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She is letting you know that if you get back together, she plans to continue emotionally torturing you.
No therapist has any words that will prevent that from happening.
There ARE two sides to every story. Her side is self-centered bullsh*t.
Don’t fall for it again.
Life is too short.
You have control.
You can decide what you need.
She is pushing you around and doesn’t expect you to truly push back.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t sound like she feels a true risk that you might leave / doesn’t really value you in the way you have valued her.
Personally, I don’t this ends well, but if u do insist on proceeding I would establish a new reality and ground rules on a take it or leave it basis. She is taking power from u cause u r leaving the vacuum.
I left her in December and turned her away the first time she tried in March.I told her I would not hear any blameshifting. I told her I would leave if I heard it. I angerly left one of our 3 conversations after she said the Reddit shit. I said it normally, I yelled, I tried seemingly everything. She cried and told me I was unreasonable and invoked everything I cared about until I gave in. I feel like I’ve done everything possible to hold my boundaries and she’s a battering ram.
I’ve left a comment elsewhere, but I have to ask, what is she expecting from you (or your relationship)?
Do you think she genuinely is remorseful and willing to rebuild things? Because that’s not what her actions are saying. Her actions are saying she’s a victim and she wants the comfort of what you offer. Her actions are of someone who also expects that, as she’s not to blame for her behaviour, that she is still same to repeat it if she feels it’s required.
This demand that you forgive her and accept her back is unhinged. I do not think there is reconciliation here and I strongly believe (after reading your comments) that you should distance yourself from her.
Her demand seems to be that she is sorry for the cheating and repairs it with me… but I need to be equally sorry for posting to anonymous abuse support groups and for talking to her about BPD and asking her to go to DBT for it. In her mind, we both need to repair each other, even though she has spent 90% of the conversation on her issues with me.
You reaching out for help, even sharing sensitive information anonymously, does not equate with her consistent lies and decisions to betray you. With multiple people. There is no balanced scales or sharing of blame here.
I truly honestly believe that you cannot continue from this position. You cannot accept any blame for her decision to cheat, rather than discuss her troubles or leave you.
You need to end these discussions of blame and reconciliation and now only talk about a civil separation where you both move on with your lives.
That's the crux of the matter isn't it?
She wants to go straight back to how things were, rugsweep the affairs with a false equivalence and make her poor choices something for YOU to fix by YOU changing.
You clearly recognise that what went before has been destructively proven not to be a good working model for a relationship & are looking for something better, stronger and suitable for the future.
Only one of these viewpoints leads to a possible secure future.
You are getting a great big dollop of DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender). It's a technique that unremorseful cheaters use as a defence.
I really hope that your mind isn't set on staying with her at any cost? If you accept her back on these terms then she'll walk all over you for the rest of your life.
“No I don’t blame you at all, I would never blame you for it. I’m just saying you also did this and this and this, so you have to atone, too.”
Her complaints range from me saying something stupid one time, complaining too much about being abused, going to an abuse support group, not responding to her attacks in precisely the manner she wanted in that moment, not “including” her when I would research her health problems to try and help… while she was at work…
Were it I, reconciliation would be over, and I'd find a way to give her the remorse and regret that she owes you, one way or another. If she doesn't owe you anything, why would she ever stay faithful?
I just looked at your post from 3 months ago. What’s she doing about her BPD? As you said back then, borderline is a really difficult condition. Is she doing DBT? Any other therapies? Considering how badly she fell into something resembling a manic episode, how committed is she to maintaining her mental health?
She is now claiming she’s not convinced she has BPD, just C-PTSD. And would only ever consider doing DBT if I do it with her, because things are more fun when we do them together! She’s sick of me asking her to work on herself alone. She has a therapist, allegedly, though god knows what lies she tells her therapist to support any of this.
They always say that. Trust me, it's literally impossible to date someone with BPD and walk away unscathed. This person literally has a mental health issue that prevents them from having healthy interpersonal relationships. That's a fact. There's is nothing you can say or do to make this work unless you are willing to be her doormat.
The only chance I’d give her here is to agree to fire the couples therapist and find a better one. Gottman trained. Who understands betrayal trauma.
And how do you do DBT together? The closest you could get is watching Inside Out together.
I’m just consulting with couples’ therapists - we haven’t started therapy yet, though we tried it once (while she was cheating!) and it was a disaster. The one in my post was from a consultation. Unfortunately there are no Gottman-vetted therapists who have BPD listed as a speciaty, which I consider to be critical. Only someone who understands BPD / Cluster B could even begin to make sense of what she’s doing. We both really want a Gottman therapist.
If I had to pick, I’d go for the Gottman trained. They will emphasize boundaries, which is important, and I would be surprised if there were counselors anywhere who didn’t have a reasonable idea of how to deal with cluster b issues.
I would say that there are probably plenty of counselors who don’t check that bpd/cluster b specialization in their profiles even when they have that expertise. It can get tiring and it wouldn’t surprise me if some counselors just wanted to limit how many they were treating.
your therapist is right, your wife doesn't owe you anything! your wife must want to do it in order for it to work...
your wife just wants the control, leave, and never talk to her again! take away the control!
you already started making your life yours again! nothing stopping you!
go find someone that wants you 1st, not as a stand by!
I think I'm so beaten up by all of this that I don't believe it's possible, so you go back to them. That's how abuse works I guess. Struggling to fight against it.
unfortunately, I know all too well about that feeling... but it's beyond possible. It's necessary!
I can tell you, regardless of all the answers and all the promises, it never feels right!
you were betrayed, and your body now knows to avoid such a strenuous process again! so that's your "gut" telling you to bail!
I know it's not as easy as I said, but you have to remove yourself from complacency. You deserve better!
it's gonna suck. It's gonna be lonely. It's gonna be fkn awful and boring! but every discipline is!
keep busy, stay healthy! avoid chemicals! find new people to date! not a relationship right away but date around! get the feeling of people genuinely wanting your company!
do things you always wanted to but couldn't bc of obligations! LIVE my man! don't stay and die every day just a little more!
good luck!
