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And for what it’s worth, I wasn’t singling out anyones advice, I just felt like the last thing a bs needs on top of this shit show is being shamed for not being decisive more quickly.

So while I agree no one should tolerate abuse, I think what we are seeing is him experimenting with what works and doesn’t for him. It’s a process and one he shouldn’t be shamed for. Period.

HikingOut, I agree with your recent posts. Our thinking is aligned.

I do want to make it clear though that I do not feel ashamed or bullied by any posts that suggest different actions than the ones I take. Ultimately, while I respect (most of) your opinions, you're all strangers on the internet. I know that is an issue for many though, so I appreciate the consideration. Honestly, that's why my WW isn't posting here--she's too affected by it all.

I come here to write, which helps me more than anything else. And I also get to read some great feedback. That's it.

I agree, however you know what you are working with and that’s why you divorced. Your husband was a drug addict and a serial cheater. I understand it doesn’t matter why he was but you did have to recognize he was too broken for you to ever be safe.

I guess the thing is, I could have done this with him indefintely if I were more concerned about the abuse he endured as a child than about the abuse I endured over his cheating. He started with the cheating, the drugs came much later and were the only reason I caught him. He was a sad tragic person who probably would have been a decent human being given a different childhood. He wasn't all bad. He did a lot of things post DDay that even most of the ONS WSs don't do. He sought help, was in therapy, surrounded himself with people in recovery, made financial restitution to me, etc. It's easy to say "well you were married to a sex addicted crackhead so of course you left" but he wasn't all that different from a lot of WSs. Even the far out there ones aren't particularly unique. He was kinder to me than Drstrangelove's WW has been to him in the aftermath. I didn't get any of this level of abuse. As hopeless as he was, he made strides in a few months that lots here don't. Most of the reason we weren't together long after DDay was that his cheating had been a complete dealbreaker for me. If I were a different person, I certainly could have hung around for a few years helping him recover from his own actions.

Honestly, I don’t know that’s what we are working with here. We have a woman who obviously has built up resentment. Who is not remorseful because she is caught up in her own feelings and can’t unwind it. This is a description of most any ws, some of which grew and the couple reconciled. He wants to see if that is possible.

I get it, but what he's describing is arguably worse than what I endured post-DDay. 5 months after DDay I had what most would describe as a remorseful spouse who was trying to fix himself. He was still on his recovery high.

No one thinks he shouldn’t protect himself in that process. It’s taking him time to catch in to that and how to trust his instincts on things. My whole point was to be patient with him, not her. And for some reason this is translating into he should stay and be abused. I don’t get that at all.

Whether he leaves or not is up to him and I don't fault him either way. I've just been reading his threads for quite a while and I feel sadness for him that he's living with this treatment. Not even I left at the 5 month mark, I get that. It took me 8 months. I do feel that when one is being emotionally abused, it's always best to leave. Always. Every single time. To not express that for me is to downplay how damaging emotional abuse really is.

And I'm not sure how encouraging him to stick to his boundaries,and not be abused equals shaming him.

Dee is correct. If this were a woman being treated like this, after sex, we would all be horrified.

Regardless, Doc doesn't feel she's abusive,so I will stop using that word.

She needs more time to stop being cruel to her husband. I hope the damage she causes in the meantime is easier to heal from.

[This message edited by HellFire at 6:06 PM, Friday, August 26th]

Doc, you don't feel the things she says are intentional.

Does she regularly say cruel things to the people in her life,who upset her?

Your wife has an established history of people pleasing by offering sex that she does not want. Her low self esteem and attraction to asshole male behavior is most likely caused by underlying wounds, and it has led her to consistently swallow her anger and build resentment. Now it's reached the point where that world view is at imminent risk of ending her marriage. So you made a joke to your MC about how your wife's free consent is of no interest to you once your dick is in her mouth, and the MC laughed out loud? Your wife's licensed counselor, whom she is supposed to trust to be vulnerable, thought that was funny and joined with you in mocking her?

