SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This might be a long one, I'm good at those . Tune it out if you don't want to be bored. BS, please, your input is needed.

Husband and I discussed divorce after I contacted a lawyer yesterday. Things are not moving forward, and I am at the limit of what I can work on in the marriage by myself without the outside help of MC for us and IC for him. Husband his wounded by my anger (after all the help and support he has given me recovering from my anxiety and depression), still doesn't trust me and does not want to be vulnerable with me in MC, and is having trouble opening up to a stranger in IC. It looked like we were going no where, so I called a lawyer and made an appointment to discuss D proceedings.

I gut punched him with this action, he was blindsided again as he was in the affair and again I had dropped a bomb on my husband.

I have been contemplating this move for a while. For the last 3 months I have been coming to my husband for MC for us and IC for him and clearly and calmly saying that I cannot any longer live in this financial distress. My requests went unheard, my husband is not satisfied my anger has gone away, has not acknowledged progress I have made and efforts I have put in to make myself safe for him. He does not see the anger and defensiveness eliminated and now with this move on my part, has lost trust in me again.

I need professional MC help to move us forward. He needs counseling to help him move forward. We need financial counseling from a dispassionate source to move us forward. This is the reality we were in, and he was not ready/willing to move on it because of my anger. We've been drifting apart, I've been shame spiraling, anxiety attacking and in general getting more depressed about the situation. He is depressed, hurting and feeling unheard and unloved and un-cared for.

We are both so unhappy. BH doesn't deserve to be unhappy anymore. I need help to move past all this, to learn how to be vulnerable to him without using anger as a shield. He needs the anger gone and trust rebuilt.

I found an IC for him and he has an appointment. I am looking for a MC for us. I'm calling the lawyer and cancelling my appointment. We are scheduling a financial planner.

What can I do in the mean time to drop the anger and build his trust in me?

Hi MIGander,

He does not see the anger and defensiveness eliminated and now with this move on my part, has lost trust in me again.

Are you in IC? I keep seeing you reference MC for you but you are in dire need of IC to address your anger issues. And MC is not designed for that.

Regards

You seem empathy deficient. First you cheat, then in a short time after D-Day, you consult a divorce lawyer with no advance warning? Seems you enjoy messing with your husband. Do you ever just discuss things first before doing them? This is no way to go through life, leaving a wake of destruction. It is sadistic.

I gut punched him with this action, he was blindsided again as he was in the affair and again I had dropped a bomb on my husband.

Migander, I haven't read your back story so apologies if I'm missing key details. I'm just responding to this one post.

I think his reaction is because you are taking away his agency, again, just like the affair. It's very difficult, even setting affairs aside, when one partner in a marriage wants to make changes and the other doesn't, or doesn't want to make changes right now, or in the way the other one wants. Ideally a spouse would want to make changes and improve themself in part because the other wants that and they wants to please their spouse and do his best for them, but after an affair I think that is for him to decide based on what is best for him, and not for you to demand or dictate or even nudge. He should be able to stabilize himself, decide if he wants to stay in the marriage, and how he will bring himself to the marriage and what kind of marriage he wants. He doesn't *have* to be vulnerable in MC, open up to a stranger, get better, or anything else. Especially after an affair. I think you should give him quite a while of just tending to him without demands, taking care of yourself without asking him to do the same for you. In a while, a couple of years maybe? you can decide if you want the marriage he's offering. You do get to decide that, taking into consideration all of the consequences of divorce. But give him some time to heal, and do what you can to help him. And focus on you right now, what you can do to improve yourself without him, or rather within what he is willing to offer you.

I don’t think it’s sadistic. I think that without a plan, they are subjecting themselves to more pain. He deserves a wife who appreciates him. She is unable to do so, despite trying to work through that in her own. Some of the things she can’t resolve her anger over are valid, but are an obstacle she is unable to remove to get to a lace of empathy. They are stuck in the mud, spinning their wheels and it’s not good for either of them.