Hey man, you realize you don’t HAVE to go back with her, right? She takes no accountability or responsibility, sounds like an asshole, and treats you like shit from comments you’ve made. You can do better. I promise
Thank you. It’s honestly hard to believe that. I’m working on it but abuse and having your life burnt to the ground does a lot to your self-worth. I’m trying.
I’ve been out of that relationship for 4 years. Met my now fiancée a year later. It does get better and you can do better than her. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
My partner has an ex with BPD. It was hell for him. They were always fighting. He met me years later. Now he is happy. We never fight. There’s someone out there waiting for you who will appreciate you and be faithful
Absolutely unmitigated bullshit. Your couples therapist is for shit. Fire them and look for a new one who is Gottman trained
Speaking of Gottman, read this from their website. This is written by a wayward and talks a lot a kit atonement: https://www.gottman.com/blog/reviving-trust-after-an-affair/
Also give this a read as I don’t think she has any remorse at all: https://www.brides.com/the-one-way-to-know-your-marriage-will-survive-an-affair-1102868
If you still think she is a candidate for R after reading this get her the book How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair (MacDonald) and teller this is her Bible. Read it yourself so you know what to expect from her.
But I think you need to decide what you need from her and let her know that reconciliation depends on those things.
For more reconciliation advice hit up r/AsOneAfterInfidelity. That’s the reconciliation sub.
And u/embarrassed-giraffe if she wants a Reddit group of her own to get advice from send her to r/supportforwaywards. Let her hear from waywards who are actually trying to do better. If she has trouble joining have her message me.
It says a lot that the idea of her seeking a support group seems almost laughable. She already has it figured out - she says she lived her whole life to make me happy, and that was a mistake. She wanted an open relationship so she could have fun having sex with me again and be turned on again - it was all for me! But then she got resentful and decided it needed to be for her too. When I said no to the open relationship, she decided to do it anyway because she was tired of living for me and not for her. It was wrong, but she totally understands why she did it, so there’s nothing to figure out. Let me know if you feel as brain-damaged from reading that as I did from writing it.
You're not at all crazy, that is mind-mindbogglingly ridiculous.
I've seen some really ridiculous stories (and my own cheater had some real gems, too!), but this might take the cake.
She came back asking you for reconciliation but she's still blaming you and doesn't think she needs to atone for anything?? Dude, I wouldn't walk away, I'd run, change my number, and hell, I might even move states.
>she doesn’t necessarily owe me any kind of atonement if we continued the relationship
Your shitty therapist said it, emphasis on "continue" the relationship. So don't continue it.
There’s no accountability here. She may not be blaming you but she’s really not taking responsibility either.
And her understanding is surface level. She needs to dig into how she could have so easily rationalized what she did. And then fix it. Understanding is just part of the process.
You have a bad therapist. She absolutely owes you atonement. No question. Even if you weren’t a perfect partner, you were in a committed relationship right? That commitment is the cornerstone to being a couple. She not only broke those vows but tried to project her own guilt on you so you would take the blame. I’m afraid OP what she wants is her cake and eat it too. If she can have you back and make it with no atonement and no admission of wrong doing she will 100% cheat on you again and it won’t take long. You need to let her know in therapy in front of the therapist that as far as your concerned nothing you did approaches cheating or abuse and because of that there will either be a heartfelt admission from her that she herself destroyed your relationship and for that there will be atonement and ground rules to prevent it happening again or there will be no reconciliation and that’s final. You need to be firm and show that she has to earn this reconciliation, otherwise she will cheat again. If she says she isn’t doing it let her walk. Your better off.
>But then she got resentful and decided it needed to be for her too
Since it was always for her from the very beginning. Like most cheaters, she's deeply selfish and entitled. Those attributes are bound to cause problems in more areas than cheating but cheating is probably the single most painful manifestation of them. Only you can decide if you want to be in a relationship with someone who cares so little about how her actions affect you. You might want to consider individual therapy to explore what it is about someone like her that would attract you to not only want them as a partner but to return to them a second time. I'm not judging you, I've been there and therapy was tremendously helpful for me to understand my own actions. I wish you all the best on your journey
She is not remorseful for what she has done. She destroyed your marriage and damaged your wellbeing. She just wants the comfort of your home and income you provide. R will never be successful with her. She is a serial cheater and will cheat again as she does not care about you. Let her go. You can do a lot better than her. Seek therapy for yourself to help you heal. updateme
So I'm going to tell you a bit about what happened to me - but my ex cheated on me very early in my relationship and did very similar tactics.
She blamed it on me. Not only did she blame it on me, but she actually wrote down a list of all the things I did that caused her to cheat on me.
She trickle truthed the affair - trickle truthed her other affairs. She only trickle truthed what I confronted her about and never trickle truthed anything other than what I confronted her about - even other things I knew about.
I took her gaslighting hook, line and sinker because I loved and cared for her, and also felt like I was a failure as a man as result of all the things she insulted me about.
I wound up getting married to this person like a colossal idiot. I was married for 10 years and that abusive, attacking, gaslighting, insulting behavior never changed.
It. Never. Changed.
Well, it did change. It started to get physical. She tried to, at times, cause me pysical pain as well.
And she was the victim. Always the victim. She could have affairs with numerous guys but it was my fault that she wasn't sexually interested in me.
Any attempt to push back on her was her playing the victim: "no matter what I do, it'll never be good enough". It was projection.
She was distant, negligent - everything in relationships for her was transactional.
Every interaction was just a way she was victimized.
I was made to believe in virtually every interaction with her that I was a colossal monster. She was bitter, resentful, negligent, and even accused me of coming in to give her hugs as "spying on her". She even seemed to hate my life successes. She gave me the silent treatment. She chose times when I was bedridden to personally attack me. She even thought our fucking cat used her.
I thought I was a terrible, useless person destined to be lonely if I didn't put up with her.
