Was my husband assaulted or was it just cheating?

Was my husband assaulted or was it just cheating?

Emma23

New Registrant
Hello everyone,

I’m currently seeking advice as I am in a very confused state.

Sor starters, my husband who I’ve been married to for 8 years but been together for a total of 15 years is the most kind, sweetest , soft spoken, hardworking guy you’ll ever meet. I’ve always admired the way he treats people. I’ve always admired the way he treats and respects his parents. He treats my parents as if they are his very own. He’s always been the same person to me now just as he was 15 years ago. He has always treated me beyond words can explain. He will do anything for me, he’s such a silent person but really speaks through his actions. If there is anything in the world that I want or desire he will try any which way he can to make it happen for me. He’s an extremely respectful guy, really to the point where I believed he was a god incarnate. He prays everyday he wakes up. Before he starts his day prayer is the first thing he does.

He's an entrepreneur, started up many businesses in his early days and failed but got back up again until one worked. He’s put everyone else in front of himself.

8 years ago, upon visiting a friend in Fl I fell in love with the place and a model home. I remember just saying “ man , I would clean this house everyday if I lived here” and that was it for him my then boyfriend. He was set out to build me this home from scratch. We went ahead build the home got married and moved to Fl. Our marriage was quick. We knew we were close to getting married but the home came in the picture first and before we moved my parents had a small religious ceremony for us.



Upon moving to Fl, he had sold his company and we decided we would get into Commercial real estate. We had many trying times but we made it as a team and have been very successful in building a company together. We have a made a wonderful life together. We welcomed our first son in November 2022. He’s been the best father to our baby boy. Even our son admires him. To the point where he’s preference over me any day any time. My husband’s aura is just unexplainable. As I said above, he’s godly to me.



We decided to start diversifying and figured it was time we seek more opportunities in acquiring distressed businesses. We were able to land a deal. Everyhting was going ok, as you imaine we were swamped with a 1 year old constantly sick from daycare, a full operating Real esetate business with 30 empolyees and a new business with over 200 empolyees that was failing and needed all hands on deck to make immaidetae changes. Stress levels were high for the both of us alother we never expressed it to each other.



A woman who reached out to him on facebook a year earlier met with him without my knowledge to discuss a “project” she had. After meeting with her he mentioned she was never able to produce an address for the project she wanted to do on her “land” so he ignores it. She would then reach out again seeking employment opportunities stating she had financial troubles. At the time were actively hiring for the new company. He asked her if she had restaurant experience, she stated yes. I am the one that runs all background checks for anyone who gets hired in our company. This one didn’t cross my desk.



It was our baby’s 1st birthday and I hosted thanksgiving . we had also moved into our new house where there were many delays in furniture arrival etc. The day went well but there was a huge misunderstanding between myself and my husbands dad. My husband has always been respectful towards his dad, never raised his voice at his dad, has been obedient towards his dad all his life. Never disobeyed him in any way shape or form. My husband felt that this dispute pushed him a corner where he felt he needed to choose between myself and his family.

This was not my intent, I did speak to his dad to explain my point and tried to fix the issue. I always took my husband out of it and I took full responsibility and I’ve always maintained that.

My husband walked out the house that day and went missing for over 24 hrs. I was able to track him down the next day and met with him at his hotel room. I explained to him my side and asked him if he had resentment towards me. He said no. Everything seem to be fine but him and his dad was not speaking. I made him take multiple trips to NY to talk to his dad because the issue had nothing to do with him. (It was a whole religious thing surrounding the baby- baby was groggy the morning, just fell asleep. My FIL wanted to do a ritual in their practice, I had a lot of other family members over and asked what are we doing with tears in my eyes. My FIL never seen me cry and thought by me crying he felt that I was thinking he was going to do harm to the baby- which that is not what I thought, I really just wanted to know what was going on, why are we waking a baby that just fell asleep. Could this not wait? Could we have pre-planned for it ahead of time? Could all the other people in the house at the time be in the know and be given the option to opt in or out of the ritual. This is where I was coming from. I did not for second think of what they do as malice. But that’s how it was interested from their end.)

