Using resentment as a way to control and punish a spouse

I'm convinced that what's kept the resentment of S.R.'s husband alive for so many years is that he has found it to be an effective way to control and punish her whenever she doesn't do what he wants. Whenever they have a fight, he brings it up, and it causes her such guilt that it gives him a decided advantage in winning the argument.

By this time, I don't believe that her affair is the problem that she thinks it is. Instead, it is an issue that her husband is using to get the upper hand in his relationship with her. It probably shows up the most whenever she has been reluctant to have sex with him. It throws her off balance whenever he mentions it, and makes her feel guilty, wanting to make it up to him somehow. He may also bring it up whenever she is winning in a power struggle he is having with her.

What she describes to me in her letter is abuse, pure and simple. There is no excuse for the way her husband keeps bringing up her moment of weakness she experienced years ago. He is disrespectful and abusive.

I suggest that she look him right in the eye and say to him, "Listen Buster, do you love me? Do you want me to love you? Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me? If the answers to any of those questions is 'yes' you sure are going about it the wrong way. You are not doing things that I admire, you're doing things that I find disgusting!"

What if he says, "Fine, then lets just get a divorce and end it all."

To that I would say, "It's up to you. I married you for life, but if you want a divorce, it's your call. If you want to be in a love relationship with me, however, you're going to have to treat me much better than you have been treating me. You must never again bring up my affair, and if you are upset with me, you will have to treat me with respect until we can solve the problem. If you are upset with our sexual relationship, I want us to discuss it as adults and solve it with mutual respect. I refuse to be treated like this, especially by the man I love."

My advice to her husband is to never mention her affair again. It's a good example of one of the enemies of good conversation, dwelling on past mistakes. Whenever you keep bringing up your spouses past mistakes, you not only make your conversations incredibly unpleasant, but it cannot possibly lead to a resolution of a conflict you may be discussing. And as soon as his resentment doesn't pay him any dividends -- no longer helps him get his way -- he will find that it hardly ever occurs to him.

Hanging on to an unpleasant thought because it helps us somehow is what psychologists call "secondary gain." It means that even though the thought is unpleasant, it gets you something you need, so your mind keeps it around for its usefulness. There are many unpleasant thoughts that have this characteristic, and I have helped many people let them go by helping them destroy the usefulness of the thought. Making sure that S.K.'s husband never gets what he wants by bringing up her affair will help him overcome his resentment.

I understand the importance of answering all questions and never discussing the A again. When I express this to my H he feels like I'm getting let off the hook with no consequences for my actions. He feels that he needs to remind me frequently of my wrong doings so that I won't do it again.
How do you approach it when H has a trigger and suddenly NEW questions that he wants to ask pop into his mind?
I'll give an example;
Yesterday I got home from work and H was browsing my Pinterest page (which hasn't been used since I exposed my A but I have now deleted it as an EP), when he was looking through my browsing history on Pinterest he saw that I had looked up "good morning quotes", he then proceeded to ask why I was looking up those quotes and said that he knew it was for the OM. I stated that I was looking for a quote to send to the OM in a text for him to read as an inspirational start to his day.
That honestly is not something that I had remembered until he asked the question. It's hard to try and give H a play by play of every word or conversation exchanged between the OM and I when there was so much of it, many of which I don�t remember unless there is a �trigger�. The small things seem irreverent as they come to my mind or if they are later asked by my H, (like sending a good morning quote). When we woke up this morning I said good morning and he stated something to the effect that I had ruined good mornings since I had said it to the OM. Don�t remember H�s exact words since I was still practically asleep.
Was it really necessary to discuss me sending a good morning quote? Was something that minor of importance to the healing of our marriage? Because now for the rest of our lives (hopefully just the time being), it feels like I�m not allowed to say good morning otherwise it will trigger him.