SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I have written pages and pages and pages of words. And time and time again they have been filtered through the lens of what hurt people believe WS are like, and the words are misconstrued-- and often enough that my BS, reading along, perceives consensus. More words aren't going to fix it, but I wanted to leave a warning to those who are still here: There is a cost to engaging with poor listeners.

He has beliefs about his feelings: he feels shame over them, he believes they're a burden to me and he should keep them to himself, he believes they are immature and he should just "grow up" and get over them. I have not done a damn thing to create or reinforce those beliefs. But you know who has? This community. So for almost a year now, I've been BEGGING him to share his infidelity related feelings, and I've written about that here. I was wishing he would stop bottling them up, telling me nothing was wrong when clearly something was and I asked him about that, wishing they would stop leaking out sideways in non-infidelity-related marital discussions, making me have conversations that are secretly about the infidelity even though the words aren't, at a confusing intensity. I wished he would engage more with his feelings, be more cognizant of them, and demonstrate that he's working on his own healing. I realized I couldn't do that for him and wrote about offering curiosity and then disengaging.

But you know what this community heard? "She thinks his feelings are inconvenient and they piss her off. She just doesn't want to hear about the effects of her infidelity on him. She wants him to be over it by now. She wants him to shut up and stuff his feelings. She's not willing to wait for him to heal." And my BS READ THAT. Over and over again. And it cemented those beliefs about his feelings, that he should stuff them, that I didn't want to hear them. And so he continued stuffing them, and suffering.

So good job, you lot. Good fucking job. We could have been SO MUCH FURTHER ALONG!

Beware, other users. Poor listening has a cost.

In general, I see five types of responses on forums and social media.

1. "Agreed", said in a word or emoji or a short sentence.

2. Snark and trolling.

3. Responses that show the person keyed in on a word or phrase, has a certain negative reaction despite everything else in the post, and cannot or will not focus on what the OP meant. Instead it is a semantic argument and they choose not to focus on the true issue. (By the way, I am a linguistic analyst, so my ACTUAL JOB is to analyze spoken and written language for underlying meaning and intent.)

4. Responses that disagree, but will explain logically why. They often miss the meaning of the full message, but they do show reasoning well.

5. Responses that further discussion and pose additional questions, facts, or thoughts that show they read for meaning.

In the case of an emotionally charged issue such as infidelity, it’s not hard to understand why people get bogged down in minutiae, because they are trying to heal and the oddest things can trigger an emotional response.

FWIW, I read your posts. You are definitely growing and learning.

Hey.

In a thread of yours a while ago, I attempted to point out something to you. I gave up. We frustrated each other. Ive seen your posts, I can tell you are trying quite hard. Im sorry you are experiencing difficulties. I wish it wasnt so, truly.

Please take this in the candor of someone who wants you to see and consider something, who bears you no ill will and hopes that seeing it might help.

You wrote:

"She thinks his feelings are inconvenient and they piss her off. She just doesn't want to hear about the effects of her infidelity on him. She wants him to be over it by now. She wants him to shut up and stuff his feelings. She's not willing to wait for him to heal."

You put this in quotations. Im not sure, but I dont think you ripped this verbatim from something anyone wrote. I think you are paraphrasing from a multitude of posts, and then saying betrayed spouses are coming at your posts with an interpretation in this vein. Am I incorrect? If so, Im sorry.

But in our conversation, I wrote:

" I'm not sure you have what it takes to set your ego down and grow out of this, but I hope you do."

That was shitty of me. Im sorry I said that. You are growing. Im pretty sure youll be ok, my appraisal was unkind and deserved rebuttal.

Nevertheless, you responded:

""Put your ego down and let him abuse you," is crazy work, friendo. Maybe reconsider what you just said."

Except, Thats not what I was saying, not my position, and not reflective of what i was trying to express at all.

Look, its not the only example of you quotating and replying with your insertion of what someone meant, rephrased into an indefensible argument that the other poster wasnt trying to say.

Its strawman argument construction. I see you do this a bit. Um, some people do this intentionally, but I dont believe you do. I assume you dont.

And if its not on purpose, its a misunderstanding. Its you taking others words and misconstruing their intentions and meanings, just as you hate being done to you, as youve said time and time again. In other words, caught up in your human struggles, as your husband is, as we BS are, as yourself and other WS are, our intended meaning skates over each other and is lost.

Mostly noone means to do this.

We are too busy listening to ourselves to hear each other.
We cant help but do this when our amygdala gets in front of our aims.

Ill admit, because of our lived experiences, we are a little oil and water. The risk of creating nothing and wasting time is kind of high here.