After numerous trips to his parents and explaining myself I thought my husband was ok and that the issue was resolved. I did everything I could think of to make sure I was not taken in the wrong context by his dad.



It’s February, the day before our 15 year anniversary, this woman who is totally evil comes to my office tells me shes been with m husband and that she was pregnant. She shows me a picture of her on top of him in a car along with screenshots from conversations shes had with him , basically she was showing me that he had names picked out for her kids.

I felt as if this was a dream and not true at all. I felt like a fish out of water, in disbelief. How could this even be possible? When? How?



He came into my office as we were suppose to leave and I asked him what was going on. He left I had to follow him out. He was in a shock and was speechless, when I asked him if he cheated he was just quiet. I needed to drop him off to get his truck. He didn’t return home that night. I called him several times and finally got to him. We spoke as he was driving to I don’t know where, I told him to come home so we can figure out whats going on. He asked if I would ever sleep with him again , I said yes and he came home. It was about 2am.



The following day I met with the horrible woman and him by myside. I asked her to take a test, she didn’t. She went on to say how they were having a relationship since 2019, she loves him and bunch of things. He basically was in a horrible state and said nothing. Nothing at all to this woman. I was holding him the whole time. He declined to any physical relations with this woman. He basically told me that she was making everything up and just denied everything.



It wasn’t until May when I reached out to her after him showing me a message from her saying that she made it all up. That just never sat right with me. When I reached out to her she sent me more messages of him asking her to basically tell me she phot shopped the picture and that she made it up. This was in May. He then told me that he did have physical relations with her, lied about it being 1 time found out alter it was 3. I decided to leave with our baby and went to my parents house. I was a wreck. I can’t even begin to explain the level of pain and betrayal I felt. How could my perfect guy do this to me? To our family that we just started? How could he not think of this life we built together? For 15 years I can count on one hand how much we argued. For 15 years I can count on 1 hand how many times I’ve seen him look at another woman. Very far and few.



While I was away, we talked daily. I had so many questions as to the whys and hows. He already has a terrible time explaining things to me. This whole situation never say right with me. I always felt it from within something is off, something is wrong. I didn’t believe that he could do something like this.



I eventually came home with the hopes of reconciling. He had to keep coming clean about it all. He mentioned the day he left home he looked disgruntled , he went to the store where the horrible woman was and like any normal person would, she asked him what was wrong since he looked off. He says he didn’t get into details with her but she would poke at things to try to get him to talk. He mentioned that she was very manipulative. She mentioned to him that she saw me texting some other guy, and would tell him that I was cheating on him or I most likely already cheated on him and would leave him over family drama. He said he asked her how would she know ? she said she saw how happy I was texting I don’t know who. ( I was the store one day and I speak to a ton of people on a daily basis, my husband k nows this). My husband said this brought up things from our dating past that bothered him.

He mentioned that she would make up things to call him about regarding things going wrong in the restaurant to get him to come out. She made up a lie about not being able to do deposits and had him go with her to the bank. He said she pulled over and started talking to him , she went on top of him and she was able to get sexually physical with him. He mentioned to me that he told her he has a wife and that this isn’t right. He said she still went ahead. I had him describe the experience to me. He said he it was very quick, he couldn’t think, nor process what was happening. He said he froze.



The next time she would make things up again, and threat to expose him to the whole company if he didn’t show up. He said she would get physical with him but he let it happen because she would threaten to tell others in the company. The last time he told her no, he says she didn’t get to go all the way with him and proceeded to call her him names etc.



He mentioned she wanted a large sum of money to go away, he declined to give her any money. He said he just stopped responding to her because he it was extremely stressful for him and he hated the way he felt on the inside.

We had started couples counseling, therapist mentioned that he is a conflict avoidant. Had fear of disappointing his dad. At one point therapist said affair was an escape, Again still didn’t sit right with me. I still felt something was off. I went even the spiritual route to find answers, all basically said he was in a state of illusion, felts trapped, lost and imprisoned. One said the woman was seeking monetary gain.



