Welcome to the
Marriage Builders® Discussion Forum

This is a community where people come in search of marriage related support, answers, or encouragement. Also, information about the Marriage Builders principles can be found in the books available for sale in the Marriage Builders® Bookstore.
If you would like to join our guidance forum, please read the Announcement Forum for instructions, rules, & guidelines.
The members of this community are peers and not professionals. Professional coaching is available by clicking on the link titled Coaching Center at the top of this page.
We trust that you will find the Marriage Builders® Discussion Forum to be a helpful resource for you. We look forward to your participation.
Once you have reviewed all the FAQ, tech support and announcement information, if you still have problems that are not addressed, please e-mail the administrators at mbrestored@gmail.com
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 3 of 3 1 2 3
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 92,985
Likes: 1
M
Member
Offline
Member
M
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 92,985
Likes: 1
My suggestion would be to send this post to Dr.Harley and ask for his help. He is a licensed, clinical psychologist. This looks like an extreme case of gaslighting. You have allowed yourself to be gaslighted and your reality stolen. For some reason, your husband desperately wants to believe you cheated on him when you weren't even married. And you desperately want to manufacture memories that comply with his gaslighting. Why does a person gaslight his spouse? So he always has the upper hand. I encourage you to email Dr. Harley again and then perhaps find a local psychologist who can help you with some good solid reality testing. You have lost all connection to reality.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 92,985
Likes: 1
M
Member
Offline
Member
M
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 92,985
Likes: 1
11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting
Ga...ed to gain power. And it works too well.


Originally Posted by from the article
Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality. It works much better than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders. It is done slowly, so the victim doesn't realize how much they've been brainwashed. For example, in the movie Gaslight (1944), a man manipulates his wife to the point where she thinks she is losing her mind.

Quote
4. They wear you down over time.

This is one of the insidious things about gaslighting—it is done gradually, over time. A lie here, a lie there, a snide comment every so often...and then it starts ramping up. Even the brightest, most self-aware people can be sucked into gaslighting—it is that effective. It's the "frog in the frying pan" analogy: The heat is turned up slowly, so the frog never realizes what's happening to it.

Quote
7. They know confusion weakens people.

Gaslighters know that people like having a sense of stability and normalcy. Their goal is to uproot this and make you constantly question everything. And humans' natural tendency is to look to the person or entity that will help you feel more stable—and that happens to be the gaslighter.



"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 1,152
H
Member
Offline
Member
H
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 1,152
This has got to stop.
Please contact Dr Harley ASAP.
It seems very likely that you are starting to develop false memories in response to your husband‘s accusations.
This kind of behaviour from your husband is way out of line and psychiatric problems should be ruled out in your husband. This is starting to look like a folie a deux.

Memory retrieval is known to produce vivid albeit false memories. The same thing can happen if you think about past experiences over and over intensively, trying to retreive memories.
You are starting to come up with memories from your past that seem very doubtful to me.
This is in line with people who are accused of a crime and after intense interrogation start confessing to crimes they did not admit.
In my professional opinion your husband’s behaviour is obsessive and controlling.

Please do not hesitate to contact Dr. Harley, before your husband succeeds in brainwashing you beyond recognition.
Good greef, he had a load of sexual partners and you were a virgin who is now married to a raving lunatic.

Stay sane and prepare for separation.
This is abuse, plain and simple. There is no excuse to treat any woman like that and certainly not the mother of your young children! You just had a baby and you deserve a husband who takes care of you and protects you. Not a mad hatter playing prosecuter.

Take care,

Happyheart, M.D.

Last edited by happyheart; 10/10/19 02:26 PM.

me, DH
all the children
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 1,152
H
Member
Offline
Member
H
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 1,152
And what Melody says!


me, DH
all the children
Joined: Sep 2018
Posts: 32
M
Member
OP Offline
Member
M
Joined: Sep 2018
Posts: 32
Hi all, this is mrs_desperate's husband. She has asked me to post a response here.

I met my wife in 2006. From the start of our dating relationship I noticed something was off. She did not seem to be into me the way a person usually is at the start of a relationship.  She often appeared bored, was hard to get hold of, had many other plans so could not often see me etc.. plus I noticed her checking out other men everywhere we went.

A few weeks into our relationship we went to visit some friends of hers. She said she was going to say hi to a friend in the complex and disappeared for an hour or so. Her friends told me it was an ex and she needed closure. It did not sit right with me so I confronted her in the car and she lied to my face telling me he was nobody. And that I shouldn't worry. She told me things I wanted to hear so I dropped it. We went a second time to that same friends a few weeks later and again she left me there for about 2 hours to visit this "friend" and later told me she had been on the phone in the car. A few weeks later we were at a dinner party and right in front of me she flirted with a guy across the table completely dismissing me the entire evening. She then left the table in the hope he would follow her and she ended up alone with him for a period doing who knows what.

