He isn't an angry alien because you haven't consistently said no to him. My H is only a sulky, ranty, unattractive baby when he isn't getting what he wants, which is my compliance. I am capable of compromise and compassion, but not at the expense of my self respect. When I stand my ground, he turns into the type of angry alien you're talking about. Now your H may be different, but how will you ever know?
The one thing I've learned over the past year or so is that love means accepting someone's no - and being loved means experiencing someone accepting yours. It's the fundamental truth of boundaries.
Say no, calmly and consistently, and see what happens. No to R talks, no to nursing him through whatever he feels like calling his cheating, no to proving you're not all the things he claims he is worried you are, no to accepting the fall out from his infidelity, no to taking the blame for his actions and no to keeping his filthy little affair a secret.
He'll either start treating you with respect or you will find it extremely easy to divorce him.
How do you stop thinking of him and OW together because it fills you with white hot rage you ask? YOU DO THINK ABOUT IT! I want you to think about it! I want you to be angry as h-ll about this! Heck, I am angry about it and Ive never even met him! May, this man has been jerking you around for soooo long -- jerking you all over the place and torturing you -- please, get angry! Because it is real and it is really happening and you could put a planet between them and it would still be real. The love he feels for her is all you need to know. It doesn't matter how close you think he is to you because he lives at home and plays house, or how far away she is, how often they talk, text, engage in phone s-x or s-x in real life, or any tangible detail. All those details don't matter. What matters is that he is thinking of her, he is wanting her, and therefore he is WITH her. She is the one. I am sorry that hurts, but that is the truth and it has been the truth for many years. In his mind and in his heart this is his truth and that is really all that matters. She is the one.
May, I feel like we are friends even tho I don't know you. And not just because we are in the scorned wives club. I have read so many of your words. You are intelligent, open-minded and forgiving. Part of the problem with that is you are spending a tremendous amount of time trying to understand something that is not to be understood. You do this here on the boards and you do this with him any time you engage in conversation with him. All of this is having the opposite effect and is keeping you more attached to him. Remember the DB basics? They are counter intuitive. You let them go to get them back. You only focus on yourself without them. It is that simple. You have never done that. You have put an infinite amount of energy into understanding this, into him/his process and then you explain/rationalize/justify. And round and round you spin.
I think you really need to keep it simple. You are not together, he is with her and so now you focus on you. The only energy worth expending is on yourself and your Rs with your kids. He and only he f-d up your M and family and that is for him to own. On his own. Everytime you engage in convo with him you take ownership and absolve him of some. It hurts. It is terrrble. And you should be angry! Once you allow some anger in, I think you can begin to face your reality. It wont be easy to move on as single mom and head of household, but you can do it. You will rock at it! Whatever choices he makes with himself and the kids is his to own now. I would not even worry about that now. ... It is time to let him go and move forward. There is a beautiful life ahead once you make this leap!
Blu
“Forgiveness liberates the soul. It removes fear. That is why it is such a powerful weapon.” – Nelson Mandela
Why on earth would you do a post-D budget for him?!
1. Out of guilt? 2. So he gives you permission to D? 3. To reassure him?
I mostly did it to reassure myself that I wasn't asking for anything unfair. I think if we were going to do a usual D here, the default would be we split the kids 50-50 and I would get no child support since we make basically the same amount of money. In that case I couldn't afford the mortgage on this house on my own, even if I could borrow the money to buy him out. His income is more variable than mine so I had been worried back in Dec/Jan that if we split and had 50-50 physical custody, I would actually have to pay HIM because he had a bad year last year if we were using our 2019 tax returns as the standard. (That idea does enrage me and I think I would keep dragging this out out of pettiness for that reason alone... but the attorney said what matters is current monthly income, not last year's tax returns.) He is doing way better this year with solid clients and so is now making more than me, so he would be just fine and able to save more than I could if he gets an apartment even with the financial arrangement I'm proposing. I guess I just wanted to know I wasn't being unreasonable. It wasn't hard to do since we have (he actually made) a very detailed family budget, so easy to split in half and work in the differences that D would make once I did it for myself.
I guess I would possibly show it to him just to demonstrate that I would be fine on my own. He so wants D to be a team sport-- I like how you put that. He wants me to be OK with this and plan out the next evolution of our R together. I guess that is a big thing I'm fighting against right now, in that I don't want that. Though I'm also pulled by the idea that if this is happening anyway, is this a way to ensure I get the best deal possible for myself and my kids? But that isn't where or who I am, at least not at this moment. I think I need to sit with it more. I at least feel good that I did the budget and mapped it all out, so that is no longer a fear of uncertainty (though of course there are multiple levels of uncertainty in there given that I can only control one half of this equation).