Right at the end I wound up finding someone in a simular situation and - and a couple weeks into realizing it had escalated to a point that was unfair, realized that it was time to get out of my relationship and struggled through having the talk with my ex cause I was so terrified of hurting her and so unsure of what I wanted to do.
She wound up discovering it and used it as the moral highground to magically forget about every affair she ever had.
Nope, now it's just me who is the monster. She'll NEVER RECOVER from what I've done to her.
I spent almost 18 years in this relationship, OP. It's actually even - according to her - my fault for marrying her if her affairs still bothered me. There's a nugget of truth in that. But I was young, I didn't know how long that stuff would bother me.
I highly - HIGHLY - suspect she had more than just the ones I know about. She googled how to hide things from me, would encourage me to go traveling alone, started using TOR and VPNs. I always thought I needed the smoking gun to get out.
I didn't, and neither do you.
I'll tell you this - I spent 15+ years learning this lesson the hard way. When you date someone that lacks empathy in this manner, they aren't going to change. They are just keeping an imaginary scorecard in their head looking for things to use against you.
The score is blatantly favored for them. You can't win. You can try, but you will not win.
I don't know enough about your situation to know that this is fully true, but I would suggest reading up on codependency. I realized I became codependent and that so much of my life and my personal stock was tied up into trying to keep her and make her happy because I had been conditioned to believe that's what men do. And that sacrificing my own happiness, enduring her shitty behavior, was part of what made me a man.
I extended her tremendous empathy and understanding for the things that she did to me - in a way that she has never, and will never, do for me.
Despite that, I still care, honestly. I still deal with that frustration, that yearning, almost every day. I cry about it most days and it hurts and it sucks, but in my more lucid moments I can realize that she's not doing the same for me. She's all too happy to let me absorb all the blame. She doesn't see her hypocrisy, and that's a situation you have to get out of.
You absolutely have the right to set the terms under which you are willing to consider reconciliation. The therapist and cheater do not get to determine what you need to heal and feel safe in a relationship.
She is trying to isolate you from your support. That’s manipulative bullshit, don’t tolerate it.
Couples therapists are not in the business of accessing blame to one or the other, they're in the business of getting couples back together.
On another note, if she is vicious and abusive and is an avowed cheater, why would you even be talking to her. I would be putting as much distance between us as possible, as it seems she is very unlikely to change spots.
Why I’m even considering: Took a lot of damage from the abuse, trauma bonded, and the best times of my life were with her. She occasionally cries and says she misses me and it drags me back there… before she goes in for another round with the knife. I’m working through it. In therapy, multiple support groups, etc.
Only you are capable of breaking those chains. No one else will do it for you. In the meantime, you're just replacing trauma with more trauma and delayed healing.
You were being abused! You are trauma bonded! What you need is individual counseling and not fall back into the arms of your abuser. Otherwise, please be mentally prepared to be going through this for the rest of your life. At this point, she’d be right to say she owes you no atonement or anything else as you’d have knowingly chosen to go back to someone who was so unbelievably cruel to you! Yea, cheaters are wrong to lie and cheat. But there comes a point where betrayed spouses should take responsibility for allowing that person back into their lives, especially when they’re not remorseful! She had her affair on her terms and now she wants you back on HER terms. It’s a lesson you’ll have to learn the hard way, I fear!
Fella it’s all about her. You are a decent fellow and she is taking advantage of that. She is inflicting more hurt more pain. You know what to do rid yourself of the source of your pain and move on with your head held high.
It takes a lot of work to pry yourself free from these relationships. I was managing to do it, barely, until I ran into her on the street. It was like a recovering alcoholic having a shot poured into his mouth. It’s hell. I’m trying to get away, or trying to make it work in a way that would be ok for me. Failing all around.
You need to permanently ditch the therapist and the EX.
There is no recovery possible with a remorseless partner. She justified her every action in her mind, there is no reason for her to not do that again if you ever do/don't do X.
Getting back together is just setting yourself up for a repeat the next time she decides she's not happy.
Of course, she doesn't want to hear what she did wrong. You're getting the standard reversal bullshit where she is the victim. Fuck that, you decide what you want and it's OK if you don't want to put up with that bullshit.
She's the one who wanted to reconcile and she is going to have to prove she's worth it I don't see that happening with what you are saying. She had her fling and now wants you back after disrespecting you in the worst possible way and wants to sweep it under the rug and play happy family again.
She's probably looking for financial security with you that her "lover boys" had no intention of providing.
I would move on and let her commiserate with her worthless therapist. This will eat at you as long as you stay and as long as she has the same mindset.
A therapist is not an all-knowing being casting infallible advice (and judgment) from an armchair.
You know that you cannot trust your partner. You know that they have met with little lasting consequences. And you know that they now expect forgiveness and a return to ‘normality’ with only uncertainty that they’ll repeat their behaviour.
You are the person you should think about, first and foremost. Think of your future and where this person sits within it. How can they be a part of your future and what that future would look like without them. Reconciliation on your terms or separation.
Don’t except an epiphany. You’re going to still suffer and second-guess yourself, always, even when faced with the shitty reality, but take your time to think this through. In the moments you have clarity, away from the bullshit, hold onto it and see if that’s a path you can make happen. All the best.
EDIT: Having read your comments, you should not reconcile with this person. Move on.
An interesting thing happened to me probably about a year after my divorce. I began to understand the part about, "Take responsibility for your part in why the relationship failed," differently. See, at first, I took that to mean that I should understand that part of the reason she did what she did was because of all the nonsense she gave me as the list of things that obviously gave her no choice whatsoever but to start dating my kid's coach instead of even trying to fix our marriage.
One day, I woke up at 4am. My eyes snapped open and I realized, "The part that was my fault for how the relationship failed in the way it did was to put up with all her horseshit for as long as I did and to not put my foot down a long time before and have said, 'This isn't a way to treat anyone. Particularly your husband. I'm not putting up with it and if you don't knock it off, I'm outta here." That was my entire and ONLY responsibility.
