A few days ago, I was feeling overwhelmed. During our last check-in Handsome disclosed both something that he had been holding back and one thing he says he just remembered last week. I appreciate and respect the effort (late though it may be) for transparency, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still painful.
He had, apparently for months, been holding back that the relationship he had with the woman he took out on a date last summer was more involved than he had led me to believe. I haven’t even given her a nickname here because I was initially led to believe it was of such short duration and insignificant that it didn’t merit further discussion as compared to his other APs. He minimized it. (Minimization is a part of Handsome’s Compulsive – Abusive Sexual – Relational Disorder (CASRD) according to Dr. M.) While they did only have one restaurant date, he was at her house once, briefly (no sexual contact), and she was in his car one night (touched her breasts), and he apparently made out with her multiple times outside her house, in the town where he works… while he was in uniform and working. (Because, apparently, risking your job and getting disease at the same time is… sexy???) This just squeaked through his polygraph because his answer to a single question about her was accurate. The question simply wasn’t comprehensive enough.
The new thing he says he just remembered is that last June when Angel Baby stayed at our house for two nights while I was away, on one of the days they got up and went for lunch at a trendy restaurant near my office, then to a museum, then to a nice restaurant for a drink before he drove her home. To exacerbate this issue, he had originally told me a sob story about picking Angel Baby up in the rain because she was standing on the street crying with nowhere to go. Allegedly it was her temporary homelessness that led him to bring her to our house. (A pathetic excuse and by no means justification, but that had been his story.) After learning of their “field trip” I checked his financial records and pinned down the precise day. It was three days after I left to take our kids to summer camp. Moreover, there was no rain where we live that week. None. (Thank heavens for the internet.) I was/ am less upset about the detail he was revealing (the field trip) than I was/ am about the dismantling of the already bullshit excuse for how she could have possibly ended up in our home in the first place. He insists that what he told me originally is what he actually remembers. Maybe. Who knows? In my mind though he has lost the benefit of the doubt. Plus, it is objectively impossible and untrue. Given the timing – his first two days off after I departed with the kids – my belief is that he premeditated to get her to our house. He denies this. He may even believe it to be true. I do not.
The following days have been tense, to say the least. I struggle with being appreciative of the transparency yet not hiding the fact that I’m crushed, yet again. Over the weekend we talked one day while the kids were off at activities and he made the mistake of telling me that it’s “hard” for him to admit to bad things when life seems to be going well between us. I proceeded to then explain to him that if he thought telling the truth was “hard” he should walk a mile in my shoes, and then I lit into him with a diatribe about all the things that are hard that I deal with every moment of every day because of what he did.
I then sent him this message a day later:
“I know that over the last weekend you were, I think, surprised to hear me express some of the very specific reasons why I am so sad and continue to find this all so very overwhelming and hard. It occurs to me that you are surprised because I don’t ever actually share these thoughts with you. You get bits and pieces of my anger, confusion, and hurt, but I seem to have adopted your method of stuffing things down inside and trying to keep my chin up. Long term, that doesn’t do us any good. So, in no particular order and without any suggestion that this list is complete, here is a list of ten things that I am finding excruciatingly hard and challenging at the moment. Perhaps we could talk through each of them together?
- It is hard to know that there were so many (yes, 3 or 4 is “many” in this circumstance) other women that you wanted to sleep with when you chose not to sleep with me.
- It is hard to know that you communicated so much with these women when your kids and I could often barely get a few kind words from you.
- It is hard to know that you maintained a wholly separate life that your family was neither welcome in nor acknowledged in, except with complaints.
- It is hard to pay witness to your over-familiarity with these women, when you lack anywhere near that level of familiarity with your own family and things related to your family.
- It is hard to hear you talk about not wanting to hurt their feelings when my feelings were utterly irrelevant.
- It is hard to kiss you without wondering who taught you to kiss the way you do now when it was not the way you kissed me for years.
- It is hard to have sex with you without wondering where you learned all of the completely new things that you started doing last year and which were never part of your previous repertoire.
- It is hard not to feel that you gave the best of yourself to these women in desperate attempts to woo and impress them, and you didn’t care when you had nothing left for your family (emotionally, physically, financially).
- It is hard to know that you were spontaneous and kind and took initiative with certain of the other women when I have longed throughout most of our relationship for you to do that with me.
- It is hard to know that these women all believed that you picked them over me.”
Those ten struggles are probably the best status report that I could give for myself at the moment. It’s not a pretty picture. I would love to be “better than” or “above” this, but today I am not. Maybe tomorrow will be better.
Thank you for sharing this with me. It helps me better understand what the woman I Betrayed is thinking and experiencing.
I’m almost at 8 months past DDay (which I understand in the scheme of things is not that long), and I just feel like I should be better than this. I want to be better than this. Some days though it’s just not possible. 😔
I’m a little over seven months post reveal. I’m a mess. I keep offering myself to her. She keeps turning my away.
I too want to be better than this. And your are right though, some days it’s just not possible.
It’s not possible every day. I feel like I have to acknowledge it and maybe even let it consume me every once in a while, just so I can process the feelings and work through them.
Handsome and I did talk through this list. I wasn’t looking for explanations on any of the points as much as I wanted him to (1) listen to me and (2) really understand why I feel these things. Our conversation had a mis-start or two, but we eventually got there. I truly wish that I could say it helped. It did not.
BW, I’m so sorry for your pain – how are you today? Handsome and Mr. P sound very alike.