If this is true, she should have walked out of that room, signed that lease, and never spoken to either of you again except through an attorney.

I'm may regret engaging on this, but I'm in a good mental space right now, so I'll give it a shot.

My WW can do what she likes--she has total and free consent. She can choose to blow me, not blow me, and everything in between. So if she enthusiastically rips off her cloths and puts her hand in my pants to initiate a sexual situation, it's a decision she makes with free consent. If she starts to give me oral sex--it's another decision she makes with free consent. If she then stops midway to tell me she is no longer comfortable giving me oral sex--again, another decision she makes with free consent.

Stopping midway, before she got so angry, would certainly have been preferable to what she ultimately chose to do. My point was that the most ideal situation was her not giving the BJ to begin with, followed by her giving the BJ to completion and then us discussing it later on. I'll create a ranked list to illustrate this further, from most to least ideal:

1. My wife wants to give me a BJ and gives me a BJ--she is filled with feelings of love and respect for her husband, who reciprocates her positive gesture.
2. My wife does not want to give a BJ and tells me so--and does not give me a BJ.
3. My wife does not want to give a BJ and does not tell me so--and gives me a BJ. We discuss the incident later on.
4. My wife does not want to give a BJ and does not tell me so--and stops halfway through upset, but not yet angry.
5. My wife does not want to give a BJ and does not tell me so--and completes the BJ and gets angry with me for doing it.

As for the MC, we've become very comfortable in the sessions with her and both really like her. The joke I made was in a light moment and both the MC *and* my WW laughed. It provided some levity. It's clear it offended you, and I'm ok with that too--that's on you to examine further or ignore.

It's unlikely I'll address this topic again.

Doc, does she say cruel things to everyone? Your kids? Friends? Colleagues? Family? Anyone? Just you?

She's cruel to everyone at times. She is almost never cruel to peoples' faces though, including me. She weaponizes sex to act out her cruelty toward me--that's really the only way she does it. I suspect she acts out her cruelty to others in different ways--with her family, perhaps she'll withhold contact of the kids; I don't really know.

I may have discussed this a bit awhile back, but the badmouthing of me to her mom, friends and AP was not out of character. She badmouths her family, my family, her co-workers, etc. all the time. My ignorance was that I did not think she was badmouthing me to others.

I will note, she has gotten significantly better on that front since DDay. She's not venting about other people much at all anymore.

Personally, if I were Doc, I would take a full stop and step back — let his mind clear a bit — and focus more on what his goals are overall and see how he wants to get there.

OldWounds, I appreciate your post. This is where I'm at today. I woke up yesterday feeling like I was on a runaway train and I wasn't sure how I got there or where I was going. I reset yesterday--writing a lot of posts I think helped organize many of my thoughts.

I went to bed feeling good yesterday and woke up the same. And my attitude very much dictates my WW's attitude--she seems to go as I go.

I'm home alone today and we've exchanged some good texts. I'm hoping I can string together a week like this. With the kids gone, there's immeasurably less stress for us, so it's highly unlikely that we have any kind of emotional incident. We'll see though.

Hellfire- I am 100 percent clear that everyone has the best intentions and that we only have our own experience to draw from. There was shaming occurring but I am not sure why you feel this is being pinpointed at you unless you feel you were doing that? There are many shaming posts even before he decided not to separate. I have never seen old wounds ever comment about something like that before so I am not alone in what I am seeing.

My intention for explaining her behavior is to mark between where she is and what progress would look like. I think we all want Doc to not be in more pain or longer than he needs to be. I have many times pointed out when she is being inauthentic, what she should do instead, etc. if you have waded though the novels I have written I am not sure how you can’t see that most anytime I am explaining possible reasons behind the behavior I am coaching him it why he needs to detach and protect himself. The conditioning within her is deep and it’s very hard work to get out of, that is a caution to him not an excuse.

Anyway, he seems fine with it so I don’t need to say anymore here.

