I will try to make this short. 8 years ago, after 7 awesome years together, after some devastating news about his son from his first marriage my husband had a mental health crash. We both believe now that he is either BPD or has strong BPD tendencies. During those 8 years he seemed incapable of being there for me emotionally and raged often. I stayed because he always said he wanted to make things better and yet the important things didn't change in all that time. 4 years ago, I got really serious about fixing things and did a ton of research on marriage help and changed my own actions in response to his anger blowups. I dragged us around to two different marriage counselors and signed us up for a couple's communication course, all of which he sabotaged badly. I then took myself to a counselor as well as our doctor asking for help in helping my husband with his issues. Took awhile but I had to be convinced that not only was it not my job to "fix" him, and I needed to work on myself so I did. In the past 3 years, I've made huge changes in myself, losing 130 lbs and gaining self confidence and my physical health back.
A little less than a year ago, I sat my husband down and explained that his inability to give me the emotional support I need was affecting me greatly and that I knew I was entitled to that after being there throughout his "crash" (as he calls it). He agreed to make more of an effort and yet it didn't change. I'm not proud but I then started to seek out that emotional support for myself and had an affair. 8 months ago, he discovered the affair and vowed once again to make changes. I gave him 6 months to get professional help and while he did get his meds adjusted, and made changes like starting to shower every day, brush his teeth every day (yes, it had gotten that bad) he never did seek the kind of professional help needed. I let it go for 8 months and by chance met another man who started meeting my emotional needs. I made a counseling appointment for myself in order to decide if I could continue on with my marriage under the conditions and that blew things wide open for my husband I think. That's when he told me about his affair and I told him about the guy I was talking to. I had known he had had an affair because of how he rationalized treating me so badly over the years and how I saw him emotionally support various women friends while not being there for me. But the affair turned out to be worse than I could have imagined. It happened precisely during the time I was working my butt off 4 years ago going to marriage counselors etc.. It was with a supposed friend of mine, it went on for almost a year and he was still in touch with her. I didn't care so much about him having had sex with her as much as when I confronted her, she told me how much he was emotionally there for her. That has stabbed me in the back. This information came out only 2 weeks ago.
I have stopped seeing the man I met and he cut off communication with that woman. He swears now that he wants to fix it for us and be there for me, and he has sought psychiatric care as well as looking into DBT and CBT but nothing has begun yet. He has also listened to me effectively for the first time in most of the 8 years. I told him I am unsure I can believe he's going to follow through on getting help with his issues and learn to depend on him after all that has happened. I've been through so much and had to learn to emotionally pull away from him because his anger outbursts were so painful over the years. I do think I want to try but after so many years of him making false promises to follow through I am having difficulty having the hope I actually want to have and to feel like I can fully invest again. I am going to ask my counselor about this and what I need from him to be able to trust that he really means it this time, but I thought I'd post here and get ideas about how I can get past this and work on us with the same effort I gave when I now know he was having an affair. My biggest issues is all of this time I thought because of his issues he was unable to give me the kind of emotional support I needed (and he had given me for the first 7 years we were together) but now I know he made the choice to take it from me and give it to other women. I want to get past that but I'm struggling.
A little less than a year ago, I sat my husband down and explained that his inability to give me the emotional support I need was affecting me greatly and that I knew I was entitled to that after being there throughout his "crash" (as he calls it). He agreed to make more of an effort and yet it didn't change. I'm not proud but I then started to seek out that emotional support for myself and had an affair. 8 months ago, he discovered the affair and vowed once again to make changes. I gave him 6 months to get professional help and while he did get his meds adjusted, and made changes like starting to shower every day, brush his teeth every day (yes, it had gotten that bad) he never did seek the kind of professional help needed. I let it go for 8 months and by chance met another man who started meeting my emotional needs. I made a counseling appointment for myself in order to decide if I could continue on with my marriage under the conditions and that blew things wide open for my husband I think. That's when he told me about his affair and I told him about the guy I was talking to. I had known he had had an affair because of how he rationalized treating me so badly over the years and how I saw him emotionally support various women friends while not being there for me. But the affair turned out to be worse than I could have imagined. It happened precisely during the time I was working my butt off 4 years ago going to marriage counselors etc.. It was with a supposed friend of mine, it went on for almost a year and he was still in touch with her. I didn't care so much about him having had sex with her as much as when I confronted her, she told me how much he was emotionally there for her. That has stabbed me in the back. This information came out only 2 weeks ago.
I have stopped seeing the man I met and he cut off communication with that woman. He swears now that he wants to fix it for us and be there for me, and he has sought psychiatric care as well as looking into DBT and CBT but nothing has begun yet. He has also listened to me effectively for the first time in most of the 8 years. I told him I am unsure I can believe he's going to follow through on getting help with his issues and learn to depend on him after all that has happened. I've been through so much and had to learn to emotionally pull away from him because his anger outbursts were so painful over the years. I do think I want to try but after so many years of him making false promises to follow through I am having difficulty having the hope I actually want to have and to feel like I can fully invest again. I am going to ask my counselor about this and what I need from him to be able to trust that he really means it this time, but I thought I'd post here and get ideas about how I can get past this and work on us with the same effort I gave when I now know he was having an affair. My biggest issues is all of this time I thought because of his issues he was unable to give me the kind of emotional support I needed (and he had given me for the first 7 years we were together) but now I know he made the choice to take it from me and give it to other women. I want to get past that but I'm struggling.
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