Hello,

This is IHH's husband. NeverGuessed brief posting, which is the only insightful, thoughtful, accurate thing that has been written in this thread, has motivated me to provide you with the following information.

First of all, this will be "IHurtHim's" last posting here, or anywhere, regarding our lives. I am, and have always been, a fairly reserved, private person, and I have made it clear that my right to not have intimate details of our -- my -- personal life paraded before complete strangers, on the internet (whether anonymous or not) trumps her need to seek "support" and advice from complete strangers. It is not negotiable.

Some basic personal detail. I have been a devoted and adoring husband for nearly two decades. I have not told my wife often enough how much I love her, but when I did, I told her in a way that could not leave any doubt about my sincerity and the depth of my feelings for her.

But the real purpose of this post is to illustrate the pitfalls of providing potentially life-altering advice based on the possibly skewed, or even dishonest, perspective of one side of a two-person issue. I have also requested that my wife completely eliminate the use of the phrase "open and honest" in any of our conversations. "Honesty" (sorry, O&H) is not a crutch phrase to be trotted out in the midst of heartfelt discussions to lend credence to one's words; it is a personal characteristic to be practiced. Unfortunately, this forum itself, and others like it, are all too often a means by which to perpetuate the habit of providing half-truths, or telling outright lies cloaked as "perspective". A few examples.

My wife wrote: "I through a glass at him in frustration before he ever hit me."

Here's the TRUTH, provided in more detail than necessary to meet any reasonable definition of open and honest, but in the interest of illustrating the chasm between the way my wife characterizes the incident, and the way it really happened.

I had never used, nor threatened in any remote way, the use of violence against my wife in nearly 20 years of being together before the affair. The thought, quite simply, never crossed my mind; it was completely and totally not even there.

In the midst of a heated argument following the revelation, my wife did indeed throw a glass at me. In fact, she threw two, with all her might at me from about 6-8 feet away, with my young son standing next to me. Let me describe the glasses. These were not common kitchen glasses. These were Duralex, tempered glass from two different sets. The first set was over 20 years old. Not one had ever broken, for a very simple reason: they are extremely hard. I once dropped one of these glasses from about elbow height onto a concrete floor, and it BOUNCED up to waist height, where I caught it, without a scratch. It is possible that glass was the very glass my wife threw at me. The second was from a newer set, a gift, of the same material, but heavier, like a bar mug. I know a little about the damage that a simple -- untempered -- bar mug can cause: I was struck with one, on the face, without warning and from behind, long ago, and suffered multiple gashes that took 40 stitches to close. In short, I know exactly, personally, and intimately, what a glass can do. The first glass my wife threw missed my face by inches, and shattered into a million pieces on an exposed 2x4 behind me. The second struck me squarely on the hip bone, and exploded into a cloud of glass. I was left with a deep bruise that took nearly 3 months to heal. It was pure luck that a shard did not cut my stomach well open.

That's an example of something less that completely "open and honest".

In other postings, my wife writes:

"I do not think I have left out any facts about the affair."

This is objectively false. She had indeed left out important facts about the affair -- not just left out, but openly and clearly, and repeatedly denied. Just last night she "remembered", despite the fact that I had asked an extremely specific question about that exact thing, at least 30 or 40 times. My question, and her answer, was not to satisfy my prurient interest: it was to demonstrate to her -- along with many, many other such events -- that her characterization of the affair as something "out of her control" was false, and I made it clear that I was not willing to move forward based on such a characterization.

Final example: she writes:

"H felt that I had previously said the affair got started in one sudden moment"

This is a lie. Pure and simple. I did not "feel" that she had previously said the affair got started in one sudden moment. My feelings had nothing to do with it AT ALL. These are very nearly the EXACT WORDS that came out of her mouth, more than once.