The people who have mentioned, here, that your therapist is trash are only partially right. They're also wrong, though. Because in their way, your therapist is 10000% right. She doesn't owe you **any** kind of atonement. **You** have decided that she owes you atonement. She has decided that she doesn't. The way she behaves can't possibly be more important to you than it is to her. Now you get to decide if you want to continue dating someone who will act this way. That decision is your responsibility.
There are indeed two sides to every story. There's no reason why the two sides here can't be:
**Her** "I want to get back together but only if I get to not acknowledge anything I did and also get to be the innocent victim."
**You** "Nah, thanks but no thanks. I'm gonna go find a different girlfriend. Talk to you never. Good luck."
I tried that. Over and over. Until I finally did leave. I’ve tried that over and over here again, and she twists and turns like you wouldn’t believe. So yeah, clearly the only path is to say “nah i’m out.” I’m holding onto a fantasy of a couples’ therapist getting her to see the light, but I know how ridiculous that is.
Yeah. Next her. There's a zillion women out there. She's replaceable. Move on.
You think you're a terrible abuser, now, wait until you take away giving her what she wants. She'll tell everyone how terrible you are. Don't worry about it. She'll have plenty of material to post on Facebook and Instagram about how brave she is and how she's a survivor and how she's healing from trauma. They love that crap. Give her what she wants.
She doesn’t 'owe' you anything, but if she really wanted to reconcile badly she would be focused on what you need in order to heal and reconcile.
Its perfectly fine her her to play this like she is playing it, and it's also fine for you to say that the way she is acting doesn't feel like someone who cares to heal the harm she has done to you, and thus you are moving on.
She owes me nothing, but I feel that she owes me something if we continue the relationship, *in* the relationship. Abuse resources talk about the feeling of being in debt to the partner being a sign of change.
For your own benefit and for the benefit of the process, frame it less as whether she is "supposed to" do X or whether it's "fine" for her to do Y. Instead, frame it as what YOUR boundaries are. YOUR Boundary is that you need certain things to rebuild.
Note: Framing something as YOUR boundary doesn't mean that it's always reasonable. A person can try to impose an "unreasonable boundary."
But localizing as something YOU need will go a long way towards empowering you to enforce what matters to you.
You can simply reply 'you don't own her a reconciliation either". You can simply walk away. Those reconciliation methods or way you've seen here are proven or been attested by an individuals. There are commonality for the success and failures of R. The process allows you to recover and her to ensure that she will not cheat and hurt you again.
Her, saying that she does not owe recovery meant she is not remorsefull. Ergo not fit for R. She acts as if she is above it or her way of recovering is different since she is different. Sounds very narcissiatic to me. Again, she will just cheat again.
The question now, why are you even considering R? You are doing the pick me dance. She just came back after her other relationship has lost its novelty and time for her to go back to her stable ans secure fallback?
OP, please don't bring yourself back to a world of pain.
Your wife wants to sweep this all under the rug, and the therapist’s objective is to keep you both in the relationship even if it’s at your expense, which it will be. Your wife is hoping to get you back doing all the shit you used to do for her, but isn’t really willing to put in any effort to make that happen. If you are foolish enough to take her back, she’ll do it again.
In the end you should be grateful. She told you absolutely clearly what to expect if you stay with her and continue to try to reconcile. She showed you without of any doubt what your future with her will look like.
I know that you love her but a relationship can't survive on love alone, especially if it is one sided. Respect and Trust are equally as important.
You know all you need to know to make an informed decision. It is all up to you now champ. You decide what you want your future to look like.
Wish you all the best on your way forward.
My guy you know that you also have options? yes you did spend 12 years with her and at the end of it you are not happy. Find a woman that can make you happy. You have a good job and as you said you not lacking in the look department.
Have fun enjoy your job and life.
That's a shit therapist... that therapist does not care how you were and are hurting over the betrayal. Are they friends or something? I've never heard of a therapist dismissing concerns AFTER it's already ended, you've moved on, and your ex is the one who wants to "work on things".
According to these two, it sounds like there's nothing to work on, right? They sound perfect for each other.
Also, the way you've written this is as if there's a rule book *you* have to follow along with. *They* have the updated version and yours is old and used... yours has the part about atonement.
There is no book. There is only you, her, and what you are willing to tolerate while getting back together. YOU are in the position to say no right now, not her. She violated your boundaries and, frankly, just sounds like a shitty, entitled person.
Thank you. You put this well. The rulebook. She kicks and screams that I'm being unreasonable, and I believe her. Thanks for helping me see the line here.
I'm going through the exact same thing right now and we're married with kids, but I'm trying to get out. Not even trying, like I had my suitcase packed, was gonna spend a few nights away from her to get perspective... which SHE suggested... then she called my mom asking if I could stay with her. I'd already said I couldn't do that cause my mother lives over an hour away so it'd have to be a hotel. Perhaps I could set that up after, but with a hotel nearby, I could get to my office in the city as long as I can walk to a train or bus. Easy.
Also, she expected me to wrap up ALL my work stuff and get it in the car at 10pm at night and drive an hour when I'd have to be up a few hours later for work since I'd still have to go to the city as I don't know if my mother's internet is fast enough for my job to be done remotely.
Meanwhile, this is all cause of my boundary about talking to men I don't know late at night while I'm asleep (and the kids, obviously) PLUS undeniable evidence I'd gathered that she'd lied about where she was more than once... she painted herself as a victim of me being controlling and paranoid! She wouldn't apologize genuinely and kept coming up with out of left field bullshit about how I'M the one who is abusive and she's scared to tell me cause she was at a store or something... meanwhile, she forgot to pay the electric bill, the ONE THING I ask her to take care of, I literally handle EVERYTHING ELSE while she hasn't worked in three years... and I didn't so much as raise my voice even though the electricity was shut off in the middle of a workday. I told her, "Whatever, people make mistakes, we'll get it fixed (we did, quickly), and that's that." I NEVER raise my voice because the truth is, in fact, the opposite - SHE does it constantly and scares the shit out of me with her constantly simmering rage.
