Therapists and retraumatizing ...
I don't post often, as I have so much to say I feel my posts should be novels. But, I need an outlet today.
For the past 37 years my WH has not been accountable for his lifetime of affairs, and he even admitted he had zero intention of honoring the vows he took in 1989, as he learned from HIS parents that "if yourunhappy, go find someone better and cheat."
While our last DDay was back in 2009, and I do not know if he has cheated again, I do know he has been using 'corn' and to me THAT is cheating, still.
Back in 2009, we really didn't do effective counseling that got to the heart of HIS issues, nor the depth of the pain, anger, humiliation and vast array of emotions I feel as BW over the course of an entire marriage.
I let life and family needs take over and swept the hurt under the rug until one day in 2022 when it came back in floods out of nowhere, and haunted me relentlessly. I didn't realize at the time it was a form of PTSD. I stupidly confided in my WH with hopes he could help me through the horror of this retraumatizion that hit me out of the blue. He did not help me, and instead blame-shifted and made ME the villain and himself the victim, blaming my lack of attention towards him and blah, blah, blah... I was disgusted!
I laid it out for him at that time and basically told him, "You broke this! You FIX it!" and demanded he seek therapy weekly, or I am done.
He took his sweet time finding a therapist, but 2 months later found one he is getting along with very well. He has been going weekly for about 6 months now.
In all honestly, he IS making progress at a snails pace in understanding his own feelings and is beginning to be able to recognize them and talk through them... with his therapist, only. He is labeled as "emotionally immature" and had lots of "childhood trauma" that has carved him into the serial cheater he is, and the emotionally immature part is the icing on the cake for me! He is better able to have a conversation with me without having to leave the room and yell, so that is progress on his part. It really hasn't helped the relationship, yet.
Once he was a few months into IC, we agreed to try MC and I found a CSAT therapist I THOUGHT would help us. I was wrong. I ended up being retraumatized in sessions by having to sit weekly and listen to my WH dismiss my feelings, justify his affairs and blame ME for his behavior. I am told by therapist, "Stay on your side of the street and he stays on his, both doing your own work and one day we will begin working together on the marriage."
I was appalled at NO recognition of the Betrayal Trauma of 37 yrs I endured and was told "He is too emotionally fragile right now to even hear or see your pain, as he is just now seeing HIS OWN. So, you must WAIT and be patient, and when HE is ready, we will begin couples work. I stepped out of couples therapy and told her, "Any therapy that does NOT attend to the 27 yrs of trauma I experienced at his hands as the PRIMARY focus is abusive to ME and I refuse to continue."
Now, I have been in IC for a long time and I have done MY work and have made huge progress in finding my voice and my self worth again. So much that I am now at the point where either my WH steps it up and stops his BS in therapy (he is feigning ignorance of accountability meaning and doesn't know if HE has it in him to do what I need. The poor baby...)
I told him last week that I am done waiting for him to grow up basically and his snail-pace therapy is a pattern he has of procrastination and disrespect and he has done this with each MC we ever tried over 37 yrs. I moved to seperate bedroom and am leaning towards seperation/divorce.
NOW, he is angry at HIS 2 therapists (he sees his IC to help him understand his inner turmoil AND he is seeing the CSAT on individual level for more focus on his addictive traits. I feel HE knew what I needed from him (to be shown by his actions over past 90 days that I matter to him and to do things in MY love language that show me that... he admitted he did NOTHING over those 90days and does not understand 'why'. Hmmm...?)
Anyone seeing him on paper would say, "He IS trying hard. He is making progress." But, attending 2 weekly sessions of therapy and MAYBE joining a large online group support for men who betrayed (I'm talking 50+ men in 60 mins, where he isn't even seen or has option to speak, which is just done so he can check the box saying "O did what therapist told me to do.)
I see him doing zero work at home. He hides behind "I have to work FT AND help take care of our grandson, so I don't have time for anything else!"
He hasn't changed, yet boasts that he "IS DIFFERENT AND I WOULD NEVER DO THAT TO YOU EVER AGAIN!"