IC for you I agree is paramount.

I agree they need professional help to gain some strategies over their situation. Her call for divorce was one done out of desperation as they are unable to effectively move forward in their own. He wouldn’t agree to it and there is no progress being made, and the rift is just deeper.

I know that action hurt him, at the same time there needs to be some sort of line in the sand because it can’t keep going the way it has.

I think MC might be a good idea just for the simple fact they need to learn some communication and conflict resolution skills. Not every marriage should be saved either. Not every BS is a healthy person, not every WS is able to get to remorse.

I think that sometimes you have to be willing to lose the marriage to save it. I think while it feels like a bad move this was maybe the only one left in your arsenal.

I don’t know that there is much room to build trust right now.

I think you have been open-minded and have looked for ways to progress. But I think you have found a deal breaker in the financial chaos BH seems to thrive in.

It seems like there’s a lot of shepherding going on- Getting him to MC, getting him to IC. It doesn’t sound like something he’s interested in.

I believe that moving forward you should discuss things like this and find a way to ID your mutual decision points. As always I’ll pitch this as the only good use of an MC in the initial year or two.

Building trust won’t do anything for you here though- Why do you think that matters at this stage? It seems to me if you want to divorce and remain trustworthy all you can do is be more open than surprise lawyer meetings.

Pippin- I agree with you wholeheartedly. And in essences

have given her this advice at other times. I just don’t think she is able to let go of the anger and resentment from pre-A and it’s clouding her ability to empathize or connect with him. She says she loves him, I do not think that is possible though. I am not saying that to slam you, Migander but I truly get the sense the love was gone before the affair and you are stuck in that time. I also am not sure that you have experienced healthy love between the two of you.

Professional help at this point is best, because we can’t tell here if your husband is abusive, controlling and selfish or if this is what you have convinced yourself of or if he is just codependent.I am not trying to paint you as a bad guy but I am pretty sure that this marriage had been toxic off and on for years and there is no way for us to identify with the truth of why based only on your perceptions.

Why isn't IC for you a priority? Why is the responsibility on your BH to change, fix himself, and learn to financially plan better but not on you to learn better boundaries in IC and figure out why you had an A and how you can prevent it from happening again in the future? I don't disagree with you about the financial situation needing to change in order for this marriage to continue but I do think your focus on him and that problem without looking at the pain and betrayal you have brought to the table is wrong, devoid of empathy, and an extension of your brokenness. MC isn't going to give you the tools to fix yourself and it's far too early for MC anyways when both of you need IC.

My requests went unheard, my husband is not satisfied my anger has gone away, has not acknowledged progress I have made and efforts I have put in to make myself safe for him. He does not see the anger and defensiveness eliminated and now with this move on my part, has lost trust in me again.

Why the hell would he trust you now? Why do you believe you deserve an award and acknowledgement for that? You betrayed him again by running out to a lawyer when things weren't going your way. You showed him, YET AGAIN, that you come first. Not him. Not the marriage. By expecting him to just "trust you" while you openly choose to go behind his back to serve your own needs, you're getting a pass on doing the work. Trust is not something he should give you. Trust is something YOU need to earn and prove to him that you deserve. Every time you pull a stunt like you just did, the trust clock resets to 0. So no, no you do not get a single ounce of credit for whatever bad behavior you stopped and frankly shouldn't have been doing the first place because you have proven again that you didn't really change anything. You're still operating from a wayward mindset. You're still only really looking out for yourself. If you had changed, instead of getting a lawyer without telling him, you would have had an honest conversation in which you laid everything out on the table and told him honestly that you could not see the marriage continuing without IC, MC, and a financial planner. THAT is what being safe and trustworthy looks like. See how off the mark you were?

