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Post by MarianCali on Oct 1, 2019 14:42:43 GMT -5
I was reading what ironhamster wrote: #2: Infidelity without remorse. Flip this around. Sexual refusal without remorse. I see no moral difference between me having sex outside marriage and her refusing sex inside marriage for many months at a time. Obviously, since she keeps doing it, she does not give a shit. It really struck a cord with me. This is me! It makes me feel awful. My H knows about my infidelities and it kills him. He also knows that I'm sorry I've hurt him but I don't feel as bad as I think others might. Yes, it was selfish and I was desperate for some love/attention/sex you name it. We go over and over this on our bad days as he can't move on. We've been to therapy and it helped tremendously but we still have bad days. I know its difficult to just move forward and not think about the past but I'm sick of hearing the broken record. We didn't have ANY sex for 4 years and it was rare the years before that. I was at my wits end. He ask why I just didn't leave. I then ask would it have been better? We both don't have an answer. Most of our days are good and getting better but I wonder was I to scared and/or to much of a coward to leave. Many people would've left. I had many reasons why I stayed and now happy I did but it was rough. Our relationship now is better than it has been in years. We have sex regularly and often, he spends time with me and makes me a priority. I've let go some of my resentment but find myself slipping once in a while. I'm still hopeful for the future together and happy.
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Post by baza on Oct 1, 2019 19:29:23 GMT -5
Quoting you (selectively) here Sister MarianCali ..... "Most of our days are good and getting better but I wonder was I to scared and/or to much of a coward to leave. Many people would've left". A couple of observations for you - #1 - It may well be that, in your situation, "many people would've left". The thing is, that what "many people would've done" is all very well - for them - but we aren't talking about other people here .... we are talking about you. And you make the choices that sit best with you. #2 - Going back to your initial post in March 2018, it reads like you are in a better place than you were 19 months ago. So I reckon that's a tick in the "win" column
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Post by ironhamster on Oct 2, 2019 21:42:02 GMT -5
I was reading what ironhamster wrote: #2: Infidelity without remorse. Flip this around. Sexual refusal without remorse. I see no moral difference between me having sex outside marriage and her refusing sex inside marriage for many months at a time. Obviously, since she keeps doing it, she does not give a shit. It really struck a cord with me. This is me! It makes me feel awful. My H knows about my infidelities and it kills him. He also knows that I'm sorry I've hurt him but I don't feel as bad as I think others might. Yes, it was selfish and I was desperate for some love/attention/sex you name it. We go over and over this on our bad days as he can't move on. We've been to therapy and it helped tremendously but we still have bad days. I know its difficult to just move forward and not think about the past but I'm sick of hearing the broken record. ... First off, I am truly happy for you, that things seem to be working out. Don't be hard on yourself. You had needs, and at the time your husband was not able to step up to the plate, much less take a swing. From my standpoint, that was pretty pathetic on his part. You gave him the right of first refusal, and he turned you down, so you went to another supplier. I don't see an ethical dilemma on your part, but he needs to let that shit go. If he is looking for someone to blame for infidelity, he needs to look at his own reflection.
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Post by saarinista on Oct 3, 2019 0:55:10 GMT -5
MarianCali I think your husband needs to get a grip. Years of sexlessness is not normal. It's hurtful. It's torture. And we're human. Your husband needs to look at the pain he caused to, accept that your marriage went through a regrettable period, you've fixed it now, and the future is bright. His focus on your prior activities is unhelpful. He needs therapy if he can't stop thinking about that old stuff. That's on him.
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Post by ironhamster on Oct 3, 2019 4:52:26 GMT -5
My former inlaws had a bout of infidelity. I believe my MIL was a refuser and my FIL was the refused. She never could let it go, and it toxified their relationship. The bad feelings manifested themselves with spending binges that pretty much bankrupted their retirement. When the money was gone, she went into depression and starved herself to death. Her widower's life is stark.
This lack of forgiveness was just one more motivation for me to pull the plug, because my wife was already a spendthrift and adding angst to the relationship was not going to make that any better. As punative as the divorce judgement was against me, it is financially more stable than if I stayed.
I don't know what your husband is like. I hope he is more emotionally healthy than my former inlaws, but, who knows how those feelings of ill will can manifest themselves.
