a new normal

[may22]

Alison, OG, thank you.

I am not sure if you want to talk about the A because you are fearful there are more details you don't yet know about, and knowing those details, while painful, might take away that fear.

Or if it is because the details of the affair are less important than hearing your H tell you that he takes responsibility, that it was wrong, that he regrets it, feels remorse, and that your actions around the SSM are not an adequate excuse for it in his mind.

Is it both?

Yes, it is both. On the first, I'm not sure I would label it fear as much as this burning desire to KNOW. I just want to know. I have always been this way. I do so much better when I have all the cards, even if the information is hurtful or difficult. I feel like the last two years of my life were all thrown in disarray with the knowledge of the A, and even though it really feels awful to rearrange things now knowing that he was having this A, I just want to put all the pieces together. I think my fear is more about letting it go on too long without that reset, and it will feel worse to get the hard information the longer it takes. Maybe that isn't true (the MC definitely challenged me on this) but that is my fear.

(In thinking about this more, I do have a fear that there are worse things that I don't know about, like if he slept with her on that last visit. Most of me feels like what he did was so bad, doesn't get much worse, it is all a matter of degree and there really isn't anything he could say that would make it appreciably worse, especially if I keep to my boundary of not hearing anything about feelings. But I've been surprised before.)

And yes, I very much want to hear him take responsibility for the A. He has said he knows what he did was wrong and way worse than what I did, but I'd really like to hear him take responsibility outside of any reference to the SSM. I think he knows this intellectually, that he made a series of choices that only he is responsible for making, but I think that puts him in a place where he is very, very uncomfortable and he (at least in the past) has immediately retreated to him "but I was so damaged" corner. I feel like hearing him take explicit responsibility for his behavior and feel like he embraces the full depth of how huge it was will help me to feel more secure that it won't happen again. So far I feel like he dips his toe into the water here and retreats because it is so terribly uncomfortable to sit with the enormity of what he did, and how to reconcile those actions with his view of himself as a person. I feel for us to truly move on, he has to do this work.

When more came out in the months afterwards, I felt very betrayed and it look me a long time to understand that actually, he hadn't told me this one or two particular details not to hide things from me, but because it was genuinely irrelevant to him. It wasn't irrelevant to me and he was able to validate that feeling.

This has come up with us. I don't feel that he has yet been able to validate my feelings, he's been more along the lines of "but it doesn't matter to me therefore it shouldn't to you." And of course, all these conversations took place more than two months ago, so I don't know what he'd say now. My guess is that he'd be more open to validating, given what happened with the Spotify playlists, so perhaps some movement there. But I just don't know because we haven't talked about it.

I have chosen to hear this as him wanting me to know where he was at the time - wanting me to understand his heart - rather than him wanting to make excuses or put some of the blame for his actions on me and my part in our struggling marriage.

I need to work on my own response here. I actually do believe there is a large part of my H that does just want me to fully understand and sit in how he felt, just like I want him to sit in how I feel. I don't think he thinks I get it. (And maybe I really don't. You posted something about being on the other side of the SSM, I think, that was really helpful for me. I should probably go back and re-read it.)

I have also told him I take full responsibility for my part in the marriage and for how awful it was for both of us, but I don't take any responsibility at all for his behaviour, his infidelity and verbal abuse, and that he is always responsible for his own actions. He still struggles with this and is apt, if he gets grumpy and rude, to say that he'd have been gentler or kinder if only x hadn't done y. I've told him I find that kind of talk immature and unattractive and whether he believes or accepts it or not, he is still responsible for himself. It's an aspect of his character I find difficult. But I leave it with him. I don't poke at it. I just put responsibility back on him when he tries to hand it to me.

I'm glad to see this is getting better for you and your H. My H has some of the same tendencies, something goes wrong and he finds the closest person to blame (usually me). This is one area, though, that he's really improving on. In fact, last night he was a jerk about something stupid. I told him it wasn't OK and kind of withdrew-- not rude, but just not really participating and having fun with him. He apologized right away and then the end of the night he apologized again. Then this morning he said he really doesn't want to ever do that again and he's going to make a commitment not to do it. He has come a very, very long way in this area-- the outburst wasn't even all that bad. I think I don't feed it any more by getting angry in return, but I'm glad to see he's taking responsibility for his own behavior and putting energy into change. Maybe these are his baby practice steps towards addressing the A.

I suspect my H has been willing to be more transparent verbally and give a clearer account of himself verbally than yours has. I also think H's in this position will have to - over a number of very many years - take gradual responsibility for who they are.

I've been thinking that part of my slightly odd situation in all of this is because my H didn't ever move out, didn't go through the more standard process (at least as I read it here) of seeing their fantasy fall apart and coming back totally remorseful and ready to start the R process. Mine made his decision when he was still very much in the throes of the A and I've had to (probably am still) living through his grieving process. I knew (or thought I knew) what I was getting myself into and purposefully made the choice that it might be harder on me this way, but it also would spare the children. Once he decided to come clean, I do believe he stopped lying, but he simply didn't want to say tell me exactly what transpired when he broke it off when he did it. There were other things that he said he didn't want to share. At the time I felt like it was better than lying about it, which I still believe. But I also think we need to get to a place where he'll talk about it. I honestly don't know if we are there yet.

