SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Do we deserve your ire?

This is not ire. This is feedback. Maybe initially delivered angrily.

Take it or don't, idc.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 6:26 PM, Wednesday, September 2nd]

Maybe your husband has the sense that you simply do not like him....??? And the infidelity reinforced that sentiment.

That is hard vantagepoint from which to be better for someone. Someone needs to lay down their arms.....

Galatians 5:22-23 KJV

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

I have read this many times now because I wanted to really hear you. I get frustrated of course when I feel you aren’t hearing me either. But I realized I didn’t offer concretely what I was trying to express, so I am going to try to do this a different way. What I read from you is a mixed bag. I hear you describe a healthy non-enmeshed person but can see clearly there are many ways you haven’t grown yet in that role. And I am not shaming you for that btw, it's hard to integrate.

This is healthy:

I have responded with compassion and attempts to comfort him in every instance where he has directly verbalized his feelings to me that I can recall.

This is not:

I can’t make him update his mental model with the data, no matter how consistent the data is.

It’s great you realize you can’t make him feel different by giving him logic but you fail to expand past logic, at least in what you relay here in the forum.

What if you said something along the lines. "I realize I was very foolish in the way I tried to remedy my own feelings. By cheating on you, I am sure I have made you feel you have to protect yourself from me and that makes being with me confusing for you. And, while I have done some fallible things, I love you and I am doing a lot of work to create a happy life together. I need some patience and tangible input from you while I figure that out, and I am going to try to give you patience while you process all these difficult mixed feelings. I hope we can talk about it more, and I am going to bring it up more, so you do not have to carry it so long it builds up to such a burdensome state that you address it in a passive aggressive manner."

Then, within a couple of days bring it up. "I was thinking about my affair today, and I realized…" and then tell him something you learned about yourself lately. Or tell him about a piece of the damage you believe you caused by having an affair. Set that release valve to operate often. This doesn't require his participation in talking about anything, just keep in front of him that you are making realizations that take him into consideration. Bs often feel it’s a burden for them to bring up and then it can result in blow ups.

Maybe that’s what you do, but what you tell this forum is more along the lines of how you litigated his feelings rather than providing his feelings with a safe place to land – telling him why he shouldn’t feel that way because it’s not true. It doesn’t matter about the nuances of what isn’t true, it matters how you have made him feel abandoned and then further abandoned him by disregarding the distorted view he now has of your relationship which to him is an expression of his feelings.

And, this isn’t a new distortion, it’s one you have been dealing with for a long time. When you cheated on him previously, it never sounds like there was any real repair made. So, there is no way a rug-swept affair didn’t lead to a deepening toxicity in the relationship even if he’s always leaned that way.

Frustration with the conversational structure, manipulation tactics, secret conversations, and toxic behavior is not the same as not being able to tolerate his feelings, nor is it not wanting to hear them.

I completely agree. It’s okay if you walk away and take breaks when it spirals. You do not need to have unproductive conversations where you feel he is just pummeling you rather than dealing with something more constructively. But, then, bring it up at a time where he is calm but it’s close enough to the time frame of the unproductive conversation where he sees you are coming in for repair and care that he was spiraling. This is what I mean by saying you don’t have to self abandon, but it doesn’t mean abandon him. He doesn't know how to express the rollercoaster he is on every day. That's not a requirement for you to demonstrate accountability.

"I had some time to think about this and I realize that the trauma from my affairs creates a lot of oscillating feelings for you. I am sorry I had to end our conversation yesterday, but I want to create a space where communication is safe for both of us. These conversations where it feels like you are just letting out pent up steam is not working. I am open to learning from you what you need for that emotional safety, and I would like to learn more about what I find emotionally safe and share that with you. And lets talk more, but lets do it in a loving way."