I'm with Hellfire on this. Every single person who abuses someone has reasons that they're like that. Usually they're very sad reasons. They were abused emotionally, sexually or physically, they have mental health struggles, their parents sucked, a tragic event happened in their childhood, etc. and so on. Every single abusive person has a reason. Some of those reasons could bring us to tears in empathy and sorrow. Most people don't come right out of the womb as assholes. It is very possible to feel sad for the reasons a person abuses us and still extricate ourselves from being abused. It is not the job of the abused to perform psychotherapy on their abuser. That's the job of actual mental health professionals.

When someone is abusing you, they by definition do not respect you. It is not safe to live with someone who doesn't respect you.

I also see the misandry. If you were a woman, Drstrangelove, I expect everyone here would be screaming for you to leave and get somewhere safe. We switch the genders on this and it looks pretty bad, right? I tried to imagine how devastated and wrecked I would be if I had a partner enthusiastically begin seducing me and then after it was over treat me like I was disgusting and wasting his time. That is profoundly traumatic stuff. That is horrible behavior. It's a sexual wound. I am so sorry that you've been subjected to that.

You can stay and psychoanalyze her until you know this woman inside and out. Hell, I could write a 20 page thesis breaking down why my XWH turned out to be a serial cheater. There were lots of truly sad reasons. So what? Understanding him didn't make me safe with him.

I know it feels like people are pushing you to leave. I guess that's true in a sense. I see someone being abused and I want them to leave and save themselves further pain and trauma. Think of it as us caring what happens to you.

Dee, thank you for the post. It's entirely reasonable and I think the advice is sound.

I see a light at the end of the tunnel for my WW; I feel like it's possible she can get there and exercise her demons. I feel like she could be a safe partner for me. Nothing is certain--I can't even determine the likelihood--but right now I'm giving it a shot for my kids. It's on me to figure out if I need to give up and I'm not there yet.

I also suspect that my perceived optimism is sourced from how simple I feel the solution is. As you fairly layout, her seducing me and then demeaning me is ruthless behavior, but it's also specific and seemingly very avoidable. It's also largely identifiable. We can parse out the grey of the BJ incident, but on a long enough timeline, her nature will be revealed. If she can't change, she won't be able to hide it long and I'll have my answer.

At the end of First Blood, Colonel Trautman asks John Rambo how he's going to live. Rambo replies simply, "Day by day."

I need to own that mindset. I'm not in this space forever. I'm in it today.

Doc, you have our support with whichever path you travel.

Thank you, Iggyb.

Whether he leaves or not is up to him and I don't fault him either way. I've just been reading his threads for quite a while and I feel sadness for him that he's living with this treatment. Not even I left at the 5 month mark, I get that. It took me 8 months. I do feel that when one is being emotionally abused, it's always best to leave. Always. Every single time. To not express that for me is to downplay how damaging emotional abuse really is.

Dee, that's fair, but I do feel some context here is valuable. She has been emotionally abusive our entire relationship. I seemingly knew it and accepted it. I still don't entirely understand why, but I did. The affair lit it all up in neon lights.

For another movie reference, it's like the scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when Indy and Willie are in the hidden tunnel--Indy lights a torch to discover the entre floor is covered in rats. The affair was that torch--I was walking on rats my entire marriage and ignored it.

So now we're post-DDay and she has this destructive affair thrown into the middle of our relationship--but for me, my anger now is directed at all the emotional abuse I was ignoring all these years. The affair just makes it all the more absurd--there's no logic to it. She was making me feel like a POS in the bedroom for wanting to be intimate with her while she was gleefully wandering to a dirty parking garage without underwear in the middle of winter to blow another man. It's a juxtaposition too absurd--it's impossible for me to ignore another second.

The affair almost feels like a distraction to me at this point--I'm asking her to go way deeper and right away. So I'll be vigilant for her to make progress and stop abusing me, but I also have to own some of the blame for enabling my own abuse all these years.