He still holds 37 years of lies in his head... that is not changing. He still blames me for HIS choices... that is not changing. He has zero interest in even asking me about ME or how I feel... because he fears my pain... thatbis not changing.
So, I know as I even write this that he isn't going to change and I have to try to move on in my life.
After 37 years married, losing the home I literally built with my parents as a child is the single most devastating loss I face in that choice. This home is my SAFE place. Losing that is more devastating than leaving the man who has never truly cared about me.
Now, he seems to be searching for all the resources to try to prove to me he CAN change and do the work. When I am leaving is when he wants to finally try? Part of me wants so desperately to believe him. My logical self knows he is not going to change in this lifetime. I face a difficult choice of at this age... do I stay in my home and somehow try to live separately under the same roof? I can't afford a place on my own. I can't find a job after being a SAHM for past 10 yrs and I feel like I am stuck here.
If I did try to remain in the house, could I seperate and date later on? I'd hate it if HE did that, but selfishly feel like "you had your fun at my expense, this is MY turn!"
I am venting... I doubt I could stay and do that to myself. I am just so ANGRY that I am still here with him and had hope he would do the work. I am stupid. Now, I just need the strength and courage to move on and out and don't know HOW to do that.
Thanks for letting me vent. I'll be moving to the Divorce forum soon.
1 comment posted: Tuesday, July 1st, 2025
When did the affair begin and officially end
I'm wondering if anyone can help get to the bottom of exactly when is an affair considered to "begin" and "end"?
Does it begin when WH begins to fixate and plan ways to be around another woman? Does it begin when he begins lieing?
Does it end when he is no longer grieving his ap and he can stop being mad at you for his having to end it? I don't feel an affair is considered "ended" if WH is sulking in deep depression over his AP not having called him back.
Edit: WS had series of LT PA that ended 2010. He is currently invested in his IC and our MC, and just now beginning to realize the depth of devastation he has caused over our entire 37 yrs married.
He struggles with the realization that he minimized the length of these affairs. He believed they were 2-3 months, and my information shows more like 12 to 18 months.
If I could get the general consensus on the actual moment affairs begin and end, it would be helpful in creating a timeline we both can recognize as more accurate.
We are going to give it a shot at reconciling. I agreed to take it a few months at a time and only if he is fully invested with me. So far he is.
14 comments posted: Sunday, March 9th, 2025
It took me 36 years to realize I meant nothing to him
I have not posted much since I found this site, mostly because I did not know where I belonged or even how I felt. I have not really "felt" anything but resentment and anger for the past couple of years. My story is long and complex, like most people's story. I am ashamed that I am having to admit I have been married to a serial cheater and that I was someone he cheated WITH back in the days when he had been dating his HS sweetheart. Somehow we clicked at a party and he pursued me quite strongly at the time, and convinced me that he only had eyes for ME. He asked me to marry him, which is NOT something he had done with his girlfriends before me. I felt "chosen" and "loved" and I believed we were in love and would live happily ever after.
I got pregnant a few months after we got engaged and I recall being so afraid to tell him. But, when he didn't hesitate and said we would get through it and everything would be okay, I felt like I had the most amazing man in the world and we bumped our wedding up and were married within a few months. I should have noticed more of the signs before we married, when my hormones were going crazy and he was not at all supportive, and in fact he would run away from any conversation that made him uncomfortable. Stupid me believed that he would grow up, as soon as the baby was born. After all, I came from a solid family and was raised to "stick together and work it out!" I didn't recognize that HIS upbringing in a home where both parents were on their 3rd or 4th marriages and addictions were prevalent would impact his ability to "grow up" in the manner I expected him to. Somehow, the process of getting married and having the baby just "happened" and I went with the flow, trusting that all would be fine in the long run.
