I have lurked on this site for months now, only posting now and then. My story in a nutshell is that my H had a long term A with a girl young enough to be his daughter. We are now 6 months past D-Day and I am still feeling very sad and angry.

He point blank refuses to discuss the A at all and doesn't follow MB principles. If I try and discuss the A he just gets angry and shuts me out.

Last night he asked why I was looking so sad, so for the first time in six months I told he why I was feeling so sad. I did it very calmly and didn't LB at all. At the mention of the A he got so angry and said "you make me so angry when you bring up this topic that I could just smash your face in". We have never had any physical abuse in our relationship but I could see how angry he was and I believe that he could truly have smashed my face in.

He went to bad angry and this morning he is barely talking to me. Have I done the wrong thing in trying to talk about the A. Every post here suggests that by working through the A and getting your WH to answer questions about the A helps. To my WH it is a topic that is just not up for discussion. He is still angry with me and I am not sure how to handle this. Any advice? I apologised this morning for upsetting him.

Would he be open to seeing a MC with you? Maybe an independent party could help foster communication between the two of you.

LL

I too have faced this anger when I have tried to express my feelings to H. It is particularly hard when they ask you what is wrong and then that is their reaction when you tell them.

Fortunately over time my H has come to realise that sweeping it under the carpet did not make it go away and will now talk about it to a degree. Although he is very defensive and angry in the conversation.

Be careful when you talk to him about the affair that you are expressing how you feel. Trying to educate, or lecture or even punish (yes I know I did that) will only mean he will be less likely to open up the next time. Just ask what you need to ask or express what you are feeling.

I think that Lordslady is right. You need to get some counseling. This may be a safer environment in which to discuss things if his reaction is so violent. If you H threatens to physically harm you then I think you should not pursue the conversation and remove yourself from his immediate physical presence until you both calm down. If you think he is really going to hurt you then get the hell out of there.

Your Hs anger is telling you something. Why do you think your feelings related to the affair provoke this reaction in him? (in my Hs cas I think it is out of guilt, a feeling that I will never get over it, his terror at actually having to take a good hard look at his motivations and inner world).

Counseling I think
C&S

No, he is absolutely adamant that it is a topic he will not discuss with anyone. We tried MC right in the beginning but he wasn't happy with it and eventually refused to go anymore. I am still currently seeing a psychiatrist and am on anti depressant medication.

His whole attitude is that if you ignore it, it will go away. . .that is how he has dealt with any problems in his life.

He didn't even give me a chance to ask anything about the affair. The minute I brought up the fact that I was feeling sad because of the affair he immediately got cross and "wanted to smash my face in".

I didn't get annoyed, I apologised for making him angry and again this morning gave him a hug and apologised, telling him that it wasn't my intention to make him angry, all I was trying to do was communicate how and why I was feeling sad.

The subject is just not up for discussion and I am not sure how to behave this evening when I get home from work. I have already apologised, both last night and again this morning and I don't really feel that I had anything to apologise for.

Then don't apologise.
I don't think you had anything to apologise for either. Your H sounds a lot like mine. There are a few of us around here who have Hs who seem threatened by anything to do with affair.

Have you read the books on Boudaries by Cloud and Townsend? I have the Boundaries book, but the book I found the most helpful is Boundaries face to face (having converstions with ...I can;t remember the rest of the title) It might be a good read for you.

I guess perhaps tonight tell H what you are feeling. Maybe express that you are feeling hopeless at the moment as you feel unable to express your feelings to him. Maybe suggest that you visit a counselor together.

If this would be too dangerous or if his reaction is not conducive to discussion, then I guess you will have to consider if you can live with this situation. Perhaps tell him that you don't like the fact that you are starting to feel resentful at having to deal with all of your feelings alone and that you don't know how long you can continue like that.

Get the book I suggested. Lots of hints in there. Hopefully if you can try and entice him back into counseling.
C&S

I have lived with the situation for the past six months. After d-day I didn't bring the conversation up again because of his anger and his inability to discuss the A. Last night was the first time I brought it up again because he asked me why I was looking so sad.

Reading all the MB principles about complete honesty made me make the attempt to be completely honest and it totally backfired on me.

I feel worse today than ever before and feel that I accomplished more harm than good. He was totally switched off this morning and still very angry with me. I realise that I will have to deal with my feelings on my own because there is no way he will even attempt to discuss it.

I will purchase the book on Boundaries. . .perhaps I just do not have the ability to convey my feelings properly and a bit of tuition would help. Though from his reaction last night I very much doubt it.

He doesn't believe we need counselling, he believes if we just "leave the subject alone" and carry on with our lives everything will be okay. I don't believe that, I believe we need to talk about the problem, what caused it and why it happened.

Enid
I sympathise with you. I know where you are coming from. I have battled with a similar man. All I can say is that while it has been a long hard struggle and it is still dificult three years on we are doing better. He has realised now that it won't go away.

His anger and refusal to talk about it is to control you. I can well understand that you need to talk about it. I can't believe that you have not been able to talk about it at all since Dday. Mine at least was very willing in the early days after Dday to listen and answer my questions.