I had already figured out that this was all money motived, she had already scoped him out , knows what hes about and wanted to trap him for monetary purposes. He is such an analytical guy that even that puzzled me as to how could you not tell just from the way this woman carried herself? She was disgusting looking and promiscuous.



I later learned that people in our company knew about this because the woman was telling everyone since it happened back in February. I asked our higher ups why didn’t anyone say anything to us ahead of time, all of it could have been avoided. It turns out this woman was manipulating her boss by saying she knew me and my husband; she was saying we borrowed money from her to buy the business and she got a job there to watch her “investment” These were all lies but the higher ups didn’t think to bring it to us when she was saying this. She would start additional trouble in the company and she was just weird. She would pull our district manager ( her boss) to speak to him privately in the cooler and she was say weird things and ask questions about my husband. After speaking to both our VP and district manager they both took fault because my husband did tell them to interview her for the part and run the background checks. VP couldn’t make it and asked DM and he just wanted to fill the part and overlooked everything and did not send her background check to me so that’s how it didn’t cross my desk. Based on what they were saying about her and the shady things she did and said and her ways and character. A lot of what my husband explained to me started to make sense to me. My husband was not aware that everyone in the company knew. I did tell him that I spoke to our VP and Dm.



All of this had me thinking back to what he was saying and was trying to explain but I would disregard him. I asked if he ever consented to having sex with her, he said no it was not his intention and he told her it wasn’t right. He said he froze and his head wasn’t on and he just couldn’t process. The second time he said he may have consented because he didn’t say anything but he just sat there in hopes that she would get what she wanted and wouldn’t spread rumors through the company because that’s what she would threaten him with. I sent him an article to read about sexually manipulation, coercion and assault and asked if any of these things described in the article resonated with him. He said all. That’s where I started doing research on assault and everything that he described to me fits with a person who was assaulted. I asked him if he felt he was assaulted he said yes. I asked why wouldn’t you tell me this from the very start? He said he didn’t know that was a thing and it’s embarrassing, how could a bug guy like him be assaulted, laws are always on the woman side and things of this nature.



It turns out this was not his first time experiencing assault, this was the first time in his adult life but based on what he explained as to the experience from those other occurrences it all sounds like the same experience. He says with this woman, he never initiated anything, he didn’t want sex, it wasn’t his intentions but she would threaten him with some many things.



So, im basically stuck on what all of this is. Im confused as to why spin it in the first place. Is it really because he didn’t know there was a such thing as a man being assaulted? Man of very few words, bottles everything up never talks about pain, trauma or anything. I just don’t know if I need to be supportive here, how do I look at this? I am willing to help him through it all but I need to know if it’s assault of infidelity
 
Hello everyone,

I’m currently seeking advice as I am in a very confused state.

Sor starters, my husband who I’ve been married to for 8 years but been together for a total of 15 years is the most kind, sweetest , soft spoken, hardworking guy you’ll ever meet. I’ve always admired the way he treats people. I’ve always admired the way he treats and respects his parents. He treats my parents as if they are his very own. He’s always been the same person to me now just as he was 15 years ago. He has always treated me beyond words can explain. He will do anything for me, he’s such a silent person but really speaks through his actions. If there is anything in the world that I want or desire he will try any which way he can to make it happen for me. He’s an extremely respectful guy, really to the point where I believed he was a god incarnate. He prays everyday he wakes up. Before he starts his day prayer is the first thing he does.

He's an entrepreneur, started up many businesses in his early days and failed but got back up again until one worked. He’s put everyone else in front of himself.

8 years ago, upon visiting a friend in Fl I fell in love with the place and a model home. I remember just saying “ man , I would clean this house everyday if I lived here” and that was it for him my then boyfriend. He was set out to build me this home from scratch. We went ahead build the home got married and moved to Fl. Our marriage was quick. We knew we were close to getting married but the home came in the picture first and before we moved my parents had a small religious ceremony for us.