The wedding itself should have been my firsts clue to run for the nearest exit. It was clear to me from the start of our relationship that his family was attached to his HS girlfriend and I was the "intruder" that hurt her badly. His mother and sisters and brother were passive-aggressive in their undermining of my wedding plans and they made it a point to put as many wrench's in the wheel as possible to ruin the wedding. They were successful. His bachelor party, which my father and 3 brothers attended was video-taped. My soon-to-be-husband was caught on tape having oral sex with the stripper at his party, IN FRONT OF MY FATHER! My father told me I should seriously reconsider marrying this man! I did not heed my father's warning, as I was fearful of having a baby by myself at this point. I went ahead with the wedding after husband promised me he destroyed the tape and it was a moment of a very bad choice, for which he was deeply sorry. We got married. At the wedding reception, unbeknownst to me, his brother and his brothers friends fed my new husband shot after shot after shot, and once we got through cutting the cake and our first dance, he was needing to sit down away from everyone and I took him to the "Brides room" of the reception hall where he promptly passed out cold, so soundly that I had to call an ambulance to get him up and ambulating and out of the banquet hall. While HE was passed out, his family started a fight with my neighbor who "defended my honor against verbal assaults and accusations of trapping him with a baby!" The fight resulted in police and ambulances coming to the reception three different times, my father was bitten by my BIL, my brothers and his brother were arrested and booked for disorderly conduct, my mother and grandmother and grandfather were clutching their chests in horror! This is NOT how Italian families wed! This was NOT how we celebrated new beginnings! I wanted a divorce the next day and did not want to go on my honeymoon. My family talked my into going and was told, "This will all work itself out. You MUST go. You two must go talk this out."
We went and we stewed in our own turmoil of how to even address the situation. HE was still wanting to support HIS family... NOT ME, his pregnant wife! HELLO!?? During this conversation, Jonathan Brandmeir from Chicago's WLUP Radio Station was calling us because they wanted to talk about the wedding and the Newspaper Headline 'Suburban Sleeze' that our local paper had run, stating "unflattering comments made about the bride resulted in several fights, arrests and ambulances..." We declined the calls, but this tension between us made us come home early. THIS was the beginning of what should have been the END. When I got home and was cleaning up the mess from the reception that was still strewn about our apartment, I came across the stripper video that he NEVER DESTROYED (Lie #1!).
Somehow we got through having the baby, only for him to be faced with an ultimatum 6 months after our son was born and he was rip-roaring drunk after a wedding we attended and became verbally abusive and pushed me, to divorce or go to rehab. He went to rehab. During the next couple of years, we had another baby, by mutual decision, and in 1992 I was preparing to have a baby in 2 months when husband announced, "I am not happy. I do not love you anymore. I am not attracted to you (mind you I am pregnant 7 mos and I feel huge! His comment hurt me at my very core! I knew we had some stressors with him working 4 to midnight and me working days. This is the schedule He has always worked, and we were waiting for a day slot to be available. I was not aware of him having an affair. It never crossed my mind. I felt we were having difficulty connecting due to our hours. We started marriage counseling, but he resisted from the start. He could twist words around and focus on the stupidest word and spend 55 mins of counseling getting "clarification" on what it means to "take your wife out on a date"! It was demeaning and humiliating for me to have to sit there and listen to my husband defend himself for NOT taking me out anywhere! I only remembered him saying "I am not attracted to you. You are too fat. I have to get high just to have sex with you!" and i OWNED his abuse as my own and blamed myself for gaining so much weight that I was now repulsive to my husband! I dieted and worked out and in a month I lost 45 lbs after having a baby. I was exhausted, weak, sad, and emotionally drained. I was raising 2 kids by myself at this point, because he refused to watch them during the day because he "had a lot of meetings to attend, work CEU hours, work outings, events, etc…
By 1994, I have the kids in a daycare at my office and have a tight group of friends, where the 4 of us spend work days and after-work events together. We 4 girls told one another everything about our marriages, kids, joys and heartaches. One of the friends and I were especially close, having had our babies together and supporting each other through pregnancy woes. She and I would, unfortunately, "eat our feelings quite often" with Burger King Whoppers (x2 each) being the main meal. I packed on the lbs I had lost after the baby. I couldn’t understand how SHE was losing weight though. I beat myself up over MY lack of will-power, MY weakness for gluttony, MY ugly body. She was always with me on weekends, therefore she was also always with husband too.