Originally Posted by scout12
But I just don’t see you getting anywhere with these talks. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results. He says his lines, you say yours, and the stalemate continues. That’s how it looks from the outside. I’m here shaking my head reading the same convo over and over.
YES. True. I think about it sometimes when I'm typing it all out and shake my head at myself too. It is a weird compulsion and totally not DBing.
Originally Posted by scout12
If you’ve got YOUR budget figured out and you can swing it - why not look for your own place? A separate living situation is a long way from a legal D. It leaves the door open for R if that’s what you want. Lots of people do temporary separations. The kids will be okay. You can make it exciting for them. They WILL be okay, I promise.
Honestly, the best decision is neither of your options. It’s to say “I’m moving out”. I also believe this is your one and only chance at reconciliation. Moving out doesn’t mean D or even S. You will need to have that talk about finances and custody, but there’s no point unless you’ve made the decision to leave, IMHO.
The attorney strongly recommended against me moving out both for the house and child custody reasons and I really, really don't want to do it. He is considering MO himself now which is better than him moving to the basement in my opinion.
On the fighting for the house thing-- it is a 100% empty threat and I'm not worried about it at all. It came up again at some point over the weekend. I looked him in the eye just like you suggested and said ok. Do it. He backed down immediately (haha and then shifted into the self-pity mode). If I think about it in the narcissist self-pity/charm/rage channels, like Blu wrote on Alison's thread, my H is absolutely self pity-charm-self pity. And the funny thing is that anger used to be his go-to. Now it doesn't work with me at all. In fact it steels and fuels me for detachment. Maybe he has seen that doesn't work anymore but the charm and self-pity certainly still do so he's leaning there now. I have to get to a point where those don't work either. Just easier said than done.
Me (46) H (42) M:14 T:18, D9 & D11 4/19 - 12/19: series of escalating BDs 9/20 - present: R and piecing
First I wanted to respond to the SSM. I think you have given it enough mental space. It happened. You have taken responsibility and you understand your motivations. But no amount of thinking is going to make him understand your motivations. He has to want to forgive you but he can't do that because doing that so would lay bare his own faults. Stop feeding him and stop torturing yourself.
I think I'm making baby steps of progress on this. I can't change the past. We had some go-rounds this weekend where he varied from "WHY didn't you have this revelation before" to "maybe the A had to happen in order for you to have enough motivation to change." I've been sitting in the latter spot, because it is a part of my pie-in-the-sky dream narrative that this all had to happen in order for us to build a better R on both of our sides. Now.... I'm trying to let that fantasy go. I see him just wanting to lean so much of the blame onto me for "causing the conditions" that put him in a place to cheat. Like he doesn't have his own agency in any of this. But you're absolutely right in that I've done my work on this, and there is nothing for me to do on his side of the equation. He will be motivated to want to understand and forgive, or he won't. (WHY can I say this here and know it to be true 100% but then in the moment I simply can't help myself and need to argue with him? I think I'm realizing (Alison has been especially helpful here) that maybe there is more truth to his controlling narrative than I wanted to believe. That I *did* use tiny little manipulations and actions and words to get him to do what I wanted. Letting go of those behaviors and compunctions of my own is hard, but at least I'm starting to see them. I think again, I need to slow down and remember I'm going to be OK no matter what happens.)
Originally Posted by FlySolo
The other thing I would suggest is to stop thinking about the future. Right now all you need to do is get on with today. What is May doing today which is just for May. Do something that makes today special, not grand spectacular special, just special. Go for a run or call a friend and see about meeting in the park and going for a long walk, find a new recipe and bake a cake/special dinner with the kids.
Everything else can wait.
I can do this. Also I got eight hours of sleep last night which makes such a big difference for me. My pattern has been (after the initial crisis when I can barely sleep at all) to get one good night and one bad night... So I think I'll try some extra sleep measures tonight, like a warm bath and OTC meds or something. Chose a movie to watch with the kids, been marinating some fish I bought at the market (which was fun in and of itself since H has been doing the shopping and I really enjoyed just getting out of the house). Yoga. Thanks, FS. x
Me (46) H (42) M:14 T:18, D9 & D11 4/19 - 12/19: series of escalating BDs 9/20 - present: R and piecing
Say no, calmly and consistently, and see what happens. No to R talks, no to nursing him through whatever he feels like calling his cheating, no to proving you're not all the things he claims he is worried you are, no to accepting the fall out from his infidelity, no to taking the blame for his actions and no to keeping his filthy little affair a secret.