I also agree that it will probably take years for him to really accept that he did this big thing. I still can barely believe it. I imagine if I had done something like this, so awful to the person I am supposed to love forever, potentially hurt the children, etc. that it would take me a long time to really accept it and be able to live with myself. I don't think he is very far along this particular path.

But putting that to one side for a second, for the survival of your marriage, it is probably more important that he starts to ask himself questions about why he had the affair. And given that he still blames you for it, it sounds like he really really doesn't want to do that.

Back in January, after he told me about the full extent of the A, we went to see his IC and then started the discernment counseling. In both sessions, he set forth as his primary goal trying to understand why he did it, totally on his own. With his IC, we didn't really end up getting into it, because it was all so fresh for me and when he dipped his toe into it he got stuck in the "I was in such a bad place" with a lot of anger/resentment that it was dropped. In discernment counseling, H brought it up a number of times, but the counselor said that wasn't really DC and should be tabled for now. He's said multiple times he wants to figure this out for himself, unprompted by me. It is just that to date, he gets stuck in the SSM and all the bad feelings that dredges up and we don't move past it. Maybe I get defensive there too and contribute to the stagnation. I don't know.

I wonder if your H is using up his energy thinking about your questions, and delaying them, as a way of keeping the focus on you and what you want. Do you think this dynamic protects him from the more important and necessary work of looking hard at himself? He can have this silent dispute with you, and string it out as long as he wants, and that's where the focus is - May wants to know and I don't want to tell her or I want to be in control of when I tell her - rather than 'I wonder why I did this terrible thing to a woman I am now claiming to want to commit to again? What is it about me that made me choose to respond to the pain in our marriage in that way? How can I make sure I don't respond in that way again?'

I am just trying to imagine what is keeping him so motivated in refusing you something entirely normal.

I don't think he's using up any energy thinking about my questions-- he still doesn't even know them! Where we left it with the MC was that I had questions, he wasn't ready to answer them, MC suggested I write them down and give them to H, H felt that was too formal. He knows I want to know about what happened when he ended it and specifically didn't want to tell me about it because it felt too much like me trying to take control. He said he it was a big, positive thing for him when I said to go and do this your own way, and to return and feel like he had to give me a play-by-play felt like me reasserting control and him putting back on the collar and negated the freedom he felt to make his own choice about the situation. He knows one of my questions is how they communicated, but we never got beyond that. And the truth is until just this past week, we simply haven't discussed any of it, and then the last week was me saying I was really frustrated with not talking about anything, him saying he thought it was too stressful to do it during the pandemic, and now him saying we can.

I feel like there was a silent dispute about whether or not we could talk about it, not really about the content of what we'd discuss. Now that we can talk, I think all those other things are on the table to be addressed, or not, and see where we are and if there has been any movement. I don't feel like it is a control thing on his end. Truthfully, I don't think he'll be at a place of real introspection yet when we do talk.

I will also fully admit that there were times I did not respond well to learning truths about the A and how my H was feeling, especially earlier on in the process before I got more practiced at DB-ing. After BD#1 I completely shut down for probably a week. After BD#2 the same. There were multiple times over the course of the fall when I couldn't sleep and went to wake him up in the office to fight with him more. (Newbies, don't do this. NEVER productive.) There were times I cried so hard I threw up. So there is good reason for him to be scared of what might happen between us if he drops more bombs. I just don't know if there are bombs left to be dropped or more like minor bomblets, like he saw her in places I didn't know about, etc.

I think my main goal is to get all the facts about the A out on the table for myself, my questions asked and answered, and then see where we are with other things, whether we want to address the SSM, the A, other communication/connection issues or needs between us, etc. It will be a big difference if he's able to listen to my questions, understand/validate why I need them answered, and answer them while respecting my boundaries around not hearing about the feelings part. If he can do that, we will have come a long ways, and I'll be able to move forward on processing that information for myself. If he isn't ready to be transparent and answer my questions, well, then we'll know we aren't there yet.

As a personal example relating to your situation, as crazy as it sounds, when we would do better, my subconscious would actually begin to operate out of fear, even though doing better was supposed to be what I wanted! It was still out of my comfort zone. I was scared to to trust enough that things could be better because I was so afraid I would be hurt again if i allowed that. So i would pick a fight, or bring up the A. I had to work to be okay with being uncomfortable, and to create a new comfort zone.

This resonates with me. I feel like I definitely did this over the past week. But in the end I'm glad I did because we got over the hump of "we aren't going to talk about it till after the lockdown."

What seems to help me the most, is that when I feel that discomfort, that panic, that trigger, I go off by myself, usually in the bathroom or my room, or for a drive alone if possible. If we are out, I excuse myself to the bathroom. I sit with the feeling for a bit. I ask myself what is going on? What is my need here? Do I really need something from him or am I just frightened? Can I soothe myself? With a lot of work, nine times out of ten I can soothe myself. I can remind myself of my goals and that I will be okay no matter what.

This is awesome and something that I'm working on too, and worked on a TON during the worst part of the A. I feel like this ability to take a step back and not respond out of emotion is a huge benefit of DBing. I feel like I've gotten somewhat out of practice with some of the DBing principles and I need to keep those muscles working where it is healthy for me to do so, and this is one of them.