OnlyBent, Tom, thanks for the thoughts-- it is good to hear from you. Bent, I like that quote!
Originally Posted by LH19
I meant him more as a the person he is now and not what he did in the past.
I don't think I'm quite ready to make this determination yet, TBH. What he did in the past is still so raw to me and unlike what I thought he was capable of that I'm recalibrating all of that. And, he is too-- I don't know how he'll end up reconciling his own image of himself with his behavior. That's his work, though, not mine, and I feel like I'll see how that goes and where he ends up.
Outside of the A, though, and all that surrounds that-- if i didn't know about the A (and if I was still in the SSM mindset) I'd be in heaven. He's a way more engaged and present father. Does far more around the house. Kinder, more considerate, more thoughtful than he had been in years. Far more empathetic towards others (though I really haven't felt that lens turn towards me), acknowledging and assessing his privilege for the first time in his life. Much better at communicating how he feels if he's upset rather than just taking it out on the nearest person (usually me). I mean, the spoon incident is something that five years ago was total par for the course. Now, it is unusual. And still the smart and funny man I married. The only thing he used to do that I miss is the sweet and romantic gestures. Those are missing.
Me (46) H (42) M:14 T:18, D9 & D11 4/19 - 12/19: series of escalating BDs 9/20 - present: R and piecing
oh LH, just to add-- those are his good qualities. They do exist. But they don't erase the other stuff-- just how self-centered, entitled, and weak a man needs to be in order to have done what he did. Maybe he was hurting b/c of the SSM and having some sort of mini MLC, which is what he's said to me. And I am actually pretty curious to see how he navigates the path of reconciling his own self-image and identity with that of a person who had a 2 plus year affair.
He isn't the kind of person who likes to admit he's done anything wrong, and the other significant major life events that have happened to him were things that happened to him, not things he caused himself (combat injury and stroke). He's a big believer in post-traumatic growth and truly believes that those experiences, especially the first, changed his life for the better because of how he dealt with them. He has said to me he's not sure he can ever consider the A to be 100 percent wrong because his psyche isn't built that way, he needs to be able to latch onto some positive outcomes from it, and points to these other experiences as examples. I think this one is different because he caused it himself, and because there was collateral damage (me, AP, potentially the children). Again, not my work, but obviously I have a vested interest in understanding how he ends up processing all of this-- if he does-- and if it means on the other side he's capable of being a better partner who doesn't cheat or lie.
I don't want to forget that side too as it is just as much of the truth of who he is as the positive side.
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 don't think I'm quite ready to make this determination yet, TBH. What he did in the past is still so raw to me and unlike what I thought he was capable of that I'm recalibrating all of that. And, he is too-- I don't know how he'll end up reconciling his own image of himself with his behavior. That's his work, though, not mine, and I feel like I'll see how that goes and where he ends up. .
I love love love this response! Answers like this is why I know you're going to be okay, May! I love that you're not trying to shortcut this or smooth over it. We tell LBSs all the time "you'll know they are back and ready to work on the marriage when their behavior is consistent over a long period of time! When pressed I usually say at least 6 months to a year. But maybe longer. It really depends on the couple, the situation and how egregious the actions were. I believe that infidelity causes emotional trauma, and that most cheated on spouses suffer from some form of PTSD to varying degrees.
And I like that you recognize that your still need time and he still has worn new has to do! That's awesome!!
I would highly suggest you lead by example and get back into IC. Work through your trauma. Maybe he'll see the necessity of his own IC, and eventually MC.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
In the new year, if our regular IC doesn't straighten out the insurance situation, I will DEFINITELY find someone new. I actually am feeling it might be healthy to find a different IC anyway. p
In/re the trauma... I definitely agree and my IC says it all the time to me, pointing out the trauma and the trauma response. But, using the word "trauma" really triggers my H, who clearly thinks it is going a bit overboard and what I have experienced/am experiencing is not anything close to PTSD. This bothers me. I feel he is minimizing what he did. His traumatic experiences were quite different (primary being military helicopter crash) and part of me wants him to understand that what happened to me wasn't all that different in terms of how it robbed me of emotional safety and tore up my life-- and wants to continue pushing the word "trauma." The other half of me doesn't really GAF at the moment what he thinks or doesn't think so no skin off my back to stop using the word around him. Thoughts?
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 think this is been part of the problem from the get go. You both want one another to be and act like someone that you not and in the mean time you both suffer.