He'll either start treating you with respect or you will find it extremely easy to divorce him.
Alison, this is great advice. I have my next IC appointment tomorrow and maybe I can work with her more on why I am having trouble setting and maintaining these boundaries.
Progress for today: we managed to stop talking about the R before dinner yesterday and then didn't talk about anything meaningful after the kids went to bed. This morning he came up from working and gave me a hug. He asked me how I was doing and I said fine. He said he wasn't. I said let's take a break from talking about this, okay? You know what I think and I know what you think and it doesn't do us any good to keep going around and around on this. He said, I've been doing this for the past two years. I said OK. Well *I* need a break from this. And he said, yes, that is totally fair, I get it. So, we will see if he holds to that or not. For me, I need to believe how important this break is for me and take this space to focus on me, and simply stop engaging whether or not he is able to stop himself.
Originally Posted by BluWave
How do you stop thinking of him and OW together because it fills you with white hot rage you ask? YOU DO THINK ABOUT IT! I want you to think about it! I want you to be angry as h-ll about this! Heck, I am angry about it and Ive never even met him! May, this man has been jerking you around for soooo long -- jerking you all over the place and torturing you -- please, get angry! Because it is real and it is really happening and you could put a planet between them and it would still be real. The love he feels for her is all you need to know. It doesn't matter how close you think he is to you because he lives at home and plays house, or how far away she is, how often they talk, text, engage in phone s-x or s-x in real life, or any tangible detail. All those details don't matter. What matters is that he is thinking of her, he is wanting her, and therefore he is WITH her. She is the one. I am sorry that hurts, but that is the truth and it has been the truth for many years. In his mind and in his heart this is his truth and that is really all that matters. She is the one.
Last Sunday I was able to do this and feel the anger and believe him and it really helped in detaching. I *know* I could do this if he wasn't living here. I need to figure out a path to doing this without him necessarily being out of the house because I have no control over that at the moment.
Originally Posted by BluWave
May, I feel like we are friends even tho I don't know you. And not just because we are in the scorned wives club. I have read so many of your words. You are intelligent, open-minded and forgiving. Part of the problem with that is you are spending a tremendous amount of time trying to understand something that is not to be understood. You do this here on the boards and you do this with him any time you engage in conversation with him. All of this is having the opposite effect and is keeping you more attached to him. Remember the DB basics? They are counter intuitive. You let them go to get them back. You only focus on yourself without them. It is that simple. You have never done that. You have put an infinite amount of energy into understanding this, into him/his process and then you explain/rationalize/justify. And round and round you spin.
I feel like we are friends too-- you have been so generous and kind and helpful through all of this. I feel this connection with so many of you here. I truly don't know where I'd be without the enormous compassion of people from around the world who are so giving of their time and energy to help me, this complete stranger. It is actually overwhelming when you think about it.
The trying to understand that which is not to be understood is sitting with me. Ugh. I have to dissect EVERYTHING. And I think maybe what I'm trying for subconsciously in all these talks is to convince myself that it will never work with him, he doesn't have the internal strength or motivation or vision or whatever to *see* what I can see. Like I have to understand the workings of his mind and anticipate what he is going to do in order to make my own best move next. I need to let all that go and just decide what is best for myself no matter what. And detaching-- stop letting his actions or words affect my emotions.
My narrative to myself has been his mind is clouded with AP and once she is gone and the 'affair fog' clears he'll be back. But truly believing him, that she is his one true love, he is already with her in every meaningful way, she is the one for him. That does hurt. Though strangely that makes me feel more sad than angry. The anger surfaces more with the trappings and anything to do with the children.
Originally Posted by BluWave
I think you really need to keep it simple. You are not together, he is with her and so now you focus on you. The only energy worth expending is on yourself and your Rs with your kids. He and only he f-d up your M and family and that is for him to own. On his own. Every time you engage in convo with him you take ownership and absolve him of some. It hurts. It is terrible. And you should be angry! Once you allow some anger in, I think you can begin to face your reality. It wont be easy to move on as single mom and head of household, but you can do it. You will rock at it! Whatever choices he makes with himself and the kids is his to own now. I would not even worry about that now. ... It is time to let him go and move forward. There is a beautiful life ahead once you make this leap!
The week after I found out he had reconnected with AP, I sat through this compassion training program which included a loving kindness meditation practice. There was one section where you had to envision all suffering in the world and breathe it in, transform it inside of you, and breathe out compassion and loving kindness. This was totally overwhelming for me, just the idea of knowing how I am suffering right now and imagining exponential suffering all over the world since mine is not really that big a deal in the grand scheme, and then the horror of breathing that inside my body.