Honestly - if you cannot commit to the work and accept that your BH has the RIGHT and is VALID in not trusting you and not giving you cookies for doing what you should have been doing this whole time, D is the kindest thing you can do for him. Did you ever stop to think that maybe he's miserable because he's dealing with trauma and you're making it impossible for him to heal with your continued anger and untrustworthy behavior? That maybe HE is the one who feels stuck and unheard because he can't even really talk about the A honestly without being met by you saying, "But what about the debt! What about the progress I've made! What about my feelings about pre-A problems! ME! ME! ME!" Where is HIM in all this other than the object of your anger and being the bad guy marriage ruiner who needs to get his crap together to keep his prize of a cheating, lying, angry wife?

Get your focus off of yourself. Accept that it's not going to be about just you and what you need right now. Start sharing that victim seat you are clinging to because he is a victim and has been gravely hurt by you. That needs to be sufficiently addresses and acknowledged before you move onto the financial stuff and pre-A issues from a MC standpoint. If you're not capable of doing this, if you're going to be back here in a month of two complaining about how he's not progressing, he's not doing this, he's not doing that, save him the drama and pain by calling that lawyer back and re-scheduling that appointment. Again, just my opinion, but a D is far kinder than putting him through months, years, of limbo and false R.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ding ding ding.

Where is HIM in all this other than the object of your anger and being the bad guy marriage ruiner who needs to get his crap together to keep his prize of a cheating, lying, angry wife?

Start sharing that victim seat you are clinging to because he is a victim and has been gravely hurt by you. That needs to be sufficiently addresses and acknowledged before you move onto the financial stuff and pre-A issues from a MC standpoint. If you're not capable of doing this, if you're going to be back here in a month of two complaining about how he's not progressing, he's not doing this, he's not doing that, save him the drama and pain by calling that lawyer back and re-scheduling that appointment.

Migander - I have sensed this in your other posts as well. The lack of empathy is disturbing to me as a BS. As is the anger. As is the victim mentality. As is the inability to let go of the past resentment. All of this strikes me as a wayward mindset - something we BS can usually smell a mile away.

IMO, a WS who can't let go of all the past resentment isn't healed or a safe partner. While I hate the transactional nature of it, to me whatever awful things I did that hurt my WH before dday I have paid for - and then some. I pay for it every fucking day, by the PTSD. The night shakes and sweats. By the triggers and sometimes endless tears. By the scars on my body from where I put out lit cigarettes bc that pain was still better than what was in my heart. By the constant and exhausting amount of energy I have to put in just to maintain some semblance of emotional balance. By the absolute shattering of each and every dream I had for my future and my twilight years. By the complete loss of all specialness I felt for my H or my M (or even myself). By the anxiety that comes with wondering if I will EVER trust another human being again. By the loss of my very reality. The list is long. And despite a ton of IC and some seriously hard fucking emotional work, some aspects will likely persist until the day I die.

To me, the point of R is to figure out what the WS and BS want in the M for the future. If a WS has some hope or expectation that a BS will be able to forgive the A and move on, a good place for a WS to start is by example.

This may not be possible, but you may want to learn about trauma - through the lens of your BH, and not yourself.

[This message edited by gmc94 at 11:19 AM, June 26th, 2020 (Friday)]

MIgander,

Is it possible that you have so much anger and resentment built up around pre-A M issues that you can't move past it?

If you are so unhappy, and you have all these unresolved issues I am not sure that R will even work. It just seems you are putting up more walls.

I know my M needed work before my A, and after the A trying to work on our M was hard as I was trying to get my head on straight and my BW was just trying to right her world that I knocked over. We struggled. I needed to work on fixing myself.

Have you considered separation? A break to let you both get some breathing room and work on yourselves? Maybe you both could agree to a fixed period of separation? It just seems to me that detaching for a bit may be the best thing to allow you to work on yourself.

