Post affair, husband tired of me bringing it up

[Anonymous]

I know how you feel, OP. My husband was/is the same way. What I've realized is that his conflict avoidance spills over into anything that stresses him out. He shuts down conversations by getting upset about it being brought up, even if it's something small like planning a vacation. So of course with this big thing -- your feelings about his affair -- it's going to be magnified. Do you feel like your husband is the same way? (I think this is a common dynamic with affairs because conflict avoidance is a predictor of having one.) Because ultimately it's a form of manipulation, whether it's conscious or not. The conflict avoidant person tries to disincentivize you from bringing up things that cause them stress.

I think the only thing to do (if you're still committed to working on the marriage) is to lay that all out. Hey, have you noticed this dynamic where you shut down conversations that are hard for you? Can you work on that? My husband has been in therapy for many years since his affair and yes he's consistently getting better, but it's slow and steady. No one can shed their faulty coping mechanisms and become completely emotionally mature overnight. It's up to you whether the rate of progress is something you can live with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the people telling you to let it go have never been where you are, OP. I have. You need information, and your DH should be willing to answer every single questions you have until you don't need to ask them any more. The mind movies you experience, the need to know every detail - it's so you can heal, not to punish him. And he should know that. My DH answered every question I had, even ones I had already asked. He said he had the absolute responsibility to help me heal, and that *I* got to decide what that looked like.

Four months is absolutely nothing. Of course the cheater wants it all to be over. But it isn't FOR YOU. So ask your questions. And find a decent therapist, cause neither mine nor my DH's would ever say that four months was adequate to get over this.

Agree. 4 months was absolutely still ground zero in our house. I was still barely functioning. Spouse was in the thick of his own therapy. I had not even agreed to couples counseling at that point. I didn’t ask for anything- my spouse provided it and went through the interrogations and calmly answered questions over and over as the mind movies and triggers were just awful for me. I couldn’t sleep. Nights were the worst.0 He took over everything in the house and was fully supportive. He read so many books about helping me heal and went out and got a vasectomy on his own accord. Told me to draft any pre-nup I needed, etc. It was 6 moths before I even agreed to couples therapy because he needed his own work first.

But this guy at 4 months done with hearing about it? Just no. He definitely hasn’t any clue the magnitude of trauma he inflicted. I question whether he truly is sorry or remorseful.

This is a positive, for an admitted cheater?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the people telling you to let it go have never been where you are, OP. I have. You need information, and your DH should be willing to answer every single questions you have until you don't need to ask them any more. The mind movies you experience, the need to know every detail - it's so you can heal, not to punish him. And he should know that. My DH answered every question I had, even ones I had already asked. He said he had the absolute responsibility to help me heal, and that *I* got to decide what that looked like.

Four months is absolutely nothing. Of course the cheater wants it all to be over. But it isn't FOR YOU. So ask your questions. And find a decent therapist, cause neither mine nor my DH's would ever say that four months was adequate to get over this.

Agree. 4 months was absolutely still ground zero in our house. I was still barely functioning. Spouse was in the thick of his own therapy. I had not even agreed to couples counseling at that point. I didn’t ask for anything- my spouse provided it and went through the interrogations and calmly answered questions over and over as the mind movies and triggers were just awful for me. I couldn’t sleep. Nights were the worst.0 He took over everything in the house and was fully supportive. He read so many books about helping me heal and went out and got a vasectomy on his own accord. Told me to draft any pre-nup I needed, etc. It was 6 moths before I even agreed to couples therapy because he needed his own work first.

But this guy at 4 months done with hearing about it? Just no. He definitely hasn’t any clue the magnitude of trauma he inflicted. I question whether he truly is sorry or remorseful.

This is a positive, for an admitted cheater?

Yes. Anything to protect the family/betrayed. Post-nup, individual therapy, vasectomy. Definitely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the people telling you to let it go have never been where you are, OP. I have. You need information, and your DH should be willing to answer every single questions you have until you don't need to ask them any more. The mind movies you experience, the need to know every detail - it's so you can heal, not to punish him. And he should know that. My DH answered every question I had, even ones I had already asked. He said he had the absolute responsibility to help me heal, and that *I* got to decide what that looked like.

Four months is absolutely nothing. Of course the cheater wants it all to be over. But it isn't FOR YOU. So ask your questions. And find a decent therapist, cause neither mine nor my DH's would ever say that four months was adequate to get over this.