But when I think about it that is what I have been doing for H, or trying to do. As much as he is responsible for his own actions and is now partially living the consequences of his own actions-- he is suffering. I see it and I feel it and even with all that he's done I still have love for him in my heart, and my instinct is to do what I can to help ease his pain. I think I would do that for anyone if it were within my power. I have so rarely had the real anger and motivation to sustain turning that off that it keeps slipping through my grasp and I go back to the status quo. Scout said this is going to drain me dry. For my own good I need to maintain and sustain a wall and stop taking in his problems. Mine are big enough! This is just an uncomfortable place for me. I guess that discomfort promotes growth, right... I need to go through this valley in order to get to the other side. Work I need to do on myself.
Me (46) H (42) M:14 T:18, D9 & D11 4/19 - 12/19: series of escalating BDs 9/20 - present: R and piecing
I guess I just wanted to know I wasn't being unreasonable.
Unreasonable?! Your H is lucky you aren't taking him to the cleaners. I guarantee that he is living in fear of your anger. You hold his reputation, his finances, his relationship with his children in your hands. With a few well-chosen actions, you could bring him to his knees. He knows this and he's scared. Scared people are not reasonable. Reason on your part is vulnerability and I'd reconsider showing your H any weakness that he could use to his advantage.
He doesn't have to be a malignant narc to do that, btw. We usually try to fit people into categories, but most people have a mixture of problems. Your H is passive-aggressive, avoidant, and manipulative, but he doesn’t seem to go out of his way to hurt people. He just does what he wants without caring about others. I know you keep saying that he does care, but the mountain of evidence suggests otherwise.
Unfortunately, the results of carelessness are just as painful as deliberate action. He has managed to destroy his own life as well as yours, and he’s in pain too. His pain, however, is based on how the consequences are affecting him, or how they are going to affect him if you get angry enough. He is willing to inflict endless pain on you to avoid facing the ugliness of his own character. You can't force him to face it. Don't do his emotional labour for him!
Any effort spent trying to reason with anyone who is ego-driven is a waste of time. Ignore him and act in your own self-interest. Act like your H for once! It's feels wrong because it is wrong. It's not a healthy way to live long-term, but it's what you need to embrace to achieve action at this crucial point in time. Ignorance and indifference is the easiest way to neutralise his ego-driven nonsense.
Thanks, Scout. I think you’re totally correct in that it really doesn’t matter if his behaviors are driven by sociopathy or carelessness or hurt, at this point. It isn’t like he accidentally stepped on my toe. He methodically lies and cheated for two years, said he was ending it and recommitting to the M but was too weak and selfish to actually follow through.
Managed 24 hours without R talks at all. He has gone to bed early the last couple of nights I think to avoid talking. Still sleeping in our bed.
He got home from some errands today and I was filled with anger at him. I could barely look at him. I realized that these feelings were what started kicking off the R talks over the weekend— I was just so angry and hurt and wanted to lash out at him. This time I took some deep breaths and was able to restrain myself. (He was like, what are you doing? Are you ok? I said yes I’m fine, just doing some deep breathing. And didn’t explain myself more.) I made a couple of slightly dark jokes/comments (warned him there were bones in the fish I made for dinner and said be careful... or just choke on them... he kind of laughed and said he didn’t know if I was serious. I didn’t say anything.) but after dinner both girls cuddled with me on the couch and we watched a very silly movie all together (h by himself on the other side of the couch— a girl will go over to him if he asks for one but he hasn’t done that the last few days, just let me have them both) and I just breathed them in and finally relaxed.
I think restraining myself from these R talks is a good thing but hard. And difficult to sit in my anger without wanting to lash out at him. Any thoughts? Also when he says he is MO do I need to be calm or at some point do I get to tell him what a f-up he is?
Me (46) H (42) M:14 T:18, D9 & D11 4/19 - 12/19: series of escalating BDs 9/20 - present: R and piecing
When I was really really really angry last weekend, I thought about all the things I wanted to do with my anger, and why I wanted to do them, and how I'd acted the other times I'd been angry in the past, and what I'd wanted to achieve by what I'd done, and where it had got me. It gave me a real moment of clarity - to sit with being angry and think it through like that, rather than acting on it. It was extremely difficult and just because I managed it last weekend I don't imagine I will always manage it: I'm not lecturing you from a position of enlightenment here, just sharing some experience.
So - I wanted to really really hurt him. Shout at him or give him some home truths or destroy his stuff or kick him out or humiliate him in some way. I dug under that. Why did I want to hurt him? So he'd know what being hurt felt like. So I wouldn't feel powerless. So he'd stop hurting me.