Here is a link. There is a letter here to a spouse written about the need to knwo detatils etc Perhaps reading it will help you.
Maybe you could print it out and give it to your husband?

Maybe you could try writing out how you are feeling and giving this to your husband. That has workied a bit for me. Doesn't get list in the crossfire that way.

Good luck
C&S

Sorry forgot to post the link

http://www.dearpeggy.com/com023.html

Thank you for the link. I have just read it and it makes such perfect sense to me. I tried to explain that to my WH last night, that being open and honest was the quickest route to healing. He totally disagreed with me and then got angry and threatening. I cannot deal with that kind of anger and often think my WH uses it because he knows its the most effective tool to shutting me up.

I agree. I am sure he uses the anger to shut down the communication. When that failed with my H then he would go for sex or charm. He would do anything to get out of talking about it.

How do you think he would react if youprinted out the letter and asked him to read it?

I have printed out the letter and I am going to ask him to read it tonight. I will tell him to just read it, we needn't talk about it, that he must just read it and think about it. Maybe that will be more effective. . .as you say at least I can keep out of the crossfire that way.

Can anyone help me on how to deal with this problem tonight. I go home in three hours time and am not sure how to act towards my WH. He was still angry this morning and I have already apologised for making him angry and I am not sure whether to just ignore (his method) what happened or to say something. I have spent the day in a quandry of mixed feelings. Just don't know what to do.

enid...

why not tell him some truths about YOU...

that YOU will not participate in a partnership with the person on this planet for whom you both are to nurture and be nurtured by....and instead live with his offer of threats, misplaced anger, and such hate...

tell him how that if he chooses this marriage...which is his choice, then he must choose to plugging in to this marriage...and working this issue through together...

that anything else is his choice in action NOT to choose this marriage...
and that is not the type of marriage you want...

that you have no desire to be married to someone who pushes back at their spouses pain with such hate....

tell him that if he were smash your face in...
then he would see on the outside...how you feel on the inside....

what do you want
what do you expect in a marriage..
what is intolerable to you...

then make your plans from there.....

so tired of hearing some WS bullcrap...
I really am tired since I just worked twelve hour shift....so sorry if this post sounds harsh...

ARK

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by enid:
<strong>
His whole attitude is that if you ignore it, it will go away. . .that is how he has dealt with any problems in his life. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Sorry, but he is going to have to discuss it. It won't "go away" for you until he does. He might as well get it over sooner rather than later. Your marriage won't recover unless he does. Bully for him if it is too hard. This is information about your life that you have to know about.

He has no right to have secrets with the OW to which you are not privy.

Withholding the facts is a cruel as the affair and as long as you don't know what happened, you don't know how to prevent it from happening again.

Please explain it to him this way and stop apologizing to him. He owes you an answer, not an offer to punch you in the face.

Show him this letter from the Monogamy Myth:

Joseph's Letter

I want to share a beautiful example of a letter one man wrote in his effort to get his wife to answer his questions. This was originally posted on my BAN Message Board before it was closed. While I didn't keep any of the messages posted on that board, this was so exceptional that I got Joseph's permission to include it in "Peggy's Forum" so it could continue to be accessed by people who didn't read his original posting.

So I'm including it here as a clear statement of the "need to know," as well as a clear explanation of why you ask the questions:

"To Whomever,

"I know you are feeling the pain of guilt and confusion. I understand that you wish all this never happened and that you wish it would just go away. I can even believe that you truly love me and that your indiscretion hurts you emotionally much the same way it hurts me. I understand your apprehension to me discovering little by little, everything that led up to your indiscretion, everything that happened that night, and everything that happened afterwards. I understand. No one wants to have a mistake or misjudgment thrown in his or her face repeatedly. No one wants to be forced to "look" at the thing that caused all their pain over and over again. I can actually see, that through your eyes, you are viewing this whole thing as something that just needs to go away, something that is over, that he/she doesn't mean anything to you, so why is it such a big issue? I can understand you wondering why I torture myself with this continuously, and thinking, doesn't he/she know by now that I love him/her? I can see how you can feel this way and how frustrating it must be. But for the remainder of this letter I'm going to ask you to view my reality through my eyes.

"You were there. There is no detail left out from your point of view. Like a puzzle, you have all the pieces and you are able to reconstruct them and be able to understand the whole picture, the whole message, or the whole meaning. You know exactly what that picture is and what it means to you and if it can effect your life and whether or not it continues to stir your feelings. You have the pieces, the tools, and the knowledge. You can move through your life with 100% of the picture you compiled. If you have any doubts, then at least you're carrying all the information in your mind and you can use it to derive conclusions or answers to your doubts or question. You carry all the "STUFF" to figure out OUR reality. There isn't really any information, or pieces to the puzzle that you don't have.

