SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

When I "lash out," as you call it (regular old anger in my world), the only thing that has ever helped is my H accepting it, allowing it, acknowledging it. His acknowledging that he was wrong and that he hurt me is all that I want or need to start to calm down. I just want to be heard, and I think you do too.

Will there be any point when she actually does that?

I am afraid you will salvage your marriage but destroy yourself.

[This message edited by OwningItNow at 7:12 PM, July 9th (Friday)]

Your D-Day was 7-8 months ago and you are apologizing to her for speaking the truth?

I lashed out for years, I mean years, it waned little by little but those daggers just kept on coming. It's a way to heal the pain and my WH understood that.

Honestly, seems like you are trying to rugsweep her despicable actions. Eventually you are going to explode because you are holding all these emotions inside. Then she gets all huffy and withdrawn. She's playing you like a fiddle.

If you were a fly on the wall after my D-Day and probably most of us here, you'd be in shock because those feelings came out with a vengeance. Nothing was held back. Ever.

Oh wow. I’m 9 years out and I still talk about it all the time.

All.

The.

Time.

And he listens and takes it. I tell him it makes me feel better to watch him clean the bathroom or wax his ear hair. And then he does it. Check my old posts. I got him to let me wax his balls once. 😂

That’s where she needs to be.

Just wow. She sounds like a cold hearted person, and you just don’t deserve that. Are her poor wittle feelings hurting because you didn’t make nicey nice after she fell on some other dude’s dick? Because what? It’s almost been a year and she’s given you enough head to make it ok now?!?!? Nope.

She deserves your righteous anger. It needs to hurt so that the next time she thinks about doing it, she will have a visceral “fuck no” reaction. Btw, that’s what my marriage counselor told me. It needs to be NOXIOUS for her. She caused this.

Cold and sullen is not an apology. And it’s not ok coming from her.

For the record, he would totally let me wax his balls again. I didn’t mean to imply it was only once.

You were honest. She couldn't handle it. Means that she has a boatload more work to do on herself. Shutting the conversation down and walking away is defensiveness. Plain and simple.

One time FWH and I were walking through big box DIY store. My FWH was a former manager for this company. OW was an employee.

FWH was extolling the virtues of me working for this company.

FWH: I think you would really enjoy working here, Milkshake. It would be a good fit.

ME: Really? Would I be able to fuck my manager, too?

FWH:

FWH was remorseful. He was doing his best. He knew he walked right into and deserved my salty comment. When dear FWH stopped being defensive from my little jabs I realized he was really doing some work on himself. I found myself not having to make such comments, I would be able to refrain and redirect feelings into more constructive and healthy coping skills. For both of us.

ETA: This was at least 12months post d-day, I believe.

[This message edited by SisterMilkshake at 8:51 PM, July 9th (Friday)]

Last night I screwed up. We were watching a TV show where the guy cheated on his wife with his lover. WW asked me "You doing OK?" and I said "Yeah, but these scenes stir up a lot of bad feelings, I mean the guy on TV is not principled, and your OM wasn't principled I mean he knew you were married and still pursued you, and the difficulty thinking of you as unprincipled to go for it."

Holy hell, HC! This is THE tamest criticism of infidelity I have ever seen on this site. THIS made her stonewall you? THIS!?!

She hurt you grievously by cheating. Yes, the truth about how that reflects back on her hurts. And the only person she has to blame is herself. Not you for bringing it up. But of course she's not going to understand that because she wants you to play nice and pretend like she's the real victim of her poor choices.

This does not bode well for R at all. She still sees you as an aggressor for daring to be hurt and upset when she stabs you in the back.

Just chiming in again here that what you said was totally and completely reasonable. Your only mistake was apologizing the next morning.

I am very proud of the fact that I have never said anything specifically to hurt WH after Dday. But I have said many honest things about his behavior and lack of character that I'm sure were incredibly painful. I have also never apologized. What I have done a few times the next day was check in and see how he was feeling and told him that I knew much of what I had said was painful. That opens up a second conversation after he has had some time to think through what I've said. Apologized - no. Told him I regretted what I said - no.

No.

Nope.

Nyet.

Nein.

Non.

Negatory.

And otherwise hellllll naw dude.

You didn't do anything wrong by being triggered by a scene of infidelity and answering your ww honestly about your 100% normal feelings in that moment.

You getting what I'm putting down hcsdi?

YOU DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG BY HAVING A WHOLLY NORMAL TRIGGERY REACTION TO INFIDELITY.

Please please please for the love of cheese, start demanding the respect you fucking deserve honey. Stop being a doormat because all you're doing is prolonging your pain and allowing her to dodge any accountability for her choice to cheat.

This situation will not improve until you decide you deserve better. Cus you damn well do.

English is not my native language and I had to look in the dictionary to see if "unprincipled" has a different meaning than I understand, or whether it is a curse or something.

Congratulations. You gave her another lesson in how to treat you.

I guess for things to change (just for a while) your other daughter has to leave the house too. But as I remember you have two daughters, what will you do next?

There are habits in families. They can become so ingrained that they cease to be recognized by the participants as unhealthy. You and she have a “dance” where she sets it up and you respond and then she gets hurt, angry, whatever and then you are the bad guy. It’s manipulative but you have been doing it so long you do it before you know it. It’s pavlovian. Bell rings, dog salivates. How you stop it is to not answer when you know what is coming.

Your answer should have been. No, I am not ok watching this and you know why. Then change the channel. If she still gets huffy let her. You can’t control her but you can control how you respond when you know this is manipulation. It takes practice because she wants to win. It gives her power to see you upset, or confused or angry. Anytime you have a conversation with her and you get knots in your tummy it’s because she has just pulled a “gotcha” on you. Stop falling for it.

