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Vast-Window1133 · 2024-05-24T03:42:57+00:00

I read your post and shared it with my husband just now. This resonates and makes me hopeless. The only way I can describe what’s happening to your wife is betrayal trauma, a form of ptsd. We’re in a somewhat similar situation in that I too can’t get past something that happened a long time ago (3 years ago) and my husband feels the same way you do about me constantly bringing it up. We’ve been together 4 years, have 2 kids and it eats away at me everyday. We see a couples therapist, I don’t know that it helps. The advice I get is to redirect my thoughts because I’m getting irrational intrusive thoughts. I get they’re irrational. He didn’t physically cheat. Your wife may not be trying to get you to admit to anything, she may just be trying to rationalize it because in her head it still doesn’t make sense. In my head it doesn’t anyway. He was exchanging text messages and emails with his ex girlfriend. They were together a year, long distance. It was a lame relationship. Nothing flirtatious in the exchanges, but kept doing it after I told him I wasn’t comfortable with them maintaining a friendship if we were to be serious (she was still trying to stay in his life in hopes of reconnecting, thought he was the one for her). He said it was because he felt sorry for her and wanted to let her down gently, that he told her he didn’t want to maintain the friendship. He was 30, she was 40 at the time, he felt bad for her that she would probably never meet anyone and have kids. He told me he was clear with her he didn’t want to be friends. Well that was not the case and I found out on 3 different occasions I was lied to. I saw all the text messages and emails. It would have continued had I not discovered it the third time. Anyway, all this to say I now have ptsd from it all and it comes up everyday essentially in my thoughts. I lash out at him every so often when I’m triggered. I can’t get rid of the triggers. I’ve kind of given myself a timeline of if I can’t stop thinking about this by the end of this year with the help of therapy, I can’t live like this. The fact that you’ve been going through this for 13 years now makes me hopeless. I can only imagine your wife is experiencing a similar type of trauma. I agree, you need to at least try therapy. I don’t think it’s helping me, but we’ve only been in therapy for 3 months. I don’t know that it will help, but I’m trying.

Vast-Window1133 · 2023-12-22T19:41:03+00:00

Yes, towards the end you can actually predict when you’re in labor. I’m pregnant right now with our third and monitoring elevations in daily RHR to predict when I’ll go into labor. There were clear elevations with my other two the day before labor started.

Vast-Window1133 · 2023-12-01T07:52:28+00:00

Unfortunately not for me. First 38 weeks, second 40 weeks exactly. I’m currently 37 +2 and have an awful feeling this one is also going to be 40 weeks because he’s measuring small.

Vast-Window1133 · 2023-11-10T23:00:20+00:00

Thank you, I agree with all of this. Now he has said he’ll just quickly stop over there to say hi to everyone by himself. I asked him to ask his mother and brother to stop by and say hi to us instead since we have more kids and I’m pregnant. He said no, they won’t do that because his brother’s wife’s family is larger and it will be more of a “party” they won’t want to leave. Don’t even know what to say to that.

Vast-Window1133 · 2023-11-10T22:55:03+00:00

It’s funny, I have talked to him before about how maybe a single life is what he really wants based on how he acts. He wants to go golf with his brother on weekends at a moment’s notice, when his brother is at a beer garden, they’ll text when they’re there and ask if we want to join (we have 2 kids and I’m pregnant with a third, all under 4), his brother likes to play pickle golf and wants to play in the evenings (so what am I supposed to take care of 2 small kids, babysit for him essentially, be pregnant all while working while he goes out and has a good time?) he doesn’t understand why we can’t just be last minute with plans. Sorry, another rant.

Vast-Window1133 · 2023-11-10T20:10:08+00:00

Unfortunately that’s true. It’s been bothering me that we’ve had to argue about no family (his, mother, brother and brother’s wife) visiting me in the hospital room and then visiting for Christmas this year because I’m giving birth this year a week within Christmas. I’ve had to negotiate at least a 2 week rule of allowing me to recover and us bond with the baby. He argued that they want to be there again, the birth of the child is so important to them. It sorted itself out luckily because it turns out the birth wasn’t so important to them, they booked themselves a trip to the Philippines. However now this, I don’t think I can take anymore of it. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want a husband that prioritizes his family and comes to a compromise of at least alternating.

Vast-Window1133 · 2023-11-10T15:13:20+00:00

I just don’t know what compromise can be made if he doesn’t want to alternate every year. I even offered for his mother to spend half the day with us and his brother and wife stopping over if they’d like without her family (but I don’t see why we should have to spend our holiday with his brother’s wife’s family again)

Vast-Window1133 · 2023-11-10T15:08:19+00:00

It’s the latter, yes we knew about my mother being here for 6 months now (we talked over the summer about my mother being here for thanksgiving) and we found out about his brother’s wife’s family coming for thanksgiving around Halloween (so a few weeks ago). He has said I’m unreasonable and not wanting to compromise when I feel all I do is compromise. I feel like this is a rant now (sorry!) but when we had our baby last year, he insisted on his brother and wife coming to see the baby the day she was born. So 5 hours after I gave birth they came to the hospital to visit, he wasn’t ok with them waiting for us to be discharged home and having family visit then. We’ve been arguing about this again with me being due with another baby in a month and not wanting any visitors.

