The A was the right decision!
No, not actually. Just wanted to get your attention before I go into a long winded rant! 
I feel like I’m on my fucking own here. God knows I love him to pieces but CHRIST I wish this guy had more ambition. It’s like there’s always an excuse.
Since we’ve been together he’s been depressed. He wished he had health insurance so he could "drown in prozac." He gets an offer for health insurance and ignores every notice until I catch one in the mail and sign him up. Now all of a sudden he doesn’t believe in psychiatry.
He complains his job is too unstable and doesn’t provide enough income and he’s always broke. Did he fill out any applications though? Of course not. Why would he? So I do. Sure enough he gets a stable job. Guess what happens next, no really I insist. He gets fired. Now he’s unemployed and I’m stuck paying the rent, the groceries, the car insurance, the internet. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to shoulder the money problems, either. Far from it.
The best part is during this steady job he still complains that after the bills he barely has enough to enjoy himself. I sympathize with that, I’ve definitely felt that before. But he held the fucking job for a year before getting fired without looking into anything with better prospects. No trade school, several lazily forgotten attempts to get a CDL (mind you, I made every fucking permit test appointment), no applications. Just complaints.
What annoys me the most is the amount of energy he puts into his video games. He gets so angry he’s made holes in doors, walls, and spent hundreds of dollars on new controllers. I have spent so much on furniture to make our apartment look nice and there’s dents and scratches on these pieces. But then I’m the bad guy if I tell him to stop caring so much about the fucking videogame because he’s depressed and its "all I have to enjoy myself." WHAT THE FUCK. There were so many times I didn’t want to go home from work because I knew what was waiting for me was banging, crashing, and hours long rants about how the game is bullshit that would then morph into why his life was so shitty. And it has been. He definitely has not had great luck. But how long are we gonna complain about how bad everything is and when are we gonna start doing something about it? And I sit there and listen and try to give him advice or comfort, but why would I be excited to go home exactly? Am I not human?
I feel like every argument ends with me being wrong. With me being selfish. With me not understanding. His family chastizes him and makes him feel like a loser every day, I’m the only one in this guys corner giving him words of encouragement but I’m the fucking bad guy when I say anything. We have yet another appointment for him to get his CDL tomorrow. I’m in the middle of studying for finals for graduate school and he expects me to fill out his applications for him when he gets his permit. And if I get mad about it I just "hate him" and I’m "selfish." I think I’m gonna peel my fucking face off I’m so angry.
He had chronic back pain, I got him an appointment. I’m the only one that cooks and I serve him FIRST. I make note of the things he likes: Aaron Judge, Kings of Leon, he said he wanted a chain necklace. I listen and I get him gifts based on these things because I like seeing him excited and happy and surprised. The last time he surprised me with a gift was with roses on valentine’s day — IN OUR FIRST YEAR TOGETHER.
This is not to say he’s some asshole. He’s always there when I need him. He’d give me rides to work at 5 am every day when I had my first cashier job. He’d pick me up in the middle of the city if I was out with my friends and didn’t want to take the train. He’d run and get me gatorade if I was sick. I love him to pieces and I really can’t picture my life without him. I just wish he would change. I have no intention of leaving him but he needs to be shaken up and I don’t know how to do that.
Since my A I’ve been mentally flogging myself on a daily basis and I’m finally starting to come out of it, but these resentments make me feel like shit just for having. "Communication is key," yes I know. We’ve been together for 8 years of course we fucking communicate. Yes I avoid "you" statements. I am nothing if not a gentle communicator. Well, at least I was. Within the past couple of months I’ve had outbursts I’ve never had before and I really don’t like it. I have screamed until I lost my voice and my face was red with anger. Once I come out of it I feel gross and embarrassed. This is how he’s always communicated his anger and for some stupid reason I feel like that means I can do the same, but it really gets us nowhere and only makes things worse. I’m really tired.
I regret the A every single day. Not one second has it intruded in my mind without me cringing and becoming overcome with disgust. Despite my grievances I don’t think to myself "you know what? Actually I was totally justified." It was my very gross and selfish way of rebelling rather than having an uncomfortable conversation. I imprinted a bunch of desirable qualities onto a man I barely knew and now I gotta live with an invisible red "A" that I see tattooed to my forehead every time I look in the mirror.
Now that I’ve typed this all out most of my anger has been transferred into my computer and I feel better. Look, I love my husband more than anything. He’s not the worst guy ever. I know he tries and I want to help him. He gets better every day. I understand him better than anyone and he understands me and loves me like crazy. I want us to run into the sunset and live happily ever after. Obviously I know a marriage isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, I’ve been with him for 8 years. I know I’m not innocent (obviously), and he has plenty of grievances with me as well, but at the end of the day we only want to be with each other. I wish this was easier sometimes.
Rant over!
29 comments posted: Monday, December 9th, 2024
It gets better.
Not gonna rehash everything, I’m a madhatter. After the discovery I just switched to lurking and less interaction here, and eventually vanished. But I’m happy to report it does get better when you put in the work.
I tried a couple therapists. It didn’t end up working out, after about 5 people telling me that infidelity doesn’t come out of nowhere and making it so that my husband was the only one at fault I admittedly gave up.
This is not to say however that I gave up trying. This may be a controversial opinion but I believe you can hold yourself accountable if you have the mental willpower. I still tell myself that what I did was a conscious decision, and ask myself how I am becoming a better person for my husband. I did a couple months of moping and drowning myself in piles of self-hatred and guilt and disgust. But then I realized it wasn’t helping anyone. We were both just sad and angry and nothing was happening. There was a giant burst of anger every other day.