Migander, I came back to say something else. I didn't read the other responses but I see there are a lot of names of people who are usually very helpful so I hope you read them carefully. (Also, my shift key is sticky so you're going to get intermittent capitals! sorry! i can't keep pausing to hold it down!)

i came back to write that i'm sensing something in you that i remember and want to acknowledge- the feeling that whoa! I am finally understanding stuff about myself i didn't know before! i'm finally getting it! i finally am beginning to know what i really want and how i messed up and where that came from (and as an aside FU to the people who screwed me up in the first place) etc etc etc. i remember all of those feelings so, so, so well. i remember a huge feeling of almost headiness, like i have FINALLY come to have some kind of plan for how to move forward and i wanted to not sleep and not have to go to work or do the dishes so i could just keep making progress. I wrote frantic pages trying to get it all out there to deal with it. And that was after months of feeling stuck, miserable, like i wanted to keep sleeping and curl up and please just wake up when it's all over. And at the same time - hey husband! THIS is what i need from you, i finally understand how much i need you and what i need you to do for me and please let's get on it right away. So I really get the feeling that you seem to be having, if I'm right about it.

it's very hard in the middle of that to pause and understand his perspective and his needs and see the world from his point of view. it is a very, very different world for him.

Does any of that ring a bell for you? if so i'll write more about how to use that energy a bit more productively while at the same time not continually re-traumatizing him.

I said it in your other post there's no sense of remorse in your posts, none.

You're so stuck in your anger, your affair was a strike against your BH and this is just another weapon in your arsenal. Another way to knock him down, you knew exactly what going to that lawyer would do to him and wanted him brought to his knees.

I mentioned before you have to heal from the affair before dealing marital issues the problem is although you say the words I don't think you feel your BH deserves anything from you. You think you are the injured party here and nothing is going to change your mind.

You have no place going to MC where you'll place the blame on your BH. Quite frankly speaking as a BS, I'd have walked because you don't come across as someone who wants to save their marriage.

MI, I have more to say because I actually do think it's still possible for you to turn this around but you need a reality check before that can happen.

This is how I see it from a FBGF perspective and as someone who is now in a healthy marriage where I feel heard and respected the vast majority of the time:

Your BH is not the ideal husband. He has real issues that need to be addressed. He has financial issues that absolutely need to be addressed immediately hence why I did not tell you to cancel the financial planner. I agree with you that you are right and valid in going to D if the financial issue is not solved. You are right to be angry about this. It sounds like your BH may have crossed a line into financial abuse in that regard. That is something he needs to own and fix just as much as you need to own and fix your issues that lead to the A.

But here's where our views on this completely diverge - it seems to me that he is a team player and that he can commit to fixing his side of the fence. It seems to me that you could have chosen to go to him and honestly shared your concerns and he probably would have been receptive to them without the secret lawyer visit and then blindsiding him. The reason I say that is because he's shown a propensity for change. He went from nitpicking you and bringing down your self esteem to stopping that unhealthy behavior to atoning for that behavior by complimenting you after you addressed it with him. I don't know how that went for you because it's not something you posted from what I could find. I don't know how apologetic he was. I don't know if he struggled for a minute there to stop or if he got it right away. What I know is he saw that his behavior was shitty, wrong, and hurtful and he changed. And then not only did he stop, he's genuinely trying to make up for the damage he did by doing the opposite of his crappy hurtful behavior in the past. And he's doing it all in spite of the pain and destruction you have caused him!

He is so right about this:

Now that I'm examining my "whys" and what allowed me to justify an affair, I'm finding it difficult to place appropriate boundaries within my marriage without my spouse feeling like I'm being selfish or "not playing as a team."

You aren't acting like a team player because it sounds like to me from what you have posted when he goes to you about issues he has about the A, his concerns aren't heard or taken seriously. He gets minimization. He gets anger about the things he's done wrong. He gets grief for not giving you credit for what you have done. He gets a bunch of defensiveness thrown in his face and not a whole lot of actions towards solving the problem. Okay, maybe TODAY you are capable of dropping the defensiveness at least to his face in the moment some of the time. But you weren't capable of that until pretty recently and your DDay was at least about a year ago or more. You're not dropping it here in this long post primarily focused again on how badly he messed up and how you can mitigate consequences instead of showing some humility and introspection for how badly you messed up. That's a LONG time to be struggling with a level of defensiveness and anger that many BSes would not stand for period.