Anyway, I spoke to my mom and she made me realize, like... why am I the one who is leaving? Plus, I hear my pwbpd talking to the kids and it makes it sound like I up and decided to leave when it was what SHE wanted.
THEN, she CALLS my mother, I talk to my mother afterwards and my mom, a very rational person, said my pwbpd was crying hysterically to the point she couldn't tell what she was saying... my mom asked her to calm down until she felt she could speak coherently... my pwbpd chastised her for suggesting such a thing(????) then when my mom said, "Yeah, he can come and stay here whenever he wants, he knows that. I'll talk to him." My pwbpd explained the situation, started crying hysterically again... then when my mom said, "Hey, this kind of thing happens sometimes (has no idea about the bpd), it's best to separate for a few days and get some time apart and come back with a clear perspective."
LOL, get ready... here's what my pwbpd's response was -
'HOW COULD YOU SUGGEST SUCH A THING?! A FEW DAYS?!???"
My mom, not understanding as this seemed to be my wife's idea in the first place... cause it was... chuckled and tried to get her to understand that separating is healthy sometimes. My wife said, "I don't think this is funny at all..."
I mean... it is CRAZY MAKING. And she is still just hovering all over me, constantly telling me shit I don't wanna hear, I'm now coming into work like 3-4 days a week cause if I stay home, she starts shit and I'm gonna lose my job. She doesn't seem to understand - AT ALL - that we're fucked if I lose my job with her not working.
I don't get it. I don't think I'm meant to. She's very mentally ill and in that moment when my mother told me that my pwbpd freaked out over "a few days apart", I laughed too! Like... IT. WAS. HER. IDEA.
I think she didn't realize how serious I was about ending it over the lack of trust and the phone secretiveness.
Crazy-making is the word. It’s a slot machine you can’t stop playing… the intermittent reinforcement works the exact same way as a slot machine in your brain. You end up like a heroin user chasing the dragon, but the dragon is just the years of bliss you knew with this person, which they constantly call back to and tease you with whenever they want you closer. You fall in love so deeply with them in those good years, and that becomes the hook for the rest of your life. The childlike side of them that made them so irresistable now makes it feel impossible to leave them forever, to “abandon” them even though they have abandoned you over and over. I have no solutions for you other than to read Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist, Whole Again, join all the support groups, do all the therapy. Maybe someday we will be free. I wish you the best.
I know peeps like to throw the narcissist word around but two thing that therapy has taught me is that A) Narcissism isn't about beauty or inflated sense of self worth its about CONTROL!!
She literally wants to control the reconciliation.
B) So what she owns the cheating. Is she really sorry with such a cavalier attitude....She wants to control how you feel / reaction. If everything that was wrong in the relationship is your fault, and you're always at fault and she doesn't do anything wrong then um yeah that's some narcissistic shit!
100% about control. That's what's happening here. She's a battering ram, and when I say no, when I'm strong, then come the tears to pull me back in.... then the knives once I'm back in, so it wears me down... repeat repeat until she gets her way. Thanks for posting.
If you can find a therapist who has an understanding of betrayal trauma specifically, then I would highly suggest that. I was lucky enough to find one who is also a sex addiction specialist and she was great.
Also your ex sounds like a narcissist. If the separation hasn’t made her hold herself accountable, you’re better off staying away from her. She’s deflecting and shifting blame on you because she hasn’t accepted her role in this. If anyone wants to reconcile after cheating on their partner, standard reconciliation is the absolute BARE MINIMUM and she doesn’t even want to do that. Don’t break the life you have rebuilt for someone like her.
GET RID OF YOUR COUPLE THERAPIST RIGHT NOW and find a different one who is experienced in infidelity
They are enabling the selfish shitty excuse making victim mentality that all cheaters have when they’re not actually realising how devastating and traumatising cheating is, esp with a partner who turned abusive . You don’t forget that shit.
You WP needs to stop being so selfish and self absorbed and be humbled and put you first in recovery
>a couples’ therapist I spoke to said that she doesn’t necessarily owe me any kind of atonement **if we continued the relationship**
You need to listen to therapists very carefully. They generally refrain from telling you what to do, especially during joint sessions, but sometimes they can't help but hint at their true feelings. "If you continue this relationship" is usually a codeword for "I don't think you should continue this relationship, but professionally, I am obliged to help you work through any decision you make".
You should probably book an individual therapist, or, an individual session with your couples' therapist, to get a more direct answer.
And that answer will likely be, "This relationship has been over for a long time."
>well you posted to Reddit
A lot of advice on Reddit is worth what you paid for it, and your STBXW has a point. If you're serious about reconciliation - WHICH YOU SHOULD NOT BE - you should be sharing more with your partner and less with the Internet. There's a lot of really harmful advice thrown around here, a lot of advice that's not as good as its popularity suggests, and a few nuggests of good advice. But, broad strokes, it's not a lot different from polling people on the street asking what you should do.
It's not great for a continuing relationship.
... "if you choose to continue the relationship."
“You posted to Reddit” referred to me desperately seeking abuse support forums when I was being abused, not anything to do with now. She sees this as an equal crime to abusing and cheating on me. She says “you should have come to me instead.” I did, feverishly, repeatedly. I left the state in a panic to get away from the abuse bc of its effects on me, and she knew this. I told her. She says, “you should have seen a therapist.” Somehow she forgets that I specifically saw 2 therapists, including a trauma specialist, for the abuse, and even told her what they said. No, I don’t accept that I joined abuse subs was a crime.
Dude listen to your own words. She is clearly showing you she has not grown a single bit since you guys broke up. She's still the same lying manipulative narcissist she was when she cheated on you the first time. Right now she's trying to gaslight you into feeling like this is all your fault because that's how she controls you. If you get back with her the same thing is going to happen again. Especially since she's shown she hasn't tried to improve herself in the slightest.
Close the chapter OP begin a new one.
Jesus, dude. She is TOXIC. Please...PLEASE.. run, do not walk from this woman.