Noone here is bothering to be because they want harm for anyone else. BS are angry, and assuming the worst about WS. They dont enjoy doing it. They are reacting to an unhealed wound.

Just keep trying your best. Im sorry your husband struggles to express himself to you freely. But words on a forum didnt cause that.

Morbs, I actually understand where you are coming from here. It is true that in spaces like this, people sometimes read a WS through the lens of their own betrayal and project motives that might not actually be there (I'm quite sure I am guilty of this also). That absolutely happens.

But I think this post swings too far in the opposite direction, primarily because you are now directly contradicting things you have written yourself. The most glaring example is this:

"I have not done a damn thing to create or reinforce those beliefs."

Except, you have previously admitted to almost the exact opposite.

Back in May, when you were discussing your BH holding back his feelings, you owned up to falling back into behaviors that triggered his suspicion. You wrote that those behaviors likely reinforced the voice in his head telling him his feelings were unreasonable, repetitive, and that he should just keep them to himself. That wasn't this community putting words in your mouth; that was your own self-awareness recognizing your part in the dynamic. Honestly, I thought it was a remarkably insightful post.

You have also written about being able to handle his feelings when they are expressed in a way you consider appropriate, while describing other expressions surrounding that pain as abusive, exhausting, fight-picking, or derailing. Let me be clear, being betrayed does not give someone a free pass to behave abusively, and there is an important distinction between accepting someone's feelings and accepting every behavior that accompanies them. Boundaries around behavior are entirely reasonable.

But that doesn't mean those interactions have no effect on whether someone feels safe expressing the underlying feelings. You cannot acknowledge in May that your own behaviors probably reinforced his belief that he should keep his feelings to himself, then now say there is *absolutely nothing* you have done to create or reinforce that belief. Those two statements simply do not fit together.

I also struggle with the claim that

"we could have been SO MUCH FURTHER ALONG."

Has this community contributed negatively at times? I can easily believe that. Advice forums are full of hurt people, and projection happens. But your own post history paints a picture of a highly complex, difficult reconciliation between two hurt people. You've documented the triggers, resentment, emotional flooding, his struggles, your struggles, and mistakes made by both of you post-DDay. That is a starkly different reality than the much cleaner narrative of:

"I begged him to talk, strangers convinced him I didn't want to hear it, and therefore he stuffed everything."

People here may have misunderstood you and reinforced unhealthy beliefs in your BH. And your own actions and reactions may have reinforced some of those same beliefs as well. In fact, at one point you explicitly recognized that possibility yourself.

What bothers me about this post is that you used to seem much more willing to hold both of those truths simultaneously. You can and should call out bad advice or poor listening when you see it here. But if your ultimate conclusion becomes

"I did nothing to contribute to this and the internet did it,"

I think you risk throwing away some of the self-awareness you had already fought so hard to build.

I too have witnessed growth even if I did not always agree with you. I hope this post is just a cry into the void, and that you two find your way, I truly do.

[This message edited by Gemmy at 8:16 PM, Monday, August 31st]

Is it possible that your husband just does not see you as someone he can be open and vulnerable with?

Was he able to be open and vulnerable with you prior to your affair?

Were you open and vulnerable with him prior to your affair?

IMO it is impossible for a WS to understand what it feels like for a BS to be open and vulnerable with the person he / she once believed was someone who no matter what would always have his/her back, would always be by his/her side, no matter what. IMO the only way a WS can understand is to discover that the BS is having an affair after the WS put in years and years and YEARS of hard work rebuilding the destroyed trust and felt that everything was going to be okay, we made it, our relationship is better than it has ever been, we are going to grow old together.

I don't know when D-Day occurred so I don't know how much time has elapsed between then and now. Some people are able to process the trauma of an affair and move on much quicker than others. Some people take a very long time, and others never recover. They will always withhold a piece of their heart.

Feel better after that rant?

I swear I am being completely serious saying this...I think if all the posts from this account have always been how you really feel/think, you should consider talking to a mental health professional. It is like there are 2 distinct perspectives or personalities posting from the 1 account.

Dude, awesome diatribe. Makes it even more clear why your husband is scared as shit to express anything to you. Good luck.

There’s a distinct lack of self-awareness in this post. You accuse the posters on SI of "poor listening," but you absolutely refuse to listen to your husband when he says that he doesn’t want to talk about his infidelity-related feelings. You keep trying to force him to communicate with you on your terms… and because that hasn’t worked, you’re blaming SI because your reconciliation process isn’t where you think it should be.