Agree. 4 months was absolutely still ground zero in our house. I was still barely functioning. Spouse was in the thick of his own therapy. I had not even agreed to couples counseling at that point. I didn’t ask for anything- my spouse provided it and went through the interrogations and calmly answered questions over and over as the mind movies and triggers were just awful for me. I couldn’t sleep. Nights were the worst.0 He took over everything in the house and was fully supportive. He read so many books about helping me heal and went out and got a vasectomy on his own accord. Told me to draft any pre-nup I needed, etc. It was 6 moths before I even agreed to couples therapy because he needed his own work first.

But this guy at 4 months done with hearing about it? Just no. He definitely hasn’t any clue the magnitude of trauma he inflicted. I question whether he truly is sorry or remorseful.

This is a positive, for an admitted cheater?

Yes. Anything to protect the family/betrayed. Post-nup, individual therapy, vasectomy. Definitely.

Hmmm. I would not argue with you, but the number of men I've heard say that a vasectomy would make it easier to cheat can't be counted on both hands. (I'm a doctor, and it was often said jokingly not-joking, if you know what I mean. It's on their minds.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the people telling you to let it go have never been where you are, OP. I have. You need information, and your DH should be willing to answer every single questions you have until you don't need to ask them any more. The mind movies you experience, the need to know every detail - it's so you can heal, not to punish him. And he should know that. My DH answered every question I had, even ones I had already asked. He said he had the absolute responsibility to help me heal, and that *I* got to decide what that looked like.

Four months is absolutely nothing. Of course the cheater wants it all to be over. But it isn't FOR YOU. So ask your questions. And find a decent therapist, cause neither mine nor my DH's would ever say that four months was adequate to get over this.

Agree. 4 months was absolutely still ground zero in our house. I was still barely functioning. Spouse was in the thick of his own therapy. I had not even agreed to couples counseling at that point. I didn’t ask for anything- my spouse provided it and went through the interrogations and calmly answered questions over and over as the mind movies and triggers were just awful for me. I couldn’t sleep. Nights were the worst.0 He took over everything in the house and was fully supportive. He read so many books about helping me heal and went out and got a vasectomy on his own accord. Told me to draft any pre-nup I needed, etc. It was 6 moths before I even agreed to couples therapy because he needed his own work first.

But this guy at 4 months done with hearing about it? Just no. He definitely hasn’t any clue the magnitude of trauma he inflicted. I question whether he truly is sorry or remorseful.

Totally agree. This was my exact experience as well. 4 months is NOTHING in the healing process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of the people telling you to let it go have never been where you are, OP. I have. You need information, and your DH should be willing to answer every single questions you have until you don't need to ask them any more. The mind movies you experience, the need to know every detail - it's so you can heal, not to punish him. And he should know that. My DH answered every question I had, even ones I had already asked. He said he had the absolute responsibility to help me heal, and that *I* got to decide what that looked like.

Four months is absolutely nothing. Of course the cheater wants it all to be over. But it isn't FOR YOU. So ask your questions. And find a decent therapist, cause neither mine nor my DH's would ever say that four months was adequate to get over this.

Everyone in the thread saying "stop punishing him" needs to read the bolded. This is a super fresh wound. OP is trying to heal, not to harm her husband. When you hurt someone really, really badly, you need to understand this dynamic. The guilt and shame you feel? That's coming from you, it's not something your hurt spouse (or whoever) is trying to make you feel. They just want to understand, process, figure out a way forward. And that might mean talking about it, asking questions.

I think OP is trying to figure out how deep the harm goes. That's what the questions are for. How bad was it? What exactly is she forgiving him for? She wants to know the details to understand if, knowing them, trust can be repaired. It has nothing to do with punishing him and everything to do with her getting the information she needs to know whether this can be mended, or to know what needs to happen in order for it to be mended.

Avoiding the conversation is not going to solve it. He needs to be ready for total honesty and for it to take months to get through it. I don't think you can start arguing that it's time to stop talking about until at least as much time as elapsed since discovery as the affair went on. At LEAST. OP isn't even halfway there yet.

[Anonymous]

I just want to note that this is classic DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim and offender) behavior. Since the affair has been discovered and admitted to he can no longer deny it outright. But he can deny it was a big deal, or deny that it matters anymore. He can attack OP for asking him questions, and he can turn himself into the victim (see all the "why are you punishing him??" comments in this thread, as though asking a question is a "punishment").