Ok,that's what I thought. She bitches about people behind their backs.

But it's only you that she is cruel to, face to face.

So she can control it. She can keep her mouth shut. She knows when to hold her tongue.

But,with you,she is cruel directly to your face.

How is that not intentional?

And I'm not sure how encouraging him to stick to his boundaries,and not be abused equals shaming him.

I don't feel ashamed, but I understand what HikingOut means.

Your post the other day about how you saw this coming did hurt me for a moment--or at the least, I found it insensitive. There is a lot of nuance to all of this--the words, behaviors and responses are complicated. You're someone digesting each post, so I expect you realize that more than anyone.

So that post felt a bit binary for the situation. It felt like you could be trying to shame me--implying that I'm too weak to stand up for myself, even though you should well know it's not that simple. I'm an adult and can handle the slings and arrows, but to HO's point, I suspect many others wouldn't fare the same. Someone with the personality of my WW reading that, if she was in my shoes, would have probably spent the day feeling awful about herself and questioning her decision.

Again though, I don't write that to make you--or anyone else--feel bad. Keep your strong views coming. I can handle them.

HellFire, we had a nearly identical exchange on this exact topic a few months ago, but no way I'm going back to find it. Instead I'll try to expand more for the sake of clarity.

Ok,that's what I thought. She bitches about people behind their backs.

Yes, she does bitch about people behind their backs. It's a horrible trait and I admonish her for it--I suspect that adds to her resentment for me lol.

But it's only you that she is cruel to, face to face.

So she can control it. She can keep her mouth shut. She knows when to hold her tongue.

But,with you,she is cruel directly to your face.

I don't know that's true. She is passive aggressive in all of her relationships. I'd put her weaponization of sex with me into that larger bucket. By its nature, it's not direct conflict though--it's making someone feel bad while maintaining plausible deniability.

So with me, she can make a comment after sex that I find hurtful, but it's rarely entirely egregious. That's the nature of passive aggressive behavior though: "One may smile, and smile, and be a villain."

I'll make up a hypothetical, as this is probably something my WW would do. Let's say my mother buys my four-year-old daughter a dress. A kind person might think to dress my daughter in that dress the next time my mother is coming over to visit; a passive aggressive person might hide the dress in the back of the closet if my mother said or did something to upset my WW.

So is my daughter not wearing the dress at dinner with my mom an act of face-to-face cruelty to my mom? No, but it's pretty shitty. And that's how I'd describe my WW in general--by avoiding direct conflict, she allows anger to go unresolved and she enables the worst instincts within her to act out.

How is that not intentional?

Well, is passive aggressive behavior intentional? Again, I feel like we're drawing binary buckets when they're not needed nor appropriate. Her behavior is what it is--it's unresolved anger coming out as resentment in all her relationships.

With me, it's through sex; with her parents, it might be withholding access to our kids; with my mom, it could be the dress hypothetical from above; with her co-worker, maybe she'll ignore an email. It's all toxic regardless of whether it's intentional.

So in the BJ incident, it was toxic resentment, but she caught it immediately. With the incident from a few weeks ago with me giving her oral sex while she was angry, it was toxic resentment that she felt justified for--she was vicious and angry and cruel. It was very intentional and she believed she was in the right before, during and after. It took her hours to realize her shitty behavior. That's the shit that I can't live with. I think her recognizing her bad behavior immediately is progress. The intentionality in it was to apologize, not double down on her cruelty.

The affair almost feels like a distraction to me at this point--I'm asking her to go way deeper and right away. So I'll be vigilant for her to make progress and stop abusing me, but I also have to own some of the blame for enabling my own abuse all these years.

I wouldn't blame yourself for that. I think you're a very strong person. It takes a lot of strength to hold on to yourself for so many years in a marriage where you're being emotionally abused. I'll grant that you probably didn't do yourself any favors by not addressing it before, but at the same time she had 100% of the responsibility not to treat you cruelly in the first place. You didn't deserve it no matter how long you tolerated it.