Upon moving to Fl, he had sold his company and we decided we would get into Commercial real estate. We had many trying times but we made it as a team and have been very successful in building a company together. We have a made a wonderful life together. We welcomed our first son in November 2022. He’s been the best father to our baby boy. Even our son admires him. To the point where he’s preference over me any day any time. My husband’s aura is just unexplainable. As I said above, he’s godly to me.



We decided to start diversifying and figured it was time we seek more opportunities in acquiring distressed businesses. We were able to land a deal. Everyhting was going ok, as you imaine we were swamped with a 1 year old constantly sick from daycare, a full operating Real esetate business with 30 empolyees and a new business with over 200 empolyees that was failing and needed all hands on deck to make immaidetae changes. Stress levels were high for the both of us alother we never expressed it to each other.



A woman who reached out to him on facebook a year earlier met with him without my knowledge to discuss a “project” she had. After meeting with her he mentioned she was never able to produce an address for the project she wanted to do on her “land” so he ignores it. She would then reach out again seeking employment opportunities stating she had financial troubles. At the time were actively hiring for the new company. He asked her if she had restaurant experience, she stated yes. I am the one that runs all background checks for anyone who gets hired in our company. This one didn’t cross my desk.



It was our baby’s 1st birthday and I hosted thanksgiving . we had also moved into our new house where there were many delays in furniture arrival etc. The day went well but there was a huge misunderstanding between myself and my husbands dad. My husband has always been respectful towards his dad, never raised his voice at his dad, has been obedient towards his dad all his life. Never disobeyed him in any way shape or form. My husband felt that this dispute pushed him a corner where he felt he needed to choose between myself and his family.

This was not my intent, I did speak to his dad to explain my point and tried to fix the issue. I always took my husband out of it and I took full responsibility and I’ve always maintained that.

My husband walked out the house that day and went missing for over 24 hrs. I was able to track him down the next day and met with him at his hotel room. I explained to him my side and asked him if he had resentment towards me. He said no. Everything seem to be fine but him and his dad was not speaking. I made him take multiple trips to NY to talk to his dad because the issue had nothing to do with him. (It was a whole religious thing surrounding the baby- baby was groggy the morning, just fell asleep. My FIL wanted to do a ritual in their practice, I had a lot of other family members over and asked what are we doing with tears in my eyes. My FIL never seen me cry and thought by me crying he felt that I was thinking he was going to do harm to the baby- which that is not what I thought, I really just wanted to know what was going on, why are we waking a baby that just fell asleep. Could this not wait? Could we have pre-planned for it ahead of time? Could all the other people in the house at the time be in the know and be given the option to opt in or out of the ritual. This is where I was coming from. I did not for second think of what they do as malice. But that’s how it was interested from their end.)

After numerous trips to his parents and explaining myself I thought my husband was ok and that the issue was resolved. I did everything I could think of to make sure I was not taken in the wrong context by his dad.



It’s February, the day before our 15 year anniversary, this woman who is totally evil comes to my office tells me shes been with m husband and that she was pregnant. She shows me a picture of her on top of him in a car along with screenshots from conversations shes had with him , basically she was showing me that he had names picked out for her kids.

I felt as if this was a dream and not true at all. I felt like a fish out of water, in disbelief. How could this even be possible? When? How?



He came into my office as we were suppose to leave and I asked him what was going on. He left I had to follow him out. He was in a shock and was speechless, when I asked him if he cheated he was just quiet. I needed to drop him off to get his truck. He didn’t return home that night. I called him several times and finally got to him. We spoke as he was driving to I don’t know where, I told him to come home so we can figure out whats going on. He asked if I would ever sleep with him again , I said yes and he came home. It was about 2am.



The following day I met with the horrible woman and him by myside. I asked her to take a test, she didn’t. She went on to say how they were having a relationship since 2019, she loves him and bunch of things. He basically was in a horrible state and said nothing. Nothing at all to this woman. I was holding him the whole time. He declined to any physical relations with this woman. He basically told me that she was making everything up and just denied everything.



