Feel humiliated at what DH has said to others about me

[StrugglingAlong75]

I've name changed for this.

DH & I have been married 20+ years. We recently had a period of not getting on, during which he had an emotional affair with a work colleague. Their relationship fell apart after he told her he wanted to stay married to me and she turned on him fairly viciously, which was when I found out about it. They are no longer in contact and he has changed job.

He and I both want to stay married if we can make it work, and we are slowly working through the issues with some help from outside resources for couples in our situation.

During this period of us not getting on, he talked at length to numerous other people about how he was unhappy with our marriage. Think The Script. He did this with multiple friends and family members for months before he said anything to me about being unhappy in our relationship, and then continued to talk to them after he'd started talking to me about our relationship. Most of them took the view that he was a badly-treated victim, that I was in the wrong and that he should give me an ultimatum to change things and then leave if I didn't make those changes. Most of these friends/family knew he was friends with the work colleague but were not aware of the real nature of their relationship.

Then the EA fell apart, I found out about it and also found out that he'd been talking to others about our relationship. I asked him not to share with friends any problems he has with me that he's not shared with me first. As far as I'm aware, he's respected that, though I've not tried to "police" his interactions with others in any way. He now spends barely any time talking to friends and family compared with how much he did during the period of us not getting on (his choice - he says he doesn't feel the need to be constantly talking to others now, and has reverted to patterns of interaction that he had with people before our rough patch).

I am a very private person and find it really hard that all this information about our marital problems has been shared with other people. For various reasons I haven't yet had any contact since then with the people he talked to, but it is likely to happen sooner or later as some are family members, some are family friends.

My problem is that I feel utterly, utterly humiliated by the things he was discussing with them and the details of our relationship that he shared. I feel so humiliated that I can't face even being in the same place as these people, let alone talking to them, knowing all the negative things he said about me to them. How do I be polite and get on with these people, knowing they probably still see me as the problem and him as the victim in a dysfunctional marriage? I doubt very much that he's told them that actually he was having an emotional affair when he was moaning to them about my supposed lack of effort in the marriage. My guess is that they think I responded positively to his ultimatum of "change or I leave", and that that is why he's no longer complaining about me to them.

How do I move past these feelings of humiliation?

Edit for typo

No idea of your ages OP but your DH needs to grow up.
He's broken your trust and tried to smear you
I'm afraid I'd send him packing. He's not your friend.

He and I both want to stay married if we can make it work, and we are slowly working through the issues

That is a big 'if' in that sentence.
IF you can make it work - which involves him taking responsibility and telling the truth, to you and to everyone else.
If he is too cowardly and ashamed to do this, then the marriage is dead.

Have you told him you're feeling like this? That's the first step.

Could he write a letter or send a card starting - I have been a conplete arse/ very foolish, I blamed x for our marital problems and now realise they were as much mine - I'd met someone else and felt no reason to be loyal to X - understandably getting our marriage onto the right road now is difficult and I've belittled her and made her look like someone she isn't.
I hope you can accept my wanting to put things straight now and hope for support for us both in the future. I am sorry for messing everyone around,
DH

It's tricky OP, because you've said you're a very private person, but maybe he isn't. If I was having relationship problems, I'd hate it if my partner banned me from talking to my friends about it. Just because you don't like to confide in people, it doesn't mean he's not allowed to.

Obviously the emotional affair was wrong, so there's no doubt who the "baddy" was there. But we only have your side of the story for the other issues you had before that. And I think it's quite sad that he's now isolated himself from friends/family, presumably because he knows it's what you'd prefer.

I couldn't get past it, any of it. The fact hes spread lies about you would be it for regardless of anything else youve said. He was looking for sympathy and paint himself as a victim because he thought the EA would become much more and he could then justify leaving you. Sling him out . The man is a self serving piece of shit

I’m probably being daft but I still don’t really understand what happened. He told you he was having the EA, or you suspected, then he also just brought up out of nowhere that he’d been complaining about the state of your marriage to quite a lot of friends and relatives and came straight out and showed you the messages he’d sent them knowing you’ll have thought what he said was very biased or even untrue? Why would he do that?

What was your response at the time? Was he showing you and apologising or showing you and justifying the comments and/or the EA? You’d probably never have known if he hadn’t told you.

"Corianda · Today 15:08
Could he write a letter or send a card starting - I have been a conplete arse/ very foolish, I blamed x for our marital problems and now realise they were as much mine - I'd met someone else and felt no reason to be loyal to X - understandably getting our marriage onto the right road now is difficult and I've belittled her and made her look like someone she isn't.
I hope you can accept my wanting to put things straight now and hope for support for us both in the future. I am sorry for messing everyone around,
DH"

I think this is brilliant by @Corianda.

If he won't agree to put things straight with family and friends, that's really problematic. I'm not saying he shouldn't have talked to anyone but something very private like this should have a very limited audience whereas it sounds like he's thrown you under a bus with a large number of passengers on it.

He’s betrayed you twice over - with the EA woman and with the destruction of your reputation with his friends and family, who all agreed with him that you are awful and he’s a saint for sticking with you. They all sound awful and I’m not sure why you want to tie yourself to them for the rest of your life.

He has been 'economical' with the truth when he has spoken to other people about your marriage and when he has told you how those people reacted. You know this. He has probably interpreted non-committal responses as support and conveniently forgotten those who told him he was in the wrong. You can either avoid everyone he might have spoken to or hold your head up and remind yourself that you know the truth. If anyone makes any comment about your marriage have a stock response ready, something like "There's two sides to every story but I'm not discussing my private life" or "That is not what actually happened but I'm not discussing my private life".