I do not control how he interprets my responses. If he comes away from interactions with me or from reading my posts with the exact opposite of what I said/meant/intended, that isn’t necessarily my fault. As I stated, more words are clearly not going to help the situation. I am no longer attempting to convince him that I care about his infidelity-related feelings. If he wants to continue convincing himself that I don’t, I didn’t cause that, and that’s not my problem to solve.

Yeah, this one is a problem. More words do not help the situation, I agree. This is where the undertone of your relationship is speaking all the time. The only thing you can do is work on your heart. Resolve your resentment towards him, because that is coming out in ways you are not aware of. I realize he needs to do the same, this is one of the ways the ws becomes the moon in the tide of the relationship and what you can't control is whether he decides to catch on. You can still demonstrate it to "build the marriage you want".

Reality is, he doesn’t feel loved and he acts out all the time. The acting out creates resentment in you that you can’t hide and that reinforces him you do not love him. You are responsible for that. If you do not want to take responsibility for that by working on it, this will be one of the nails in the coffin of your reconciliation.

If he pressures me to pivot away from what I planned on doing on a given day based on his moment-to-moment feelings, I will assess 1) whether his grievance is accurate, and 2) whether it’s prudent for me pivot. If the answer to both questions is "no," then I will not pivot. I will maintain my boundaries and do what needs to be done, without self abandoning. I refuse to be manipulated into managing his feelings for him, only to be punished the next day for the thing that got deprioritized. If he interprets that protective boundary as me not caring,

I’m not going to try to convince him otherwise. I didn’t cause that interpretation and it’s not my problem to solve.

When you made the plans did you consult him? In my marriage my husband will say "do we have anything going on tomorrow?" Or I will say "What did you want to do over the weekend?" Happy couples plan together, and they also create win- win scenarios.

I would try this frequently: Hey, let’s make sure we (blank) this weekend. We have both been so busy it would be nice to have that time together. I also need to do x, y, and z. So, would the morning work? Or some deviation of that. Express you want to prioritize time with him, he does need you to lead that right now. He needs to feel like you are proactively seeking time with him.

I know he likes to insist on full days or full weekends and that is unrealistice.

"Ah, honey, I really wish I had time to do that right now, but what if we marked of (these dates) and we could spend the weekend (away or staycation suggesting an activity you both like"

And, after the activity, express how glad you are you did it and set another date in the future.

The reason I am being so specific is because it’s so easy when you are married to get lost in your to do list, and him wanting to spend time with you should not feel like a burden. I think this one will kick in when he feels more assured by you.

The main thing that infidelity does is gives a big dose of "You don’t matter." And, he probably got worse after each affair with this.

If something is clearly bothering him because his whole demeanor has changed, and after asking him ONCE if something is up, he denies that anything is wrong, I will allow him to stew in his feelings. I will not accept responsibility for reverse-engineering them and soothing them if he refuses to talk about them, nor the punishment he doles out for not doing so. I will physically separate myself from him in those moments to keep our moods distinct from one another. I refuse to be violated with that kind of energy. If he interprets that as not caring, I didn’t cause that. That’s not my problem to solve.

Okay. I get why it’s not your problem to solve. How do you express that to him? What is the plan? Because honestly while you are not wrong, you sound very cold and unloving, and this is where we keep asking, do you like him? Do you want to reconcile?

I get the resentment. But, your task, should you want to build a new marriage, is to let go of the resentment, and find better ways to place assurance and pressure valves into the marriage.

My self-worth is no longer tied to his volatile moods and his unreliable perceptions of me.

This is healthy. How you manage it could be healthy or unhealthy. His volatile moods are VERY understandable of anyone who has been cheated on. You own some portion of that. So, you must be consistent about your portion. His unreliable perceptions are also something you created by being unreliable.

I am not saying he should be able to take that to a toxic point, but you need to do it in a way that you are not abandoning him further. He already feels abandoned, and you concretely did create at least some portion of that by cheating on him more than once. So, this is where we keep saying, you have to be able to walk that tight rope to make sure you are addressing the repairs.