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Post by worksforme2 on Oct 3, 2019 7:45:32 GMT -5
Your story reads like a not uncommon response when one spouse strays outside the marriage. The reasons for straying don't seem to make much difference. Often one or both of the parties cannot seem to put it behind them. There is a site, probably several of them, populated by women who have had a husband go outside the marriage for sex. Many of the women there simply cannot come to grips with it and the result isn't conducive for the marriage. It seems to me when ever a dysfunctional aspect comes into play in a marriage both parties have to take a long hard look at what brought it about. Both parties have to acknowledge their role in why it occurred and dissect it to the point they can take the actions necessary to assure it won't likely come about again. It looks like you 2 are doing a lot of that. Bear in mind that finding out your partner is intimate with someone else can be very traumatic. It isn't surprising that even after a stint in therapy neither of you have completely put it behind you yet. Perhaps the 2 of you need to return to therapy and address this specific issue. One thing I saw at the site I mentioned was that often it took years to really re-establish the marriage to the point it was before the straying occurred. Your marriage seems to be way better than it has been for quite some time. Seems to me regarding this specific issue, it's worth giving it some time for that wound to heal over.
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Post by MarianCali on Oct 4, 2019 14:02:01 GMT -5
Thanks everyone! I love this community. I do feel bad but know I had my reasons. I just don't know how to help him get over it. I guess its just going to take time. If everything goes like it has been I can see us spending the rest of our lives together faithfully and happy. I've been on my best behavior since I told him and he has no reason to think I will do it again and neither do I. When he does want to talk about it or brings something up it just annoys me like this again. He needs to move forward. We have discussed it in therapy and how it is only causing grief for him and myself by constantly bringing it up so he doesn't do it as much but I know he thinks about it. It's funny because if I never told him he would've never known (for sure). Our marriage probably would've stayed the same as it was with us both being miserable. We both say it is kind of a blessing as it jolted him and our relationship for the better. Go figure!
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Post by Apocrypha on Oct 4, 2019 14:43:27 GMT -5
Thanks everyone! I love this community. I do feel bad but know I had my reasons. I just don't know how to help him get over it. I guess its just going to take time. If everything goes like it has been I can see us spending the rest of our lives together faithfully and happy. I've been on my best behavior since I told him and he has no reason to think I will do it again and neither do I. When he does want to talk about it or brings something up it just annoys me like this again. He needs to move forward. We have discussed it in therapy and how it is only causing grief for him and myself by constantly bringing it up so he doesn't do it as much but I know he thinks about it. It's funny because if I never told him he would've never known (for sure). Our marriage probably would've stayed the same as it was with us both being miserable. We both say it is kind of a blessing as it jolted him and our relationship for the better. Go figure! Time? Not so much. As you point out, something as foundation cracking as an affair has many consequences - some of which might end with a beneficial result. But overall, I've found (being a partner who was cheated on) that the scale of the impact is so large that it permanently, irrevocably changes one's conception of the person. There can be benefits to that - such as with another thread in which a "refuser" spouse informed her husband that "he just had to get used to it." That is a wife who cannot conceive of a future in which either she or her husband could choose something other than the celibacy of marriage. The possibility doesn't exist. An affair, or a divorce - changes everything. Not just now and in the future, but also in the past, going ALL THE WAY BACK to the beginning. Because just like the end-scene twist retrospective in The Sixth Sense, the cheated on partner realizes that the person they were with - the person they thought they knew - was always capable of doing something of monumental scale - that they'd never even considered. What ends up happening (and it's hard for me to express this in strongly enough terms), is that it feels like the person who cheated is a stranger, wearing the clothes and skin of one's partner. The stranger has removed and replaced their spouse. Who even IS this person? What can I possibly count on? Can I have my wife back (but she is forever gone, and likely never existed) Eventually, I don't think it's so much time (though it TAKES time - maybe a year or more of focused work to claw your way back up to the dysfunctional place where you started) - it's more the effort of getting to know this new person, and seeing how you like her. That was the task I set myself eventually - figuring out -"ok, if this woman, with her existing history moved in next door and I met her, and she told me her story of what happened in her marriage - would I want to date her?" As far as "trust" went, it was an anchor on our ankles as we tried to swim - her own lack of guilt and the general lack of investment in the relationship she felt (which led to her affair in the first place), led to her not really taking active measures to assure me that there were no other third parties. It seemed often left to me to ask, or if I did ask, it ended up that I was blamed for making her feel persecuted. Which goes to the point of trajectory, especially if it's already gone to the point of an affair. How invested are you, and how invested is he, in the relationship?
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