SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

You have no idea what’s going on with him?

As a BH, I’ll tell you what’s going on with him:

YOU LEFT HIM FOR ANOTHER MAN!

That’s what’s going on with him.

You told him he’s not enough, and you’re looking for what you want elsewhere.

That’s what’s going on with him.

He sees you with your arms and legs wrapped around another man, having the best sex ever.

That’s what’s going on with him.

You’re worried he might divorce you?

His insecurity is 100 times yours. You’ve already divorced him, in the most meaningful way. He’s just waiting for you to pack.

This isn’t about messy cabinets. Good grief, there’s you, him and a daughter. How messy can the house be?

And every time you fuss about this shit, it just reminds him how unhappy you are.

But if I’m wrong, and this really is about messy cabinets, then you both need therapy of some sort.

Best wishes.

One of the conditions of the marriage prior to the affair is that he would go away in his head for much of the time we were together, instead of sharing his inner world with me. It was emotional distance instead of connection…When the affair started, I wasn’t 2700 miles from home looking to sex with someone else. I found a "friend" who wanted to connect with me and talk for hours every day, without having to have a spotless shared home, and that lead to inappropriate intimacy and feelings, which turned into sexting and plans to meet up again, "Not Just Friends"-style. (The A was discovered and ended before that meet up happened.) The whole time I wanted that connection and sexual desire to come from BH instead of AP, and I wanted to end the affair much sooner than I did… I was just terrified of going back to the silence. (InB4 "why didn’t you just *communicate* that to him?" I tried! I’m still trying!)

That same terror is creeping back in, as he’s keeping his thoughts and feelings to himself. I feel shut out, isolated, alone, and powerless to change anything. I can’t support and comfort him if he doesn’t share anything with me. I can’t make him happy with a clean house unless I’m allowed the time it’s gonna take to catch up with it. I can’t give him the quality time and companionship he wants if I’m spending that time and energy on housework. It’s reinforcing the beliefs that I only deserve affection, desire, and connection if the house is clean, and that I’ll never be "good enough" for him, which is also part of the deeper "whys" for the affair.

We spoke about why he’s keeping his feelings to himself, and he said 1) he often feels that they are "petty" or "dumb," and 2) that he worries the conversation will blow up again, as it has in the past. I told him his feelings are not petty or dumb; they’re just his feelings and they’re a result of some major traumatic happenings. I think it would be better if he just recognized those feelings, meet them with self-compassion, let himself feel them, and really process them instead.

I told him I’m the past, the conversations blew up not because of the subject matter or because I didn’t want to hear his thoughts, but because the way we were communicating was triggering to me as a result of my childhood trauma. He said he doesn’t think that makes a functional difference, which I disagree with but am having trouble articulating why…The last few deep conversations we had remained calm and productive, I thought, but I know often the mind hyperfocuses on the negative experiences rather than the positive, until there’s enough subsequent positive experiences to convince it otherwise… I just don’t know how to do that last part if he continues to keep his feelings to himself. I just want a chance to prove that I’m a safe space for those feelings.

And I can hear it now: "But Ghostie, you’re telling him to go fuck his feelings with regards to the state of the house and wanting to spend time together." But I’m not. I understand those feelings. I am trying my damnest to eliminate the source of the negative feelings that the mess brings. (And yes, it is genuinely about the mess.) I want to spend time with him too, and I understand he feels rejected… But I also want him to know that I feel overwhelmed and I’m struggling, and for him to have a better understanding of the rock and hard place he’s forced me into. I can’t fix this by myself. I need him to work WITH me. I want to be on the same team again.

The cabinet metaphor isn’t meant to be taken literally. The point was that I can’t clean the messy, disorganized,overstuffed cabinet without taking everything out of it, temporarily making a mess of the space around the cabinet, in order to set it right. Something has to temporarily be sacrificed (either time together or the standards at which he wants the house kept), because the situation is currently untenable.

I don’t believe he has any reason to fear me leaving. There was never any thought or possibility of that. I dropped AP like a hot potato on D-day. I’ve told him I might just die if he ever left me, that I simply couldn’t handle it emotionally. I’ve been putting in so much effort to work on myself and fix things, and he said he recognizes that… But maybe I ought to check in with him about whether he fears that or not.

There’s a lot to unpack here but I’ll try to make this as clear and concise as possible.

Before your marriage, your husband didn’t feel safe opening to you and sharing his feelings.

The fact that you cheated on him completely validated his fears.

The true "why" of what led up to your cheating isn’t your husband’s failings as a partner, but why you sought solace in another man rather than the myriad of other options available to you, which include divorce.