He can’t tell you how to do that. If he did, it would be compliance rather than you proactively repairing. If you told him, I need you to tell me I am beautiful every day, and he does it, how effective is that?

If he feels like he has to push you to spend time with him, how likely is it he feels you really want to do that?

I have already felt so much better with just implementing the not-pivoting part. The household is being better managed (whether he notices or not.)

This is why I said you will feel better, but he will not. In fact, all this pivoting and logic is likely to increase his acting out. You moving forward without including him underlines abandonment. You have to find time in your schedule to proactively show him love, appreciation, respect. I know if he is being toxic it’s hard to feel like he deserves that or to even want that for yourself, but by taking true account of your resentments, your enabling of these behaviors by past compliance, by understanding the damage your affairs have caused (you really don’t need him to explain it to you, it should be evident at least on some level he feels disregarded, dehumanized, abandoned, and unloved) you can implement these changes with some degree of softness and practice creating win-wins where you are the initiator of quality time, conversations about your feelings about the affair, validation about his feelings when he does share them(creating a safe space)

This place was helpful when I was new to reconciliation/early in the process. I learned what was normal for a BS to experience after infidelity. I learned that Reality anchors don't help everyone. I learned what I needed to do to recover and fix myself. I learned that I don't have to become incapable of cheating, but unwilling. While here, I realized how dysfunctional my marriage was, and I've had to adjust my recovery/reconciliation approach.

I don't think this site is very useful once a WS gets the basics down pat.

You railed against us even harder than this time when we were trying to help you with these things. Do you see that it might be a pattern when what we are now asking is difficult to step into? (Thus avoidance)

And I am sorry, you do not have the basics down pat. What that would entail is to be able to demonstrate that consistently, showing you have shed an old pattern. The reality is you still have a lot to work on when it comes to anger, self-regulation, and accountability. You may know what they are, but by your own words here show you do not have them fully integrated. I don't mind that, but I do mind if you think you are really there. In reality, you are mostly discribing side stepping him and through that you feel better. That's what you describe, and that's not just bad listening. You may be doing more than what you are telling us here but show me where in this post that happened.

or when a WS is facing toxic behavior at home. (Toxic behavior is continually excused or dismissed as the WS being an unreliable narrator/wanting to avoid the consequences of their infidelity.) I don't think most people here are able to figure out when a WS has moved beyond the basics and needs different advice or direction; they're continually viewed through the lens of being avoidant, prone to shifting blame, unable to understand their BS's pain, unwillingness to take accountability impatience, etc. Everything they say gets filtered through those lenses in addition to the BS' feelings, and that produces misunderstanding and consequently, occasionally bad advice.

You still blameshift because this entire thread was born of blameshifting. However, I will accept this feedback and try to be more specific.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:25 PM, Wednesday, September 2nd]

You weren't providing feedback; you were assigning blame. There's a difference.

This is not ire. This is feedback. Maybe initially delivered angrily.

Take it or don't, idc.

This is rich when you needed to run the feedback to yourself through Chat GPT because you couldn't "take it."

Everything you accuse SI of, you do yourself. Your real enemy is right there in the mirror.

Inb4 I'm accused of being mean, if you get to deliver feedback angrily I do too.

If you honestly want different results, IC is your best bet.

HikingOut,

This is healthy:

I have responded with compassion and attempts to comfort him in every instance where he has directly verbalized his feelings to me that I can recall.

This is not:

I can’t make him update his mental model with the data, no matter how consistent the data is.

It’s great you realize you can’t make him feel different by giving him logic but you fail to expand past logic, at least in what you relay here in the forum.

When I say "I can’t make him update his mental model with the data, no matter how consistent the data is"

What I mean is that his mental model is currently "When I share my feelings with Morbs, she gets angry with me. They are uncomfortable for and a burden to her, and she wants me to deal with them silently."

