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Spoke to my mom this morning. Havent been in a good place, flooding all over.

Got a counseling session coming up feb 13. Im Not looking forward to it. An incident last weekend where my wayward and I decided to make cocktails spiralled into the ground. She dumped a rapid fire spray of resentments on me.

She resents me digging into her accounts and emails and past coms. She felt that our situation was not equal, that she feels she has no rights. I retorted that to be equal, I would have to have multiple affairs and then lie about it for a decade.

So obviously it was off to the races, as they say.

I was blamed for her losing touch and relationships with her old friends. Expressed her anger at me talking to everyone in our family circle to "ruin her reputation to punish her". Blamed for our joint decision to sign up for her company health plan which is only telehealth and rx. Blamed for her headache and emotional distress, because we each had 2 oz of vodka in a martini.

I wanted to sleep seperately. I started to detach and uninvest in the conversation.

She never came off the offensive, broke down and cried, begged me to come to bed and comfort her (accusing me of punishing her if i didnt) until I broke down, abandoned my boundaries and just did it.

On and on it goes. It shattered something. Something broke.

Counseling session is supposed to be all about beginning to work on her "whys". Im not particularly amenable to a pity party excuse factory. I dont want to watch her weedle around. And if anyone tries to characterize anything I did in our relationship as causal or attributes responsibility of her choices to me, Im gonna do a fucking backflip.

So, I was hurting about this and related it to my mom, who said, "really? You dont think you have any responsibility in this? You didnt want to get married to that girl and I dont think you understand how that makes her feel."

Its just not true. I wanted to wait to marry her until I could be sure this love wasnt a mirage, so that I wouldnt be in the exact fucking situation I am in. And she outmaneuvered me with her lies and pinned me in that situation anyways.

I was, in those days, under a shitload of pressure from everyone to marry her. While she was cheating, she did hit me with us not being married, tears in her eyes, telling me about people insinuating that I wasnt sincere about my commitment to her.

When we did get married, multiple female family members hit me at the celebrations with "its about time".

Same people now know about the cheating, and are calling it ancient history that I need to get over.

She had been lying to me for 5 years about the affairs at the time we got married. Noone gives a shit. Why should I.

And my own mother, rather than have my back, tells me if I wasnt so slow to invoke a judges magic words to declare our bond valid, she probably would have never run all over creation for male sexual validation.

Fuck these people.

The reactions of others is so weird and hard.

Some are blissfully naive to the massive impact of cheating. I was before it happened to me. I know it would suck, but had no idea how earth-shattering the devastation was.

Others, some from another generation, feel bury you feelings and stay married at all costs. Maybe for religious reasons, maybe financial, maybe social standing… but they think you should suck it up and deal. They did, or were expected to, so they think you should to.

Some are sympathetic but don’t understand how long it takes to heal. They are the ones who push you to "get back in the saddle" right away.

You know what you need. You can tell your mom that she is wildly incorrect and maybe your reluctance to get married was your gut telling you something was off. And she can keep those unsubstantiated opinions to herself.

I am so sorry she didn’t support you when you needed it. That really hurts. Do you have other folks IRL that you can talk to? Do you journal? Punch pillows? Take up boxing? Meditation? (I loved the app CALM for quick meditations when I was losing it.) Look for another outlet to help you manage the flooding.

(Also, anytime after DDAY that I had any amount of alcohol, and I was drinking too much of as a poor coping mechanism, it did not go well. If that is happening to you, cut back. It caused me way more problems than it solved, words that could not be taken back, and increased my rage proportional to my lack of self control. Hopefully you are doing better than me there, but keep an eye on it.)

I am a teetotaler. Never liked drinking very much.

My WW drank substantially with her affair partners at her job. She would come home, and have a glass or two of wine. If we drank together, she always nursed her drinks and whined about getting a headache, not even wanting to get buzzed. But with the affair partners, she was throwing back shots.

If i ever tried to do a shot with her, she would act like its bitter, cant do it, yuck, im gonna get a headache, i have to work tomorrow, etc.

In truth, she just didnt want to do that with me. Life with me was supposed to be clean, responsible, and pure. I wasnt supposed to desire such things.

So I spent the remainder of my youth not engaging in those sorts of reindeer games. I resent that she pretended we were on the same track, while she constructed a parallel party universe excluding me.

I wanted some recompense, some form of reclamation for that. A few cocktails together from time to time seemed a good compromise. But she resented giving me even that.

I accept that drinking isnt for us. She can have it her way, like everything else.

[This message edited by 5bluedrops at 6:07 PM, Saturday, February 1st]

Yeah, that would be a real kick in the nether regions. I don’t know you or your mother, but my guess is that she is trying to keep an open mind and "to be fair." The problem sometimes with an open mind is that it puts your brain in danger of falling out. If it were me, I’d let myself cool off then bluntly tell mother why the affair is all on the wife. Maybe write a letter so you can edit until the message is clear and respectful of your mother.

I am so sorry that your Mom has said such terrible things.

