Our M has been anything but easy. Please don't hate me for this, but I, myself, got involved in an A about 5 years ago. H has always had control issues and been a very angry person (this pre-dates me), and although I am in no way justifying my behavior, I was young at the time (25) and didn't know how to deal with the intimidation I felt from him. When things were good with us, they were great, but the moment I would be upset about anything, he would get so angry he couldn't control my emotions.
Anyway, I went through a period where I hated myself for what I did and even after things were ended completely with OM, I couldn't forgive myself. I didn't believe I DESERVED the M, and I went through a time afterwards where I withdrew emotionally. H knew about things but we had worked through them. The past couple of years though I got out of my depression, we started enjoying time together again as a family, went on vacations, planned our weekends together, etc. That's why this came out of nowhere.
He is now justifying ALL of his actions on saying I hurt him 5 years ago and I never showed him the affection he needed. He takes absolutely NO responsibility for his own selfishness. He has shown no remorse and disrespects me each day in front of my kids and continues the A as he is living in our home. He is also trying to get me to leave our home. It is true that I wasn't overly affectionate, but we both had the normal life stuff that kept us busy. We had a new baby that got up 2-3 times per night, a toddler, very high stress jobs, etc. We didn't have any help with upkeeping the house, watching the kids. We never spent alone time together. When he came home from work, he would just retreat off on his own although I always wanted to spend more time with him, he said he needed his alone time. Looking at it now, I realize it was bc he was involved with someone else (seems to have been for about a year now) and didn't need emotional support from me when he was getting it from her in an environment with no crying kids, no kitchens to clean, no bills to pay, etc.
I did love him, but I didn't outwardly show or tell him all the time. We were in a rut, and I take the blame for that. I have expressed all that to him, in the beginning when his A first came out. I have told him how much I loved him, how much I only ever wanted to spend more time together.
I want to forgive him bc I know people do make mistakes. My A was the worst mistake of my life. But I know I came 100% out of it and realized that if I could become stronger and not revolve my feelings around him so much that I could also see the good things in the M.
My world is torn apart now as this isn't the man I know at all. Even up until two months before this coming out, he still was telling me his only goal was to make me happy. Now every day he gets angrier and angrier and as I get stronger, he withdraws more and more.
My 180s are:
1) Be strong, cheerful, confident (in the past, I was often overwhelmed with life, tired, sad). If he so much as raised his voice, I would be a weepy mess in the past. Now I just answer him calmly. I do not cry in front of him.
2) Do as much around the house as possible (he complained I didn't do enough). When I started cooking every night, after two weeks he told me "This won't last." It's been three months now, and I haven't stopped yet!
3) I go out with friends one time per week ( didn't in the past).
4) I've also tried to start taking better care of my appearance and am trying to start working out.
As I've said, since I've employed these tactics things have only gotten worse. He doesn't even look at me, and will only respond to what I say (one word answers) about 50% of the time. He is SO angry.
