In December of 1999 I had finally had enough going to my partner's parents' house for Christmas. It had always been uncomfortable and I felt like an outsider that could never do anything right. I always felt that as soon as we left the parents spent hours discussing my faults. So that year I didn't go.

After Christmas our daughter, age 7 at the time, stayed for a week with the parents (her grandparents). When she came home she casually mentioned to me that Grandpa had told her, "Your mom does nothing that is why your dad has to do everything." I was flabbergasted and asked her what she thought of what Grandpa had said. She told me she didn't think that was right and that I did lots and lots of things.

Later I asked her father why his dad would say something like that and with a very nervous face he said he would talk to his dad. Of course, I never knew if that happened or not. I never received an apology.

Because I never received an apology or even a hint that this had been discussed I felt even more uncomfortable being with the parents and didn't attend Christmas or any other family event over the next several years, except occasionally going with my partner over to his sister's house where I was subjected to glares and pointedly left out of conversations and ignored or further glared at if I contributed.

My partner and I went through several more years of difficulties, most of the time he wasn't even home, being at work or on business trips. He was quite abusive when he was home often picking fights that didn't end until hours after I had curled up into a fetal position. I was to blame for everything that had ever gone wrong in the relationship.

Last October when he returned from yet another business trip I could tell when he walked into the door I was in for another emotional and verbal beating and I decided then and there I had reached my limit. I didn't want my now ten year-old daughter thinking this is how relationships are supposed to be and when he started in on me I told him to leave, telling him to "GO LIVE WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND!"

I had started being suspicious that he was having a relationship with the secretary at his work because he seemed to go starry eyed whenever he talked about her.

Several days later we went for coffee and I asked him if he was having an affair with his secretary and he assured me laughing that he wasn't. Further, he assured me he wasn't and never had an affair with anyone during the 13 years we had been together and that no one had even seen him naked besides me.

We started working on our relationship and everything was going quite well. Better than ever. I thought we were both very happy and finally had made a breakthrough and had a great future.

Then Thanksgiving night at 1:30am someone knocked on our door. It scared me and my partner told me it was probably a drunk, homeless person (it had happened before) and to get down on the floor, they would probably go away. Well that didn't happen and the knocking became more insistant. Finally he went to the door while I punched 911 into the phone. He came back and told me it was this girl whose party he had taken our daughter to for a 4th of July party in 2000 while I was out of town. When I had returned from my trip our daughter told me all about the party her dad had taken her to and the sweet woman whose house it was at. When I asked him about it he told me she was an old schoolmate from highschool and that was it. She might have ideas about him but he didn't like her a bit like that.

Now She was locked out of her house and he didn't know why she had come here since he hadn't seen her since the party over two years ago.

He left for over an hour to help her out and he said let her use his cell phone so she could call someone who had a spare key. The reason he was gone for so long is he let her stay in his car until the key showed up. When we had talked about her in 2000 I believed she lived on the other side of town. I was shocked to find out she only lived a few blocks from us.

The next day (Friday) we went to the new Harry Potter movie as a family. He kept acting very odd during the movie, receiving calls on his cell phone and excusing himself several times to return calls. This set off alarm bells in my head and when he dropped us off after the movie saying he had forgotten to pick something up I resolved to check out his cell phone when he went to sleep. Sure enough there were two calls while he had been gone. Looking them up on the internet I discovered one was this girl! Why would he call her if they hadn't seen each other for 2 and a half years?!

The next day while he was at work I went through old receipts, bank records and cell phone records he had hidden on his side of the closet. I found several restaurants I had never been to, several receipts for gifts I had never seen and several calls a day to this girl. When he came home he admitted they had renewed their high-school friendship but had never done more than meet for lunch! I told him to leave and called her, leaving a message to stay away from my guy.

Well, she called me the next day (while he was there) and told me they had been sleeping together for THREE YEARS! She asked me if it was true I had moved out, was it true that he had moved in with his sister, etc. She was furious too that all he had apparently told her was as untrue as what I had been told. She called him next (on his cell phone while I was standing there) and told him she never wanted to see him again.

For the next couple months he apologized profusely for his "indescretion" claiming that he fell into it and didn't know how to get out of it but he never loved her and they rarely had sex. I asked lots of questions and always received reassuring answers that neverless left me feeling uneasy. Finally after one of these Q and A sessions I just didn't believe I was getting the truth and when he went to work the next day I started calling other numbers that appeared frequently on the cell bills.

The second person I called admitted that she too was having an affair with him, had been for three years now and was still in daily contact with him via email. He had told her when I discovered Girl #1 that he couldn't call her anymore right now because I was being crazy and believed he was having an affair with this "Freak" he hadn't seen since July 2000! While I was on the phone with her she emailed him with "Guess who I am talking to right now?" and he emailed her back telling her I was rampaging again and to just ignore me!

She met with me that evening and told me that she thought I was a Psycho ***** and a Terrible Mother because of the way he talked about me. He had told her that he didn't love me but couldn't leave me because I wasn't capable of taking care of myself. Turns out he had also emailed her my driver's license picture! She saw me over the years walking around the neighborhood, at the grocery store, basketball games and other various places and I didn't even know she existed let alone knew who I was and thought I was the worst human being in the world.

Imagine, he was leaving his daughter in the care of a terrible mother while he spent time with this woman he was telling how horrible I was!

When I asked him about how she could think I was a terrible mother he said something about the times I couldn't even be bothered to get up and take our daughter to school. It was three times over five years when I had an unbelievable migraine and wasn't even able to get out of bed let alone attempt to drive! Attempting to drive would have been dangerous for everyone.

