I'll share something else he said during our little mini fight the other day, before I walked away and cooled down and returned to share my thoughts. He said I'd wrecked our M with the SSM (I can't recall exactly what prompted this, I think something along the lines of me basically overreacting to his rudeness, like I took a sledgehammer to our M for what was really a minor thing in the grand scheme). I said, you wrecked our M by having an A. He said (big honest eyes)-- I think the A is what may save our M. And I thought, DANG. This guy is really trying everything he can to excuse his own behavior.
May - perhaps I could push back a little bit on this?
I know if my H had said this to me at any point I'd have wanted to break crockery, so I really really understand how you might have reacted to hearing this. And there is no excuse for his A at all - none whatsoever.
But, well, a SSM really does have terrible, terrible effects on a relationship - for both of you, though perhaps the HD spouse feels it more keenly, and feels it in a way that the LD spouse struggles to really properly feel and understand. I know for me, as the HD spouse, the SSM felt like a kind of infidelity, a betrayal of our intimate and special relationship - and it went on for such a long time, and the marriage only really functioned because the LD spouse (my H) was perfectly okay with me feeling miserable, lonely and rejected pretty much all the time.
And perhaps a SSM was working, in some ways, for you, until the A happened. Perhaps it would have gone on working for you - for a long time - so long as your H was quiet about his own misery, or didn't act it out (in what was obviously an outrageous and totally inexcusable way). And you know I am no fan of your H so it's a lot for me to push back at you - I hope gently - in this way.
What he did wasn't okay. It was so far past okay that okay is a vanishing point in the distance! He could have divorced you and that would have been a more honourable thing to do if he was unhappy in your marriage. But perhaps the A is going to be the catalyst for you having a better marriage and finally dealing with the problems that caused the SSM (that weren't yours and yours alone to fix - not at all). Or perhaps it will be the catalyst for you ending your marriage, and that being a kind of long-term good news for you both too, even if it doesn't feel like it.
I am not glad that my H had an EA and I think my H's infidelity is a drop in the water compared to yours so I don't mean to put us on the same level here. But I do think that the direct conversations we've had about what we need, and how our dynamic works would never, never have happened without that A, and my terrible reaction to it, and our separation. Things are difficult now and still not satisfactory for me (or him) in lots of ways. But they are better. And I do think we're closer, in a more real and adult way, than we were before. I wish it hadn't happened. But if it was a choice between drifting along in misery towards a divorce, or suffering the pain that brought us to a new marriage that is still evolving, then I'd sign up for him having the A and us needing to separate for that time, I really would.