DARVO is really common in abusers but it can pop up in any relationship with unequal power dynamics or a lack of mutual respect and care. The goal is to distract you from their bad behavior or to make it seem like you are both equally at fault. So even though he was the one who cheated, he can use DARVO to relieve his guilt and absolve himself by making it seem like the fact that you don't trust him or can't "let it go" (both direct consequences of HIS actions, and not failures or flaws on OP's part) is equally to blame for your marital strife.

I'm not an expert so I don't know if you can fix this dynamic, but I know from my experience that dealing with someone who is DARVOing can be really demoralizing -- I think it's a form of gaslighting. In my case I had to separate and literally move on from the person because their denials and attacks came to feel almost as harmful as the original bad behavior. But in my case it wasn't a spouse, so it was easer to unravel that relationship (still emotionally very hard, but easier than dissolving a marriage).

Good luck OP. Know you have every right to still feel hurt and to still want answers.

[Anonymous]

There is non need for all this talk. The op needs to divorce her husband and that’s it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the people telling you to let it go have never been where you are, OP. I have. You need information, and your DH should be willing to answer every single questions you have until you don't need to ask them any more. The mind movies you experience, the need to know every detail - it's so you can heal, not to punish him. And he should know that. My DH answered every question I had, even ones I had already asked. He said he had the absolute responsibility to help me heal, and that *I* got to decide what that looked like.

Four months is absolutely nothing. Of course the cheater wants it all to be over. But it isn't FOR YOU. So ask your questions. And find a decent therapist, cause neither mine nor my DH's would ever say that four months was adequate to get over this.

Everyone in the thread saying "stop punishing him" needs to read the bolded. This is a super fresh wound. OP is trying to heal, not to harm her husband. When you hurt someone really, really badly, you need to understand this dynamic. The guilt and shame you feel? That's coming from you, it's not something your hurt spouse (or whoever) is trying to make you feel. They just want to understand, process, figure out a way forward. And that might mean talking about it, asking questions.

I think OP is trying to figure out how deep the harm goes. That's what the questions are for. How bad was it? What exactly is she forgiving him for? She wants to know the details to understand if, knowing them, trust can be repaired. It has nothing to do with punishing him and everything to do with her getting the information she needs to know whether this can be mended, or to know what needs to happen in order for it to be mended.

Avoiding the conversation is not going to solve it. He needs to be ready for total honesty and for it to take months to get through it. I don't think you can start arguing that it's time to stop talking about until at least as much time as elapsed since discovery as the affair went on. At LEAST. OP isn't even halfway there yet.

... if he wants to stay with her, and she with him. I'm not trying to defend what he did (I've never cheated). You just have to be realistic about what might lie ahead, and preparing for this possibility as well is part of protecting yourself. If all you do is lay yourself bare and vulnerable because he HAS TO be there in the right way, then what happens if he just bags out? Don't let the first time you seriously consider it be with tears on your face while you are still insisting on what you need, and he is giving you the name of his attorney for your records.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the people telling you to let it go have never been where you are, OP. I have. You need information, and your DH should be willing to answer every single questions you have until you don't need to ask them any more. The mind movies you experience, the need to know every detail - it's so you can heal, not to punish him. And he should know that. My DH answered every question I had, even ones I had already asked. He said he had the absolute responsibility to help me heal, and that *I* got to decide what that looked like.

Four months is absolutely nothing. Of course the cheater wants it all to be over. But it isn't FOR YOU. So ask your questions. And find a decent therapist, cause neither mine nor my DH's would ever say that four months was adequate to get over this.

Everyone in the thread saying "stop punishing him" needs to read the bolded. This is a super fresh wound. OP is trying to heal, not to harm her husband. When you hurt someone really, really badly, you need to understand this dynamic. The guilt and shame you feel? That's coming from you, it's not something your hurt spouse (or whoever) is trying to make you feel. They just want to understand, process, figure out a way forward. And that might mean talking about it, asking questions.

I think OP is trying to figure out how deep the harm goes. That's what the questions are for. How bad was it? What exactly is she forgiving him for? She wants to know the details to understand if, knowing them, trust can be repaired. It has nothing to do with punishing him and everything to do with her getting the information she needs to know whether this can be mended, or to know what needs to happen in order for it to be mended.

Avoiding the conversation is not going to solve it. He needs to be ready for total honesty and for it to take months to get through it. I don't think you can start arguing that it's time to stop talking about until at least as much time as elapsed since discovery as the affair went on. At LEAST. OP isn't even halfway there yet.