It wasn’t until May when I reached out to her after him showing me a message from her saying that she made it all up. That just never sat right with me. When I reached out to her she sent me more messages of him asking her to basically tell me she phot shopped the picture and that she made it up. This was in May. He then told me that he did have physical relations with her, lied about it being 1 time found out alter it was 3. I decided to leave with our baby and went to my parents house. I was a wreck. I can’t even begin to explain the level of pain and betrayal I felt. How could my perfect guy do this to me? To our family that we just started? How could he not think of this life we built together? For 15 years I can count on one hand how much we argued. For 15 years I can count on 1 hand how many times I’ve seen him look at another woman. Very far and few.



While I was away, we talked daily. I had so many questions as to the whys and hows. He already has a terrible time explaining things to me. This whole situation never say right with me. I always felt it from within something is off, something is wrong. I didn’t believe that he could do something like this.



I eventually came home with the hopes of reconciling. He had to keep coming clean about it all. He mentioned the day he left home he looked disgruntled , he went to the store where the horrible woman was and like any normal person would, she asked him what was wrong since he looked off. He says he didn’t get into details with her but she would poke at things to try to get him to talk. He mentioned that she was very manipulative. She mentioned to him that she saw me texting some other guy, and would tell him that I was cheating on him or I most likely already cheated on him and would leave him over family drama. He said he asked her how would she know ? she said she saw how happy I was texting I don’t know who. ( I was the store one day and I speak to a ton of people on a daily basis, my husband k nows this). My husband said this brought up things from our dating past that bothered him.

He mentioned that she would make up things to call him about regarding things going wrong in the restaurant to get him to come out. She made up a lie about not being able to do deposits and had him go with her to the bank. He said she pulled over and started talking to him , she went on top of him and she was able to get sexually physical with him. He mentioned to me that he told her he has a wife and that this isn’t right. He said she still went ahead. I had him describe the experience to me. He said he it was very quick, he couldn’t think, nor process what was happening. He said he froze.



The next time she would make things up again, and threat to expose him to the whole company if he didn’t show up. He said she would get physical with him but he let it happen because she would threaten to tell others in the company. The last time he told her no, he says she didn’t get to go all the way with him and proceeded to call her him names etc.



He mentioned she wanted a large sum of money to go away, he declined to give her any money. He said he just stopped responding to her because he it was extremely stressful for him and he hated the way he felt on the inside.

We had started couples counseling, therapist mentioned that he is a conflict avoidant. Had fear of disappointing his dad. At one point therapist said affair was an escape, Again still didn’t sit right with me. I still felt something was off. I went even the spiritual route to find answers, all basically said he was in a state of illusion, felts trapped, lost and imprisoned. One said the woman was seeking monetary gain.



I had already figured out that this was all money motived, she had already scoped him out , knows what hes about and wanted to trap him for monetary purposes. He is such an analytical guy that even that puzzled me as to how could you not tell just from the way this woman carried herself? She was disgusting looking and promiscuous.



I later learned that people in our company knew about this because the woman was telling everyone since it happened back in February. I asked our higher ups why didn’t anyone say anything to us ahead of time, all of it could have been avoided. It turns out this woman was manipulating her boss by saying she knew me and my husband; she was saying we borrowed money from her to buy the business and she got a job there to watch her “investment” These were all lies but the higher ups didn’t think to bring it to us when she was saying this. She would start additional trouble in the company and she was just weird. She would pull our district manager ( her boss) to speak to him privately in the cooler and she was say weird things and ask questions about my husband. After speaking to both our VP and district manager they both took fault because my husband did tell them to interview her for the part and run the background checks. VP couldn’t make it and asked DM and he just wanted to fill the part and overlooked everything and did not send her background check to me so that’s how it didn’t cross my desk. Based on what they were saying about her and the shady things she did and said and her ways and character. A lot of what my husband explained to me started to make sense to me. My husband was not aware that everyone in the company knew. I did tell him that I spoke to our VP and Dm.