Enough said. This forum may be constructive for some people, but the idea of participating in some kind of "he said she said" in this forum is absolutely revolting to me. I have read everything about Dr. H.'s method this site has to offer, as well as many others. The method that will applied to fixing my marriage will be one person's: mine (ours?). Period. At this point, it is either my way or the highway. I hope the rest of you, many of who clearly suffer from a certain voyeuristic complex, can let the trail of this one just go cold.

Mr IHH-

The bulls--- detection ability by some of the veteran posters is extremely keen and it was blinking red on many of your wife's posts. NG (one of the best BS sniffer outers) shined the big light on it.

Thanks for the clarity on your situation after 11 pages of what now is clear that it was wayward fog babble.

I'm not sure where your marriage is heading but if you choose to follow the plan on this site you chose a solid route.

I do take offense to the voyeuristic comment. Many of us have endured just what you have endured and have relied on others here for guidance and suggestions. There have been many who have come and gone without a trace too so no one will cry when you're gone.

And, many whose marriages have been saved by allowing the clearheaded non judgmental advice given here to guide our very confused existence that is standard in the early days.

Good luck.

What about calling the coaching center?

You're using a pretty big brush for your painting, there, mister. To suggest we are voyeuristic because we dedicate time to help others would, ipso facto, give the same black eye to therapists, pastoral counselors, AA sponsors of alcoholics, etc.

Of course. You'll find no disagreement with that. The phrase is used here to encourage that practice.

I suspect you are asking your wife to eliminate the use of the phrase because it reminds you of her posting here, which, in turn, reminds you of her affair. Which is fine. We encourage the elimination of triggers.

Of course. There is a chance that a poster is not giving us the complete picture. When a poster comes here we can only assume that they are telling us the truth. After all, they came to us, not the other way around.

Now, there are many times when a poster will leave out facts or will report incidents to us that will give us an inaccurate picture of their situation. It's human nature, I think, to try to look good to others. It's also unhelpful and distracts from the goal, which is to get help from others who have been in their situation. We usually manage to tease out the truth. It's very helpful when the other spouse comes on the board and starts their own thread. I respect your lack of interest in doing so, but the little you've told us confirmed what many already suspected: the whole story hadn't been told to us. That's just a waste of everyone's time. It happens, though.

Good luck with that.

If your wife posts here, we will respond. You can make book on that, friend. If she doesn't, the 'trail' will 'go cold'. Again, we didn't seek her out. We'll just go on to help others who are asking for help.

What about calling the coaching center?

She will remain stuck until she becomes completely open and honest.

So are you saying the claims of abuse and what not were more fabrication on her part?

Seems that's a common technique of the wayward to garner sympathy.

**edit**

I thought something wasn't right. But it seems folks wanted to rescue her and crucify me for suggesting she has to make a safe environment for her husband.

I won't say any more. It's good to know that my instincts may have some merit after all.

No, he did not say that at all. He said this:


In other words, he didn't hit her BEFORE the affair. He doesn't refute her version of the domestic violence AFTER the affair. I guess beating your wife "after the affair" is justifiable. Nothing in his post changes anything. There are NOT TWO sides to every story. There is ONE side to the truth and if this guy is beating her, as she claims, he is a dangerous man. Adultery does not justify domestic assault.

And recently she called the police when he became angry again, so it is clear he has not stopped:

Her husband went to all the trouble to refute her rendition of claims about the glass throwing incident [it was really tough, tough glass, after all, and she didn't give us all the details about the strength of the glass] and about other non-essential issues such as this:


...but doesn't refute any of her claims about his wife beating?

If your spouse claimed you had beat her up, wouldn't you refute that claim?

I believe she has deleted all the posting about his abuse.

Perhaps she doesn't want him to see that she had been lying about it.

The whole thing stinks.

Melody, you yourself have said never believe a wayward. So why are you willing to believer her because she says her husband is abusive?

I'm not saying he's not. I'm not saying he is. I'm asking why on one hand you say waywards are not to be trusted, but now you are willing to accept that she is truthful and reject that her husband my be the victim here. The victim of both her affair and then a fabrication to justify or garner sympathy?