My mom and dad were NO help to me either so I understand the double whammy - not supportive and blaming you for the affair.

I doubt anything you say will change her mind.

Sorry for you

Thanks guys.

I’m so very sorry. My parents have a lot of issues, to the point where I would never, ever, consider confiding with them about anything significant in my life, especially the gut wrenching pain of my husband’s affair. But man, what a gut punch. I think your mom probably meant well on some level, and if she’s a person you can approach, I think I would try to explain how incredibly hurtful and devastating her response was. That said, I think a lot of people just don’t understand the pain of infidelity and how it cuts to the core. I didn’t until I experienced it, and I’m a pretty empathetic person in general. Hugs. It’s all brutal, especially when people you need to have in your corner aren’t t there for you.

Well, do you want to be M to your W? You can dump her, if you want to.

Resentments are reasons for difficult conversations, not for cheating, What has your W done to resolve her decades of resentment? Not resolving them is on her, just as her cheating is.

It's really hard to completely deactivate the power of one's mother. I've done some because my W required me to choose between her and my mom, but I'm not sure that would work for you. I've done some because I finally accepted I'm not my mom, and it's more than OK to be different. I've done some because of some good therapy. Have you considered IC? You're under a lot of pressure to sell yourself out - IC can help you find the strength to resist.

My reco is to stop talking to these people, especially about your emotions and your W.

Sisoon,

The conclusion Ive reached about talking to my family is that Ive just gotta not do it. Specifically, We are family, and I will keep them in my life, but its going to be arms length from now on.

It was a foolish hope that I might find a cure lying in the curse. If Id had a supportive origin, going back to my mom for life experience and wisdom would have had more merit. But I already knew otherwise, I suppose.

Do I want to be married to my wife still?

Well, I would like to be very much. I really like her.
Ive got hope that something will help me to feel better in this. That we will make meaningful progress.

But… so far, 1 year of working on this has been disappointing.

I throw her rope in the form of requests and outreach for some corrective togetherness that is actionable. She demures. The rope slides back into the water.

Im giving her an avenue to reconciliation. I just want her to feel like putting the energy into us that I do. When I talk about how the infidelity hurt me, how I feel about specific facets and why they leave me feeling pain, she shuts down and goes quiet. She has little to say about me feeling rejected, ridiculed, used, left out, gaslit, and betrayed. Its like, "yeah, I see. Totally valid. I get that. Sorry".

And its not enough. And I tell her so.

So yeah, Im gonna keep going and Im going to see how things play out. Im hopeful, but growing some pessimism.

If Its still like this by this time next year, I dont think I will have the same answer.

If Id had a supportive origin, going back to my mom for life experience and wisdom would have had more merit. But I already knew otherwise, I suppose.

So sorry but I was already thinking this kind of response from your mother indicated something wider than just the current situation. I hope you can walk the fine line between keeping your family ties as intact as possible and seeing that they themselves may have contributing factors to why for example you would hear something like THAT from YOUR MOTHER. It did make me wonder. Almost like she was able to empathize more with your wife than with you. What might that be all about?

Well my late father certainly was less than outraged by what my SAWH pulled on me and he was the one who gave me away in our fancy church wedding when I was 46 and he was the age I am now, 73! So I truly hated to break his heart by telling him that my "happily ever after" story was going to s#it only 4 years into the marriage. Surprised by his rather underwhelming response to it all, and his all-too-ready attitude that I should have expected such as most all men are A-H's. Somehow that was NOT comforting, y'know? Made me wonder about what HE HAD DONE that we knew nothing about. Another brother was very much the same and I KNEW his past history was a mess with women and porn. Having my M blow up was the beginning of a process of discovery that ricocheted off a LOT of other people who were central to my life and development.

I second what Sisoon wrote about having some support from a helping professional as you work through it all. But FWIW I'd have hung up on her, too!

5bluedrops,

Just to your attempts at reconciliation:

If your marriage can be fixed after her cheating, it could have been fixed before her cheating.

And if it could have been fixed before her cheating, her justification for cheating vanishes.

Not going to be easy to get her there.

I throw her rope in the form of requests and outreach for some corrective togetherness that is actionable. She demures. The rope slides back into the water.

Sorry OP. It’s so painful to watch someone dragging a betrayer though R. It never works. Hopium is a dangerous drug.

Hang in there 5BD. One thing you may want to mention to wife ...is that this process is actually good and that God is using to get her right with Him, and of course you by default. He has an uncanny way of bringing things into the light. I saw that in my situation during discovery. Thoughts of certain questions would come into my mind literally out of nowhere....and when I asked, they yielded something not yet revealed to me.

I like your tenacity...someday I trust your wife will love you for not letting this lay only half reconciled. SHE NEEDS IT resolved just as much as you do ...she just does not realize it. It will be freeing. One of the most important things she needs to learn...is that she needs be humble and be OK with admitting wrong. Humility is hard. Self image must be replaced with truth, and rebuilding.

Do keep posted.

** Member to Member **

If your marriage can be fixed after her cheating, it could have been fixed before her cheating.