All of this had me thinking back to what he was saying and was trying to explain but I would disregard him. I asked if he ever consented to having sex with her, he said no it was not his intention and he told her it wasn’t right. He said he froze and his head wasn’t on and he just couldn’t process. The second time he said he may have consented because he didn’t say anything but he just sat there in hopes that she would get what she wanted and wouldn’t spread rumors through the company because that’s what she would threaten him with. I sent him an article to read about sexually manipulation, coercion and assault and asked if any of these things described in the article resonated with him. He said all. That’s where I started doing research on assault and everything that he described to me fits with a person who was assaulted. I asked him if he felt he was assaulted he said yes. I asked why wouldn’t you tell me this from the very start? He said he didn’t know that was a thing and it’s embarrassing, how could a bug guy like him be assaulted, laws are always on the woman side and things of this nature.



It turns out this was not his first time experiencing assault, this was the first time in his adult life but based on what he explained as to the experience from those other occurrences it all sounds like the same experience. He says with this woman, he never initiated anything, he didn’t want sex, it wasn’t his intentions but she would threaten him with some many things.



So, im basically stuck on what all of this is. Im confused as to why spin it in the first place. Is it really because he didn’t know there was a such thing as a man being assaulted? Man of very few words, bottles everything up never talks about pain, trauma or anything. I just don’t know if I need to be supportive here, how do I look at this? I am willing to help him through it all but I need to know if it’s assault of infidelity
It sounds like assault to me we have meeting for family members about how we deal with this on Tuesday if you need to reach out beforehand you can msg me on here and I will get back to you
 
It sounds like assault to me we have meeting for family members about how we deal with this on Tuesday if you need to reach out beforehand you can msg me on here and I will get back to you
Definitely, please send me info on how to attend. Thanks so much
 
ENMA23 I attend the meetings on Tuesday nights as well w mykimber73. My husband is a csa survivor. We have been together for 28 years and I just learned about the abuse 3 years ago . I am sorry you r going thru this. In this meeting we discuss anything that is bothering you or ways to help each other. It is located in the friends/family chat room. The meeting is at 7 ct. Hope you can attend
 
@Emma23 First, I want to say I’m sorry you find yourself here. The abuse of your husband and his infidelity are both traumatic events for a family like yours. Take care of yourself and your child first. Make sure you get sleep, food, and water. It’s easy to forget those things in the early days after discovery.

I’ve spent some time thinking about this one. The first read through I thought infidelity. The second, maybe abuse. After thinking more, I’m not sure. I’m going to start out assuming it was infidelity. Why? Because cheaters don’t tell the entire truth. It’s called trickle truth. Go spend some time at https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/ and you will see no one get the full story the first, second, or third time. I’ve been there. I know. I’m a CSA survivor and a betrayed spouse.

It’s not clear to me if your husband was abused prior to the relationship with this woman. It’s implied, but the details are missing. If so, has he shared them with you? The freezing makes sense to me if he is a CSA survivor. I’ve experienced that in many situations. But this line suggests it wasn’t abuse as a child:
but based on what he explained as to the experience from those other occurrences it all sounds like the same experience.
The key thing to ask is did he have agency to decide to have relations with the person. When I was 9, my older brother abused me. I didn’t have agency because I didn’t understand what we were doing. An adult who is physically or emotional unable to decide lacks agency. You husband seems to have had agency in the multiple times he had sex with this woman. But he suggests he was emotional unable to say no. Why? I’m not saying he is lying, I just want you to make sure there isn’t more to the story. This woman seems manipulative, yes. But should that absolve your husband from having sex with her? I don’t know. You need more info. You need access to his social media. You need access to his text messages. You need access to his email. Unfortunately, he may have deleted much of the incriminating evidence (assuming it existed) by now.
 
Thank you for your response, I do appreciate hearing all the different perspectives.
So from February up until September, I considered this full-blown infidelity as well. After months and months of talking about it and with him explaining how everything went down it just didnt make any sense. All the givens for an escape affair was there in terms of him avoiding conflict between myself and dad, him just being in a depressed state and carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, too many people in our home at that time ( i had relatives staying for about 6 months), keeping things bottled up inside him ( which his entire upbringing he was thought to not talk about your problems and just sweep it all under the rug). He had me as one outlet and his dad as another outlet. He felt that he lost his dad since they weren't speaking and felt that the relationship there was broken, he felt the same with me. Those feelings would totally align with what causes people to have affairs.