It's ironic because you posted this:

he has more resources than I in that department, and belittled me frequently when I brought my anxiety to him over utility shut offs and foreclosure notices.

And yet you are guilty of the same behavior when he brings up his anxieties over issues surrounding the A and your continued defensiveness. For every single complaint you have about not being heard and respected, he could easily say the exact same about you! But he's not the one here complaining and threatening D every few months.

This is why I really question some of your complaints about that. Not that I think they're untrue or that you don't have a right to ask that they change but what I see is more of this:

I had poor boundaries in the marriage because it was easier for me to not stand up for myself (enable) since disagreement was terrifying to me- I was afraid of his rejection if I stated a real need and remained firm in it. Then I would use that boundary being ignored (I would bring it up and not enforce it) as an excuse to either get mad or complain (and play victim).

What I see is your BH doing more to stop bad behavior and make up for it and I see you continuing to not communicate, continuing to then use that lack of communication against him, and continuing to justify deceptive and manipulative behavior on your side of the fence as an acceptable response to an issue he isn't even given a chance to fix. He's the team player and he is spot on that you're not.

Team players bring problems to the table and say "How can we fix this together? What can you do? What can I do?" If you want to learn to be a team player, you cannot keep doing the above. You have to look at the issues at hand not as just another thing your BH is or isn't doing. You have to put your ego aside for a minute and ask, "What can we both do to solve this?" He's doing that for you when it comes to the A, his shitty behavior pre-A, and now starting to take responsibility for the financial issues. You need to start extending the same grace he gives you back to him. And that's part of why I think there's some frustration from the posters in your threads because clear as day - you are getting grace, compassion, and understanding from him but he is getting NONE of that from you.

What also really bugs me is that your narrative of being the victim is so pervasive that even some of the posters giving you advice are not really sure who is at fault here. All they see in your posts is, "My BH did this so I did that. He did X, isn't doing Y, and I can't take it anymore!" They're not seeing the truth hidden between the lines because you're not acknowledging it and are glossing over it in favor of sitting your behind right back into that victim chair. The facts are: He is extending you the gift of R even though your response has been to heap anger and blame all over him. He is listening to your concerns and taking steps to address those issues in a way that ensures they don't happen again and so far, he is succeeding in this. Those facts are BIG. They deserve some credit. And if you had spent the last year working on your issues and your communication the same way he did about addressing the ugly comparisons and self esteem dropping comments then you would deserve some credit too.

Despite all you have done to muddy the waters and make your BH look like the main and sole reason your marriage is on the rocks right now, I'm actually impressed by the amount of grace, compassion, and empathy is see him extending to you in your own posts about him. Unless of course you're leaving a lot out but by your own account, the only one I see blaming and shaming is you even if it's just over text to us. Your BH is yet again doing everything you've asked of him to fix his side of the fence and give R with you the best shot he can. It's mind blowing to me that you believe you are at your limit for what you can do in the marriage when from my perspective, your work hasn't even begun. It hasn't even gotten the chance to begin maybe because you are not being held accountable and called out for your lack of empathy, lack of communication, and willingness to continue choosing the same damn destructive choices that got you in this situation in the first place.

If you are still in IC, fire them and get someone new. It's been 7+ months by your account and not much has changed. Your progress has been going at a snail's pace and this whole incident has proven nothing has sunk in because your original poor coping mechanisms prevailed despite you knowing two weeks ago that they were wrong and unhelpful. I don't know what your IC is or isn't doing for you but I can see that whatever it is, it's not working. You may need someone with some experience with infidelity, experience treating WSes, and some tough love approaches with some kind, effective solutions. And for God's sake, be humble and show some appreciation for what your BH is doing right. Show some humility and accountability about what you are not doing right. On this forum and in person to him. I'm sure he could really use that same positive feedback he has learned to give you about your appearance right now.