Not everyone benefits from talk therapy or talking about their feelings ad nauseam. My current husband is such a person. When we had challenges in the past, I would try to engage him in long discussions to deconstruct our problems and it only made ruminate and get depressed. I’ve learned to accept his need to process his feelings on his own, and as a result, he’s actually much more open and connected with me than when I used to try to bludgeon him into opening up. We never had infidelity in our marriage, but I can only imagine how difficult it would be if I betrayed him and then expected him to be vulnerable and spill his guts.

Here’s the thing: you could be the perfect model WW who reads all the books and does all the steps, and gets all the kudos on the world from the posters on SI… and reconciliation still might not work. That’s a reality you need to come to terms with and accept.

The fact that you said you should be "further along" indicates to me that you have some timeline in your head at which point this will all be over. If that’s what you’re thinking, then you need to get over it because that’s not how it works in the real world. The path healing is rarely linear.

Lastly, before you accuse everyone on SI of " poor listening," perhaps you ought to focus on how clearly and how well you’re articulating yourself.

As for your husband, we’re an anonymous forum and you’re the woman he married and lives with every day. I’m pretty sure that your words and your actions account for much more than anything we say.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 3:41 AM, Tuesday, September 1st]

I’m sorry for your struggles.

As an aside, and not specifically addressed to you, this is just another "thing" that cheaters never consider when they choose to cheat.

You mentioned you should be or could be further along. What exactly does that mean?

There are many people who don’t like to discuss their feelings. That is not a reflection on you - it’s just who they are.

I am a bit confused but have some points for you to consider ...

My understanding is (as I read this post), that you are blaming folks in this forum for affecting your husband, such that he does not express his affair related feelings and injuries. And that this affected your recovery.

Point 1 - It is quite bizarre to me that betrayed people....who generally are compelled to express their feelings and injuries to their betrayer...would intentionally or even unintentionally have that affect through their comments to you.

So I question your deduction that this is in fact the causation of what you are seeing in your husband.

Please remember....correlation does NOT equal causation.

Point 2 - You state that you have been clearly telling him you want him to express his feelings, etc.

If that is true ... excellent!!! That is absolutely the right position you should be taking.

So in that regard, I highly doubt that if your husband does want to express these things to you....AND YOU ARE GENUINELY ENCOURAGING it....that some comments on this forum would completely discourage him from doing something he really wanted to do.

Consider these follow up explanations...

1) Maybe your husband is as another mentioned...simply not the type of person who expresses his feelings openly. Maybe he has what they call "avoidant" tendencies.

In this case, it is not the forums fault, nor is it your fault ...it is something he needs to learn and grow in. Namely emotional engagement and communication. He would need to learn to understand his tendencies and find the resources to grow.

2). Maybe your words do not match your actions. Maybe you say the words that you want him to tell you all his heart, but your demeanor, your proximity, your deflection, your rationalizing, your defensiveness, etc, etc. (if you are doing those things)....speak a truly different story to him. In other words, you might know to say you want him to speak, but you really show that you don't.

I do not know the answer to your dilemma. I am not with you, nor is anyone else on here except your husband.

But I am pretty confident your generalized blame that the betrayed folks on this form have hindered your reconciliation...is misplaced.

[This message edited by WoodThrush2 at 2:44 PM, Tuesday, September 1st]

Unbelievable. Truly.

It isn’t our fault that your reconciliation isn’t further along.

We have simply responded to what you have told us. You have told us basically:

1. Your husband is abusive, manipulative. Doesn’t take good care of your chickens, pets or daughter.
2. The conflict you all experience is exhausting and litigious over silly things like whether someone should make chicken nuggets.
3. You have trouble sustaining your remorse because of your resentments on how he treats you.
4. Simple requests he has made since dday have been denied by you.
5. You have repeatedly demonstrated that you should be the one to be understood first and foremost.

I could go on and on, but these came from you. Essentially, he probably heard the same things we did in what you were writing.

Creating a safe place for your bs to express his feelings is your job, not the job of this forum. If you think you have done that, you need to self assess more before coming here to point fingers at those of us who have spent hours of our life genuinely trying to support and assist you.

The truth is all ws have a lot of growth to do. You have been working hard in your growth, but he has been flailing around waiting for it and that gets exhausting for a bs to keep trying to express themselves to someone who can’t fully hear them yet.

Don’t come in here with this nonsenses look internally, be truthful with yourself. You have not created a marriage it’s safe for him to be vulnerable in, and you have spent a lot of time convincing us that he has also not created an environment you can be vulnerable in.

Come back when it hits you. This shit is hard, but the very things you fail to recognize is the reason your reconciliation isn’t further along.

