Blues - My H started his anger phase in the spring of 2013. I think that this is when he started to get more involved with OW (and when OW's husband went to prison and was out of the picture). H swooped in to rescue the OW and blamed me for his unhappiness in life to justify his affair (mindreading, but I do think this was part of what happened). It got worse right before BD and it continued from July through the beginning of October. My H said that the things he did were wrong, but would still turn it back on me and say that it would not have happened if I was a better person, wife, etc. He was downright cold and mean. I felt like he was an alien.
I really picked myself up off the ground in the beginning of October and starting DBing. I worked hard on myself, stopped contacting H and started to live my life. I stopped focusing on OW and stopped asking H about her. I stopped beginning H to apologize for his actions, because he was not and is still not capable is understanding what he really did and the pain that he caused. When I spoke to H, he was either angry or stone faced. He expressed no emotion. H completely rewrote our history ("I dont know if I was ever happy during the last 15 years.")
A turning point came when I apologized to H one day. I apologized for all the things that I realized I had done wrong in our M. I apologized from my bottom of my heart, without any reasons or justifications for my actions. My H cried for the first time in months and thanked me for the apology. For the first time in a long time, I think that he felt heard. I had spent so long pointing my finger at all the horrible things he had done (which are horrible) that I did not take ownership of y part of the demise of our marriage. I still dont think that the things that I did wrong justify his actions. My H is clearly having a crisis separate from what went wrong in our M.
Over time, H realized that I was not going to break down in tears every time I saw him. When he was mean, I would walk away and not argue back. I stopped the cycle and distanced myself. H slowly started to let go of the anger.
By focusing on myself, I am slowing taking away the things that my H used to justify his actions and the A. Most of the things that he complained about are now gone. And despite the fact that they are all gone, my H is still not happy (based upon his sobbing phone call last week). I am hopeful that he will start to look inward when he realizes that I am not the root cause of all of his unhappiness. He may never do so, but I am starting to see bits and pieces of my prior best friend return. It gives me hope that he is still in there somewhere.
If your H starts spewing mean things, simply walk away. You dont need to be subjected to that. H is not going to stop. You need to take control of the situation and make it clear that you will not be treated like that. It was the first boundary that I set and I actually did not even verbalize the boundary. I just walked away and took time for myself to regroup. The first day that I walked away and did not argue back and/or cry at the horrible thing he said, my H had no idea what to do. I went upstairs, locked my bathroom door, took a shower and cried to myself. When I came back downstairs, my H immediately apologized without any prompting and it was over.
