Mattress Question

My D-Day was in July, with my four-year live-in boyfriend. I found out there were multiple ongoing emotional and physical affairs with three other women. I made plans to move out after a week of hysterical type emotional and physical bonding. During that week, I demanded that he replaced the mattress and he agreed.

I stayed with my daughter (In the house that I owned and she was renting) during the month and a half it took for my apartment to be available, and then the house burned down. I lost my kitties, and thankfully everyone was OK, but it’s a total loss. My boyfriend and I had still been seeing each other, and talking about the possibility of reconciliation. After the fire, he was incredibly supportive.

Since D-Day, he has done everything I’ve asked, and has full transparency, including location, sharing and access to his phone and answering all of my questions. He is also in individual therapy minimum once a week. He immediately cut off contact with affair partner. After the fire, I moved back in with him for financial reasons, and we have been getting along very well. He has been great, and reconciliation is absolutely part of my game plan.

However, there is one sticky item – he had agreed previously to replace the mattress at his own expense, and now he is asking for me to contribute to it. His position is that I will be benefiting from it as well. My position is "get bent, I’m not paying to replace the mattress that you fucked other women on." These conversations have been calm and rational, but we can’t seem to resolve it.

I’m looking for some of your thoughts here – part of it is that I feel he hasn’t paid any real consequences for what he did. Due to circumstance, I’m right back where I was, and while everything has honestly been wonderful. It still feels like he didn’t get hurt as badly as I did.

I understand that he feels tremendous guilt and shame, and that he is doing a lot of hard work to fix what he did. However, he hasn’t told anybody, including our mutual friends (that are more his friends) so he skipped out on any social consequences. I am not at all vengeance person, but I just feel like maybe paying $2000 for a mattress could be some thing that helps me feel better and less like I’m being taken advantage of.

Thoughts?

9 comments posted: Sunday, October 20th, 2024