However, he just always explained to me that this woman would throw herself at him and would put things in his head about me. He was saying that at no time did he give consent and it was not his intention to cheat. It was pre-meditated nor planned. She knew that she needed to make up situations with the store in order to get him out. He mentioned that he would just sit there, when I asked him to tell me in the moment what he was thinking about or looking at, he mentioned a gun in her bag which is true she does carry one. Usually, if you are having an affair it would make you feel alive. This wasn't the case for him. He keeps saying that he was taken advantage of, and she played on his emotions. He mentioned never physically being active to penetrate her. She would be the one to try to have sex with him.

there are quite a few people in the company that can attest to how manipulative she were. She would also start other issues with other men in the store and threaten to file sexual harassment lawsuits.

Just as when she was able to strike on my husband that's when she started with the blackmail, threats, and extortion. He says she would tell him to say certain things and she would delete what she wrote, screenshot those messages and spin the story to make it look as though he's willfully saying these things. I asked him why on earth would you incriminate yourself, especially via messaging. THats when he explained what she does.

I also asked why wouldn't you fight back or write back in a harsher tone, he said he just didn't want to get into arguments because with her she really goes far and he isn't indeed the confrontational type. He's more of the type to just leave things rather than argue back and forth.

I asked him for all these months why wouldn't you just come out and tell me if you felt you were abused or assaulted, his response is that makes him looks weak and no one would believe that. Regarding why it wasn't brought up in therapy is because he felt that would of opened up a lot from his past. He's been assaulted two other times in his life. One from childhood and pre-teen. He didn't want to bring all those things up, especially to other people because he felt it was easier to just be looked at as a cheater rather than a hit to his manhood.

The feelings he explained from those past instances are the same to this situation now.

He is willing to file a police report to report the abuse with the woman, unfortunately, it won't be any help to him now because there isn't a civil suite- we don't want to sue for monetary damages. I would rather see this devil woman behind bars. The report will come on benefit to the next victim but the main this is that he reports it.

He is also willing to do individual therapy to address everything he has bottled for 32 years, especially the dark situations. He needs to learn how to spot these things before they happen. He truly is a nice guy who is kind to everyone and everything and give people the benefit of the doubt.

This is still a blow to the marriage because it was threatened and the fact that he was not able to directly see that someone was trying to force their way in to tear apart our home. All he needed to do was come talk to me rather than try to handle things on his own and end up being put in a compromised position. We still have to navigate through this, he does sound like he needs help and support.
 
@Emma23 sounds like your husband would benefit from some individual therapy and couples therapy. Regardless of whether it was abuse, infidelity, or a little of both, the thing to know is that communication between the two of you going forward is going to be essential. He can’t bottle stuff up or hide behind his idea of what masculinity is supposed to look like. He needs to be a good partner to you and you to him if you’re going to get through these traumas. He might also consider coming here to MS and reading some of the other life stories so he can see he is not alone in this.

Wishing you both healing and strength.
 