Full disclosure: I had chatgpt read and summarize the responses here to dampen any potential emotional effects on me, so I could remain a semi-functional adult today. It does not always get everything perfectly precise.

In the beginning, H would express a belief about reality that wasn't objectively accurate, along with an associated feeling. Because Reality anchors help me assess and manage my feelings, I thought offering them to my husband would help him to feel better. I know now that wasn't an optimal response, but the intent then was still to support and aid his recovery. I became frustrated when he rejected the Reality anchors and when our conversational structure became triggering to me. I still wanted to hear his feelings and be supportive. I did not cause him to interpret that as "Expressing my feelings results in Morbs' anger."

I do remember back in May expressing here that I was experiencing emotional fatigue as a result of him engaging in manipulation tactics when I would approach important marital issues, such as the standard of care for our pets and child when I go away for work-- that was an example of his feelings leaking out sideways and conversations secretly not being about what the words suggest it logically would be about-- and that I felt unable to deal with his emotions or having to perform check-ins and reassurances while away at a stressful conference... So I concede that was one instance where my own words probably reinforced the belief that he cannot express his feelings to me. (However, I still did offer check ins and reassurance on that trip. I also do not recall if I knew he was reading that post or not. Perhaps I did not want to know.)

On my last post, I was struggling to extract meaningful, actionable advice between "be kind and patient with him" and "tolerate the toxic behavior."

Sunday night, we went out drinking, and all of his feelings came tumbling out. He explicitly expressed me that he's been bottling up his infidelity-related feelings and suffering with them because he thinks I want him to deal with them silently to avoid causing me discomfort/distress/anger, based on the SI posts. That is almost diametrically the opposite of what I've been writing (again, with the exception of the May post.) When I am not the only one producing text here, I am having a hard time concluding anything else but that others' misrepresentations of my words have reinforced his preexisting beliefs, especially when his takeaway from them mirrors those misrepresentations. I cannot reasonably speak to the strength of that effect, nor the exact liklihood of its occurence. I still believe it is a risk associated with engaging here.

I do not feel "better" after ranting, but I think I have moved from anger to grief, at least... When I say that "we could have been so much further along" I am imagining an alternate reality in which H's belief's about his own feelings were challenged instead of reinforced. Maybe if that had happened instead, he would have felt safer in sharing them with me instead of carrying them alone and bottling them up. Maybe the processing of those feelings would be further underway. Maybe they would not have leaked out sideways into non-infidelity-related marital conflicts, and I would not have had to create Big Deer in order to protect myself from that and disengage from toxic interactions. Maybe the state of our relationship would be in better shape and not have caused his lingering insecurity about whether we're headed for divorce.

But it's whatever now, I guess. I'm giving up trying to manage, influence, or change what he believes, thinks, feels, or expresses. That has never worked a single time that I've tried it. I am focused on me now.

Just my opinion here.

I'm giving up trying to manage, influence, or change what he believes, thinks, feels, or expresses.

This is the exact problem. You cannot control him, his feelings, or this outcome without avoiding his feelings.

I'm giving up trying to manage, influence, or change what he believes, thinks, feels, or expresses.

That’s a good thing.

Most of us who have experienced the manipulations, lies and ‘management’ during an A are pretty much done with being managed.

I really did have to heal myself.

I had to do 100 percent of the heavy lifting, the grief, loss of innocence (the me and her against the world stuff) and stepping back to see if my wife could do her work without me coaching her.

The M is the team-up work for R. Ironing out communication issues, giving each other room to grow and recover, etc.

The absolute worst thing a WS can say, or simply act out is, "I did all I could and it feels like whatever I do will never be enough."

I think that line about a WS giving up happens in every R, or it seems that way.

My wife said it once as well, but she understood it didn’t help either of us.

She took her work on her own to another level, some IC and she then started doing lots of internally owning versus externally blaming.

Then my wife showed a biblical level of patience with my overthinking, slow healing, endless circular nightmares, etc.

I needed that space.

Not all of us get there — back to where we need to be, to be happy and healthy. We read those updates from BS all the time.

I think giving your BS some room to figure out if he can get there or not is a good thing.

[This message edited by Oldwounds at 4:48 PM, Tuesday, September 1st]

Don't be too hard on yourself. The odds are stacked against you merely because, as you have stated, your marriage started off as one where you were his AP, 20+ years his junior, and a sex worker. There is a power imbalance there, and because in your family of origin, your stepfather would gaslight, manipulate, and twist your words, of course you are going to have trouble talking to another man of a similar age.

