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I'm certainly not suggesting you're an abuser.

What if both sets of words apply, and neither erase the other?

I agree they both do. Neither erased, neither wrong, just one set softened.

I know you were not calling me an abuser, you literally asked how I looked at those statements while being abused. I was simply stating they did not apply to my situation.

I do appreciate your perspectives, and do see what you are saying.

The rage was awful I kept going through it over and over again with each lie, D-Day, False R until it finally burnt me out. I was a monster during the worst of it. I'm sure my wrath would be considered emotionally abusive towards xWS. I became someone I didn't want to be and even turned in on myself through self destruction, drinking, cutting, and attempted suicide. I finally got the help I needed through my therapist and my mental health stays at the hospital. I also learned the coping skills that I never had. It was probably necessary that I went through all of that to grow into the stable and emotionally healthy person I am today.

I hope I never have to experience a rage like that ever again. I will never forget. I hope I never meet anyone like my xWS again.

Thanks for hearing me out. Some further questions (which you don't have to answer, of course. You know that already):

Do think you might have a tendency to reject victimhood at all costs? I know you said you've been through an awful lot, and now there's betrayal trauma heaped on top of it. I worry that by rejecting victimhood so vehemently, that you might neglect fully processing that which victimized you...Everyone praises you for being so emotionally mature and handling it so well. IIRC you spoke about having to hold it together for your family, having to be "the strong one." But are you fully allowing yourself to feel all of your feelings? To hurt, to grieve, to cry, to rage... Do you have the time and space to fall apart once in a while, if that's what you need?

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 7:31 PM, Wednesday, June 24th]

Unhinged,

What do you think it's protecting? What are those feelings tangled up inside it?

I have always tried to live by a code of honour and integrity. Part of that code was that when someone deeply wronged me, I chose myself. I did not abandon myself to protect the person who harmed me. I did not keep standing beside someone who had shown me that my loyalty, my trust, and my reality could be treated like disposable things. Staying with my WW feels like it takes that entire code and smashes it into rubble.

I think part of the anger is protecting me from having to face the choice in front of me. Stay, or lose fifty percent of the time with my children. Stay, or break up the daily life of my family. Stay, or leave the person I still somehow love, even though what she did sits so far outside my own values and morals that I can barely look at it some days. Maybe the anger is protecting me from making that choice, even if only temporarily. Maybe it is keeping me standing in the middle because either direction feels like a kind of death.

And I know that is probably only surface level. You gave me something I need to contemplate. Those feelings are tangled up with sadness too. Sadness over the loss of the past, the loss of the present, and the loss of the future I thought we were building.

Last night I was sitting on the deck with my WW, watching our children run and laugh while spraying each other with water guns. For a moment, I smiled. I laughed with them. It was one of those ordinary family moments that should have felt simple and safe. Then I looked over at my WW and said, "I can not believe you were willing to risk this."

And just like that, the anger came back. Not because the children were laughing. Not because the moment was bad. But because the moment was beautiful, and she had been willing to gamble it. She put all of this on the table. Our marriage, our home, our children’s sense of family, my ability to trust my own life, all of it. And now I am the one forced to be the bigger man again. I am the one forced to swallow the damage, manage the fallout, and decide how much of myself I am willing to sacrifice if I want this family to remain intact. FUCK!!!!

Gotthemorbs,

Do think you might have a tendency to reject victimhood at all costs? I know you said you've been through an awful lot, and now there's betrayal trauma heaped on top of it. I worry that by rejecting victimhood so vehemently, that you might neglect fully processing that which victimized you...Everyone praises you for being so emotionally mature and handling it so well. IIRC you spoke about having to hold it together for your family, having to be "the strong one." But are you fully allowing yourself to feel all of your feelings?

Thanks for asking this, and I do not take it as an attack. I actually think there may be some truth in what you are asking, though maybe not in the full way it might look from the outside.

I do think I reject the identity of victimhood pretty hard. That is probably true, I have always had a hard time seeing myself that way, partly because of everything I came from and partly because victimhood, to me, has always felt like a place I could not afford to live. I have had to keep moving, I have had to keep functioning. I have had to be useful, steady, productive, and strong, because there were too many times in my life when nobody was coming to rescue me. From pre-teen I have had only myself to survive.

But I do not think rejecting victimhood means I am rejecting the reality that I was victimized. Those are different things to me, I know what happened to me. I know I was lied to. I know I was manipulated. I know my reality was stolen from me. I know my consent was taken away from me. I know my marriage, my history, and my choices were built on information I was deliberately denied. I am not minimizing that. I am not pretending it was less than it was. I am not trying to make myself sound tougher than the damage.

I think the distinction for me is that I can acknowledge being harmed without wanting to build a home inside the word victim. Maybe that is self-protection. Maybe, lets be honest there is some pride in it. Maybe there is some fear too. I am willing to look at that. But I also know myself well enough to say that I have always been able to process things pretty deeply. Maybe not neatly, maybe not gently, but thoroughly. Writing is part of that. Talking is part of that. Rage is part of that. Sitting with the disgust and grief and asking myself what it means is part of that.

