping him as punishment.

People in real life don't tend to say "Leave him" because it's a strong statement. Online it's possible to be more honest because we're not sitting in front of you looking into your eyes and telling you what we think you should do. Doesn't mean that in real life people think that you should be with him though. Therapists in particular won't tell you that, because it's part of their job not to tell you what to do. The fact that the lawyers told you to make a note/file (whatever it's called) and also did so is them indicating it's significant. A lawyer will not offer you relationship advice either. And friends/family don't want to be the one who tells you to leave him he's a dick, and then have you stay and it be awkward.

You also don't need permission from any of them to leave. What you need is permission from yourself to not have to live with the niggling fear of getting him really angry. And you need to forgive yourself for having an emotional affair. Right now it's being held over you (also by yourself) to excuse DH's behaviour. There isn't an excuse for his behaviour.

The OP is trying to make changes. Her husband sounds like he’s using the therapy as an excuse to look for more evidence - hacking into her therapy journal doesn’t exactly scream commitment to change for the better.

Have you told your therapist, friends and family that he sexually assaulted you?

Because if so, and nobody has told you to leave him, you need to surround yourself with better people. Both professionally and personally

There are two things that stand out for me, OP. One is that the OM, despite being concerned for your safety, did not contact you again after your husband saw him. What on earth did he do to this man to bring about that result? He's gaslit you about his assault on you, but he also did something terrifying enough that this man will no longer have anything to do with you. You might be twisting and turning to justify what happened to you, but what do you think about that?

The other is why you didn't leave before the affair. Because I suspect that something was going on beforehand that made you think cheating was a better way out than just leaving. People don't have to be violent for you to fear that on some level, they are quite capable of it. Honestly, the relationship was dead in the water before your affair and his assault. Why you think it can now be revivified is beyond me. I would be extracting myself. Very carefully.

The trouble is that because you’ve had an affair it makes things complicated. It means that there’s always some guilt and some element of doubt in your mind that you are at fault and should go out of your way to make amends. This usually only applies to women who’ve had affairs.

I was in a similar situation (but without the sexual assault) and I let my ex get away with having far more money in our divorce than he would have had if I’d seen a solicitor. I’ve spent fifteen years renting while he got to not only buy a house for himself, but waste thousands on fancy holidays while I struggled along with two autistic children, becoming more and more ill.

That was my punishment. Your DH sounds a lot worse than my exH. Of course you were going to fall for someone else - that’s just you being human. Don’t let any guilt affect your decisions.