Found this article interesting. Food for thought?

http://www.network54.com/Realm/HealingHeart/batinfid.html

Excellent article.

To me, the most abusive thing Tom did was have an affair. The month after he broke my arm, I went to talk with the anger management therapist about the arm. I told him that Tom's relationship with this other woman was 20 times more hurtful than the broken arm, and at that point I thought it was an emotional affair that had ended.

What I now understand because of input from others is that there was a lot of psychological abuse: "She's calling me and it would be rude of me to hang up", "I went to the liquor store to buy wine for us and I thought 'I wonder what sort of wine Sophia would like '", "I had lunch with Sophia because of how you treated me the day before"... It was my fault, not his, that he had an affair. "You just plain didn't care about me". "She showed interest in me, and you didn't." SO -- even if that is his perception, does that justify his choices?

And now what is he doing? We are in Harley's program, and he is telling me that I am unwilling to go through it or that I have a bad attitude so it won't work. I get this abusive blaming of me for his actions and choices, and now I can say "your choice" when he says "I quit."

Best line of all? "I only got together with her during work hours." OH, and that really is what matters -- he could fool around during the day as long as he put in an appearance at home. What I have to learn from this abusive blaming of me is that HIS actions are never MY fault just like MY actions are never HIS fault.

Thanks for putting this up, SDFR!

The only thing I wish is that I could think of some way to get STBX to see this and actually read it.

There's no going back - I couldn't take him back at this point, because he burned too many bridges, and I basically lost all love I had for him.

But even though I'm doing reasonably well with everything, I recognize that I still have a lot of anger towards him, mainly because he seems to feel I just can't "move on." He gets mad that I am short with him and show at every turn through the D that I don't trust him; he says that yes, he does understand what he did to me, and believe him, he has beaten himself up about it, but he finally made peace with it and has moved on.

That's the excuse why he doesn't need to apologize or ask my forgiveness. After all, he did say he was sorry, once. And just because he said it while at the same time he was lying, going to counseling with me while he was lying to the counselor and me, saying he was living with his friend Larry, when he never quit living with her, doesn't mean that the apology was insincere or shouldn't count.

What it boils down to is, according to him, I am completely unreasonable and a little crazy, and I just need to get over it and move on. He has no real conception of what he did. Some of his complaints were that I had started having real low self-esteem, and didn't try to be attractive to him anymore, stuff like that. But with everything I've found, that behavior on my part started sometime shortly after he started putting personal ads out on the internet. Not that I knew about the ads, but I certainly did know that the way he treated me had changed - that he acted like I was stupid, and that he was not attracted to me at all.

Wow - I guess saying I still have a lot of anger over this was an understatement, huh? But this article does hit home with me. I wish I had a way to make him see it and hit home with him. I know that I need to realize that he may never see what he really did, and come to terms with it all from that perspective, but it still feels like dealing with it would all be a lot easier for me if I knew that he finally could feel the kind of hurt that I do.

good article. Bringing this up for meremortal.

"deep personal suffering; - low self-esteem and a sense of worthlessness; - a sense of helplessness and a lack of control over their lives; - a dependency on the betraying partner and a need for their approval; and - a distorted sense of reality in which they can begin to believe that their partner's infidelity is their own fault."

ouch! But that is me. In the last year I have been convinced that the only people who have ever loved me, or COULD ever love me are those who have to: parents/children/siblings. No one that isn't blood related to me could love me. seems like there's never been a shortage of men that want to get naked with me (BFD!) but I doubt any would ever want anything real or permanent. Pretty much my entire marriage I've felt like my h enjoyed sex with me, liked having me as the warm body next to him, but was ALWAYS looking for something *better* to "love". I have taken that on myself sometimes, I do think that I am not worthy of real love. I don't know why I feel that way, but I do.

Thanx TooMany Lies,

"good article. Bringing this up for meremortal."

"deep personal suffering; - low self-esteem and a sense of worthlessness;"

This part I do not feel like. The only one who treats me poorly is my WH. I think I am an overly optimistic person, sometimes annoyingly cheerful. Throughout all this, people have said to me, "Don't you ever get angry?" It took a lot of his abuse to really bring me down. There were some rough times when I got very depressed but with the help of an AD (and DR's permission to exercise again) I am feeling more like my old self again.