MIgander, I feel like you’re struggling with a ton of fear. What? What are you afraid of? Are you in IC? If so, are you addressing your FOO filters? Are you addressing the reality of your financial situation vs your fears? Are you able to take your focus off your husband and his supposed problems and just focus on digging into yourself? Why exactly can the marriage problems not wait? I have yet to read a reason from you that doesn’t involve your own fear or anxiety, which I understand are considerable and yet are still just that: your own.

Are you being evicted? Are they chaining your front door shut? Are they sending you to the Marshalsea? Ok, that last was tongue in cheek, I’m sorry. If you’re about to be hauled off to debtor’s prison, then yes, stuff is a crisis, IMO. But your husband might not agree. Everyone has different opinions. I know how anxiety inducing financial issues can be. I used to take the financial shit in my marriage personally, too. But it’s just not. It’s not. My husband came from his own financial viewpoint: comfortable. He thinks it’s charming that I clabber old milk for biscuits. I’m learning to find it charming that he can tell me the price of every Triumph motorcycle for sale on Craigslist within a 50 mile radius. And you know what? It IS charming. It’s how he relates to the world, it’s gorgeous. My anxiety that he’s going to go out and purchase a couple of those motorcycles is my own anxiety. I imagine as time passes and we build trust, that anxiety will get less. I also drew some boundaries for my own sanity AS A TEAM. And I’m still learning how to do that, to understand that my husband’s decisions are not a personal attack on me as a person. He’s just living his life in the best way he knows how. And after discovery he wasn’t particularly interested in looking at things from my perspective, especially when it was presented as a full frontal assault. My feelings are not his fault. Nobody can make you feel anything. We get to choose.

I went years as the “cool girl” about my husband’s financial decisions. He spent to impress me and feel better about himself. What a spectacularly awful combination. Guess what? We really just want to spend time together, underneath it all. My husband still gets wild impulses to buy motorcycles and utility trailers and I still fight down my inclination to run screaming for the hills. But we’re learning how to talk about things and own our feelings. Calmly. To have shared goals and NO JUDGMENT. I’m choosing to be here. I don’t get the sense that you understand that from your post. I see a lot of triangulation of your husband and your marriage as your abusers. But it’s not your husband or your marriage’s job to to buoy you up. It’s yours. They can help, but why he doesn’t want to do that right now is understandable. I feel that you hold him responsible and that in return he marshals his own dysfunctional defenses in the best way he can. No teamwork. Just potshots from two scared and hurting people.

What is your fear? What are you afraid of? What is aching inside of you? My advice is to work on probing those spots inside of you, with an ICs help. Then, learn how to comfort and soothe yourself. It has the ability to change your life. And try to reach out that healing hand to your husband, who sounds so very lonely and scared. If you can’t bring yourself to lower your own personal spikes, let him go. Marriage is a growth experience, my IC is fond of saying. Your husband is not your pincushion. He is hurting. You are, too, and have been for a long time. Aren’t you tired of living that way?

Remind us again..when was dday? How long did you TT?

Hi everyone,

Just to clear it up, I am in IC, have been since early October. Been put on various meds as well to cope with the anxiety, depression and ADD I live with every day as well. So that's been taken care of to the extent I can on my own without changing external circumstances. This is why I was focused on my husband getting IC. I have been working on my own to eliminate the distorted view I had of him (not loving me, being cruel and only wanting me for my $$). I can see the father he is, the husband he is working to become. I can say honestly that I am learning to love him again as the good and dedicated man he is. I still have not dropped my anger, but there's room now in my heart to recognize his value and worth.

I think that without a plan, they are subjecting themselves to more pain... Some of the things she can’t resolve her anger over are valid, but are an obstacle she is unable to remove [on her own] to get to a lace of empathy

Thanks HO, this is exactly what I have been trying to tell my husband.

