Hi Copec. I was going to address exactly this in a post over in general entitled, "I felt like such a schmuck," but when I saw your post, I figured it would be a good opportunity to post here as it is germain (thanks for pulling the stop sign btw).
Firstly, no revenge affair for me. Oh, I thought about it. I dreamt of it. Even picked out one of the APs (my former best friend) significant others but the faces of my kids kept popping up. My thought was that if her A had already disrupted the family and caused so much toxicity between us, what would yet another affair do but exponentially increase the deleterious effects on my kids? My next thought was a bitter,"At least one of us needs to think of our children since their own Mother hadnt during her A."
All that to say, no affair for me and I am now thankful. I think it would have double warped my soul.
Im not sure how long your BH has stayed with you (and you with him as you are mad hatters), but I stuck it out for a very very tough decade and that brings me to the subject at hand. You said:
I wish I didn't marry you", "I lose in this situation no matter what I do" and the most recent " I am a loser for staying with you". I know it's his ego that is so hurt.
Obviously, theres a lot of bitterness spilling out here. Sure wish your BH were open to IC in order to help him process those thoughts and feelings but I do relate to them.
Gently, when you said, "I know it's his ego that is so hurt", I know you probably didnt mean to minimize, but let me try to bring some clarity to this "hurt ego" concept by simply subbing in "obliterated", as in ,"I know its his ego that is so obliterated."
I can understate this. I had a horribly traumatic upbringing. Chaotic. Abusive. Ive lost close loved ones. Ive been hurt by friends. I have had failures in various ventures. Nothing even comes close to the ego hit I took from my wife's A. The fact that it was with a "friend" was, of course, a huge force multiplier. This was no "bruise" or laceration. This was an impact crater to my very soul.
This is what your BH is walking around with.
Why SO impactful? Well, as Ive peeled the onion over the years, Ive looked at the layers. The first, of course, is betrayal. Very hard to be betrayed by your betrothed over the core of your committment, marital fidelity. The next layer for me was rejection. The betrayal involved active rejection of me and my place in the life of my spouse. This is a horrible realization for any betrayed and has special implications as a BH. We deeply desire to take pride in our choice of a spouse. Conversely, and maybe more importantly, we want our spouse to be proud of their choice of us. "Proud" may be way too thin of a word here but its my best stab at it in the moment. To be betrayed and rejected by your "chosen" does something to you that is almost unutterable. It has changed me and I have never been the same.
The final layer is the severed pair bond. This is primal. It pre-dates the vows, even the decision to be exclusive. Its that thing that drew you together in the first place. "Attraction" is too thin a word again but Ill use it. The A severely damages the pair bond, sometimes severs it. BSs have expressed this over and over again in many ways. Most common is "I loved them and was wildly atrracted to them up to Dday, and the day after they disgusted me and I was repulsed!" Why? Read above.
And yet, I stayed. I stayed not yet understanding the above. I felt like a schmuck from day 1. I know now I stayed for the wrong reasons but was a young H and Father and didnt know what I didnt know. I mucked around in a wasteland of a "frakenmarriage" with a severed pair bond. It was terrible. I still feel the vestiges of "schmuckiness" in my soul decades later but have a lot more clarity now and am in a wonderful marriage with a mature and self aware woman who is also an infidelity survivor.
I have also come to the realization that in part, I felt that way because I felt inauthentic. That staying with her set me against myself. Not only did she betray me, now I was betryaing myself and that made me a loser/schmuck. If the AP "got away" with it with few repercussions, multiply that feeling by a factor of 10.
My poor attempt to communicate this facet of betrayal-by-infidelity is the result of years of grappling, introspection and therapy. I wish your BH would post here as well so we could reach out to him.
I affirm your observations:
Observations:
1. I have tried to help heal him, but ultimately I am the one that hurt him and I can't heal him. Only he can work to heal himself. I can just support him.
2. I will live with this for the rest of my life and I accept that and will continue to work to be a safe partner, friend, mom, everything.
3. We all heal at different rates and have different levels of willingness or desire to heal.
4. Shame is not helpful, it just makes me the victim and takes away from supporting my BS. I have these feelings and have learned to work through them, feel them and work through them and not bother him with them.
5. Our relationship may not be rebuilt as it takes two to tango, pre affair issues need to be dealt with and new growth needs to occur. He is not there yet.
6. This marriage may not survive, this may be something he cannot heal from. My job is to continue to grow and support him through this and let him decide when he's done trying.
7. I don't know how much I should tolerate as far as insults, hurtful comments, criticism, unwillingness to work on pre affair relationship/communication problems. I don't know the boundaries there and how long that lasts. Do I deal with it forever since I have done such a devastating thing that is unforgivable? I don't know the answer to this one.
May I ask, how long ago was your LTA?
...sorry if I missed that.
As to your 7th point, I am pretty intolerant of verbal abuse and consider it both intellectually vacant and non constructive. There is a time frame where a betrayed "venting their spleen" as it were, is understandable but to continue in that state for a long period of time is toxic, and not sustainable if any hope of reconciliation is to be had. If we are talking years of this on a ragular basis, then, as I have stated before, divorce may be a mercy for you both.
[This message edited by DobleTraicion at 2:12 PM, Monday, November 20th]