The M didn't break, the WS did.

Clearly some people break themselves before they can fix themselves. Unfortunately, when they break themselves, they hurt others.

Since so many people break themselves, I think it's likely that some people need to break themselves before they are able to fix themselves. In fact that's almost a truism. For example, some people grow up healthy. Some people get a little unhealthy and then they get healthy, sometimes after they change their lifestyles. And so on until we see people who have gotten very unhealthy and stay unhealthy, sometimes after they change their lifestyles.

...this process is actually good and that God is using to get her right with Him, and of course you by default.

The following is a the result of a lot of editing, and I apologize for that.

Woodthrush2, I read your comment to say that we BSes should be grateful for being betrayed.

I understand that's probably not what you mean, but that's how I parse it, and I'm a pretty good reader.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 6:47 PM, Monday, February 3rd]

Sisson...thanks for comments. I want to clarify...I think you might have misunderstood me. I in no way suggest it is good that 5BDs wife betrayed him. No way.

What I was referring to was specifically the intense pressure she is under by 5BD to get the whole truth out ....and begin to live in truth and make amends. This is good for her. And if she in turn is changed....it will be good for him too.

This as opposed to 5BD just rug sweeping and moving on...leaving her in same condition. Or even if he just divorced her....and she was left in same deceitful condition (assuming she is).

In other words God is putting pressure on her to change through her loving husband. This can be good for her.

Now...please know that God never wants us to do evil to produce good. That said....the evil that is done...He can turn around for good.

I hope you see difference.

I have edited my original comment, because I was getting too close to arguing about religion. My comment now is:

Woodthrush2, I read your comment to say that we BSes should be grateful for being betrayed.

I understand that's probably not what you mean, but that's how I parse it, and I'm a pretty good reader.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming theory argues persuasively that the receiver of a communication decides what the communication means. After all, I can't possibly know what's in your mind except by your communnication, and I can't possibly understand all the nuances in what you say and show.

I parse your clarification, the same way I parse your first version. That's feedback, not argument. I understand that my view of life is the best I can do, but I'm probably wrong on a lot of things. I just can't tell where and how I'm wrong....

And I wouldn't have classified myself as a 'loving husband' a year out from d-day. I was a potentially loving husband.

Sisoon...I completely agree with you, and do not take it as an argument. Besides that, I would be fine if there was an argument. I did not clarify my thoughts well enough in original comment.

Betrayed Spouses should NOT be grateful for being betrayed...that is my belief. They should be, and usually are devastated, hurt, broken, angry, etc. etc.

I understand there should be no arguing about religion, but if I may be permitted to use something within religion as an example of what I was hoping to communicate regarding 5BDs Wife's perception of the pressure she is under due to her betrayal.

Not sure if you know the account of Joseph in the Biblical Old Testament. Very briefly, he was youngest of 12 sons of Jacob. Joseph had prophetic dream his brother's hated him for. The planned to kill him but sold him to Egyptians as slave. They told their father he was killed. Joseph was framed in Egypt for adultery which he did not commit. He was in prison for years. Eventually the Pharaoh had troubling dream. Joseph was recommended as one who could interpret. He helped Pharoh and he made him second in charge of Egypt. A famine spread throughout the land, and Josephs family came to Egypt looking for provision. Joseph saw his brother's who sold him. There was a bunch of interesting drama, but Joseph said the famous words to his brothers essentially saying they meant what they did for evil....but God used it for good. Anyway, highly recommend checking out the whole account. Quite amazing.

Thank you

You can break free from your WW you know.

Your WW's cheating is NOT your fault. HOWEVER, STAYING, and CONTINUING to keep on taking the abuse, IS **your fault**.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 11:03 PM, Monday, February 3rd]

Respectfully, I disagree.

For every time someones spouse beats them and they dont leave, it is still, each and every time, the abusers fault.

I do have the capability to leave. I am choosing to stay. Im not getting what I need. Presently. I am holding out hope. My wife, whom I chose because of my love for her which I mean to be for life, in spite of the years of selfish, cruel lying, will get every chance to pull this off.

And If this marriage fails, It wont be because I didnt do everything in my power, with every chance given.

Call me an idiot, stubborn. I wont argue. Woodthrush said Tenacious. I tend to prefer that.

I am damned stubborn. And tough like you wouldnt believe. Because of that, by the time the dust settles, I’ll survive. It was always going to hurt. And I was always going to still be here after the hurt stops.

Well you're probably fooling yourself, but that's most people who are trying R. They (typically) eventually wake up as they finally reach the conclusion after a few years of banging their heads against the wall that they are much better off free from their ball-n-chain.

I wouldn't call staying w a WW who abused you for so long a good thing. Entirely human, absolutely. But we got to look at these things for what they really are on here.

With that said, I don't think anyone trying to "logic" their WW has ever worked. Your MC could browbeat your WW for eternity and it still won't change things. She has to want to change, and she doesn't.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 1:01 AM, Thursday, February 6th]