Old wounds reopened
I guess I’ll just cut straight to it. It’s going to be kind of long, so if you read it all I appreciate you.
My husband and I haven’t really been super happy for a bit. We get along, we enjoy each other, but it’s just going through the motions. Well a few years ago he relapsed into addiction and cheated on me for months. He all but abandoned me after having our baby and breaking my ankle. I was so miserable. And when I found out about the cheating I had a psychotic breakdown for a bit. It was bad. I went through a lot of therapy and we did couples counseling and mostly got past it. I’ve been over it for a while. To the point where I can even see the girl now and just laugh rather than getting mad.
Today he told me he stole my phone while I was sleeping and went through my hidden photos. I thought that was strange but whatever I don’t have anything to hide. I figured he was upset because I never deleted the proof of him cheating. I deleted all the screenshots and anything that wasn’t helpful to us. He finally confronted me and told me he was upset over a message I sent to someone while we were separated that was saved there. I didn’t even realize it was saved and I deleted it before he even said anything coz I didn’t care about it. But all of the sudden he decided it needed to be a problem. It wouldn’t be as bad if this was a one time thing. But he’s constantly being moody without communicating. He always looking for reasons to target me. Everything comes back to me in his mind. I ask the bare minimum. I take care of the house, I take care of the kids, I cook, I clean, I do his laundry and dishes, I do everything. All I ask for is respect. But he has to wait until all the kids are around to target me and make a problem out of nothing rather than listening to me. All the feelings of feeling like my effort wasn’t matched never have gone away from before when things were really bad. But when things like this happen, I go right back to that place of feeling like a worthless being that can’t do anything right. I feel the spiral starting and I think I want to leave so my kids don’t have to see this ever again. My daughters are pre teens and I really want them to see how a relationship should be. I don’t know what to do. Or maybe I do and I just don’t know how. Either way I feel hopeless and like I’m failing someone no matter which way I turn.
@K3ls4ur
You have been through so much 🥺
Thank you for sharing and your honesty.
It's not easy.
You are right, your girls need to see a relationship modelled on love, kindness and respect.
You ate a good mother and it's clear you love them.
It's important to do what's best for you all.
💖💖
@K3ls4ur
if he is looking for something to criticize or make you look bad etc......... perhaps it is his guilt trying to even the playing field. Some find fault to not feel they are the ones who broke it. Can you have a productive conversation about you feel he is looking for something to complain about?
I agree that you do not want kids to think certain things in a relationship is normal. Is he trying to have you do extra or such to appease him?
Cheating or betrayal of a certain level even if it is worked past is like a big crack we can look over most days but still Know it is there. If that is what we focus on that is all we can see is the crack. We know how we feel after the counseling etc but our partners can have issues they have not worked out for themselves.
I’m going to try to have a productive talk with him about it today. I really do think it’s guilt and him wanting me to have some of it. But it’s hard to keep it together when I’m being portrayed the way he is trying to. Things blew up last night and he took a drive at 3 am and then came back talking about thoughts of “unaliving”. And while I am concerned and care deeply it’s hard for me to see what is just manipulation trying to make me feel bad and what is actually going on.
@K3ls4ur
It sounds like he has some things to work on at maybe talk about. Some people it seems often male have not learned to open up about deep feelings.
I think sometimes if a person does something they cannot seem to accept forgiveness because they have not forgiven themselves.
some people want to justify by telling others even themselves it was because of something other than they made a bad choice.