There may be some parallels between your story and my own. To me, there's a real question of what your husband wants, and where honesty fits into the picture. Honesty to me is a complicated subject, because it begins with honesty with myself. I know lots of people who consider dishonesty to be a black-and-white thing. Did you cheat in the card game? Yes or no. If the answer is yes, it's a character flaw. I have a different understanding. I am a survivor of CSA, which basically means that I was raped as a pre-pubescent kid by a young man. It was explosively painful and horrible. Maybe one of the weirdest things about it was that I didn't understand it. I didn't know what an orgasm was. I didn't know what semen was or why someone would want to make it come out of their dick. Pardon me for being graphic, but I don't like euphemisms. The person who did this also told me it was my fault. He told me that this is what people did, that it was practice for girls, and I think he told me he'd kill me if I told anyone. I don't remember the exact words, but I understood that it was my fault, and so on. Life hadn't been perfect before for me, and it wasn't after, either. I have suffered from PTSD, disassociation, hypersexuality, magical thinking, suicidal impulses, violent behavior, alcohol and drug abuse and general dysfunction. Maybe one of the worst things for me was that I lied, like all the time. I lied about everything. It was so confusing. I would lie involuntarily about, for instance, how many stoplights had been green on the way to someone's house. Each time, I was deeply ashamed. I hated lying. I also, basically, fucked every girl I could. At some point, I learned how important it was for my girlfriend for me not to cheat on her. (I learned this the hard way, because people were super mad and betrayed by me, which was devastating to me.) I learned how not to cheat simply by force of will. It worked for about 15 years. I got married and started a family and a career. I stumbled into cheating on my spouse with a manipulative women who told me she was dangerous. (I remember thinking how dumb it was that she said that.) I remember once telling her that I was lonely. I was! Terribly lonely. I lived alone with my thoughts and feelings behind a wall of lies. Often the lies were as simple as saying I was feeling good when I wasn't. I had learned to avoid telling most lies that I could be caught in. But I hadn't stopped the basic dishonesty about my life, because I was hiding from a terrible truth that I dared not face. The woman was dangerous. Her manipulations worked on me for a while, but I still bear responsibility for what happened. I'm a damn adult. I'm a six four and 250-pound athlete. When I was a 10 year old, I had no choice. I was assaulted by a more powerful person not because I was bad or wrong but because he had the opportunity and I had the bad luck of being under his control. Eventually, I told my spouse about the affair, because I thought the secret would come out anyway. When she asked me why, I said, "I didn't know." That wasn't a lie. I didn't know. I didn't know myself, why I did things, or anything. Like your husband, the truth about the affair trickled out of me. In the end, to save my marriage and my life, I came clean about the abuse from my childhood. I didn't want to. I think I first told my wife that "fucked up shit went down" at the apartment building where I grew up. I cried for the first time about it.

It's important for me to say, though, that none of us gets a free pass for how our actions hurt others, no matter how we were hurt. My abuser was most likely a victim of CSA himself. That doesn't give him a free pass. I'm responsible for what I've done as an adult. Period.

That was 17 years ago. I have not cheated on my wife since, but it's been a long journey of healing. I still sometimes lie inexplicably, usually to re-cast or cover over something about myself that I don't want to admit or own. That's not what I want to do, and I'm working on living and speaking intentionally, on being honest with myself as much as I can, but as I said it's a long journey. Just understanding my own feelings is hard. Learning not to disassociate is hard. Understanding hypersexuality, and then not acting on it is hard. The truth is, we all have boundaries in our lives. Some are minor and some are major. Some major ones, to my mind, involve sex. My boundaries about sex were destroyed, and I sought solace through sex. It didn't work. It made me feel worse, but then I would want to double down and find more sexual partners. What a nightmare! Thank god I didn't have any children in those days and thank god I didn't get or pass along any communicable diseases! (At least none that I know of. Maybe HPV?)

I went into all this because your husband is responsible for what he did what that women. It wasn't just the other woman. That doesn't mean that he loved her. It doesn't mean he enjoyed sex with her. It doesn't mean she didn't throw herself on him or that he didn't freeze when she did. What it does mean is that he chose to hurt your relationship and you for whatever messed up reason made sense to him at the time. In other words, he put whatever was going on between him and her above what was going on between him and you. THAT is the real problem and that has to change for your marriage to work. To my mind, he needs to think about what he wants in his life, and then he needs to start working toward it. Good luck. Life can get better. None of us is perfect. We can always heal. I wish the best for you both.

PS My spouse and I remain together. We love each other. Our relationship isn't perfect, but we keep growing together and loving each other. Our kids are mostly grown and, I hope, armed with the kind of therapy that can help them be resilient in the face of trauma or troubles of any kind. Take care and keep on keeping on.
 
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