Then he’s trying to tell you he wants to leave…

He and I both want to stay married if we can make it work.

Based on what you've posted I doubt if you can make it work. It sounds like you're just postponing the inevitable.

I actually think this is a terrible idea. If someone didn't think he was abused by you before, they sure will after receiving this letter, which has the vibe of being written under threat.

In your shoes, and it's very easy for me to say from my armchair, I would want him to set the record straight. Otherwise he's done some fairly deep damage there, esp with his family

Do not do this OP. It’s a terrible idea. It makes it sound as if you are forcing him to write this and it just makes it so so much worse.

I could have written this post, sending you a hug!

My Ex done this with our friends and family and had the ear of a woman he worked with, which in my opinion turned into an emotional affair... Lunches and meet ups that i knew nothing about! He then left me, and low and behold this woman become a friend who he paraded around in front of family, friends and our kids! He tried to get back with me, but he made me feel sick, knowing how he had talked about me and when I asked if he had slept with her he couldn't look me in the eye.

I couldn't move past it, so I'm very one sided! IMO he doesn't deserve a second chance! If you're such a bad person, why does he still want to be with you? He isn't talking to them friends and family because he knows that he was wrong and he is embarrassed!! I've not felt the need to broadcast his wrong doings, but I relish in the times that people say that it's a shame that we couldn't work it out and I tell them that he was having an EA and I couldn't get back with him when he asked me.... The look on their faces is priceless!

That's not a neutral act - showing you those messages is a naked power play on his part. Not only has he had an EA, but he's openly sought to humiliate and isolate you from friends and family.

I know that it's pointless to advise that you have nothing to be ashamed about because you must have permission to feel as you do. My concern is that he's deliberately told you this and shown you what they've said about you to further grind you down.

I'm not sure he's a good man OP? Do you have friends that you can talk to? It may be that instead of your feelings of humiliation, you could be exploring justifiable fury about how he has - and continues - to manipulate and treat you?

So his close friends have his back no matter what. For the EA, the state of his marriage (all your fault) etc….

I dint want to say but what happens here is the same thing that happens on MN.
people get a vague idea of what’s going on, are siding with one party (in this case him) and just pile on.

As you’ve said you want to try and make this work, I would

1- make this issue part if the work you’re doing as a couple. I’m hoping this means you’re seeing a (good) counsellor but he needs to 1- appreciate the hurt he has caused, 2- take responsibility to put things right and correct people as he goes along.
2- expect him to correct things. So if a friend makes a comment about how hard things are to say ‘yay. Well I didn’t make things easy with the EA either. I’ve being a twat really’
3- I would avoid seeing friends, esp his for the moment. Family is trickier but again, him correcting, and just highlighting you’re BOTH working through things will make a big difference. If it’s too much, you dint go and let him explain….
4- if possible, I’d have counselling on your own. The problems in the marriage will be linked to both of you. But only him had an EA and looked for positive reinforcement (that you were awful etc…) from other people. I think you need to have a think about how everything sits for you and whether you can move past that.

I couldn't move on from this. I would never feel emotionally safe again. I wonder if that is what you're also feeling but it's easier to focus on the embarrassment aspect of it?

I don’t understand why you would want to stay married to this man @StrugglingAlong75

He had an affair and has also betrayed you in so many different ways. You cannot rely on him to be honest or respectful towards you in the future (no matter how sorry he is right now). He’s a liar and a cheat who is gaslighting everyone into believing that he is the victim. He’s absolute scum.

I have been where you are. My behaviour was terrible, but my my ExDH did the full script to all of our friends too, completely 'forgetting' to mention his own historic affair, porn addiction and lead role in the relationship breakdown, nor that I was moving heaven and earth to work on myself and the relationship and stay married. Lots of friends believed him and I was humiliated. My MIL believed him, and hasn't spoken to me since. I am such a private person that I decided to weather the humiliation rather than admit the truth at the time. After doing some work together, he admitted what he'd said to people, apologised to me, and told me that he'd corrected everyone that he'd spoke to, told them he'd got it wrong. I now don't believe this was the case.

You'd notice I said ExDH, because he left me not long afterwards for the next affair with the woman naive enough to believe him and his tales. Lots of people then realised what had really happened, but the damage to friendships was done. I really hope this doesn't happen to you, but sadly I suspect it will. When you take zero accountability for your role in a relationship breakdown you are destined to repeat the same mistakes.

But this year I found my anger and it's been liberating. I was protecting him out of some misplaced loyalty, shame, fear, all sorts of things that were not mine to carry. He abused that trust I had in him, he weaponised it, and I honestly cannot believe that I let him get away with it for so long. So I would suggest you work out the truth you're happy to share, think of it like a press release, and then start talking to people you trust at appropriate moments about the full story, including his role. Own your story and share his. If he's not happy to have that shared publicly then you have your answer about who he really thinks is to blame, and you can decide what to do next. You may find this process excruciating, but I can promise you that eventually you'll be very glad you've done it.

"He now spends barely any time talking to friends and family compared with how much he did during the period of us not getting on (his choice - he says he doesn't feel the need to be constantly talking to others now, and has reverted to patterns of interaction that he had with people before our rough patch)."

Sounds like he's done a crapton of emotional flytipping in their back gardens, then fucked off without clearing it up. Nice.

I suspect it was a physical affair, a woman wouldnt hit the roof over flirting sorry op i think your in denial hes been laying the ground work for you to be made out the bad guy then chicken out he decided he didnt want to throw a bomb in his life. Serisously you need to ltb.

Do you really think it's brilliant? How would you feel if you received such a letter? Wouldn't you find it really odd?
It's giving written under duress vibes.

Totally agree, it will put the op in absolutely terrible light.