In 1996, while at work, one of the 4 friends pulled me aside and couldn’t hold the information from me any longer and told me about a LONG-TERM affair husband had been having with the friend that had been feeding me Whoppers the past year! She had plans to divorce her husband and she and my husband would marry after he divorced me, and they would raise MY kids with hers as a happy little family! Husband even took this waste of human flesh to his mom’s house and announced to his family, "THIS is the person I SHOULD HAVE MARRIED!" His mother told me this tidbit in the month before she passed away. This was my DD #2. We attempted marriage counseling through local church. But, focus is ALWAYS of forgiving and better communication. It did not make much of an impact for us. All it did was cause me to stuff my shame of being such an inadequate wife deep down into my gut, and I hid it deep. He swore he was faithful and this ONE mistake was just that… a horrible mistake. I offer him grace and forgiveness. To make myself a better and more attractive wife, I underwent weight loss surgery and lost 120 lbs. I looked amazing, or so I thought I did. He never said anything NICE to me to let me know if he even liked me, or how I looked. He was emotionally distant and the marriage counselor we first saw told me this and warned me that life with him would be a very, very long and painful journey IF I decided to stay with him. I thought, "Not us. We are different!"
Our daughter ended up having bipolar 2 diagnosis in her teens. Her behavior was a HUGE source of stress and anguish for us as she was going through elementary school. We had no idea she had a serious mental illness and were being told she is just oppositional and we needed to do better at home with routines and boundaries. Our home was a battle zone on so many levels that as the years went by it was no surprise to me that several times over the course of the next 20 years husband would go through these patterns of depression and not loving me. Along the way HE had medical issue that resulted in his losing a job, which ended up in court and I pursued the claim and after 3 years I won a very large settlement for us against his employer. During that time of his job loss and injury, we ended up having to file for bankruptcy, he had complications from a surgery and his bones did not heal (non-union) and he ended up with DVT. While healing from that, he fell down the stairs and bent the pins in his foot. Two weeks after that fall, he tripped in a walking boot and fractured his back (compression fractures). He was a walking accident and he was in a bad funk. During this time we had a family camping trip where he proceeded to drink 15 beers and later told me he "purposefully flirted in front of me with a 19 yr old cousin of my SIL" because he WANTED TO and he didn’t give a damn how I felt about it. Well, during that little drunken trist he made the mistake of insulting my brother’s wife, who is also raging drunk. My brother punched my husband and ended up breaking his jaw. Due to the fight, other campers called the police and my husband was arrested. We were not aware of the broken jaw until the next day when I bailed him out of jail. I never said this out loud to anyone, but I was secretly pleased that someone had knocked him on his rear end for me! I was tired of how he had been treated me. Apparently, so were my brothers.
Come round to 2009, husband comes home stinking of womens perfume and announces yet again, "I do not love you… blah, blah, blah…" This time, I WANT him to go and STAY gone! I agree, I do not love him anymore either… time for divorce. Only, HE COMES back again! I guess his mistress didn’t want him around THAT OFTEN where he lived with her. This rejection was a rude awakening for husband and I had to watch him grieve his AP while he was in MY home! This was DD #3 for me! We did the counseling and all that garbage, staying because the fear of leaving and raising my daughter alone was very scary. During this time, life got in the way and parents got sick, people died, things get wept under the rug. While his affairs seem to have stopped, his anger, resentment and lack of respect for me did not. I drifted further and further away from him emotionally, still in a lowest funk because I am carrying shame that does not belong to me.
