Upsidedown,
One of the things that I asked my H to do, and BTW he never did, was to tell me the "story" of his most recent affair.
I wanted to hear how it started, what happened between the two of them, the events, how things unfolded, what they talked about, everything............as though he were telling this to someone in story form. I wanted to hear a narrative. I was sure that this would probably take several sessions, but I just wanted to hear it.
He never has done this.
I think that your husband might want/need this from you, so ask him if it would help him. You might offer to do this in 30 minute increments, so that this is not feeling like marathon stuff, and so that at the end he can calmly ask questions regarding just the information you offered at the time. You two need rules....there are rules here under an old thread I have posted. Search my name here, and it is titled something like "memory and body language". You should be able to find it.
Use those rules for your talks about the affair and relationship. It makes it so things are much more productive, and much less stressful. You will also get more accomplished between the two of you, and feel more relaxed together.
Plus, it offers a respectful manner of interaction, which goes very far for these kinds of discussion. AND ENDS THE MARATHON FACTOR.
Regarding the fact that he did not believe you?
Get used to it. This is neurologically based. He has no choice. There is a brain-bias for this. The brain is hard-wired that it will NOT store or trust information that comes in from what is known to be an unreliable source. Period. It absolutely requires other sources to confirm or deny information before it will be stored. It happens with ALL information; simply put, the brain does not store unreliable information, regardless of the source.
For the time being, YOU are an unreliable source to his brain.
He has no control over that fact.
Until there is a long-standing history of reliability, the brain simply will not change your status.
It is the way nature intended.
This is a fact because otherwise our learning systems would be completely USELESS.
We would believe completely dumb stuff, like we could control the sun by blinking our eyes, or if we jump up and down the leaves on trees move because of it. We know this isn't true, only because our brains send in hypotheses, we wait for them to be proved true or not by RELIABLE sources, more information, etc. We are wired for it. We don't store it as fact until we KNOW IT IS FACT. Until then, well, we kind of think of it as something quite "interesting to think about as maybe true". But not fact.
Your information, to him, is "interesting and maybe true". However, each and every thing you say must be proven to be fact until at least another outside source shows it to be so.
Sorry. It is the way your life will be, for a period of undetermined time.
And the consequences of living a life of lies.
For you to overcome this will be quite rewarding. It will take patience, perseverence, strength, courage, and an unwavering committment to the idea that YOU are worth it.
SB