I’m fairly certain that I have never replied to one of the OP’s posts as I am not in R and I know that is what he is hoping for…but I saw this before anyone else had responded and my head about exploded for him. I knew I truly had nothing constructive to offer.

Dafuq seems to say it all.

I. Can’t. Even.

You deserve so much better. I hope you begin to believe that soon. ☮️

I don't think you want any advice that I would give.

Thats an understatement. You have been ignoring 90 of the advice that EVERYONE has given you since your first post and been backpedaling and walking on egg shells from day 1.

Your wife goes on vacation WITH your daughter and cultivates an adultery while your adult daughter watches it unfold and confesses for sure only because your daughter knew.

Your reaction??? Fear and horror that you will make her mad.

Her reaction?? Shut up and get over it.

Now nine months out she has had no consequences. You have no fucking idea if this was her first time or not. She is about to go off and stay in hotels with absolutely no concern or worry about no doing anything she feels like. and youre telling us here that YOU SCREWED UP. All one can do is shake ones head. Almost unbelievable.

And somehow you expect this dynamic to change?????

Probably we all need to pray for you since you seem to be determined to continue to be a punching bag.

You didn't screw u[ last night. It started on D Day

Is she still avoiding reading the book: "How to Help Your Spouse Heal ....."?

It's was ok for her to leave the room in shame - but not for her to be angry towards you.

IMO you should (in a thoughtful civil manner) withdraw your apology.

Why? because you just extended/delayed her journey to coming out of denial and feeling the full shame and pain at destroying her marriage, her husband, and her daughter. This is going to take years.

Stop shielding her from the music.

She should have responded: I'm sorry ...

What you said wasn't a mistake or a screw up.

Periodic lashing out at her (especially from triggers) is a typical part of your healing process. There is no short cut.

She should know exactly when you trigger. That's part of her acknowledging (sharing) your ongoing pain. That's now her role.

It's not your role to absorb/accommodate her shame.

It's a normal and expected response from the victim of infidelity. Inform her that your healing didn't start on D day.

Time alone doesn't fix what she destroyed. A primary component of the healing process are her actions. Which until last week have been zero.

[This message edited by Robert22205https at 8:08 AM, July 10th (Saturday)]

Gently, why are her feelings more important than yours? She didn't care a bit about your feelings when she was cheating - if she did she wouldn't have done it. So when you speak yours she gets to turn it back to her and how she feels? That's the very definition of entitlement.

Why don't you count? This is the lesson you are teaching her - it happens to many of us but it isn't helpful to your healing. Please put yourself first or else you cannot heal.

HCSDI,

I'm assuming that you would expect the barrage of replies/advice that you are receiving. All good stuff; all things that you should be reading again and again.

I always like HT's posts, and you can always pull gold from them:

That ability to openly talk about it, without defensiveness or crippling shame, demonstrated ownership, accountability and empathy.

THIS is what changing from bad to good partner is all about--Accountability. Empathy. GROWTH.

And guess what? Like it or not, you need to do this also. Stop taking her accountability, and putting it on your shoulders. Call her out on her lack of growth. And most importantly, for you, is to STOP ACTING OUT OF FEAR. You may not believe that you are doing this, but your actions speak loud and clear otherwise. There is nothing wrong with wanting to reconcile, but tiptoeing around her will, like HoldingTogether stated, only make her worse in the long run.

"I'm sorry, I don't know why I said it, I got carried away, I don't mean to say you are unprincipled in general, I didn't mean it, I hope you can forgive me"

Hell’s bells, man! what in the world? I don't think anyone here is going to encourage you that this is normal. What are you apologizing for? You gave her a dose of truth in plain language and she can't handle it.

By implication this is a regular thing with you two. She has you by the short hairs, and it should he the other way around. My WW is living in pretty much constant terror I will divorce her and not because I go around threatening it, but because it is a real possibility.

If anyone needs read “No More Mr. Once Guy, ” it is you.

IMO you're being too passive which in turn encourages your wife to hide/be in denial.

First, I think it's an understatement to allow your wife to call her adultery a ONS. IMO it was a typical affair with all the stages evolving while on vacation, including all the secrecy (i.e., texting) and all the hundreds of self serving in the moment/daily decisions that characterize adultery.

Second, since she deleted the texts she can't prove sex was not premeditated. And it's possible that your daughter saw/heard stuff at the pool (including texting later) that suggested otherwise. Which would be a big burden for a kid to carry.

Would your wife take a polygraph test that at no time while preparing for her date/meeting him did she acknowledge to herself that sex was a possibility; or that she had reason to believe the OM viewed the date as a sexual contact?

Third, what story did she tell your daughter?

You mentioned your wife and daughter (who was accompanying her on vacation when your wife decided to have a short term affair) went to therapy together.

Does your daughter feel guilty that if she didn't go to bed early that night, they would not have had an opportunity for sex?

Did you ever confirm your daughter's understanding of why your wife had an affair? From your posts, it's probable that your wife at least partially blamed you.

If so, that makes it even more difficult for your daughter to process. And if the therapist didn't challenge your wife, then your daughter may be seriously conflicted.

[This message edited by Robert22205https at 9:38 AM, July 10th (Saturday)]

WW has been coming around and overall am feeling good about R. This is coming after 9 months of difficulty, and since ultimately I wanted R it has been encouraging.

Your wife isn't “coming around.”

There's nothing encouraging about this at all, and you seem to ignore pretty much all the advice you're given here.

You're being a doormat.

[This message edited by Thumos at 9:39 AM, July 10th (Saturday)]

... it hurts her feelings, and she's insulted

Moral people are moral in all situations.

Same for principled people.

This is your wife convincing herself that you share some of her shame because she convinced herself that to some extent you deserved it.