I’m positive we will never know everything because they always minimized and they will continue to minimize some details because they can now see how fucked up they were, plus they don’t want to hurt us. Absolutely no excuse for continue lying/”not remembering”, we deserve to know all of the truth so we can start connecting the dots. Now, you have to re-figure this out and search banking and the weather from the past. Does it make you wonder if there is anything else?
There is some good news; he lied to you for so long – years – but it does take some real effort and un-programming to start telling the truth (which you respect). It doesn’t make feel any less pain, and as time goes on, the trauma of trickle truth does take a bit longer to work through.
I just remembered something yesterday and completely shut down and put walls up. I’ve been so sad since yesterday, I haven’t talked to him about what I remembered because either a) I’m going to be hurt/disgusted/angry/ by his answer or b) I probably won’t believe his answer. He can tell something is wrong, but his answer is a no win for me. I know I should tell him, but as you said above, I think I’ve learned to stuff it in the suitcase and throw it in the closet.
No matter how much time has passed since DDay (I’ve read 20 year survivor stories), you may still feel pain, anxiety, anguish, disgust, anger etc. when triggered or if you remember something where there isn’t a connecting dot. Allow yourself some grace, you were horribly violated and traumatized, but are going to survive.
I hope that someday you and I will be able to say that we are grateful this happened.
Hey SSA… yes, I too am sure that I’ll never know everything. Do I yet know enough? Maybe. I’m undecided on that today, but the new disclosure brings me closer to certainty that I likely know most of the key things. And I am grateful that he disclosed what he did. It’s just that when it contradicts prior information it creates a brand new mess. (sigh)
I don’t want to feel like this in 20 years. Hell, I don’t want to feel like this in 20 months, or 20 days, but I guess it is what it is. 😔
You have the right to change your mind about if you know enough today or not. Tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, you have the right to change your mind. Nothing about what Handsome did is rational, but every way you feel about the irrational, is rational.
I completely understand how you’re feeling BW, new disclosures bring new and more anxiety, trauma, suspicion and hyper vigilance to your already hurt and anxious state. It’s a whole new story that you need to think about, process, feel shitty about, and accept.
It’s a very fucked up situation and I’m so sorry you’re feeling the way you are. I don’t want either one of us to feel this in the next 20 minutes even.
I hope you have a REALLY great weekend. Take care of yourself, I’ll be thinking of you xo
Thanks so much! You have a great weekend too!
BW, I can so relate to your post. What I have learned in my 2.5 years in this is that my H has always minimized. He is just now getting in touch with that. I have also learned that whatever he is disclosing, there is most likely “more” that he is either intentionally leaving out, minimizing or truly doesn’t remember. My intuition told me he had brought a hooker to our home. He denied this for 1.5 yrs. When he finally owned up to it, it was in stages. First he said they were only in our screened-in sunroom. Now it is secluded, but I knew better. Then he said they were only ever in our family room. Then only in a spare bdrm. And only once, well maybe twice. It actually got to be funny to watch him squirm and lie. At the point he was telling me this, I really didn’t care. I have just accepted that it’s horrible and I’m more irritated at the lies. But he just isn’t there yet with emotional maturity.
What I can tell you is something I hear over and over. Take care of yourself no matter what. For me, that meant stop relying on the SA for emotional support. That was hard bc he had been my main source of emotional support. I found a therapist, a group, and program friends to support me. I don’t think SAs newly in recovery can understand the partner’s pain. They lack empathy or they wouldn’t have done all that crazy acting out in the first place.
I also reached out to female friends for social activities sans H. I told myself I don’t know how all this will work out so I need to build a life of my own. These friends of course know about H but don’t know about the SA, and it’s nice to just get away from it all sometimes.
I have also worked on my self esteem. I believe this addiction does a number on the self esteem of the partner no matter how together you are or how much you understand the addiction. For me, that meant working out regularly, focusing on appearance, putting more energy into my career, and starting a hobby. Focusing on myself in these ways gave me a sense of control.
I also gave myself permission to let some things slide. Before I was a taskmaster to myself. Now if I’m feeling overwhelmed, I might just go to a movie or hang out at home and read.
This stuff is really hard. Find what works for you to take care of yourself.
Oh, Maggie… that “more” feeling is awful, I know. And what our husbands do not get is that knowing that they minimize, we assume the worst. Or worse than the worst. That awfulness is then what we try to come to terms with and process. So, if anything they did is actually not that bad, just fess up!
For example, in my mind I try to process Handsome’s conduct by assuming the worst – that he slept with each of his APs. He says he didn’t and I believe him, but he has lied and minimized before… so I assume and try to deal with the worst scenario so that I’m not surprised by it later in case it comes to pass that it’s true. When he admitted to what actually transpired with his date last summer, it’s disgusting and horrible but not as bad as what I had expected. In short, yes it hurt me, but it didn’t really change anything because I had prepared for worse things.
I really appreciate the self care advice. I always did and still do rely on Handsome for emotional support, and he’s not fully equipped for that right now. He tries, but it’s still an effort. He’s much better since he spent the week with Dr Minwalla, but it’s not natural to him. I’m looking for groups with a compatible schedule and I’m trying not to put myself last every day. For years everything (Handsome, kids, work, aging parent, etc) has come before me taking care of me, and I’m trying to fix that. I just keep telling myself that I’m useless to everyone else if I’m broken.
Funny you mention a movie… I just might take a few mental health hours from work and go see something.
😉
You have such great insight Maggie xo
I recommend “Book Club” if it’s still in your area and you haven’t seen it. It’s hilarious and has a great cast. I NEVER went to movies alone before but now I love it. Usually a chick flick. I get a glass of wine and escape into a story.