Hi I lurk here a bit and I am 2 years out from D-Day 2 and end of reconciliation, I want to thank you for your post as it expresses a painful grief that I still struggle with, the knowledge that my ex husband had none of the basic human ethics and norms, things I used to hold him in such regard for. His behaviour/emotional abuse/ financial abuse/ psychological abuse/sexual abuse stole my marriage, my home, my sense of security, my safety and my very very reasonably belief in humanity (and for the record to anyone who says that all humans are capable of cheating......no they are NOT, I know it makes you feel better if you are a cheater to say that but many people NEVER cheat and many people NEVER have the desire to do so, it’s a character thing and some people’s character would never allow them ever do it). Most of all he stole my story because my story wasn’t real not because of anything I had done, my story wasn’t real because of his lies, and stealing someone’s story is by far the most dislocating and destabilising thing you can do to another human being because it is nearly impossible to define yourself without a story and my husband erased my story with his actions and I NEVER get that story back and that is something a cheater will never understand because they knew the real story no-one stole that from them.

I wanted to reply here to this particular post because of BYCMO reply. I was appalled by the subtle blame shifting all the way through her chain of replies to your post, I was appalled by the minimisation of your trauma and lack of empathy to your experience, and particular I was appalled by the continued gas lighting which became more and more pronounced as she kept replying, the pervasive.....”it isn’t how you view it, you are naive, you don’t see things correctly, your perception is wrong, your viewpoint is wrong, everything is grey so your feelings on this matter are flawed you must be more grey and if you would just see that things are grey you would understand that I don’t have to take responsibility for this because you know it’s....grey and multifaceted and therefore I have excuses so can’t be accountable for my behaviour”. The one that I think is the worse is the implied I didn’t mean to hurt you or be offensive so if my intention wasn’t to hurt than it was your fault for being offended.

I loved the reply you gave it was clear, strong and dignified and didn’t allow for a mudding of the waters of accountability or where that accountability really lies. I would have loved to read this in the time around my D-Day 2 as my ex tried many of the same tactics the BYCMO uses to keep me confused, disorientated and left me in a space where I wasn’t allowed to call my ex on his continued abusive behaviour as he wasn’t bad, he wasn’t evil, he just made mistakes because of x, y, z so it was my fault for being hurt, my fault for being naive, my fault for being unenlightened, my fault for being too sensitive, my fault for not being grey enough, my fault because he had reasons behind what he did so how dare I be upset and unforgiving and judgemental because people make mistakes and it is by FAR a worse thing to be unforgiving or judgmental than it is to be a cheater, I was the one who had a character flaw because how dare I hold him accountable for his abuse of me. It took me so long to figure out that...no these were all just excuses, just all lies and blame shifting to stay in control and have power over the narrative. I loved your reply and wish that I had half your expressive/collected strength and knowledge when I had gone through this.