Through more detective work I discovered that Christmas of 1999 when his father had told my daughter what a loser I was, my partner had slipped out and exchanged gifts with Girl #1. There were many other things I discovered that devastated me including several personal ads posted to adult sites and that most of the "business trips" had really been nights spent with Girl #1. Also, the reason she came to "our" house when she was locked out was because he had a key to her place.

He agreed to counseling and now has been going for several months. He has expressed his undying love for me and told me I was and always have been the one he really wanted to be with. He said he thought I hated him all these years.

However, over the last several years he often expressed to me that he didn't have anyone to talk to, no one to express his frustrations to. I have since discovered he has confided in two secretaries, several workmates, another email buddy (an ex-girlfriend from highschool), his entire family and a couple other friends. Turns out he has blamed everything on me the entire time we have been together and all these people think I am the worst kind of scum.

I could probably get over the infidelities but the betrayals and the picture he has painted of me with all these people that are still in our life is destroying my soul. I have asked him to write a letter that explains he hasn't been fair to me and that I am decent human-being (that I can read and then be the one that sends to be sure it gets done) but he hasn't been able to do it. He always has an excuse, usually that he doesn't have time -- except he always found time to call, email and visit his girlfriends for years.

I think he just won't write the letters because he doesn't want to look bad and that he still believes everything he has ever said about me.

He says he can live with what other people think of me and we should work on our future and not worry about the past. I don't think I can have a future with him until he corrects the past.

Am I being unreasonable?

Is there anything else he can do to prove that he really does love me?

Right now all I want is out but he keeps saying there is hope for us.

Hi All MY Fault and welcome to MB,

I don't think you are being unreasonable what so ever. I think the first item of business should be him sitting down with you and him in front of his family first and coughing up the truth. Then maybe look at a letter to others.

Have you read through this site concerning the MB principles? His and your needs being met and so on? Sounds like something went askew some time ago. Has he shown any type of remorse to you? How is your child handling this? He is certainly in no way to showing your child how to love or how to handle a marriage!

How are you coping? Have you gone to counseling?

Dear Fault,

It seems reasonbable to ask your husband to write letters to those he has misled about you. Your husband's resistance to writing the letters indicates there is a problem.

One possibility is explained in Scientology as Covert Hostility. Covert Hostility is basically an irrational fear of people, with the strategy of creating adverse attention to others, in order to protect themselves. This self preservation mechanism is very strong, and usually needs to be worked around, rather than changed.

Another reason to work around, rather than change, is because, as you mention, there are a number of ongoing deceptions by Covert Hostility, so it is difficult to actually help them, as you never know what the truth is. They confabulate, that is make things up, that have some semblance of truth to the lies, that often leaves them undetected for years.

The book SCIENCE OF SURVIVAL by L. Ron Hubbard, is some $55.00 and explains quite a bit about Covert Hostiity and the Tone scale.

To work around Covert hostility, you need to identify those people who are important to YOU, and keep in touch with them, so that you can counter-act your husband's lies yourself, personally. Deppending upon your husband to convey the truth, is like asking the fox to guard the henhouse.

The fact that your husband is in therapy is positive, but most therapists are simply taken in by Covert Hostility, and fail to provide the help they need, to overcome thier fears. Their fears are never discussed in the session, as those are closely guarded secrets, and may be involvved with past or forgotten incidents.

To keep your sanity, you may wish to get a further understanding of your husband, and how you can work around his problems, until you can figure out how to solve his problems. I believe in Psychology it is called the Sword of Dramacles. Dramacles, in Mythology, was sentenced to death, at an uncertain time in the future, and a single thread held the sword from falling and lopping off his head. The sword followed him everywhere, according to Greek or Roman Legend. Dramacles lived under the fear of immediate death, at any time.

Covert Hostility sees himself before a firing squad, with his only chance to live, to even take another breath, is to create a distraction to make it seem that other people are blameworthy.

I wish I were wrong. I have had many unhappy experiences as a result of Covert Hostility, and failing to recognize it soon enough to know to work around it. I was told the rule was to assume everyone is in Covert Hostility, until they prove their character is better and more trustworthy. I have tried to believe a number of people were good intentioned, but later I was proven they were in Covert Hostility.

Most recently my immediate boss had given me a letter from a higher boss, that was adverse to me. I suggested that I might speak to the higher boss, but my immediate boss insisted that I not talk to the higher boss. That gave a pretty strong clue that my immediate boss was manipulating the truth aganst me.

Pushing Covert Hostility can set them into a double-back stabbing mode, which is unpleasant. It is often best to just smile, and shine them on, letting them think that you believe they are your best friend, and they have your best interests at heart, and will stick up for you to others. Just keep in contact with the others.

Ending the marriage? I try to always encourage people to keep on going. However, in some situations, it is better to divorce. The postive point about your situation is that you seem like you can get along fine without him. From the information here, the problems of ending the marriage may be fewer than trying to continue the marriage. I often try to ignore the words of my wife, and listen to the true direction of her feelings and actions. I would encourage you to take the information I have given you here, and check it out for yourself, to formulate your own opinion. Knowing what to ask about may lead you one way or another. I would actaully prefer to be wrong.

Your husband's words remind me of a quote about Covert Hostility that goes something like, IF somone tells you how honest and trustworthy they are, JUMP! The person most certainly is in Covert Hostility. They are always telling you how they are your best friend, and how you can completely trust them. All the while they are gathering information to use against you.

That is another rule for working around Covert Hostility. Minimize the information you give them, beacause they will just have more to use against you. Hard rule to follow in a marriage.

Sorry,

Quipper,
Married 28 years and still struggling.

<small>[ July 27, 2003, 12:46 AM: Message edited by: Quipper ]</small>