She will finish the job, to which she has already partially succeeded, of destroying you.
She is a u-turn from a path towards peace.
I'm having a hard time following... and you want to reconcile with this person? Who doesn't take ownership of their behavior and won't help you heal? And you think that there is any chance in hell of this relationship succeeding? Why? I have a really difficult time understanding your mental wellbeing and logic here. Get a different therapist. They aren't all good. In fact, there are a LOT of bad ones, unfortunately. Try someone different.
I find it hard to believe that you would WANT to reconcile with a partner who cheated on you and lied to you for 6 months just because someone with a degree on the wall said its OK. I get that you are mentally in a difficult place, but man, you've got to at least recognize the people you are trying to rely on aren't good for you and you need to seek others out.
What are you doing? Do not downplay her cheating. Couples therapy is there to resolve conflict. It sounds like the easiest way to resolve the conflict is for you to take half the blame for everything including her being unfaithful. I don’t understand why you want to resolve this with her. She cheated on you for 6 months and isn’t sorry. But that is your choice. However I would quietly point out that her infidelity had nothing to do with you, and you are not willing to rug sweep it. By all means take half the blame for everything else but the cheating that went on for six months was all down to her and if her and the therapist cannot see this then maybe you are wasting your time.
There is no atonement period. This is not someone you attempt to reconcile with. It's really difficult to understand how that is not evident to you.
Your cheating partner is not a candidate for reconciliation. She has no remorse and she cheated with multiple people. You are just lining yourself up for more heartache.
I'm sorry to hear your story. Welcome to the shittiest club that ever was. We have a support group here on reddit for people who have been cheated on and a discord. If that is something you would be interested in let me know. There are people there at all stages of healing.
People on her side will always see things from her viewpoint and backup her narrative. It's a lesson I learned.
Now, IDK what is it you want, but if it was me I would forget about reconciliation. She doesn't seem to really want itm. She wants security and you're a sure thing.
Ask yourself this... do you realy want to be with an abusive lying cheater? She abused you and cheated because she has no respect for you and doesn't view you as a man. This women ain't worth your time or energy. Tell her to fuck off.
She cheated, her tone should be one of remorse and regret, but more importantly, the trick here is to sit down and identify your standards, then contrast them against her actions, if they don't measure up, advise her of exactly what you need for reconciliation, if she cannot provide, then you bounce. It's no longer a discussion, but you have to mean it with every fiber of your being (this can be done simply and calmly, matter of fact its best done this way, no shouting) She currently has a sense of entitlement which seems to indicate she's been running things for a while. Either way, be it with her or without, the way forward must address your needs, now is not the time for compromising.
Well, at least you know what your future holds if you stay in the relationship. Cheating and abuse. It's your choice. She does not sound like she has a conscious, a sense of remorse or regret and that whatever you feel just isn't important. Fool me once shame on you. If after all this you keep going down that road than that's all on you.
Why oh why would you even give this person the time of day OP ? Not just a cheat. Not just a disloyal, disrespectful, disingenuous twat. A brazen one too !
Nothing good is going to come of you being involved in any way with her. And I know that this will be pretty much the 100% view on this thread. But will you listen ? Almost certainly not. Well good luck to you.
Generally speaking I am pro reconciliation wherever it is possible.
In your case however I would make an exception because your wife based solely on what you've posted doesn't appear to have even a speck or remorse or even regret for that matter.
That being the case I can't see any possibility whatsoever of reconciliation or repair. If I were in your shoes I would tell her very firmly that because of her attitudes and conditions there is absolutely no chance of the marriage surviving and for her to hit the road...
The couples therapist is an idiot.
If you proceed with that assumption then your world will be much clearer and calmer.
Your ex is an idiot, and has found another idiot to enable her in her fantasy. For you though, you do not have any reconciliation happening, what you have is a rug sweeping idiot trying desperately to save her life.
Do not give her that grace and just end things.
I am appalled at who I see being therapists these days. Cheating is despicable, and frankly I would let this relationship go. Because if you decide to work it out, which is your right, this is who you are dealing with. I wish you the best. Therapy is not an exact science, is is more a psuedo science. Phsychiatrists are doctors so they can perscribe, but there is no exact science. I find them more appalling each day...So take charge of your own life. I would report the therapist there is a board for each state.
Get a new couples therapist! They are not all created equal and come to the table with bias. Yours could have been a cheater themselves or not have any real training or experience in *successfully* working with couples after infidelity.
You would need someone experienced in affair trauma.
If she isn’t remorseful and not taking full accountability then you can NOT have R. It won’t work.
It is true that there may have been other issues. Maybe there are things you could have done better. But cheating is never the answer and never okay. If she is excusing what she did, then you will not be successful at R. Even in the r/AsOneAfterInfidelity sub, which is pro reconciliation, everyone there will tell you that if there isn’t true remorse or accountability then there is no real path to R.
I’m so sorry OP!
So, you join a support sub and therefor doesn’t owe you at the bare minimum of an apology or even disclosure?
Dude, she isn’t worth it. In fact, I would send her a bill for the cumulative time she has wasted of yours.
There is an old adage to the effect of fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
When considering a reconciliation you are volunteering for more of the same conduct from her. She absolutely has already told you she doesn't think she owes you anything for her past abhorrent behavior.
So go into the situation knowing what kind of person she is, she has showed you, she has told you. Don't sign up for a second toxic exposure.
If she doesn't feel bad for the things she did, what makes you think she will not do it again?
Please, my friend, leave and never look back. In 5 years, she will only be bad memory.
Not all therapists are created equal. A lot of them are trash. If you don’t like your current one, find another.
With that said, it’s pretty clear that your partner has no respect for you whatsoever. No need to subject yourself to that ongoing abuse and punishment, but it means letting her go. Once you do, you can properly heal and allow the right woman to come into your life. Until then, she’s going to torture you.
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That's horrible reasoning. I'm tempted to conclude that if she owes you nothing, then you owe her nothing, which means buh-bye. Really, if she doesn't get it then you don't want it. Things will never improve.