We are in too distressed an emotional, financial state for either of us to feel calm enough to have the emotional bandwidth to learn new communication techniques, perform empathy building exercises, generate a clearer picture of what future M we are working towards looks like AND sort out our finances so we can achieve all that in a responsible manner. Let alone for me to help him heal from the infidelity. We CANNOT do this on our own. I CANNOT do this without professional help. HE CANNOT do this without professional help.

BH NEEDS IC. Everyone on the forum and all the books I've read says how important that is for processing trauma. My husband processes stress and trauma by unhealthy behaviors. I have not had healthy modeling of any of that in my childhood, and cannot walk him through it by myself. He needs more resources than he has right now and he needs to get them. If your spouse had an obviously cancerous growth on their forehead and was refusing treatment to remove it, you would do everything you could to get them to the Dr. This is no different. Since he expects me to heal him on my own, it's like approaching a car mechanic and expecting them to know how to do brain surgery. BH needs to go to IC and we need MC to learn skills we don't have.

You're right- I don't have empathy for his hurt and his pain. You're right- it's not fair for me to make demands we work on the M in terms of "feelings" and "sharing." For the past 2-3 months we have been stuck in a loop of "BH needs this" "WW can't give you that because of X(no $, self destructive... excuses excuses)". "BH needs my love and empathy and no hard lines" "WW needs to understand that when she asks for things she genuinely needs firmly and clearly BH is going to take it seriously"

This is also why I was insistent upon MC and IC and financial planning. We need help with communication skills, he needs help coping (going alone and refusing to open up often and frequently to friends who love you/therapist is unhealthy). We need professional help managing our finances. I had asked in as calm and rational a manner as possible, for months and was not being listened to. If he was unwilling to work on skill building for survival and growth together, I was at a place where I needed to move on alone.

Is it possible that you have so much anger and resentment built up around pre-A M issues that you can't move past it?

THIS^^^^^^^^^^^

Resentment is the huge elephant in the room for me. I have gently (and not so gently- the first thing I worked on in IC ) asked him for these things repeatedly over the YEARS we have been married. This not being listened to and being disregarded on other levels and having my distress and anxiety belittled for so long has built up a fortress of resentment inside me.

One thing did help in a conversation today. BH admitted that he wished we got MC long before this mess, when I was asking for it years ago, that we could have avoided so much pain. I said, "shoulda, coulda, woulda doesn't help much. We need to work with where we are." The needs went ignored, the weaknesses despised or left me alone to deal with and correct. We were basically not partners in this marriage for a LONG time. It's going to take a massive amount of work on both our parts to make it work at all going forward.

You are all correct in that I took away his agency again.

It's very hard in the middle of that to pause and understand his perspective and his needs and see the world from his point of view. it is a very, very different world for him.

Pippin you are spot on. This is a terrifying place my husband finds himself in. Many things he thought he knew are wrong, things he used to be able to count on are gone and the one who should have cared for him most turned traitor and stabbed him in the back.

DDay was mid July 19. I TT'd until the end of September. Started counseling after that.

Hi Nekonamida,

You're right, I'm not a team player. We haven't been a team in a long time and have become very good at throwing things in each other's faces instead of working compromises together.

I don't have the skills needed to rebuild this, heal this, or anything beyond changing my warped views of my husband, the passive aggressive shit I would do to him and the emotional rage I would throw out at him.

What I see is your BH doing more to stop bad behavior and make up for it and I see you continuing to not communicate, continuing to then use that lack of communication against him, and continuing to justify deceptive and manipulative behavior on your side of the fence as an acceptable response to an issue he isn't even given a chance to fix. He's the team player and he is spot on that you're not.