In the new year, if our regular IC doesn't straighten out the insurance situation, I will DEFINITELY find someone new. I actually am feeling it might be healthy to find a different IC anyway. p
In/re the trauma... I definitely agree and my IC says it all the time to me, pointing out the trauma and the trauma response. But, using the word "trauma" really triggers my H, who clearly thinks it is going a bit overboard and what I have experienced/am experiencing is not anything close to PTSD. This bothers me. I feel he is minimizing what he did. His traumatic experiences were quite different (primary being military helicopter crash) and part of me wants him to understand that what happened to me wasn't all that different in terms of how it robbed me of emotional safety and tore up my life-- and wants to continue pushing the word "trauma." The other half of me doesn't really GAF at the moment what he thinks or doesn't think so no skin off my back to stop using the word around him. Thoughts?
I think what he is doing is a typical defense mechanism. I know in my sitch, leading to my W's EA, I had become and insufferable jerk. Isolated, closed off, unavailable. When I was home from work (I worked a lot) and came out of our MBR (I spent most of my waking time in there), it was to criticize, complain, and basically be a complete putz. When my W used the word "abuse" it triggered me. I never touched. Never ever have I laid a finger on her. But looking back I cannot deny I had become emotionally and verbally abusive. My mind wouldn't let me go there. I wasn't that bad. I provided for her, did most of the housework, so what if I was critical and withheld any emotional support from her?
But in the days following BD 2017 I realized that her accusation had merit. I read an anti-D expert online and he said "If you are verbally abusive and withhold emotional support from your W, then stop doing that immediately!" It was eye-opening to me. I can honestly say I am a much better person now 3 years later, a better husband and a better father. But it took me getting over my defensiveness, and getting into IC, to understand that.
Victims of infidelity suffer from PTSD, I have no doubt about that. I've witnessed it first-hand, and I've seen it in posters here. That is why the posters that refuse to get into IC tend to try to find solace in the wrong things. Drinking, drugs (both recreational and prescription). the affection of others, or unattached sex. All of that is a band-aid on a missing limb. So yes, make it a priority in the new year to get into IC and work through your trauma. And make it a requirement for staying with your H that he does the same. (Note, this isn't trying to control him, it is simply making a boundary. "If he isn't in IC by July 1st, then I will go and file for D." Don't tell him what the consequence or timing is, just tell him that in order for this to work he needs to get into IC.)
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
I know this, intellectually. I think I even know it in my heart. I want so badly to evict her from my head. It is getting better, a lot better, but she still creeps in, sometimes, and I want to look at him and somehow dump all my pain onto him, because he did this, and how could he, to me, etc etc.
May, I will say this, that overcoming those emotions is really admirable. Bravo again.
Musing about this, I would say that if my ex had had an affair in the first couple years of our marriage, I would have burned with anger and jealousy. The thought of her with another man would be devastating. But ... after she walked out in 2019, many people said there must have been either another man or an EA. Even had there been another man, I wouldn't have burned with jealousy or anger. The thought of she and another man naked in a bed meant nothing. I would have willingly taken her back as long as it was over and she was truly contrite, and could prove to me it was a one-time thing.
Why am I mentioning this? Perhaps its because as we get older, we get a little wiser about weakness, about human frailty, about bad decisions and betrayal. Maybe we are more willing to see inside ourselves and wonder how close we had been, at one time or another, from making the same mistakes. I don't know. I have some friends who say their wives are with them "til death do us part" unless they touch another woman -- then the vows are worthless. I just can't be that categorical about it. Life is less black and white, there is a lot of grey. It doesn't mean that you lose your morals or your notions of right or wrong, I think it just means we are more forgiving. And understanding.
Originally Posted by may22
Up until the A he went to mass every single weekend as he had his entire life ... He doesn't have a strong connection to the priest at our church and told me if he does go to confession at some point, it won't be with him. And his father is a deacon and parents are vvv religious (his father has decided that H should take this opportunity to convert me) and as my H is also having a lot of difficulties in his relationship with his father right now, I think the whole issue of religion has gotten tied up in that relationship for him as well. Anyway, it does make me feel a bit sorry for him, that his faith is not something he's able to lean on right now.