Nothing was planned in regards to this, but we sat down one day and just talked. No more allowing inconveniences and annoyances to become out of proportion arguments. However - this is only after a giant heaping helpful of them. A grieving stage for what we once were, I suppose. It was hard, but we’re still here.
And not depressingly and begrudgingly. We are HERE for one another. We are happy to be with each other. More than happy I would say. My husband is a rock in my life and I rely on him as he does me. We make time for dates, we get excited to see each other, we unleash flurries of kisses and hugs on each other when one of us gets home. Life is good!
I feel hopeful for the future and we have both done a lot of work for one another. The work is never over, and not everything has been sunshine and rainbows, but it’s working out for us. I hope it works out for you guys too, however that may look like. Keep working!
2 comments posted: Tuesday, March 26th, 2024
Conflicted
Please see my past post for more history of my situation.
I found out yesterday that my husband has been engaging in deeply sexual conversations for the last five years yesterday. With multiple people online. With one of them it was somewhat emotional as well as sexual, and they had hung out in person once, but "just talked". He told me that nothing has ever happened physically in any of these interactions, but I don’t necessarily believe that. This is because he would ask to meet up, tell these people our general location, then the conversations would move to other apps like kik and snapchat and I don’t know what happened there because he deleted all of it.
I feel conflicted. He told me he didn’t do anything physically, and I want to believe him but I don’t really know. He said that asking to meet and making it sound real was part of the excitement, but that these interactions never went outside of the internet. When I spoke to him about it, he kept saying that I shouldn’t forget what I did, and that what I did was much worse. I agree with this, if it’s true. But I can’t help but feel hurt. Is this karma? I feel like I don’t have the right to feel betrayed or angry but I do feel this way.
Up until now we’ve been doing well. I have been open to all his questions, I have been constantly reassuring him, I’ve been doing my best to make him feel wanted. I thought we were on a good path, one that would come with more turbulence but that we were on the right track at least. Let me be clear, I do not think any of this absolves me and I continue to live with the guilt of what I have done. I don’t think him doing what he has done makes me any less guilty. But now I feel betrayed. I don’t know what to do. I want to be with him, I love him, and I’ve been fighting for him since my affair. Five years is a long time. We’ve been together for seven. That’s a majority of our relationship. I’m at a loss.
He had left his ipad while at work, and had confessed to me to speaking to a woman who was interested in him, post- my affair. He told me that I could read their conversation, which I did, and it was emotional amd sexual in nature. It lasted for five days, and he told me he didn’t want it to go any further and had not been responding to her for the last two days. He told me he couldn’t do that to me, and that I should feel reassured that he had this opportunity and never took it. I wasn’t happy, obviously. But ultimately I was just relieved it didn’t happen. With this specific incidence. I asked him to tell her that the conversation was completely over, and he did, and blocked her. This confession is what ultimately lead to me to check his ipad. And what I found disturbed me. Sexting, asking to meet, sharing nude pictures. It wasn’t every day for five years, but it’s been happening for five years.
He keeps saying what he did he doesn’t find serious because of what I did. He didn’t seem very remorseful, and kind of angry actually when I spoke to him about it. He gave me a dry apology when I asked for one, and a more sincere one later, only after I had gotten outraged at his apology. Today he seems more remorseful, but we began the day with him standing over me and saying "I didn’t cheat," in a confrontational manner. Every reponse to my questions of his actions is answered and ended with a "but you.."
I keep telling him I don’t think I’m absolved at all. But I’d like to see remorse from him too.
I don’t know, I’m rambling now but my head is spinning.
4 comments posted: Saturday, September 16th, 2023
Death of Silence
Hello, SI. This is my very first post. I really hate that I now know this website exists. Anyways, I’ve been lurking pretty much every day since D-Day and thought it would be more helpful if I involved myself, so here we are!
We are 1 month post-nuclear explosion bomb on our marriage (dropped by yours truly), and I pray that he gives me more months, years, decades. I’m grateful for every day he has given me since. I see a lot of you have been in R for much longer lengths of time, I feel a bit silly for making any observations as this is all new. But here’s my earth-shattering take: silence is terrible!
My BH and I have spent countless hours together in the car, in restaurants, and wherever else sitting in comfortable silence. At peace, enjoying the company of one another and whatever was around us. Maybe that isn’t so unique, but WOW did I take it for granted. I took everything for granted. Being that we’ve been together for so long I suppose one should hope that the silence was comfortable, however dealing with the "need to be liked by everyone" issue that I have, it has always been very difficult for me to let silence sit in any company. This made our quiet moments so special to me. And now I’m reaping what I sow. The silence now is deafening. Every second of it feels heavy and unbelievably cumbersome. This is the effect I have had on our relationship, I’ve tarnished something so precious.
I’ve tried telling him what’s on my mind, and it has helped. We’ve had long and short conversations, tears and laughter. There have been some instances however, where he’s told me he doesn’t want to talk. And we just sit with the big, scary silence. I don’t blame him at all, I know the talks while healing can also be emotionally taxing to him.
I know what runs through my mind in these moments now - self-hatred, torment, guilt, shame, fear of the future. These emotions I feel I deserve to sit with for quite some time. What worries me is what runs through his mind. I can’t bear to think of it and I only hope that his brain shows him mercy. He seems to have been in good spirits for the past few days, but I still worry about what is unspoken.
To the other WS’s with more experience, and maybe even hopeful R, how do you deal with the silence?
28 comments posted: Monday, August 21st, 2023