After that last encounter I started confronting her more but she became angry and defensive. Lying to me about everything. There were further instances that came out much later on with other men she was drunk with and flirted with etc while I was not around. A night she was out until 3am and "never remembered" where she was or who she was with. Thus ensued months and months of confrontations and lies. She got her and my family involved convincing them I was crazy and making things up. I was left completely alone and broken by her behaviour and constant lies and manipulation. I had no strength to make good decisions for myself.

For the rest of that year many weird things happened. Although we abstained from sex we were somewhat intimate and at times she would burst into tears or laugh at me. She would never tell me what was going on. One time she cried and cried after making out saying she was such a bad person and had done so many terrible things, how could God forgive her. And that I was amazing and would make a woman happy oneday. She refused to tell me what those bad things were.

We eventually found Dr Harley's book and I believed she had made a change committing to being honest and open. We worked through things. About a year later it came out she was seeing this ex for 8 months from the start of our relationship. She was obsessed with him and told me she would never feel like that towards me no matter what I did. It was impossible. She told me that at the beginning she used me to make him jealous in the hope he would want to date her. She made fun of me when around him etc but that they had eventually become friends and hung out a lot she couldn't remember much of it she said. It eventually ended because he moved in with his girlfriend and baby but he was sad to say goodbye. I wonder why they couldn't continue their "friendship" when he moved in with his girlfriend? If it was innocent there would be no reason for it to end.

I eventually chose to trust her believing she could be honest. The truth is she only worked on being open to a point to gain my trust but she never truly felt remorse or wanted me to know her. We got married. Sex was awful right from the start. She was not into it, said it was painful and there was no connection. I eventually stopped trying. 6 months into our marriage she tells me that she slipped up and messaged this man who she "had not seen in 2.5 years" which I now believe to be a lie. I think she saw him behind my back right onto our marriage. I was so disappointed.

She told me she was a virgin when we got married but she has lied about so many things and it doesn't add up. There is no way she was seeing this man alone multiple times a week over 8 months behind my back and not having sex.

Over the years I've tried to cultivate a sexual relationship but it has been like pulling teeth. She had "issues" which she said came from her Christian upbringing with sex being taboo. I thought she was just shy and needed to take thing slow but it has been very lonely for me and I have lost out on a sex life throughout all of my prime years.

I am willing to move forward with her in our marriage but I just cannot believe her when she says nothing happened with this man. She has been a liar and coward for so long, even she would admit that. She has used tactics to manipulate me, gaslight me, stonewall me, etc and she has never once come out of her own with something. I've had to dig and dig and dig and eventually she tells me only what she has to, nothing more. It does not add up that she was not sexual with this other man. And I feel like a fool to even consider this to be true. I've been a fool for our whole relationship, I cannot continue as one and maintain self respect. She has demasculated me in every was.

There are other red flags, many of them and extremely obvious ones as if what I've already mentioned isn't obvious enough.

So hopefully that gives you all a clearer picture. 

She says now she has blocked the whole relationship out of her mind and doesn't remember any of it. I don't know what to make of that, whether she really has forgotten or whether she just cannot face the reality of what she has done. Ive always had faith in her that she can be brave and honest but she hasnt really ever proven me right.

Where to from here, I'm not sure.

Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 92,985
Likes: 1
M
Member
Offline
Member
M
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 92,985
Likes: 1
MrDesperate, we have a very clear picture of the situation.

MrsDesperate, please follow the advice we gave and contact Dr. Harley directly.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 1,152
H
Member
Offline
Member
H
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 1,152
Trying to change the past is a surefire way to stay miserable in the present. Do as Melodylane says and contact Dr. Harley and actually follow his advice this time or you might as well cut things short and end this suffering by applying for divorce.


