It's been 6 months since D-Day. My continued questions to H concerning A, he can no longer handle. I agreed I would move on and not ask anymore. As with everyone else on this board my moods and emotions change, day to day, minute to minute. He HATES, HATES, HATES to answer my questions. He's always scared to death I might bring it up. He says there's nothing more to answer. He wants to MOVE ON. So, of course I blame myself, why can't I just move on? Why can't I just move on?

He gets angry, and has now turned violent towards me about questions. He does not hit me but screams and tears things up in our house. The kids do not see him "in the act" but see things broken in the house after the fact. He has always had anger issues. I make it worse by continuing to punish him for the A by asking questions. He just doesn't get why I am STILL hurting and STILL angry, I should be over it by now.

Yes, I should wait for him to tell me how stupid and devasting it has been but instead I tell him. He is living the consequences of what he has done, yet I have to remind him on a regular basis. If I don't bring it up, we would NEVER discuss it. He will not go to counseling, due to the costs, we are strapped right now.

He is fine as long as everything is going OK, and the A is not brought up. He is a model husband. Which I know see is avoiding the real problems. He wants to avoid confrontation at all costs. We should have seperated before now, but financially cannot.

What do I need to do at this point?

LL-

I am by no means a MB vet, and do not know your situation fully, so I hope others chime in. Here's my $0.02:

Are you sure there's no contact, are you still snooping? Is it possible that since his was a LTA that he's still in a fog, and you should put off R talk for a specificed time? Please don't read that as indefinitely, but maybe put limits on it, like 30mins every day/every other day, or something?

It's almost a year from D-Day for me. I still ask questions, have triggers, or am upset by the A almost daily (it is WAY better though). I am sometimes met with frustration, but my H always talks to me, if he's not emotionally capable of doing it that second, we'll do it later in the day, when he is. His frustrations/anger is coming from his guilt; the only difference is that mine doesn't (or tries very hard not to) take it out on me. He's taking responsibility. Is your H taking responsibility, not in words, but in actions?

Why is he so scared you'll bring it up? You have every right to, he gave you that right when he had his A. Does he fully understand WHY you need to talk about it? That the only way you CAN heal and "get over it/move on" is by talking about it...

Why do you feel like you have to remind him on a daily basis? Is it because you feel like he's not genuinely remorseful? If that is the case, I'd look at that, it's very telling (another A, not thinking he did anything wrong, justified in his A, etc).


Please DO NOT think that you should be over his A, DO NOT think that you are not justified in asking questions, DO NOT think that you shouldn't be hurting, you will do and be those things until... well, until you just don't. Until true healing has begun/occurred.

It sounds to me that he's either continuing some form of contact; or is burying his head in the sand, not addressing his part of your M issues, and will be vulnerable to another A down the road.

What are your boundries?

to you LL.

Perhaps I am just one of these people who will never get over it and should stop trying. My H is the type who just CANNOT handle problems of any kind, which is why it was so easy for an A to start. In an A there are no problems, no real life situations, it's all fantasy. He's like a child, as long as you keep him happy, life is great.

There is NC between them, I know for a fact. There are too many people watching them, including my snooping.

We discuss problems before A in marriage. We are both at fault. I cannot get over the cruelty of the A. I was not a perfect wife but in no way did I deserve all this. And he has told me that he knew what he was doing, when he started the A, at the time he wanted to HURT me, he knew how bad that would hurt me, then the A, just grew to what they thought was LOVE.

And I have showed him the Joseph's letter on one of the threads, he said, there's just no point in going over details, it does neither of us any good.

So he's not taking responsibility... that is not good, and I don't know what to say about that. You can't make him, and your true healing within your M won't come with out it. This would be one for the Vets, cuz I don't want to say the wrong thing.


As far as acceptance goes... Like I said, I'm nearly a year out, and I STILL haven't accepted my H's A. I'm vaccilating between the grief stages, but always moving foward.

I'm guessing that since he's refusing to take responsibility, you're stuck somewhere in one of the stages. You may not spend the same amount of time at each stage, but you WILL move thru them all.

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance


I don't know if this helps or not, but for me, it helped to know that
1. I wasn't alone
2. What I was feeling was normal
3. There WAS a way to heal with or without my H
4. That I was WORTH healing
5. That there was a solid plan for healing


Whether you recover your M or not, please make personal recovery a priority, don't lose your "self" in this. This is the time to take care of your "self", show her love, compassion, kindness; she's been thru the wringer and it sounds like she needs some attention.

LynLee, my D-Day was back in May 2005. While I try to not bring up my FWW's A, at the odd occasion a question does come to mind. She usually answers it quite quickly (though, as anyone familiar with my FWW "Tangled" here knows, sometimes her answers can be a bit on the "vague" side!).

Thing is, she is still willing to try to answer my questions.

Your WH apparently is not so willing. Or it could be the way that you approach him for answers about the A. He might see your approach as "looking for a confrontation" rather than really looking for answers.

A suggestion: Have you tried an approach like this - let him know that you have a few questions about the A, but instead of asking him directly, you're going to write them down so he can go over them and answer them at his leisure (within a suitable timeframe, of course). Then start talking about something else.