I don’t think you’re as close as you think you are in terms of understanding your motivations and behavior.

I also think you could’ve handled the situation with your husband inviting to the outing with your daughter much better than you did. You already told him, when the conversation first came up, that you only stay home to clean the house to make him happy. He decided he wanted you to come out with him anyway.

You could’ve just enjoyed the time you spent with him and, if he complained about the house afterward, argued with him then.

Instead, you stewed in your resentment and started a fight with him. It was more important to you in that moment to be "right" than it was to be with him.

In fact, from what you described, it seems that you have a tendency to make everything that troubles him all about you. He tries to be open with you and when he does, you’re triggered… then he clams up again and you’re upset about that.

If you want to rebuild your relationship, it’s more important not to squander the opportunities that he gives you to reconnect with him than it is to stream your activities 24/7, never travel, give him access to your devices, etc.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 8:18 PM, Sunday, November 23rd]

Before your marriage, your husband didn’t feel safe opening to you and sharing his feelings.

I'm pretty sure it was the opposite: that he felt like he could tell me anything, but he just didn't feel the need to. I asked him, early on in our R&R journey, what "companionship" meant to him. It turns out, we had very different definitions of that. He felt connected to me as long as we were physically together in the same space; he doesn't need much in the way of conversation. I definitely do, however. I could be across the country, as I was, and still feel close to him if we were having a deep conversation over text, certainly much closer than sitting in the car, 5 inches apart, in silence... I don't think he realized how often he goes away in his own head, either, though I would try to pull him out of it by asking him "What are you thinking?" and saying "I feel far away from you." When I got home from my work trip, he suspected something was up, and I told him that I had met a "friend," and that it was really nice to talk to him so much, and that I missed that in our relationship... And then of course because he was still suspicious, he withdrew even further from me... It is still persisting as a problem in our post-affair marriage.

The true "why" of what led up to your cheating isn’t your husband’s failings as a partner, but why you sought solace in another man rather than the myriad of other options available to you, which include divorce.

Again, I'm not blaming my decisions at all on my BH. They are 100% my responsibility. I will maintain the point that I have made on previous threads, which is that it is important to read WS' words as they are and with the specific intent to hear them instead of to respond. It is perfectly possible and absolutely fine-- important for R&R, even-- for waywards to be able to talk about and analyze the specific conditions in which they chose to commit infidelity, and the correlated factors. The choices don't happen in a vacuum... If I'm talking about the condition of my marriage before the infidelity, specifically, in this instance, to explain why I feel anxious when he retreats into silence, then that is the truth of what I felt and experienced, and it is not said with any intention at all of blame-shifting. Respectfully, please stop reading it that way.

Divorce was (and still is) the last thing I wanted; I was desperate to connect with my husband, and I very heavily mourned the perceived "death" of our marriage. Again, that is not to say infidelity was the morally correct choice or to justify it in any way; I am simply explaining my feelings from that time.

You already told him, when the conversation first came up, that you only stay home to clean the house to make him happy. He decided he wanted you to come out with him anyway

You could’ve just enjoyed the time you spent with him and, if he complained about the house afterward, argued with him then..

I said that, but what he heard was "I want to be home cleaning the house and not spending time with you, and I will be angry that you're preventing me from cleaning." It was very evident in the way he said "I just don't want you to be angry at me later for taking you away from cleaning."

I was expressing to him that I didn't feel he understood my initial explanation of the problem at all. What I was hoping to hear was some acknowledgment that yes, he would be taking me away from cleaning, but he prefers to spend time with me, and that won't complain and act angry and resentful at me later on when the house isn't clean.

As I explained, he seemed to conveniently forget that he is the one who wants the house clean, and his reaction to it is why I'm anxious to be home cleaning. He was flipping it around to make it sound like I'm the bad guy here, and I was expressing that I was upset about that flipping. It was honestly incredibly triggering to me, and I wanted to make sure I was understood, not that I was "right." There is no "right" or "wrong" or "winner of the argument" here; there is only a problem, and so far no solution (and maybe only half an acknowledgment of the problem in general.)

In fact, from what you described, it seems that you have a tendency to make everything that troubles him all about you. He tries to be open with you and when he does, you’re triggered… then he clams up again and you’re upset about that.