me, DH
all the children
Joined: Sep 2018
Posts: 32
M
Member
OP Offline
Member
M
Joined: Sep 2018
Posts: 32
We emailed dr Harley but did not hear back from him. I'm okay with that. This will be my last post on here. You have all been wonderful and very encouraging and I feel I have wasted enough of your time as I am choosing another path. I just needed to write some final thoughts into the ether of the world wide web and then onto whatever the future has in store for me. As far as I'm concerned my life is over at 36 years old. I have had a few wonderful years with my children and for that I am eternally grateful even if that's all I get. I cannot ever imagine feeling happiness or contentment again, it's too late for that. I have made too many mistakes that cannot be rectified. My marriage is a wreck, I have given my husband ED from a decade of refusal of sex and I have driven myself to the brink of suicide and insanity. He cannot stay because of what a monster I am, but he cannot leave because he has nothing left in him to offer another woman. So he is ruined. I always thought I'd do well in this life but I have been a dreadful human being and have completely wasted another person's life. The man of my life. The one who was meant to be the most important. I've destroyed him. Taken away everything he ever wanted. I think I understand how murderers feel. The utter regret, despair and desperation to go back into the past and do things differently. I've spent the last two years, almost 24 hours a day thinking back to the past to find memories. I've finally accepted the monster that I am. I began dating my husband as a virgin, a church leader. I gave my virginity away 3 weeks into our dating relationship to a piece of scum I was obsessed with. I continued to have sex with him 3 times a week for the next 8 months while dragging my husband on a string to make the affair fun. I had casual sex with a stranger in the toilet of a shopping centre and again another in a parking lot. I turned myself to trash. I completely gave away my soul and my body while lying to my husband about being a virgin and making him abstain. After a break from seeing the OM I then resumed my sexual relationship before I got married, married my husband claiming to be a virgin while carrying on this sexual affair behind his back until 6 months into our marriage. I never once wanted to have sex with my husband and spent the next 10 years of our marriage avoiding it and pretending I was shy, inexperienced and insecure. I never planned on telling him and I never felt guilt. I took away his manhood and every one of the dreams he had for his life. I used him to father my kids and had no other use for him other than to make fun of him and mock him in my mind about what a loser he was and how unmanly he was. This is my reality now. I have finally after 2 years found some memories of the amazing sex I had with this other man and his 10 inches of steel. Sex that most people on the planet only ever dream of. I am a complete and utter monster. I cannot think of being anything worse than what I am. But I'm accepting my past. All other contradictory thoughts and memories are just self denial and need to shunned and discarded. Who knows what the future holds. Nothing I imagine. Just years of sitting and waiting for death. All I can say is life is cruel. Hope is cruel. Such a waste. I thought love would be amazing. Marriage would be amazing. Relationship would be amazing. Sex would be amazing. Its the exact opposite. If it weren't for my kids I would end this suffering. Maybe one of these days I'll do it anyway. I wish everyone else the very best, may you make better choices than I did and may life give you pleasure and peace. Something I no longer deserve.

Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 9,574
Likes: 1
N
Member
Offline
Member
N
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 9,574
Likes: 1
Please get some help, you sound very traumatized and brainwashed. Do you have any family you can stay with? I’m praying you can get some outside help.


Me 40, OD 18 and YD 13
Married 15 years, Divorced 10/2010
Joined: Jul 2013
Posts: 63
I
Moderator
Member
Offline
Moderator
Member
I
Joined: Jul 2013
Posts: 63
While the Marriage Builder's website cannot become involved in threats of this kind, please know that your pain is taken seriously. Please contact a suicide crisis center in your area, call 1-800-SUICIDE or call your family physician.


MBMod IrishGreen
MBIrishGreen@gmail.com
Joined: Jan 2014
Posts: 217
D
Administrator
Member
Offline
Administrator
Member
D
Joined: Jan 2014
Posts: 217
Mrsdesperate, please forward the email to me and I will reach out to Dr Harley. Thank you.


MBDenali@gmail.com
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 1,152
H
Member
Offline
Member
H
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 1,152
To be honest, this last post sounded more like something the mentally deranged husband would post.
Please take care and contact Dr. Harley.


me, DH
all the children
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 9,527
Likes: 9
S
Member
Offline
Member
S
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 9,527
Likes: 9
Originally Posted by happyheart
To be honest, this last post sounded more like something the mentally deranged husband would post.
Amen.

I don't know what someone hopes to achieve by posting stuff like that that could never have come out of her mouth.


BW
Married 1989
His PA 2003-2006
2 kids.
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 863
S
Member
Offline
Member
S
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 863
Originally Posted by happyheart
To be honest, this last post sounded more like something the mentally deranged husband would post.

I've been following your story Ms.D. Please be careful to stay safe.

This reminds me of a time I was bombarded with emails stating lies in an attempt to prove that a false thing was instead true for a court. If indeed this is posted by Mr. D. it could be a form of legal cover for him if something happens to Ms. D.

Page 3 of 3 1 2 3

Link Copied to Clipboard
Forum Search
Who's Online Now
0 members (), 1,116 guests, and 67 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Newest Members
Mike69, petercgeelan, Zorya, Reyna98, Nofoguy
71,829 Registered Users
Building Marriages That Last A Lifetime
Copyright © 1995-2019, Marriage Builders®. All Rights Reserved.
Site Navigation
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5