And here's the thing - I think that when you start writing down those questions, you may realise that many of them don't really need to be asked.

Ooh! Good point MiM. I wrote down my list of questions generated by d-day, and my H answered all of the ones I asked in a marathon session(some I did not need to ask due to the turns our conversation was taking).

Once I got what I felt I needed, questions now are sporadic and there's rarely more than one at a time, thus much easier for him to handle emotionally; easier for me to handle emotionally.

As MIM said you can give WH advance notice. I do not know how often you ask questions or talk about the affair. It may be hard for you to limit talking about the A to one evening per week for one hour.

People usually move to anger because of self-doubt or shame. I'm sure he's full of both. Are you really asking him about it every day? If so, that really does sound excessive. He's waking up each morning, knowing you're going to bring it up. I can see how he'd be tense about it.

I doubt he'll ever change enough to not blame everything on you or someone else; that's what angry and controlling men do. But if you practice moderation, and he doesn't feel under attack all the time, he may feel safe enough around you to reciprocate.

Writing it down is a great way. Maybe keep a notepad with you, and once every weekend, look at it and see if you need to give it to him.

LynnLee, I have a few questions for you:

1. has he answered all your questions to your satisfaction about the affair?

2. has ALL contact ended with the OW? [and i do mean ALL]

Also, it takes closer to 18 months to recover from an affair. At 6 months I was not even TO the worst part. It is unrealistic to believe you will just "get over it."

1. NO, he has not answered them all to my satisfaction.

2. YES, there is NC.

If it really takes 18 months, there is NO way he will stay around. He told me to stay off this website, he said there are nothing but mad, angry, losers on it who get me "rilled up"

He said that he jsut cannot take dealing with all this, and he needs to leave for MY sake, so I can begin healing. In my opinion, he wants to RUN!! So, perhaps I should let him see if the grass is really greener?

He says he understands that I am hurting and angry but I am the one choosing to stay here in this mode.

He's like a child, as long as you keep him happy, life is great



here's the issue

the proverbial rub...

forget the affair...

how do you two as a partnership handle and deal with conflict...

how do you two work together to resolve....

fix the real long term underlying issue...
and you will open up paths to being able to discuss the affair..

rationally
with care about each other...

you gotta build on what works...

what works in conflict resolution when it occurs with every day marital bliss.... :RollieEyes:


what is working for you two....

not the affair stuff..

what is working

ark

This reminds me a bit of my H when I still didn't have the whole story...

When I started really pressing him about some stuff that did not add up, he got very angry and threatened to leave. It turned out there were some things that he was very afraid to share with me.

The next day at a session with our MC, I told him I was willing to offer forgiveness, but that I needed to know everything and that I didn't want any more d-days. I basically told him it was a boundary of mine. Our MC totally backed me up and told him we wouldn't progress unless he was totally honest with me.

He finally told me everything that day and it was a huge step for us. He later told me not having everything out was a huge burden. He was really embarrassed and angry at himself and I think he didn't know what to do...which was the real reason for his outburst.

LynnLee,

This is the first response that I've gotten up the nerve to answer. My WH was and also is occasionally very angry. My discovery date was 2/06 and I am still dealing with questions almost daily. I think if they could be answered then I would have far fewer triggers with which to deal.

Unlike you, we have been in counseling with no less than five therapists. So I don't think that counseling always speeds up recovery. I'm not sure what I would have done without MB and all of the books that I have read. He hates MB and the time that I spend reading!

It seems as though every time I turn on the tv someone else has cheated on their spouse and there goes another trigger. I think that my WH chose not to reveal detail--his "modus operando".

When I set boundaries, I used the information that he provided to assist me. He didn't want me to know the whens or the wheres or the hows of how he did this. I'm pretty smart and also pretty thorough and I guess would make a great detective. So I spent the first 12-18 months kicking myself for not being able to see through all of his lies and deceit.

I used the Pick a Question Out of the Box approach and the Go Down My List approach and none of these made it any better. I gave him the first 6 months to get over his fog--I didn't even realize that it was fog until much later.

I got the "I guess I need to leave if you cannot get over this" line so many times that I can't count them all. I just wasn't brave enough to go and help him pack!!

He claimed continually that I knew it all and then surprize something else new was revealed.

It's either a movie about cheaters, an oprah show about cheaters, a lifetime movie called "My neighbors husband" or some crap like that, or oh, the Lives of Mistresses. It's is glorified. A public official or a celebrity who has cheated. It's all over the place, right in your face. It's commonplace today.

He's using "rage" to try and avoid answering questions that make him uncomfortable.

It crossed my mind that you could say, "Just answer the questions and stop being such a pu$$y!"

LynnLee, I feel compelled to tell you that I had a meltdown this morning and asked my H more questions. I need to tell you that because I am the one who gave you the advice to try to stop asking questions. I am almost 1.5 years into recovery and just broke down this morning. I started my own thread and am going to post more details about my meltdown shortly.

I am worried about your H's anger. Do you ever feel scared by his anger?

Quick, direct, and to the point.

I approve!!

I did LOL, if I did say that, he would start screaming at me and say some of the meanest things you have ever heard and call me names as he did during the affair and I was afraid to leave. Looks like this is my chance huh?