I am not sure I am "handling it well" as much as I am handling it honestly. There is a difference. I still hurt. I still rage. I still grieve. I still have moments where I look at her and cannot believe this is my life. I still have moments where I feel like the past, present, and future all collapsed into the same pile of rubble. I still have moments where I am disgusted, heartbroken, and furious all at once.

Do I have enough space to fall apart? Probably not. That is the part of your question that lands the hardest. I have children. I have work. I have a house. I have a wife who made herself unsafe and then still somehow needs me to remain steady in the blast radius of what she created. So no, I probably do not get to fall apart the way a person might need to fall apart after something like this. I break in controlled ways. I write. I cry when it comes. I rage when it comes. I sit on my deck and watch my children laugh with water guns and then get hit by the unbearable realization that she was willing to risk all of it.

So yes, there is something there for me to examine. Maybe my refusal to call myself a victim is partly strength and partly armour. I can accept that possibility. But I do not think I am avoiding the wound. I think I am staring directly at it. I just refuse to let the wound become the whole of who I am.

Then I looked over at my WW and said, "I can not believe you were willing to risk this."

Oh, brother, I had more moments like this than I care to remember. Every part of my being rebelled at believing she could have risked so much for so little. The sheer imbalance of her choices were simply beyond my ability to comprehend.

There are five stages to grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Right now, you're experiencing the first two stages.

It was sooo incredibly difficult for me to believe that my ex-wife was, in fact and in deed, willing to risk so much for so little. And yet, she was. And despite all of my best efforts to understand, to comprehend, to identify in even the slightest manner, I simply could not believe it.

How is it possible that someone could be that broken? Not evil, not sadistic or deliberately cruel. Just broken.

I'd had my wife upon a pedestal and then, with little warning, she was a broken pile of rubble.

I think part of the anger is protecting me from having to face the choice in front of me.

...because either direction feels like a kind of death.

I want you to take a DEEP breath and say out loud: "I don't have to make this choice today."

I've been reading your wife's posts. I don't engage with her much because I'm too invested in you. I do believe that she truly and honestly wants to do anything and everything she can possibly do to own and fix her shit, to make amends, to earn back your trust, your faith, and your love.

It's a good sign. I don't know if she's capable of going the distance, of doing the hard work that reconciliation requires. What I do know, however, is that taking the time to find out will be worth it. And whether you two ultimately R or D, you will not regret taking your own sweet time in assessing the best path forward for you.

I believe that infidelity is self-destructive. We, the betrayed, are collateral damage. You're not a victim.

I believe that infidelity is self-destructive. We, the betrayed, are collateral damage. You're not a victim.

This is so true to me, it should be the SI website signature line.

My wife's horrible choices don't reflect on me at all.

Maybe my refusal to call myself a victim is partly strength and partly armour.

Well said, and I think this is true. Maybe sometime in the future when your WW has exited the shame phase and is ready to support you instead of the other way around, you can take off the armor for a while at a time, and just be vulnerable with your emotions, as scary as it might be. You know that you have that armor and you're completely capable of picking it up and putting it back on again afterwards.

Best wishes, Gemmy

I'm not sure I will wait for that phase to be over to be fair. Even the smallest requests to avoid triggers are still too much effort for her. Answer my texts in a timely manner so I don't wonder where you are is too hard. Being where you say you will be when you say you will be is too hard. Texting or calling when your running late is too hard. "I understand why your upset" is not cutting it much anymore.

Sorry kind of spiraling right now, very unsure of how long my "strength" will last these days.

You certainly don't have to apologize to us! That sounds really frustrating

Even the smallest requests to avoid triggers are still too much effort for her.

Sounds familiar. Really bad sign, IMO.

Sorry kind of spiraling right now, very unsure of how long my "strength" will last these days.

If you are having to white knuckle it and you find yourself consistently giving more than you are receiving, you will burn out. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. You are giving her a chance, it’s up to her what she does with it. You take care of what you can control, and take care of your kids. That’s the best you can do.

If you are having to white knuckle it and you find yourself consistently giving more than you are receiving, you will burn out. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. You are giving her a chance, it’s up to her what she does with it. You take care of what you can control, and take care of your kids. That’s the best you can do.

Hard agree. Also have this t-shirt.

It's a brutal journey. You walk on broken glass as long as you can stand the pain. Either the road starts to clear and you stop hurting as much, or at some point you step onto a different road as an act of self-preservation. You still have to walk some more with torn up, bloody feet, but one way or the other, eventually you heal.

Keep in mind that all of this - surviving infidelity, the fallout, attempting to reconcile - is new to her, too. Yes, she knew the truth about your relationship all along. Now you know, too. And just like you, she had no idea how catastrophic the fallout would be nor how fundamentally she has altered your relationship.

It's a steep fucker of a learning curve, for both of you. Doesn't change anything right now. You have every right to walk away at any time you choose. It is not fair to expect her to "get it" right away.

I know... fuck fair!

Some WS spouses "get it" quicker than others, for a plethora of reasons. The learning curves get easier the more you share with each other and how comfortable with vulnerability you're both feeling in the moment (the official time limit of which is 90 seconds, btw, so shit can change quickly).

One day at a time, you know?

There's a lot to lose whether you R or D. There's also a lot to gain, either way.

Patience really is a virtue.