A thought here. If he is truly contrite, and wants to change his ways, he should not be ashamed to confess it to his priest. Or to talk about it with the priest outside of confession. Because trying to maintain a level of anonymity means you're not being open about your failure and your intention to not fail like that again. AA works because people are open to others who hold them accountable. Consider whether you ask H, eventually, that for you to take him back he needs to be open with the priest about what he did, and have the priest or another group of men hold him accountable.
oh LH, just to add-- those are his good qualities. They do exist. But they don't erase the other stuff-- just how self-centered, entitled, and weak a man needs to be in order to have done what he did. Maybe he was hurting b/c of the SSM and having some sort of mini MLC, which is what he's said to me. And I am actually pretty curious to see how he navigates the path of reconciling his own self-image and identity with that of a person who had a 2 plus year affair.
He isn't the kind of person who likes to admit he's done anything wrong, and the other significant major life events that have happened to him were things that happened to him, not things he caused himself (combat injury and stroke). He's a big believer in post-traumatic growth and truly believes that those experiences, especially the first, changed his life for the better because of how he dealt with them. He has said to me he's not sure he can ever consider the A to be 100 percent wrong because his psyche isn't built that way, he needs to be able to latch onto some positive outcomes from it, and points to these other experiences as examples. I think this one is different because he caused it himself, and because there was collateral damage (me, AP, potentially the children). Again, not my work, but obviously I have a vested interest in understanding how he ends up processing all of this-- if he does-- and if it means on the other side he's capable of being a better partner who doesn't cheat or lie.
I don't want to forget that side too as it is just as much of the truth of who he is as the positive side.
I really understand what you're saying here as I have been observing this with my H as well. I had a good but emotionally hard session with my IC today. He has worked with my H a lot so can give a lot of observations. But he talked about how H just can't reconcile the fact that he was involved in a 2 plus year affair. He has great shame over it, but he also handles it but shutting down emotions instead of working through it. We talked about how this is his work, and I cant fix it or do it for him. He will choose to do it or not. Accepting that has give me some relief. Sad relief, but I don't have to feel like such a failure and like there is still something else I can try or do.
So I think this happens for many men. How many or why, I don't know. But their inability to face that shame and work through it and heal makes it almost impossible for a relationship to keep going it seems. I think this can also be because we - the ones they hurt - represent that shame and baggage every time they look at us. My H wants to see himself as a good man. And a good man in his mind (and in most minds) wouldn't do this. He can't seem to get past it. But just like your H, if there's anything in his life hard that he didn't cause he can handle that and work through it fine. If I have wept in the past due to this, he is a stone and disappears. If i were to cry for any other reason he is there for me. What do you do with all that? I guess that's what we're trying to figure out. You can lead a horse to water (therapy, books, programs, etc) but you can't make them drink. The problem is, it doesn't just affect them. Not sure if this post makes sense to anyone but me!
me: 46 h: 49 m: 24 T: 27 DD1:20 DD2:17 DS:12 BD1: PA for 2 yrs 08/2016 BD2: OW is one of my closest friends 12/2016 BD3: H wants a D 11/2019 Now: He is in the same house, but has filed for divorce.
He has great shame over it, but he also handles it but shutting down emotions instead of working through it. We talked about how this is his work, and I cant fix it or do it for him. He will choose to do it or not. Accepting that has give me some relief. Sad relief, but I don't have to feel like such a failure and like there is still something else I can try or do.
So I think this happens for many men ... But their inability to face that shame and work through it and heal makes it almost impossible for a relationship to keep going it seems.
It makes sense to me! And while this is not my situation I know of a number of situations like this. I've been in men's groups for over 20 years and every year we are talking about multiple cases of infidelity that are destroying a marriage.
Michele's DB talks this through, a lot, and the advice is awesome. But from my perspective, the worst thing a guy can do it clam up, go into denial, and not accept his failing. Sometimes the best way to turn him around it to join him at the hip with another man who failed! Just like AA.
He must also be candid about his failings. He can't confess them in secret, anonymously, to a priest in another town.
I have a friend named Larry who did this to his wife. He was in his late 50s, very handsome, a small company CEO, and a magnet to younger women. He had a couple affairs, which were ultimately found out. He was sincerely sorry, he had so much to lose, and among all the things he did, he went public. He shocked our men's group when, at a large meeting, he openly mentioned what he did. He asked all these men who held him in high esteem to keep him accountable. He saved his marriage. Larry and his wife made it through this issue and it's been 20 years. I've never forgotten that speech he made, to a group of 100 men, in public. As he relayed his failings, you could hear a pin drop.
Hmmmm. Do you think he was truly sorry? Or just sorry he got caught, especially since he “had a lot to lose?” Do you think if he hadn’t gotten caught, he would have continued?
Bent, I like that quote!