Objectively false. The data point I have provided him with are 1) words (asking him to share his feeling directly,) and 2) responses (responding compassionately each time.)

I was not trying to change his *emotions* by providing this data. I was trying to get him to understand that I want to hear those emotions expressed directly, that they are not a burden, and they don’t make me angry. I cannot make him integrate the data that I have provided into his mental model and see that’s the case.

It’s like, he is the scientist who is supposed to be evaluating whether it’s safe to share his feelings, but instead of accurately collecting the data points I’ve given him, his measurement tools are fucky, and he’s plotting down a completely different data set onto a graph that instead supports his beliefs about his own feelings (that they are shameful, anger-inducing, and a burden, and to be suppressed and dealt with silently.) Then on top of that, you guys have also been assuming that his feelings are inconvenient and uncomfortable to me and that I don't want to hear it, if not adding your own data points to the graph then at least making suggestions at them. It was making me pull my hair out with frustration.

But like I said, I'm giving up on trying to convince him that I want to hear his feelings anymore. It won't work. He'll believe what he wants to believe until he addresses that belief himself.

I generally update him whenever I figure something out related to my recovery, if he hasn't already read about it online. He tells me he's blocked this website on his phone, but I know how easy it is to remove those settings if you're the one setting the screen time passcode.

Again, I reject the idea that because he does not feel safe to express his feelings directly to me, that I am somehow creating an unsafe environment. That conclusion simply does not inherently follow, and I genuinely do not think I have been providing discouraging data. He is generating a false narrative in his head that I cannot shake him out of no matter how "safe" I make it for him.

I already said I am no longer arguing with him or providing him with Reality anchors in attempt to establish and preserve Reality. He can distort it all he wants. I am not responsible for feelings or perceptions about me that those distortions create. I am not responsible for managing his feelings at all.

You do not need to have unproductive conversations where you feel he is just pummeling you rather than dealing with something more constructively. But, then, bring it up at a time where he is calm but it’s close enough to the time frame of the unproductive conversation where he sees you are coming in for repair and care that he was spiraling.

I am not the one who needs to do the repairing when he starts engaging in toxic behavior. I will ask once if something deeper is going on, then if he says no, I will exit the interaction. If he wants to talk about his real feelings directly, he is welcome to come find me with them when he's regained his senses, and he will receive my best attempts at comfort then. But I'm not chasing him around trying to extract the feelings from him anymore. I'm not engaging in conversations where the exchanged words are about the dishes, so I'm talking about the dishes, but in his mind the conversation is about the infidelity and all of my responses are being translated into being about the infidelity without my consent or knowledge. It's fucking bewildering and completely nonsensical, when direct communication about those feelings would be way more productive and efficient. I'm not participating in that anymore.

I'm not going to read the rest of what you wrote because we're still not on the same page and I'm tired.

For those in the audience can any of you explain:

Why did I instruct gotthemorbs to make the repair after she is choosing to walk away from a conversation?

Is it:

A: Because I think she should abandon herself.

B. Because I think when you end a conversation with a spouse when they are emotionally spiraling that could make them feel abandoned. Since, I have already instilled the pain and fear of abandonment when I had am emotional and sexual relationship with someone else. And that’s a very likely reason they want me to prove it in unhealthy ways. He is testing you -not consciously - needing to see you will engage and fight for him at his worst. That’s not fair, and you are right to walk away as needed. But, the pain of that is different than the pain of being abandoned. So, you can make the repair for your side of it and this starts to affirm you are doing some work, and he is feeling more seen. Do it a few times and he will start clocking the pattern. It can influence how he approaches it over time.

No one is telling you that you have to interpret all his emotions. You don’t have to agree with his emotions to validate them. It’s not mysterious that if someone has abandoned you through cheating you would be looking for reassurance. And when you don’t get it, should you be direct? Yes. But if you can’t be, should you be ignored?