On early 2022, I begin having severe PTSD symptoms and I am living in a nightmare of affairs that feel like they are happening in the moment. When I reached out to husband to help me through this time, he rejected me and devaklued me, invalidating everything I was feeling and going through. I felt so abandoned, rejected and unlovable. I sunk into a depression and he and I stopped relations for 2 years – Husbands choice. This coming from the guy who always said, "You are not meeting my needs sexually" the guy who lives and breathes for sex. HE stopped having sex with me, to punish me for how I feel about HIS cheating! This began my awakening from a fog. I realized I was worth more than the garbage I had been getting. In Sept 2024 I gave him the ultimatum. He can file for divorce, because I am NOT going to do his dirty work for him, or he can get into IC and start facing the issues he has IF he wants to try to stay in this relationship. He chose counseling and has been going since Sept. The issue is, he isn’t doing any "work" other than the 55 mins a week. I am so fed up with getting nothing from him and giving so much to him over the years. I had tickets to a concert tonight, which I mistakenly asked him to go with me, thinking we could TRY to go out and have fun. He hasn’t complimented me in years. My grandson compliments me EVERY time I get dressed nice. Not my husband. Nothing nice said, ever to me. Tonight, at the restaurant, he started complimenting the amazing skills our waitress had. He IS capable of acknowledging something good or nice in someone. Apparently, it is ME he cannot be nice to. I tried to talk to him all night and all night he refused to talk. When we got home, I told him I was done and I want a divorce. I figure, what am I waiting for? I cannot imagine spending the rest of my life in this misery, with HIM! I would rather be alone and poor, living out of a box than with him another year. Oh, I did not mention… He is suffering from ED, so he cannot have satisfying sex anymore. I have lived a life where he free gave it out to anyone and everyone… but me. He wants to stay now that he is defective? (I know, I am not being kind here. He doesn’t deserve my kindness! ) There is so much more to my story. But the details are not needed to see that I have been in a very loveless and abusive marriage. I told him tonight, "I do not love YOU anymore." I really do not feel anything remotely close to love for him. Not anymore.
Why am I so afraid of filing? Why can’t I just go DO IT?
6 comments posted: Sunday, January 26th, 2025
Affair partner purposfully made me fat
My friend had long affair with my H. I didn't know it was happening during the time and was spilling my guts to this 'friend' with all the details of what was wrong between he and I. This 'friend' would go to fast food restaurants and eat "lots of food" with me to "bury our feelings" in a toxic sort of way. She did this with me over 2 years. I gained 75 lbs and she somehow got thin and fit!?
I later discover that after EVERY meal she had with me she would go throw it up. Her I tent was to make me so fat and unattractive to my husband that he for sure would choose her!
I feel like I have been violated and manipulated (almost like feeling of being raped) by both this trusted friend and my husband.
It is abuse on all levels, but I don't know the "label" for her manipulation to create her desired scenario. Husband did not know of her actions until I told him last night in MC. He was shocked, but we couldn't discuss it in length due to time.
I am stuck in this feeling of being manipulated on so many levels by both of them, that I don't know how to explain what it feels like to KNOW what she was doing and how she used all the info I gave her (I trusted her with my heart and all of our marriage problems) and used it all against me to create a scenario where he felt he wanted to divorce me and spend rest of his life with HER.
While he did end it with her eventually, I am not over the details of what they did, together, to belittle and change me PHYSICALLY.
she is just one of many of his affairs and we have yet gotten to the point in MC where we can discuss this because he still has to get through his massive level of shame in order to actually be able to talk about it.
My dilemma is, what is this called when someone manipulates you to this extreme? My anger towards her is massive on so many levels, and not just for the affair betrayal for the years she worked her way into my life, just so she could try to steal it.
This was over 20+ years ago and I just was told of the methods she used on me by another friend who witnessed her doing it. The betrayal is not just in husband and friends affair, but ALL the other friends who KNEW and didn't tell me so SO many years. I gained so much weight that I resorted to extreme weight loss surgery to alter my body and I am SO angry to know now why I got to that point of obesity. She purposefully sabatoged my efforts to get thin and healthy by binge eating with me saying we were "eating our feelings together". The anger and hatred and rage I feel are overwhelming.
Anyone experience such sabatoge and manipulation by an affair partner?
I want to get to the part in MC where we get to finially talk about how his choices have messed me up and THIS is a major topic. How do I stay sane until that day comes in therapy? I am just so MAD!
7 comments posted: Saturday, November 16th, 2024