"a sense of helplessness and a lack of control over their lives;"

My WH does try to exploit and manipulate OUR decision for me to be a stay-at-home-mom... I think it makes him feel entitled in certain ways. And he has tried to buy his way back into our lives without ending the affair or treating us better. I realize I do need to find a way to become less dependent on him financially. He definitely has power struggle issues. I don't know if he even knows how to relate to another human being with honesty and equality. He's basically a con artist and game-player. Not a put-down, just the reality of the situation.

"a dependency on the betraying partner and a need for their approval"

Now this part I do have a problem with. I don't know if it has become some sort of challenge that because he's the one person who's mean to me and does not think I'm a great person, that makes me need his approval even more? I have to learn to give up on gaining his approval. He doesn't play fair and I coudl never really win his approval as long as he's playing the game his way.

"and a distorted sense of reality in which they can begin to believe that their partner's infidelity is their own fault."

I don't feel like this either. Because I am more the judgemental type and expect people to take responsibility for what they choose to say and do. I don't think there's any excuse for adultery. Does he try to blame everything on me? You bet. Sometimes I wonder if that's why he feels he needs to keep me in his life - someone to blame as well as someone to abuse.
As long as I'm in his life he doesn't take any responsibility. Plus he can pretend to be somebody he's not to OW and dump his anger on his wife and kids so she doesn't see it.

"ouch! But that is me. In the last year I have been convinced that the only people who have ever loved me, or COULD ever love me are those who have to: parents/children/siblings. No one that isn't blood related to me could love me. seems like there's never been a shortage of men that want to get naked with me (BFD!) but I doubt any would ever want anything real or permanent."

That's so sad. I'm lucky I have so many friends that tell me how amazing, smart, funny, talented, hard-working, etc. they think I am. It's really just my WH who doesn't respect or admire me. I dont' think I'm all that special but for some reason other people do LOL. I try to tell them all the bonehead mistakes I make. But I think that makes them like me even more. I laugh at myself - a LOT LOL I'm the opposite of my WH in this aspect. He doesn't really want people to really know him. He lies a lot (even when he's not having an affair) to try to impress people and to hide mistakes he makes. Pretty much every time I talk to one of my relative of friends I tell them about my latest left home without my brain mistake (things like showing up at the wrong rink for skating practice and then wondering why the hockey players aren't leaving the ice, locking myself out of the house or car - happens a lot, and forgetting appt's... I joke that I need some adult supervision).

"Pretty much my entire marriage I've felt like my h enjoyed sex with me, liked having me as the warm body next to him, but was ALWAYS looking for something *better* to "love". I have taken that on myself sometimes, I do think that I am not worthy of real love. I don't know why I feel that way, but I do."

I can sort of relate to this. But with my WH I think it's more he has an innate prejudice that whoever his wife is, she's not supposed to be important, cherished, admired, etc. It has more to do with the way his step-father treated his mother maybe. Plus my MIL basically has no life: no friends, no hobbies (besides shopping), didn't work, no independence, no charity work... Maybe my WH thinks that is what a wife is supposed to be like?

You know what's strange to me meremortal? My h isn't mean to me in any other way really. He does occasionally come home grumpy from a bad day at work, but he isn't mean. In the past he has said some pretty hateful things but so have I. We had to (have to) learn to fight fair.

Even during his affairs he was good to me. This last one was so shocking! He was writing me love notes, gave me a Vday card that said he would never hurt me again, then within 2 weeks he did hurt me again! He tried to say he needed time alone. He tried to make me believe he just wanted to move out (seperate) but I knew there was NO WAY he would leave unless he had "a soft place to land". I knew there was someone else so I snooped until I found out. This is what kills me about him and all men that do this to their wives. They make sure that THEY have a soft place to land, but don't care that the woman who they have claimed to love for so many years is being pushed out of an airplane onto a pile of rocks! I can't understand being that self absorbed. I can't understand caring about no one but themselves. It seems very very cowardly to me! Something that really sucks when something like this happens is that you can still get all the feelings you had back, you can still LOVE your H with all your heart, but there's no way you will ever think of him the same again.

My h is not the person I thought he was. I always knew he would cheat, but I believed him to be a responsible man that would never walk out on his family and basically ALL responsibilty. I always thought he had integrity (I know! A "cheater" with integrity?!) Yes, I did think he had integrity, I thought he had a problem that made it hard for him to walk away from a sexual opportunity, but I thought he had some character some morals and was never the kind of man that would leave his family alone, emotionally and financially devastated.