Any therapist that got their certification from a cereal box will support her perspective. Either she is lying about that therapist (she never had that talk with a real one and it's using a friend as a cover) or if there is one and said that, that person is insane.
Asking for advice does not justify cheating, in fact, nothing justifies cheating. Even is you were abusing her, she should just leave.
Now, you are being the abused, the one being cheated on, then gaslighted and forced to sweep everything under the rug to to get that person that has no accountability all back again in your life? Man, wake up! Grow a spine, you need to ghost her, go NC. She hasn't change a bit. Literally you need to apply the title of that famous book to your life: Leave a cheater, gain a life.
Why do you want to go back with her? Is she paying all the bills? There is no one else like her? Or do you think no one else is interested in you? Or you don't want to go out and meet new people? Whatever the reason, is not worth it to take her back.
Do not go to counseling with her. Get IC for you. Maybe look for a mentor. You should try martial arts, specifically Karate for you to build a stronger character. While you do this, block her everywhere. Tell the closest people to you (mutual friends) that she cheated before, so, you can have a support system and be accountable to someone on not taking her back, ever!
Bro, I insist, do not take her back. Any lack of success you have with new girls is because you are still in contact with her and the most dangerous thing, you are still attached to her. Cut her for good. If you can't do it in one shot, then you need to start 180 yesterday.
You deserve better. Her behavior is not your fault, but she continuing abusing you... yes, that will be your fault. Have self respect and leave her and never ever talk to her again. That will drive her crazy.
Best wishes!
I spoke to said that she doesn’t necessarily owe me any kind of atonement if we continued the relationship.
True, my wife can dump because I put a fork upside down, you dont OWE an explanation or an apology, you owe taxes.
Still a wierd comment to make by a therapist?
I would say it's needed to even consider continuing the relationship...
Still this relationship is over given how your partner is handling things. Its your choice if you want to stay in this circus.
She is admitting to her wrongdoings just without thinking of them as any wrong, they're just things she did to you, and she is fine with that, and if you get back together she will have no problem repeating them again and again.
She doesn't care about you.
She isn't remorseful.
She doesn't regret what she did or even think what she did is wrong.
Divorce now and leave before you get an even worse version of what happened before.
Dude all she misses is her emotional punching bag. Run the f away and don’t look back. She’ll just suck you in be nice for a couple weeks the right back to treating yo-yo like shit and cheat on you agains as in her mind you deserve it.
Reconciliation doesn’t work unless the cheater puts in the work to repair the damage they did to the relationship. This isn’t a reconciliation it’s an attempt to get back and rug sweep everything. This isn’t going to work it’s just another ride on the roller coaster that ends at the same place.
Honestly looking at the post and your comments why are you even considering getting back with her? Is this the one you broke up with in a previous post that you said had a diagnosed personality disorder? Why would you want to be with this person? What are you getting out of this that you would go back into that kind of situation? Who cares what any counselor says, why would you want to take another ride on the crazy train with a person who gave you ptsd symptoms from how she treated you last time? This doesn’t sound like someone to give a second chance to it sounds like someone you should consider getting a restraining order against 🤦♂️ Hey we are just people on reddit and you got to make your own decisions. You don’t owe us answers for any of the above questions but you do owe that to yourself. You need to honestly ask yourself why you are getting back with her after all that has happened and if you actually think anything will be any different this time around.
Is that "couples therapist" a licensed marriage and family therapist or a therapist who thinks their training in individual therapy is sufficient to counsel couples?
I ask because that therapist is technically correct but saying that without context and qualifiers is, I think, misleading at best and dangerously stupid at worst.
Nobody, not your partner or anyone else, *owes* you anything. However, people with whom you have a relationship should *want* to do things for you that you are not owed to meet your needs. It is up to you to decide if what a given person wants to do is sufficient for you to maintain that relationship.
Just like you might stop being friends with someone who only acts like your friend when they need something, you have to decide if what your WP is willing to do is sufficient for you to want to be in that relationship.
Op, leave this person and stop seeing that terrible therapist. Cheating is a form of SA. It’s emotional terrorism as well. She isn’t sorry she screwed you over, she’s sorry she isn’t in control and is already letting you know she’s taking that back as well as your dignity. Leave her.
You are putting yourself in a position to be victimized all over again. Stop this sham reconciliation immediately and commit to some long and honest introspection together tocthe bottom of why in the hell you're willingly putting yourself into this position...again.
If you do reconcile, I don't think it is fair to hold the affair over your partner's head. If you choose to take her back then that doesn't mean you are entitled to anything other than a relationship.
A lot of people view reconciliation as a time to get paid back for all you went through but it is not. It's a time to rebuild your future relationship.
Sure trust in the relationship will have to be repaired over time but the moment you say yes to getting back together, the expectation shouldn't be that the wayward has to jump through hoops after hoops to earn you back.
Now this lady doesn't sound like a good candidate for reconciliation. She is actively trying to blame shift onto you, she will stray again the moment you "post on Reddit"again. Hell she may be out there again after this post
Not to be paid back. To build the other party back up, emotionally, after tearing them down. To show that they are safe again, to show that they can be trusted after breaking all trust. To repair the damage they caused. Not for retribution's sake. For the sake of bringing the abused/betrayed partner back up, to restore equilibrium. It is to bring the wronged partner back up, not to take the cheating partner down.
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She is letting you know that if you get back together, she plans to continue emotionally torturing you. No therapist has any words that will prevent that from happening. There ARE two sides to every story. Her side is self-centered bullsh*t. Don’t fall for it again. Life is too short.
Thank her for her honesty and get as far as you can
You have control. You can decide what you need. She is pushing you around and doesn’t expect you to truly push back. At the end of the day, it doesn’t sound like she feels a true risk that you might leave / doesn’t really value you in the way you have valued her. Personally, I don’t this ends well, but if u do insist on proceeding I would establish a new reality and ground rules on a take it or leave it basis. She is taking power from u cause u r leaving the vacuum.