... if he wants to stay with her, and she with him. I'm not trying to defend what he did (I've never cheated). You just have to be realistic about what might lie ahead, and preparing for this possibility as well is part of protecting yourself. If all you do is lay yourself bare and vulnerable because he HAS TO be there in the right way, then what happens if he just bags out? Don't let the first time you seriously consider it be with tears on your face while you are still insisting on what you need, and he is giving you the name of his attorney for your records.

But perhaps the only way to get to that point is to lay it all out.

He's the one displaying avoidant behavior, so I don't think he's eager to divorce, despite the affair. He wants to "forget about it" specifically so they don't divorce.

One thing about many men is that even if they hate the sexual confines of marriage, they otherwise LOVE marriage. That's because marriage is set up to benefit men more than women. I've known so many men who cheated or otherwise betrayed their wives (financial betrayals, years of lying, you name it), but when push came to shove, they were begging their wives to stay. They didn't want to actually adhere to their marriage vows, but the idea of divorce was terrifying to them because they still wanted a woman to take care of them and make a home for them. This is true even in marriages where both partners work and you think of it as egalitarian -- women offer a lot of benefits to men just in terms of making life nicer, and many married men are terrified of what bachelor life actually looks like.

I think OP wants to know the details so she can decide whether the marriage is worth saving. And her DH knows it, and wants to withhold the details so she can't get too mad. She wants to address the issues and resolve them (and one possible resolution is of course divorce) but he wants to avoid the issues because that one possible resolution scares him too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It is sad that some wives end up being more intimate with the AP than their cheating husband ever was- they research, do In-depth analysis and extrapolate a great more from the relationship than ever existed. And more time wasted searching for the elusive answer to “Why?”

You can’t understand unless you’re in the situation. Sad implies the wife is being pathetic or weak, which is incredibly unfair and completely lacking in empathy

I meant to imply that the two women (AP and betrayed spouse) probably think and know more about each other in a layered intimate strangers fashion. After a certain point, it is some sort of mental atavistic mate competition that has little to do with the actual cheater. Both women have over-exaggerated ideas of the expanse and depth of the relationship, while the cheater is oblivious to all this manufactured nuance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just want to note that this is classic DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim and offender) behavior. Since the affair has been discovered and admitted to he can no longer deny it outright. But he can deny it was a big deal, or deny that it matters anymore. He can attack OP for asking him questions, and he can turn himself into the victim (see all the "why are you punishing him??" comments in this thread, as though asking a question is a "punishment").

DARVO is really common in abusers but it can pop up in any relationship with unequal power dynamics or a lack of mutual respect and care. The goal is to distract you from their bad behavior or to make it seem like you are both equally at fault. So even though he was the one who cheated, he can use DARVO to relieve his guilt and absolve himself by making it seem like the fact that you don't trust him or can't "let it go" (both direct consequences of HIS actions, and not failures or flaws on OP's part) is equally to blame for your marital strife.

I'm not an expert so I don't know if you can fix this dynamic, but I know from my experience that dealing with someone who is DARVOing can be really demoralizing -- I think it's a form of gaslighting. In my case I had to separate and literally move on from the person because their denials and attacks came to feel almost as harmful as the original bad behavior. But in my case it wasn't a spouse, so it was easer to unravel that relationship (still emotionally very hard, but easier than dissolving a marriage).

Good luck OP. Know you have every right to still feel hurt and to still want answers.

Yes, agree, thank you for bringing up DARVO. It's always surprising to me how many people pop into threads like this to victim-blame as some sort of projected defense of their own emotional frailty. "The problem isn't what I did! The problem is you talking about what I did!" Yup yup, makes total sense. Do whatever the hell you want, but if other people have feelings or thoughts about it and dare to speak them out loud, then you are definitely a big fat victim.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the people telling you to let it go have never been where you are, OP. I have. You need information, and your DH should be willing to answer every single questions you have until you don't need to ask them any more. The mind movies you experience, the need to know every detail - it's so you can heal, not to punish him. And he should know that. My DH answered every question I had, even ones I had already asked. He said he had the absolute responsibility to help me heal, and that *I* got to decide what that looked like.

Four months is absolutely nothing. Of course the cheater wants it all to be over. But it isn't FOR YOU. So ask your questions. And find a decent therapist, cause neither mine nor my DH's would ever say that four months was adequate to get over this.