You should not ignore the accountability of leading the repair effort. Why?

Because a person who has been cheated on is not going to do it without getting some assurances, in the way of actions and not words. And if no one starts it, then no one finishes it. You want a new marrriage with him, you have to foster it to get it all started. That’s what reconciliation requires. It does not require taking abuse or self abandonment. But accountability of how your actions impact them. After you have successfully sustained that effort for him to believe it’s real, he may very well join you, but the natural consequence of having an affair is that you must convince them they can be vulnerable with you again, not with words but with actions.

Those actions include making repairs when you are the one to walk away when he is spiraling. Because you know why? Because it’s things like that which show him he is not a burden, that he is loved, that you are going to provide him with emotional safety and security.

Your affairs erased that from your marriage. You have to put it back before you are going to make any progress in your reconciliation.

And you can be snarky, but I have decided maybe this helps someone even if you can’t take me in.

But if you truly want reconciliation then you need to balance your healthier boundaries with some humility. You have contributed greatly to the toxicity of this marriage and you are going to have to get the marriage back on the road before you can ask him to push the car.

And you are right we are not in the same page.

My page says that you can say you are offering him safety, but when everything is filtered through your resentment that’s not what you are reflecting back to him. After an affair emotional safety is BELOW zero. It takes a lot of work to get it to a place you expect it should be. And it’s done in the specific types of things I am suggesting.

Love is an action. You have to do an intentional and pointed leaning in. He isn’t crazy for not being able to be vulnerable with you. You have to show him. I swear you can do that and honor yourself and your boundaries in the process.

I keep wondering why you want to save this, you said there is a lot of good. Is there enough good for you to dig in and do what I am describing while holding uncertainty for the future? I have never asked you to stay married to him, I have only provided what I feel is your best chance to be successful at what you claim to want.

[This message edited by hikingout at 10:53 PM, Wednesday, September 2nd]

If we look at when you were posting as Ghostie, a year ago https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/topics/666256/is-it-okay-to-decide/

It is startlingly the SAME ideas.

Instead of little fawn and Big Deer, it is "poor little jelly bean version of me, chewed up and spit out and curled up in the fetal position, and taking her up in my Big Strong Adult arms"

So I think you are in a very ingrained pattern of self defense that does not serve your own needs in the long run.

In fact, maybe it is Big Deer, and the Committee, and the Big Strong Adult arms that are the problem. The external, father-figure like entities you concoct to tell yourself that you matter and that everything is going to be okay...in some indeterminate future where the real you can stand on her own two feet.

You know what? You ARE already a person worthy of love and a happy marriage. And your ability to juggle all the priorities does not impact that one iota. The baby fawn doesn't need any of the psychological supplemental personas. Just be the vulnerable real you, and if your marriage isn't a safe space for it, then it was never a marriage worth having.

IF HE *FEELS* ABANDONED BECAUSE I REFUSED TO LET MYSELF BE "PUMMELED" AND ENFORCED A *BOUNDARY,* THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT *I* ABANDONED HIM.

IT IS NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY TO REGULATE HIS EMOTIONS.

I AM WALKING AWAY FROM THE "PUMMELING" AND LEAVING THE DOOR OPEN FOR *APPROPRIATE, NON-HARMFUL, ADULT COMMUNICATION* OF SAID FEELINGS IF HE CHOOSES TO DO THAT.

You keep telling me "don't manage his feelings" but also "come back and manage his feelings." I have people telling me "stop trying to force him to share his feelings on your timeline" and also "continue to pester him about his feelings after he refuses to disclose them."

I'm telling you people, I am DONE with the codependency bullshit.

This is fucking insanity. I denounce you all as INSANE.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 11:16 PM, Wednesday, September 2nd]

No. I keep telling you to make him sure of your feelings.

But maybe that’s the problem.