You're still operating from a wayward mindset. You're still only really looking out for yourself. If you had changed, instead of getting a lawyer without telling him, you would have had an honest conversation in which you laid everything out on the table and told him honestly that you could not see the marriage continuing without IC, MC, and a financial planner

You're right in me still thinking of myself first. I'm working on that in the IC as well. There's a lot of baggage to triage and that is coming along. Work in progress.

I would have to disagree with you on several points in the quote above here. I have been communicating clearly that I don't know what it looks like to show him the remorse he's looking for (parent's never modeled it for me, haven't seen it in his parent's marriage or any one else's up close). I have communicated that the stress levels of the financial problems are too much for me to bear any more. I have communicated that I don't have the skills to help him with his PTSD with the affair. I just don't. I have said to him repeatedly over the past 2-3 months, "I can't do this alone, I need MC, I need financial planning, you need IC." In calm voices I have told him this, about every 2-3 days this past month alone.

This is not about "me, me, me" here. It's about me saying, "I don't know what I'm doing here, let's go talk to someone who does and get on a plan." We are spinning our wheels and only hurting each other and our children more each day.

I'm already in IC to deal with issues surrounding the resentment building of our marriage and how my own reactions and enablement caused it and fed it.

I DONT HAVE THE SKILLS NEEDED TO FIX THIS.

2-3 months of clear communication about the fact that your shitty self-centered wife doesn't have the skills needed to fix her problems and is asking for professional help so we can work together on it isn't so self absorbed and victim seating. It's me telling the honest humble truth that I've been a self centered POS for so long (from my FOO, didn't really have a good example of how not to be), I can't get myself out of this mess alone.

I need guidance. I need accountability. I need a face and a voice and a PERSON to guide me through this and for BH to come along and learn with me.

TOGETHER AS A TEAM.

I'm tired of being the victim. I don't know what that looks like in concrete ways. I need someone I respect that's not wrapped up in our mess to guide me and my BH out. That's what this was all about.

<An aside about our finances- for those who haven't read previous postings, we've had previous homes nearly put up on the auction block, utility shut offs and car repossession (in the last 2 years) due to our poor financial choices. BH would need validation, look for fancy object, wear me down and I would enable it and cave. For this reason I am VERY triggered around late notices, notices of foreclosure and shut off, which we still receive. For someone already struggling with baseline depression and anxiety and ADD, this adds an layer of chaos that makes going to get the mail painful and daily tasks difficult on a good day for me.>

I said, "shoulda, coulda, woulda doesn't help much. We need to work with where we are."

Once again the lack of empathy is shocking. I'm not arguing with what you said but my God just hit him right in the face with it.

MC is a waste of time with an unremorseful WW.

You have no empathy. No remorse.

I think he will eventually be glad you called the divorce attorney.

You can not attempt reconciliation with an unremorseful WS. That's common knowledge.

"Gently" I see your requirements in order to move forward but did not see anything about him except he refuses to change what you saw as his faults before your A and that he doesn't trust you.

I need professional MC help to move us forward

Has your BS expressed his desire to move forward with you or are you planning to drag him by his ear kick and screaming?

I cannot any longer live in this financial distress

Is it possible that he cannot any longer live in the pain caused by your A but he also doesn't want to move forward at the speed you would like?

He needs counseling to help him move forward

Again, at the speed you would like?

He is depressed, hurting and feeling unheard and unloved and un-cared for

Is there anything stated in your post that is helping him with any of this? If there is I must have missed it.

I need help to move past all this

From personal experience I can tell you that you don't move past this, you must move through it.

to learn how to be vulnerable to him

This is where your sentence should have ended but you went on to say

without using anger as a shield

This is the first thing I read you say about his needs.

He needs the anger gone and trust rebuilt

Anger is not something that just goes away.

my husband is not satisfied my anger has gone away

If he does not see it then you have not done nearly enough

has not acknowledged progress I have made and efforts I have put in to make myself safe for him

With everything you had written I believe that you may have started to earn back a little trust but

now with this move on my part, has lost trust in me again