Everyone in the thread saying "stop punishing him" needs to read the bolded. This is a super fresh wound. OP is trying to heal, not to harm her husband. When you hurt someone really, really badly, you need to understand this dynamic. The guilt and shame you feel? That's coming from you, it's not something your hurt spouse (or whoever) is trying to make you feel. They just want to understand, process, figure out a way forward. And that might mean talking about it, asking questions.

I think OP is trying to figure out how deep the harm goes. That's what the questions are for. How bad was it? What exactly is she forgiving him for? She wants to know the details to understand if, knowing them, trust can be repaired. It has nothing to do with punishing him and everything to do with her getting the information she needs to know whether this can be mended, or to know what needs to happen in order for it to be mended.

Avoiding the conversation is not going to solve it. He needs to be ready for total honesty and for it to take months to get through it. I don't think you can start arguing that it's time to stop talking about until at least as much time as elapsed since discovery as the affair went on. At LEAST. OP isn't even halfway there yet.

... if he wants to stay with her, and she with him. I'm not trying to defend what he did (I've never cheated). You just have to be realistic about what might lie ahead, and preparing for this possibility as well is part of protecting yourself. If all you do is lay yourself bare and vulnerable because he HAS TO be there in the right way, then what happens if he just bags out? Don't let the first time you seriously consider it be with tears on your face while you are still insisting on what you need, and he is giving you the name of his attorney for your records.

But perhaps the only way to get to that point is to lay it all out.

He's the one displaying avoidant behavior, so I don't think he's eager to divorce, despite the affair. He wants to "forget about it" specifically so they don't divorce.

One thing about many men is that even if they hate the sexual confines of marriage, they otherwise LOVE marriage. That's because marriage is set up to benefit men more than women. I've known so many men who cheated or otherwise betrayed their wives (financial betrayals, years of lying, you name it), but when push came to shove, they were begging their wives to stay. They didn't want to actually adhere to their marriage vows, but the idea of divorce was terrifying to them because they still wanted a woman to take care of them and make a home for them. This is true even in marriages where both partners work and you think of it as egalitarian -- women offer a lot of benefits to men just in terms of making life nicer, and many married men are terrified of what bachelor life actually looks like.

I think OP wants to know the details so she can decide whether the marriage is worth saving. And her DH knows it, and wants to withhold the details so she can't get too mad. She wants to address the issues and resolve them (and one possible resolution is of course divorce) but he wants to avoid the issues because that one possible resolution scares him too much.

No disagreement on that analysis from me, other than to point out that many men do want to stay, and avoid leaving for just those reasons, but some do not. A lot of them move on, and then it's "did you hear that he got married again right away" and "who does that?" People who don't deal with themselves well, who don't have an inner peace and integrity, that's who does that. Cheaters. The people who can't deal with hard emotions. The ones who never learned how, or don't really care to when it comes down to it, or just can't. They don't like being unmarried and not being taken care of, and they don't have qualms about fixing that situation (or don't acknowledge/deal with those qualms they should have.

Cheating is a nuclear bomb to a relationship. Some people can and will stay to repair the countryside and heal other people. Some won't. It's not always the ones you think, either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It is sad that some wives end up being more intimate with the AP than their cheating husband ever was- they research, do In-depth analysis and extrapolate a great more from the relationship than ever existed. And more time wasted searching for the elusive answer to “Why?”

You can’t understand unless you’re in the situation. Sad implies the wife is being pathetic or weak, which is incredibly unfair and completely lacking in empathy

I meant to imply that the two women (AP and betrayed spouse) probably think and know more about each other in a layered intimate strangers fashion. After a certain point, it is some sort of mental atavistic mate competition that has little to do with the actual cheater. Both women have over-exaggerated ideas of the expanse and depth of the relationship, while the cheater is oblivious to all this manufactured nuance.

Yep. For men, it's pump and dump. Just sex. They might have played the fantasy mushy-wushy---but when the chips are down they are DONE. The women fixate on it for years after.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Marriage is doomed.

Why do you say this?

You are never going to let it go. You will always have questions. Even 10 years from now you will have doubts and questions. He will get tired of eating shit.

If he wants to stay with her, he will do what he needs to do to and will be patient.

No woman is worth that much PP.

- guy

Ha I love this sort of male delusion sometimes, the way mediocre men think that even a sad sack of a man is the ultimate prize. It never seems to occur to them that a man who cheated and can't be patient is not worth being married to.