"Now let's enter my reality. Let's both agree that this affects our lives equally. The outcome no matter what it is well affect us both. Our future and our present circumstances are every bit as important to me as it is to you. So, why then is it okay for me to be left in the dark? Do I not deserve to know as much about the night that nearly destroyed our relationship as you do? Just like you, I am also able to discern the meaning of certain particulars and innuendoes of that night and just like you, I deserve to be given the opportunity to understand what nearly brought our relationship down. To assume that I can move forward and accept everything at face value is unrealistic and unless we stop thinking unrealistically I doubt our lives well ever "feel" complete. You have given me a puzzle. It is a 1000 piece puzzle and 400 random pieces are missing. You expect me to assemble the puzzle without the benefit of looking at the picture on the box. You expect me to be able to discern what I am looking at and to appreciate it in the same context as you. You want me to be as comfortable with what I see in the picture as you are. When I ask if there was a tree in such and such area of the picture you tell me don't worry about it, it's not important. When I ask whether there were any animals in my puzzle you say don't worry about it, it's not important. When I ask if there was a lake in that big empty spot in my puzzle you say, what's the difference, it's not important. Then later when I'm expected to "understand" the picture in my puzzle you fail to understand my disorientation and confusion. You expect me to feel the same way about the picture as you do but deny me the same view as you. When I express this problem you feel compelled to admonish me for not understanding it, for not seeing it the way you see it. You wonder why I can't just accept whatever you chose to describe to me about the picture and then be able to feel the same way you feel about it.

"So, you want me to be okay with everything. You think you deserve to know and I deserve to wonder. You may honestly feel that the whole picture, everything that happened is insignificant because in your heart you know it was a mistake and wish it never happened. But how can I know that? Faith? Because you told me so? Would you have faith if the tables were turned? Don't you understand that I want to believe you completely? But how can I? I can never know what is truly in your mind and heart. I can only observe you actions, and what information I have acquired and slowly, over time rebuild my faith in your feelings. I truly wish it were easier.

"So, there it is, as best as I can put it. That is why I ask questions. That is where my need to know is derived from. And that is why it is unfair for you to think that we can effectively move forward and unfair for you to accuse me of dwelling on the past. My need to know stems from my desire to hold our world together. It doesn't come from jealousy, it doesn't come from spitefulness, and it doesn't come from a desire to make you suffer. It comes from the fact that I love you. Why else would I put myself through this? Wouldn't it be easier for me to walk away? Wouldn't it be easier to consider our relationship a bad mistake in my life and to move on to better horizons? Of course it would, but I can't and the reason I can't is because I love you and that reason in itself makes all the difference in the world."

(end of Joseph's Letter)

http://www.dearpeggy.com/com023.html

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by enid:
<strong>
I will purchase the book on Boundaries. . .perhaps I just do not have the ability to convey my feelings properly and a bit of tuition would help. Though from his reaction last night I very much doubt it.

</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Enid, I think your husband has discovered that he can successfully bully you into silence when it is convenient. I think if you allow him to do this, that he will continue. But maybe if you explain to him - CALMLY - that you cannot recover until he tells you all and that you are NOT going to be bullied into silence that he will have a change of heart. And don't give up.

If you let him manipulate you into silence, then you only have yourself to blame.

And maybe he will never tell you, but you have to try harder than this. Just shutting up and then apologizing profusely won't get you anywhere.

If it turns out that he won't tell you after you have given it a good college try, you can make the decision to stay in a marriage with a man who doesn't care if you recover.

You are right, he does use bullying tactics to shut me up. I am afraid they work. I grew up in a very abusive home and all my father ever did was yell and scream at all of us in a druken rage.

My WH doesn't drink but he does know that the best way of shutting me down is to start yelling at me. The minute he does that I just shut down. I have no way of dealing with that kind of abuse.

Don't get me wrong, he doesn't often do it, only when he doesn't want to confront any issue or talk about anything.

Enid,
I think that if you do not go into Plan B very soon, you will begin to lose the love you have left for your husband. Please read up on everthing you need to know about Plan B (hint: it's not simply separationg), and start figuring out how you will manage it (where you'll stay, financial support, who will serve as an intermediary between you and your husband, draft your Plan B letter to spell out what specifically you need your husband to do to make you feel emotionally safe enough to come back and work together on your marriage).

I don't know that I am ready for a Plan B Letter. We have been together for 38 years and until recently I always thought they were 38 wonderful years.

I have even asked me WH what I did wrong in the marriage and he says that there was nothing wrong with the marriage. . .the affair was caused by his ego.

I might not be ready for a Plan B letter but I have Plan A'd for the past six months and last night was the first confrontation we have had and I just don't know how to get the message across to him that there are things I need to know about the A to give myself some kind of closure.

As soon as i found out about pa i started asking questions only to get lies that covered up lies.I contacted omw to inform her. she said she was so glad i called as she was having trouble getting in touch with me to let me know what was going on. well my wifes story changed so many times and i got so feed up with her that i told her to take a ride with me so we could talk. little did she know but i was taking her to his house.I promised his wife i would not hurt him at their house and i didnt. alot of questions was answered that day. I dont recommend this to everyone but it worked for me I am still with my wife but i still dont trust her and i know it will take some time to overcome that. not knowing will eat at you. he was man enough to have an affair he should be man enough to DISCUSS IT WITH YOU. wish you the best.

<small>[ August 05, 2004, 10:12 AM: Message edited by: rickster9 ]</small>