It is not a this or that. It is a this and that. That is the part you keep refusing to grasp. There is a balance between not managing his emotions and not abandoning the emotional reality of the damage. You are treating those two responsibilities as mutually exclusive because it is easier than holding both at once.

You keep acting like the moment you declare a boundary, the emotional fallout becomes his job alone. That is not how this works in a relationship. You are being asked to stop weaponizing the concept of boundaries to avoid the discomfort of repair. You are being asked to stop rewriting the situation so that every consequence becomes someone else’s fault.

It is not insanity. It is you fighting the reality that healing requires more than declaring your intentions.

Let's assume that's what you're saying.

How do you propose I make him "sure of my feelings?"

Because it SEEMS TO ME that you're suggesting HIS FEELINGS are the barometer by which you're judging MY BEHAVIOR to be sufficiently or insufficiently safe/comforting/loving

HAVE YOU PERHAPS CONSIDERED THE POSSIBILITY.... That my behaviors ARE SUFFICIENT, but he is simply not RECEIVING THEM AS SAFE?

No. Because your logic is circular.

Because you want me to be codependent and soothe his emotions in the HOPE that he learns I am safe and stops "testing" me. You are ignoring the other possibility: that instead he learns that toxic behavior results in receiving comfort, and simply CONTINUES the "testing behavior."

insane.

Because you want me to be codependent and soothe his emotions in the HOPE that he learns I am safe and stops "testing" me. You are ignoring the other possibility: that instead he learns that toxic behavior results in receiving comfort, and simply CONTINUES the "testing behavior."

No I want you to demonstrate that you are willing to make the repairs for the things you are accountable for. I am asking you to lead it consistently and observe what happens.

I am suggesting he doesn’t feel safe and he keeps testing for safety. Then he spirals when he sees it’s not there. I am saying it’s your job to be an accountable for the damage the affairs have caused the marriage. This behavior he has is not healthy, so I agree you should walk away. But I am suggesting after enforcing your boundary, to provide assurance so he can feel the boundary is safe rather than leaving the feeling of abandonment to grow.

I am not saying do this for just him- do it for yourself. You say you want the marriage, you want him to feel loved by you, and you want him to love you back. Make the changes you are implementing emotionally safe for someone who has been traumatized and has abandonment issues.

Lean into your love for him. It’s sort of like you are saying, you are not allowing his toxicity to control your actions. You will move away from him when he is exhibiting the behavior, and you will draw him close to show him it’s safe when you do that. This is reinforcement of I am not going to accept the behavior but I do care about how you feel and the underlying reasons you may act out.

And of course you hope that will change the pattern, but you can’t control it. After showing consistency for long enough to be considered as consistent, then you can have the expectation not the hope for him to change. Thats when you set higher boundaries for him. But give the guy a chance to see you love him and in a stable way he can maybe trust before asking him to get vulnerable.

[This message edited by hikingout at 11:57 PM, Wednesday, September 2nd]

I am willing to make repairs for the infidelity.

I am willing to hear his feelings about it when they are expressed in a healthy way.

I am unwilling to tolerate toxic behavior.

I am unwilling to apologize for removing myself from that toxic behavior.

I am unwilling to manage the feelings that result from maintaining boundaries,, which H has made necessary through his own toxic behavior.

I am unwilling to drag feelings out of him that he has explicitly declined to share after I have already asked him about them once during the interaction, nor reverse-engineer them for him, nor accept the punishment he doles out if I don't attempt to reverse-engineer them for him. That is managing his feelings. That is continuing the cycle I was previously trapped in, that you're not remembering.

You seem to be blaming me for the toxic behavior because I was unfaithful. Certain toxic behaviors existed prior to DDay. Certain ones arose after DDay, and yet other BS here can clearly articulate their feelings, want to express them to their WS directly, accept challenges to their beliefs about their own feelings, aren't engaging in the same behaviors, or are at least recognizing and making an effort NOT to engage in those behaviors anymore, etc. So why can't mine? I am not accepting excuses for his behavior; he's a grown ass man with agency. Whether he's "testing" me or not, the effect on me is still the same.