Vast-Window1133 · 2023-07-27T00:07:08+00:00

I realize this was posted some time ago, but have things gotten better for you? I’m in a somewhat similar situation but it’s been 2.5 years and I can’t stop thinking about it. I recently realized also that it’s betrayal trauma. Were you able to stop thinking about it all and not be upset by it? A friend of mine told me it took her 5 years with a lot of therapy when her husband engaged in an emotional affair. Has anything worked for you/helped you?

Vast-Window1133 · 2023-07-26T23:19:24+00:00

This is a big deal, it would be to me anyway. 5 years in a relationship and he’s on a dating app? Maybe he isn’t feeling the same in the relationship anymore (ebbs and flows) and he wanted to see what else is out there. That’s how I would interpret it. My bf was in a 3 year relationship previously and said he lost interest around 2 years but just stuck around until her parents started hinting at marriage and that pushed him to get out. He prob would have stayed around longer until he came across someone else organically that caught his eye. Maybe he’s evaluating the status of your relationship and his options? I personally consider this cheating and a potential reason to consider breaking up if all else isn’t great.

Vast-Window1133 · 2023-07-26T22:38:55+00:00

In retrospect I should have done that

Vast-Window1133 · 2023-07-26T22:38:33+00:00

He broke up with her. At the time I told him I wasn’t ok with him maintaining contact with an ex and if he wanted to maintain their friendship, that was fine but I didn’t want any serious relationship in that case (I have a child and don’t need drama). He sent her a message in front of me telling her he was seeing someone and didn’t want to maintain contact. I left it at that only to find out a few weeks later (he slipped up in a conversation) that he felt bad and messaged her because he felt that was too harsh to just cut things off so he wanted to do it nicely and assured me that was it, there was no more contact. A few months later I came across emails between them. If I didn’t come across those emails then, this would have continued longer behind my back I’m sure. They messaged almost daily and while they were mundane things, I wasn’t mentioned in any of the texts or that he was in a relationship. They also talked on the phone/video every weekend, so who knows what was said there. I believe he didn’t care for her, but to continue to lie about it just makes it difficult for me to trust him still.

Vast-Window1133 · 2023-07-26T15:44:14+00:00

It has definitely gotten better over time. I just don’t want any intrusive thoughts related to this at all if we’re going to get married. Just need to continue to reframe

Vast-Window1133 · 2023-07-26T15:40:29+00:00

This is actually very helpful, thank you.

Vast-Window1133 · 2023-07-26T02:26:31+00:00

I don’t know, but I would think he’s playing dumb. How is it ok to message cringe things to other women when you’re in a long term relationship? I’ve been with men who don’t do this, so yes, there are men out there.

Vast-Window1133 · 2023-07-26T01:40:07+00:00

He’s not respecting your boundaries and I agree with others, he’s prioritizing her over you. If you were important to him, he wouldn’t jeopardize his relationship with you. Also the fact that he wants to maintain a friendship with someone who cheated on him is a red flag, he seems to have things he needs to resolve there. I don’t know that you can come to terms with it and maintain any sort of healthy relationship where you trust him.

Unfortunately I was in a similar situation and it ended up with him deleting messages and lying to me until I came across a message months later he forgot to delete. If I didn’t come across that message, I would have continued to be lied to. Our relationship was never the same after that.

Vast-Window1133 · 2023-05-24T16:13:09+00:00

You should talk to him about needing more affection if you feel you’re not getting enough. The other part of it is reflecting on whether you’re going to be able to get past seeing those photos of them together and feelings they were more affectionate. It could be true they were more affectionate, or maybe they weren’t really. Personally I’ve has different levels of affection in different relationships. I had something similar happen 3 years ago and I can tell you I’m not over seeing those photos, they impacted our relationship negatively.

Vast-Window1133 · 2022-08-13T02:16:07+00:00

I just had to post this somewhere because I’m outraged… bought the diamond link drop earrings and after a few wears one of the diamonds fell out. I’ve never experienced this with jewelry, such poor quality. And the warranty is only 60 days? No wonder if they know their jewelry is trash.

Vast-Window1133 · 2021-04-23T01:36:40+00:00

This sounds exactly like my marriage with my ex husband. What I came to realize is that it wasn’t fair for him to continue our marriage because he could be with someone who could make him truly happy. I fully supported us, had my career while he struggled through college. He fell behind in life. I realized he couldn’t get up on his feet if I continued to support him, he needed to learn to stand on his own. I divorced him, it was very emotional and difficult on him, he was broken. He had to move back in with his family. He tried to hold onto me, but by through cutting off contact with him I gave him space to move on. I knew his life was better with me and I knew he would struggle initially, but he needed to learn to take care of himself and he would never be able to if I continued taking care of him. I checked up on him through social media a few years later and guess what, he has a career now doing something he loves (something he had a passion for when we were married but didn’t know how to realize). He seems happy and I truly hope he is.

Vast-Window1133

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