What else?
I wanted to change him. I wanted to hurt him or lash out at him in some way so he'd behave differently. Okay. And how would that work for me? Say it worked and he started communicating like an adult and being more honest and responsible for himself and affectionate and giving with me? I'd always know, wouldn't I, that I scared him into it - that he was doing it, in some very real way, to avoid my anger.
And I realised that just as you can't 'nice' someone into forgiving you or loving you or being kind to you or choosing you, you can't 'anger' them into it either.
But I was still angry.
And I started to imagine that anger as a very beautiful bear that would protect me - a bear with endless energy that was always, always on my side. A bear that was saying, pretty loudly, 'No way! Enough!'
I'd been wasting my lovely bear's precious energy on changing someone else, which does not work. Laws of physics. We might as well hammer ourselves against gravity or the laws of motion. Or I'd been throttling my lovely bear into silence with guilt and shame. When I just listened to this bear, what she was saying was 'no, this is enough. More than enough. Get out of this. Right now.'
And from then on, I was very clear and calm and it was pretty easy, in the minor skirmishes and also in the big preparing-my-finances stakes - to take immediate and clear action that was about using that precious and hard won energy to protect myself and to get myself into a good place.
I don't know what the end of my story is. But I do know I am not where I was, and because I am not where I was, my marriage cannot be where it was. It is possible for me to single handedly change the dynamic because I simply will not participate at all - not one tiny bit - in the old one. The status quo is dead because I killed it and I killed it because I had absolutely had enough.
I am sure there will be backsliding. And my situation is not your situation and I am not presuming to be an expert here that can tell you what to do. I don't think I could have reached this place one second earlier than I did. I think I had to exhaust all my other strategies of acting the victim, pacifying him, playing dumb, swallowing my anger, punishing myself with guilt, hiding behind a sense of superiority and contempt, self pity - all of that I had to do whole heartedly for bloody months until they just Weren't Enough. But you asked about anger, so perhaps my recent experience with it might be helpful for you.
When you sit in your anger, what does it say to you?
Prepare yourself for the fact that you're unlikely to ever get any remorse or any type of apology.
You are right that it [censored], and I'm glad you're angry about it, that's part of processing all of this. Allow yourself to feel all of it and don't worry about it for a minute.
Realistically someone having an affair like this is usually a "last straw" versus a spur of the moment decision. In most relationships needs don't get met, resentments build up, and just pile up over time. When you're living in the same space there's a lot of motivation to compromise and keep the peace, but usually under the surface there's stuff brewing that isn't getting discussed, usually because both people convince themselves that it's just a temporary issue and will go away on its own.
An affair is escapism for sure, and its usually the result of a chance opportunity, or a thousand micro-escalations that happened without any forethought. What it's really a symptom of, however, is conflict avoidance.
For a relationship to be successful both people need to be willing to blow it up on occasion, argue it out and be prepared to walk if a compromise can't be reached. That takes a lot of strength and self-confidence. For more often people stuff it down and pave over it and eventually you're sitting on a volcano that's ready to blow.
Point is, regardless of the affair one or both of you weren't happy. Usually its just a matter of timing in terms of who pulls the rip cord first.
That's why it's now important to separate the desire for the person, from the desire for resumption of control, stability, and positive validation. Your brain is telling you that getting H back will restore these things, but it won't.
So ask yourself, what do you want and why do you want it?
Allison, your posts have been so helpful for me, too, and this one on anger is no exception. May, as always you are getting good advice. I’m glad you’re finding ways to take care of yourself—getting out of the house to grocery shop, yoga, honoring your feelings and continuing to be curious about them. Re: lashing out at your H, I think of what scout posted: “ Any effort spent trying to reason with anyone who is ego-driven is a waste of time.” I know it wouldn’t be totally reasoning with him, but it feels like it might be a waste of your energy. His logic is totally broken. He seems to know, kind of, he f-ed up but he doesn’t care right now, or isn’t ready to acknowledge his responsibility for the choices he’s made. He just wants everyone to be happy with what he’s doing so he can be happy. Do you think his probable response would be satisfying or more frustrating for you? Might it just drive him to self-pity mode again? If he did show remorse, as Allison said, would that just be in response to your anger but not truly felt? I think about how I used to want to scream at my H a lot of the time... ultimately I felt that any satisfaction for me would be short-lived, and none of what I was saying would really reach him anyway. Would it be helpful to post what you’d love to tell him here? People always suggest journaling these feelings, it seems, and that isn’t always fully satisfying either!