Straightforwardness is an option. He is choosing not to take it. Boundaries are the result.

Again, I cannot make him feel safe to directly express his feelings, and I do not think my behavior has reasonably suggested that it is unsafe to directly express his feelings. At some point it's his responsibility to integrate the data and confront his own beliefs. At some point it's his responsibility to actively participate in his own healing. I can't do any of that for him.

I am making this decision for myself. As I said, I want the version of the marriage that I'm working towards. I don't want the toxic one we've had previously. Whether he changes or not to make the marriage healthier is up to him. I have no expectations.

I express love to him constantly through all five of the love languages.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 12:15 PM, Thursday, September 3rd]

You can't make him feel safe because you are not safe. The energy you are giving off, the words, the emotions, the attitude. All seek to be adversarial and caustic.

You mechanically say you will take responsibility for the Infidelity, but nothing else. Yet you fail to see the infidelity is integrally intermeshed with virtually all the other aspects of your marriage and to some extent, your personality/character.

It has to be dealt with wholistically.

It would be like living in a home that has many broken items ...updates needed...repairs to be done, etc. Someone burns the house down. The arsonist then argues that they should not be responsible for paying for the equivalent value of the items that were previously in need of attention before the fire.

GTM...where is the softness.
Husband of GTM, remember compassion.

You are, of course, free to do what you want. I’m not insisting that you reconcile. I’m only telling you what I know about relational repair, because I genuinely think some of what you’re struggling with is getting in the way of what you say you want.
Toxicity erodes a marriage over time, and you have both contributed to that toxicity. I don’t think anyone is denying that. But accountability for that toxicity can’t rest entirely on him.

An affair fundamentally damages the foundation of a relationship. You have had two affairs. I’m not saying that to condemn you. I’m saying it because I think that reality has to remain at the center of what repair looks like. The betrayal creates a very different burden for the betrayed spouse, even when the marriage was already unhealthy.

Consistency is what makes intentions believable. Words alone can’t do that. Repeated behavior over time is what eventually gives words credibility.

And I think this is where some of what you’re writing may be getting lost. A safe environment for a betrayed spouse includes basic empathy and understanding. You shouldn’t have to wait for him to identify every piece of your accountability before you can see it yourself. In fact, if he has to tell you exactly what you need to acknowledge before you acknowledge it, I think that can feel very different to him than you recognizing it on your own. He isn't necessarily looking for you to comply with a list. He may be looking for evidence that you genuinely understand what happened to him.

I also think you may be leaning heavily on the intellectual side of this because it gives you something concrete to work with. You talk about data, science, models, forecasts, and theories. I understand why that feels useful. But I don't think your husband is experiencing this primarily as an intellectual problem. He is experiencing it emotionally. He is looking for evidence that you understand the pain you caused him and that you genuinely feel remorse for it. The models and theories may help you understand things, but they aren't going to substitute for that emotional experience between the two of you.

And I think the hardest thing for you may be that your resentment toward him is getting tangled up with your remorse for what you did. I don't think you have to stop having resentment toward him. You can believe he has hurt you, contributed to the toxicity, and failed you in ways that are real—and still take complete responsibility for your own actions.

But I think those things have become so intertwined for you that one is getting in the way of the other. And if I'm right about that, I don't think it's because you're incapable of remorse. I think you're having a hard time getting to it because part of you is still waiting for him to acknowledge his own wrongdoing before you can fully sit with yours.

That may be understandable. But I don't think it will get you where you want to go.

I’m not saying any of this because I think you’re the only one at fault. I’m saying it because if reconciliation is genuinely what you want, I think you have to be able to own your side of this without needing his accountability to come first.
I also think having boundaries around how the two of you communicate is important. A relationship can’t repair if conversations repeatedly become hostile, contemptuous, or emotionally unsafe. Wanting a safe way to communicate is reasonable. But I think there is a difference between creating boundaries that make honest communication possible and creating conditions where difficult things can’t be said.