He wants me to do something impossible, which is catching up with the house while also spending a ton of time with him. Like I said, I understand why he wants those things. I'm not vilifying him for wanting those things. But is not going to happen, and I NEED him to understand that and stop punishing me for having to pick one or the other. That's why I asked him which he would prefer; I wanted him to pick and take responsibility for the outcome, but instead he flipped it around on me, entirely unfairly... Am I supposed to just shut up and take that? I want to make things "about him" but he again, HE DOESN'T TALK TO ME. Am I supposed to just make assumptions about his feelings and start one-sided conversations about them? I'm not sure how that's supposed to work.

If you want to rebuild your relationship, it’s more important not to squander the opportunities that he gives you to reconnect with him than it is to stream your activities 24/7, never travel, give him access to your devices, etc.

That would be good advice to give to someone whose spouse doesn't have a whole meltdown about there being dishes in the sink.

[This message edited by Ghostie at 12:31 AM, Monday, November 24th]

You work

He works?

Why isn’t he doing dishes?

I only physically go to work one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer time, but there are administrative tasks, personnel to manage, and mandatory professional development to do throughout the month. So I make a couple hundred dollars most months, with a lot of unpaid hours of work. But we get inexpensive family health insurance with good coverage, so there’s that.

He works pretty long hours to pay all the bills and give us a very comfortable life, and he’s tired when he gets home. I want him to have time to relax and recuperate, and not to have to do any of the housework. He does help care for our daughter and does some things, like taking our garbage cans to the curb and the cleaning the gutters and an occasional, urgent load of laundry. But most everything else is my responsibility, and we both think that’s fair and agreeable.

I certainly don’t mean to come across as ungrateful or unhappy about having to manage the household. It’s just a lot, and I’ve been behind on it for a very, very long time. I get set back by vacations, my work weekend, hosting for the holidays, if the child (and god forbid, my H) is sick and has to stay home and be attended to, being out of the house all weekend long… I just don’t want to be made to feel like crap about it.

I really think you that you got so defensive that you completely missed the main points of my last post, so I’m just going to try again.

Your husband was deeply insecure and didn’t feel safe sharing his feelings with you before the affair.

The chasm of disconnect that you felt is now the size of the Grand Canyon because of your affair.

If you want to save your marriage, then you will have to try to refill the Grand Canyon by one grain of sand at a time.

Case in point:

Yes, your husband was being passive-aggressive in the way he invited you out. You already called him out on it on the spot when it happened; you could’ve left it at that. But you didn’t.

Instead of enjoying the time you were spending with him and your daughter, and giving him the reassurance that he needed that there was nothing you would prefer more than being with him, you called him out yet again at the end of the night.

This is what I meant by squandering the opportunity to rebuild trust.

If you were already unhappy in your marriage, I can see why all of this feels unfair and daunting. But that’s why the question of "Should this marriage be saved?" is the question you need to answer for yourself before addressing the question of "Can this marriage be saved?"

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 3:11 AM, Monday, November 24th]

Ghostie

You sound a lot like my wife. She has assumed a similar attitude to yours with respect to making sure I hear her side in arguments, and with looking back at the conditions of the marriage before the affair.

Quite frankly it has slowed our recovery down quite a bit, and caused me a LOT of stress and uncertainty.

Instead of addressing her betrayal, and working to convince me she really wants to be in this relationship, she spent far too much time trying to be heard instead.

When we talk about the affair, she spends the majority of her energy trying to get me to "take responsibility" for my part in the conditions that led up to her choosing to betray me. She has made similar comments to yours. This one stands out to me in particular "affairs don't happen in a vacuum".

Here's the kicker though, and the question that needs to be answered, why did whatever was happening in the relationship result in a very serious betrayal? How is that being addressed so it never happens again? How are you communicating that to him?

This is just a warning flag to hopefully warn you against sabotaging your own progress.

Theevent,

Just wanted to say thank you for articulating the point that I was trying to make much better than I could! Very well said:

This one stands out to me in particular "affairs don't happen in a vacuum".

As a BS, this is happens to be my favorite saying, albeit not in the way your wife intends. Affairs are usually part of a pattern of selfish, self-serving, and/or avoidant behaviors on the part of the WS. They aren’t the natural outcome of a bad marriage.

In your case, Ghostie, it seems you have a host of resentments against your husband, some valid, some not, but if you’re going to reconcile you’re going to have to let them go— for the time being— in order to put out the fire you set.

Also, as I said in my other posts, whenever your husband does try to communicate and open himself up to you, you get defensive, get triggered, or get upset about how he says what he says.

That’s just going to perpetuate the vicious cycle that you hate of him shutting down, you feeling lonely, him feeling rejected, and you feeling justified in making choices that hurt him (like having an affair).