I found it insensitive.

As bluerthanblue pointed out..how is it arrogant (insensitive) to have read over 100 pages of dialogue, notice a pattern,and predict the outcome?

I am not the only one who thought you wouldn't follow through.

You have quite a few patterns. I won't point them out,because I'm truly not trying to be argumentative, insensitive, or arrogant. As you have said a few times, I'm done with the subject. It's not helpful,so let's just move on.

I didn't realize she acted shitty towards everyone else in her life. I truly hope she changes, before she acts that way towards the kids. I grew up with a mother who was extremely passive aggressive. It's Hell.

[This message edited by HellFire at 7:39 PM, Friday, August 26th]

How about take sex off the table for both of you? It seems to be the boiling point in this relationship.

How about she works on why she is so damn passive aggressive by finding her voice, creating healthy boundaries and learning to communicate.

And you, Doc, work on why you allowed that passive aggressive dynamic (maybe you didn't actually give a shit if she was upset unless it was in the bedroom?) and how you can improve honest, EQUAL communication between the two of you versus rules and punishment.

The pressure and expectations surrounding sex is killing this marriage.

I didn't realize she acted shitty towards everyone else in her life. I truly hope she changes, before she acts that way towards the kids. I grew up with a mother who was extremely passive aggressive. It's Hell.

I had a mother that was like this as well, the more we learn about Mrs DrS the more I see my mom, and that may be why I keep reading. My mother verbally, physically, and mentally abused me my entire life, until I drew a firm boundary and keep her at arms length. It sucks, because she has dementia now that is rapidly worsening. But she won't admit she is having memory issues, and because I'm not involved now, my sister has become the badguy. But she didn't live w/ a life time of not being as smart as, as quiet as, as thin as, as strong as, her. She is the Golden child.

It's a very unhealthy dynamic, and like you my dad, played the passive role, and allowed it, he dealt with it mainly by drinking. So when I call them out on it now they neither remember any specific incident, but even at almost 52 the scars are still there.
Do NOT allow this to happen to your kids. Call her out everytime she pulls this shit with them, and she will, and you won't recognize it initially because you have tolerated it for so long, but when you see your kids shut down, or cry for unknown reasons, explore it, identify it and at least protect them from it.

Yes, she does bitch about people behind their backs. It's a horrible trait and I admonish her for it--I suspect that adds to her resentment for me lol.

Now you're triggering my ghosts. My ex did that. It's such a relief to no longer be married to someone that is always looking for the bad in others. Does your WW have any long term close friends? Or does she tend to rotate through new ones?

Doc - I also think you need to recognize something that you currently don’t see and aren’t experiencing.

We agree that your WWs treatment of you sexually pre A was abusive. We agree that her badmouthing of you pre and during A was abusive. We agree that her A was abusive. Finally, we agree that your WW continues to abuse you with respect to your sexual relationship.

However, this is where I think we diverge. For 99.9 percent of BHs, continued abuse wrt sex by their WW 5 months post A, or anytime during R, would be a dealbreaker. However, you’re not like 99.9 percent of BHs because your sexual kink allowed you to move past the fact that your wife had "an intense, highly deceptive affair."

Now, for a moment, try to put yourself in your own shoes minus your kink. Then imagine, and put into this construct, your WWs behavior wrt the BJ last week snd her other post A sexual belittling, anger, and resentment towards you. Like the 99.9% of BHs, I think this would be a dealbreaker for you.

Think about it. Doc doesn’t have, nor ever had, his sexual kink. His wife treats him like crap in the bedroom pre A, continues to do so during her A, badmouths you all the while, then cheats on you. And now, as you try to R, she continues to treat you like crap in the bedroom.

I don’t think that Doc without his kink, nor 99.9 percent of BHs, would stand for this. So to me, your kink is an enabling function for you to continue to tolerate abuse. I think that deserves some thought.