I'll say it again. No one deserves to be abused.

If someone is being abused, call the police.

On the other hand, if someone is falsely accusing someone of abuse as a smokescreen, it only makes life harder for real abusive victims.

I don't know who to believe. I suspect they both need some sort of help. Probably help that goes beyond what can be provided by the participants here.

All of those quotes were taken from this thread, so they weren't deleted. He refuted some things and not others.


You took my statement out of context since she is not a current wayward. Apparently they are true since he didn't dispute them. I have no reason to believe they aren't true.

Well he's not here, so shall we continue the speculation?

We don't know that he read anything others saved regarding what she said. He could have simply read her posts and gone from there.

Either way, I believe my bottom line statement above still stands, they both need more help that we can offer here.

We can go back and forth pointing out the holes in what each said or didn't say, and none of that will solve the underlying problem. They both need more help than what is available on this board.

We know that he did read this thread as evidenced by the things he did refute - many of which were in the same posts. Quotes about his wife beating are sprinkled throughout the thread so it makes no sense to suggest he somehow missed that and didn't miss the other things. We have no reason to believe she just made it up. He didn't dispute those parts and neither did she.

I'm not going down this road again.

I believe they BOTH need more help than can be provided here.

That would be a wise move.

I do. Both sides have told us the same thing. He was violent AFTER the A.

I don't believe waywards either, that's why I started the Never Take The Word of a Wayward thread.

But IHH is a former wayward, making EXCUSES for her H, not herself.

Remember that her husband's post is not for our benefit. He wrote it for her.

He doesn't care about this forum. He just wants us to disappear so we can't dispense advice about physical violence. He has no interest in talking us around.

The post was for her. It is full of excuses about why her A and her throwing a glass makes it fully acceptable for him to slap her around or intimadate and control her, whenever.

He doesn't need US to know that. He needs her to.

Why? The answer is obvious.

Some of us responded to pain with grace, others use it to excuse their poor choices.

He could educate himself as to why someimes even a very repentant wayward doesn't always remember facts, but he doesn't want to. Its easier to just control and abuse IHH.

But Dr H's advice has already been dispensed. IHH has it and will use it if she wants to. If she chooses to be reckless and continue living with a violent person, her children will pay for it, I'm afraid.

I think they would both be well-served by counselling with Steve. However, that won't be happening, since IHH's husband has decided unilaterally that HE, and no one else, will be calling the shots.

I am very sad that IHH has lost this resource. I'm sadder still for her husband, who doesn't know the true depth of commitment of the posters here. What a loss.

Yes indeed. I also found it highly unnerving that after he has been badgering IHH to admit the A was to 'fulfil a sexual fantasy' not to fulfil ENs, or that her poor boundaries were to blame she has decided to go along with that version. Parrot fashion in a way that does not ring true. Now he has a stick to hold over her forever and she won't be encouraged to change her real former mistakes. Indeed he will encourage her to make mistakes to excuse further violence. He's even told her the EAs are no big deal.

Its really hard to respond to the pain of adultery with non controlling but assertive methods. There's always the temptation to control the person. How often do we see "how can I MAKE her/him stay/love me/be safe?" That demands and angry outbursts are excusable to achieve that goal. They are not.

Implying that IHHs throwing of a glass, that her violence makes his violence OK, is very, very wrong.

We are all BSs. We did not strike.
I hope that one or both does get help. That they both stop trying to control the other. IHH has been willing to try and make up for her former mistakes, and to ask for advice from professionals on how to get a healthier marriage but it looks like she is being gaslighted into a belief that she isn't allowed that basic right.

I dismissed that whole incident. It was a small part of a larger picture.

Again, I'm afraid that we've lost this couple because of the hubris of the cuckolded husband. His loss. THEIR loss.

This worries me more than anything. How sad that her husband is so frightened of us.