And I keep wondering what "infidelity repair" actually means to you. I hear you talk about wanting repair, but I don't really see what the plan for that repair is. What does it look like to you? What do you believe you need to do to repair the damage from the affairs? What do you need from him, and what are you prepared to consistently give him? I’m genuinely asking, because I think those questions matter if reconciliation is something you actually want.

Lastly, stop relying so heavily on ChatGPT. It is like an echo chamber that will confirm you at times when it shouldn’t. It helped someone believe suicide was the best option while offering to help draft their suicide note. It is enabling the intellectualizing when this particular issue requires a lot of heart and humanity.

I don’t think you have a support system, and I am not sure that you are still in IC? But I am hoping you can get more of a human interface that will push back. You get push back here but I am not sure we have your faith. It sure doesn’t feel like it.

It's like you guys can pick up bits and pieces of what I'm saying, but you can't hold the whole of it in your minds. And then the pieces you do pick up, you force them through your present mental models of me and my situation, and they come out the other side distorted, instead of allowing the information to update your mental models.

It's like, I'm handing you puzzle pieces to show you what my situation is like, and when put together correctly, the resulting image is a turtle. But you've already decided the image is supposed to be a snake, so you're mangling and smashing the pieces together, standing back, and confidently declaring, "Well you see, your problem is that you've got a snake!"

And then when I go, "No, you've misunderstood. There's no snake..." You guys go, "You just can't handle disagreement or feedback, and if you keep being a snake, it'll be your fault if your marriage ends. You must not really want reconciliation or understand the damage you've caused." And then while I'm getting frustrated and pissed of at YOU PEOPLE for being so incredibly dense, smugly incorrect, and shitty at listening, you count that as evidence of how I must be behaving at home with my husband. You go in with some crayons and pencil in fangs and claws on the snake and now it's a dragon.

But I guess I need to stop trying to convince the snare it's a snare.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 1:40 PM, Friday, September 4th]

And then while I'm getting frustrated and pissed of at YOU PEOPLE for being so incredibly dense, smugly incorrect, and shitty at listening, you count that as evidence of how I must be behaving at home with my husband.

Well now... THAT ^^^ just updated my mental model of you quite a bit!

Sigh...

My mental model of you, if you're at all interested.

I see a very intelligent woman trying very hard to rebuild herself and become the best possible version of herself. I see a woman with deep anger issues and strong CoD tendencies, a bit of dissociation upon occasion, who is struggling to balance personal growth and reconciliation. I see a woman who is stretched way too thin between parenthood, a dysfunctional marriage, animals, running a household, career responsibilities, education and physical fitness. I see a woman who is overwhelmed and breaking in real time.

I see a woman who is seeking help and guidance, who's looking for friends to hold her hand, who becomes disappointed and frustrated when her expectations and experiences don't always align.

I see a woman with a good heart struggling to learn to love herself and find inner peace.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm way off base. Maybe I'm "incredibly dense, smugly incorrect, and shitty at listening."

Maybe...

Maybe I (we) should simply stop caring, stop engaging with you, and give up.

GTM

I’m a strong believer in the ladder of inference. Check it out. Changing a core belief, a world view, takes time. One must assess all data, filter, validate, re-prioritize and re-stack, etc. Also, the process can be emotionally painful when you conclude you were wrong all along. I see this applicable to both you and your BS. Also, others here are voicing their opinion based on their total experience, not just specific details you write. Like they say, take what you want and leave the rest. We take what works for us at the moment, and we rebuild our world view bits at a time.

SL

What keeps you coming back here? For all the explosions and theatrics, for all the insisting that we don’t understand and now that we are poisoning your R attempt. What are you getting out of this, or what do you hope to get out of it?