He is a madhatter, and that complicates the way he is going to process his trauma. He needs therapy beyond what you can give him, and I think the best thing you can do is encourage him to see, maybe even set up for him, a therapist.

[This message edited by CantBeMeEither at 4:57 PM, Tuesday, September 1st]

I'm giving up trying to MANAGE, INFLUENCE, or CHANGE what he believes, thinks, feels, or expresses. That has never worked a single time that I've tried it. I am focused on me now.

Wow, just wow. Why on Earth do you think you have any right to manage, influence, or change what he believes thinks feels or expresses? Don't you think that should be up to him?

There is so much more I want to say but I'm not. To me it's obvious why your husband would rather keep things to himself

This is the exact problem. You cannot control him, his feelings, or this outcome without avoiding his feelings.

This is how I see it as well.

You can be empathetic of why he feels the way he does, you can care, you can be sensitive.

Over and over what I see from you is if you can’t control it, you avoid it. Or dismiss it altogether.

I have spent a great deal of time trying to express to you how you hold space for someone while not just being inauthentic in being sweet to get him to calm down.

Truth is most reconciliations are not really anywhere at the turn of the first year. It’s all grieving for the bs, and the ws spinning their wheels trying to unwind it all.

You have spent more time here talking about your feelings and your struggles, and when it comes to a head with him you find excuses to avoid or dismiss his feelings.

No one thinks you can control them, or control what he shares. You need to find a way to provide an environment in which he feels safe so he can heal. And over and over you DARVO the whole thing and make it his fault-

He isn’t being loving towards you.
He isn’t taking care of things at home when you are away.
He is manipulating you.
If he can’t regulate himself in a certain time frame

Providing an environment where he can express himself is seeing these things as a natural consequence of your actions, and giving him the grace needed to get through it.

I feel your frustration, it’s hard to tap into skills you don’t yet have mastered. But stop mak in g it everyone else’s fault and realize this is uncomfortable because you are trying to grow. We don’t grow in comfort.

I am having a hard time concluding anything else but that others' misrepresentations of my words have reinforced his preexisting beliefs, especially when his takeaway from them mirrors those misrepresentations. I cannot reasonably speak to the strength of that effect, nor the exact liklihood of its occurence. I still believe it is a risk associated with engaging here.

If your BH is reading your posts, then he is reading what you write. There's simply no way around that simple truth, Morbs. He's reading your words!

I would imagine (and actually believe) that what you write means more to him than our responses. And while I'm sure some of what we write might resonate with him, I find it rather difficult to believe that our interpretations of your words carry greater significance.

Since he's obviously familiar with SI, he's certainly free to join and seek our help directly.

Also, I cannot believe you could possibly know how far along you two could be with or without the support and guidance this community has offered, even while you often think we "should" be more... whatever

I know you've read this before and I think you keep on resisting, but...

PATIENCE!!! Reconciliation is a marathon, not a sprint. It's also extremely difficult, non-linear, and there are no guarantees. The paths each of you have to tread are very, very different. Hopefully, those paths will converge one day.

Breathe, friend. You still have a long road ahead of you.

There is a power imbalance there, and because in your family of origin, your stepfather would gaslight, manipulate, and twist your words, of course you are going to have trouble talking to another man of a similar age.

This is worth underlining, because I want to be clear there are aspects to the story where I believe when you say he has toxic traits. When we are undeveloped in some areas we tend to choose partners with their own areas where massive growth needs to take place.

I tread carefully because this statement made here about morbs husband has been said to me about my husband. (Ten years older and also a madhatter) I am most sure I agree with that in my case and it was said to me by a member I respect and admire.

But for sure both of you have healing to do. It’s not supposed to look like he is on the floor and you are his nursemaid anticipating every need.

It’s supposed to be you are both in the floor and recognizing both of you have a lot of healing to do. How can we get ourselves up while helping our partner and not pushing them back down? I am not sure either of you are doing this but I think the approach could be changed by one of you and you are the only one here to tell.

Neither of you can control how the other gets up, how long it takes to get up, how they get up.

But if you leave him on the floor because you can’t pull him up and you ignore his suffering because he isn’t ready to get up, then you can guarantee this marrage is not going to come out of this.

I am sorry for my reaction earlier but it was so shocking after watching how much you have grown to come here and really see you have the belief that we failed you both in your reconciliation. That’s just a wild assertion that to me was extreme blame-shifting. And I can’t accept that from you, you have come to far now to resort to that. And if I didn’t care I wouldn’t bother. I should not have allowed my disappointment to come out in anger and for that I am sorry.