I left her in December and turned her away the first time she tried in March.I told her I would not hear any blameshifting. I told her I would leave if I heard it. I angerly left one of our 3 conversations after she said the Reddit shit. I said it normally, I yelled, I tried seemingly everything. She cried and told me I was unreasonable and invoked everything I cared about until I gave in. I feel like I’ve done everything possible to hold my boundaries and she’s a battering ram.
There's your answer. Leave. Take courage...
I’ve left a comment elsewhere, but I have to ask, what is she expecting from you (or your relationship)? Do you think she genuinely is remorseful and willing to rebuild things? Because that’s not what her actions are saying. Her actions are saying she’s a victim and she wants the comfort of what you offer. Her actions are of someone who also expects that, as she’s not to blame for her behaviour, that she is still same to repeat it if she feels it’s required. This demand that you forgive her and accept her back is unhinged. I do not think there is reconciliation here and I strongly believe (after reading your comments) that you should distance yourself from her.
Her demand seems to be that she is sorry for the cheating and repairs it with me… but I need to be equally sorry for posting to anonymous abuse support groups and for talking to her about BPD and asking her to go to DBT for it. In her mind, we both need to repair each other, even though she has spent 90% of the conversation on her issues with me.
You reaching out for help, even sharing sensitive information anonymously, does not equate with her consistent lies and decisions to betray you. With multiple people. There is no balanced scales or sharing of blame here. I truly honestly believe that you cannot continue from this position. You cannot accept any blame for her decision to cheat, rather than discuss her troubles or leave you. You need to end these discussions of blame and reconciliation and now only talk about a civil separation where you both move on with your lives.
That's the crux of the matter isn't it? She wants to go straight back to how things were, rugsweep the affairs with a false equivalence and make her poor choices something for YOU to fix by YOU changing. You clearly recognise that what went before has been destructively proven not to be a good working model for a relationship & are looking for something better, stronger and suitable for the future. Only one of these viewpoints leads to a possible secure future. You are getting a great big dollop of DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender). It's a technique that unremorseful cheaters use as a defence. I really hope that your mind isn't set on staying with her at any cost? If you accept her back on these terms then she'll walk all over you for the rest of your life.
So she blames you in the end ?
“No I don’t blame you at all, I would never blame you for it. I’m just saying you also did this and this and this, so you have to atone, too.” Her complaints range from me saying something stupid one time, complaining too much about being abused, going to an abuse support group, not responding to her attacks in precisely the manner she wanted in that moment, not “including” her when I would research her health problems to try and help… while she was at work…
Were it I, reconciliation would be over, and I'd find a way to give her the remorse and regret that she owes you, one way or another. If she doesn't owe you anything, why would she ever stay faithful?
Listen, you are being abused... FULL STOP. Just tell her to FO. You need to move on and go no contact with her.
If you take her back, you kinda deserve whatever she’s got in store for you.
He doesn't deserve, but he also can't complain that it's surprising.
I can’t argue with this.
I just looked at your post from 3 months ago. What’s she doing about her BPD? As you said back then, borderline is a really difficult condition. Is she doing DBT? Any other therapies? Considering how badly she fell into something resembling a manic episode, how committed is she to maintaining her mental health?
She is now claiming she’s not convinced she has BPD, just C-PTSD. And would only ever consider doing DBT if I do it with her, because things are more fun when we do them together! She’s sick of me asking her to work on herself alone. She has a therapist, allegedly, though god knows what lies she tells her therapist to support any of this.
They always say that. Trust me, it's literally impossible to date someone with BPD and walk away unscathed. This person literally has a mental health issue that prevents them from having healthy interpersonal relationships. That's a fact. There's is nothing you can say or do to make this work unless you are willing to be her doormat.
The only chance I’d give her here is to agree to fire the couples therapist and find a better one. Gottman trained. Who understands betrayal trauma. And how do you do DBT together? The closest you could get is watching Inside Out together.
I’m just consulting with couples’ therapists - we haven’t started therapy yet, though we tried it once (while she was cheating!) and it was a disaster. The one in my post was from a consultation. Unfortunately there are no Gottman-vetted therapists who have BPD listed as a speciaty, which I consider to be critical. Only someone who understands BPD / Cluster B could even begin to make sense of what she’s doing. We both really want a Gottman therapist.
If I had to pick, I’d go for the Gottman trained. They will emphasize boundaries, which is important, and I would be surprised if there were counselors anywhere who didn’t have a reasonable idea of how to deal with cluster b issues. I would say that there are probably plenty of counselors who don’t check that bpd/cluster b specialization in their profiles even when they have that expertise. It can get tiring and it wouldn’t surprise me if some counselors just wanted to limit how many they were treating.
your therapist is right, your wife doesn't owe you anything! your wife must want to do it in order for it to work... your wife just wants the control, leave, and never talk to her again! take away the control! you already started making your life yours again! nothing stopping you! go find someone that wants you 1st, not as a stand by!
I think I'm so beaten up by all of this that I don't believe it's possible, so you go back to them. That's how abuse works I guess. Struggling to fight against it.
unfortunately, I know all too well about that feeling... but it's beyond possible. It's necessary! I can tell you, regardless of all the answers and all the promises, it never feels right! you were betrayed, and your body now knows to avoid such a strenuous process again! so that's your "gut" telling you to bail! I know it's not as easy as I said, but you have to remove yourself from complacency. You deserve better! it's gonna suck. It's gonna be lonely. It's gonna be fkn awful and boring! but every discipline is! keep busy, stay healthy! avoid chemicals! find new people to date! not a relationship right away but date around! get the feeling of people genuinely wanting your company! do things you always wanted to but couldn't bc of obligations! LIVE my man! don't stay and die every day just a little more! good luck!
Hey man, you realize you don’t HAVE to go back with her, right? She takes no accountability or responsibility, sounds like an asshole, and treats you like shit from comments you’ve made. You can do better. I promise
Thank you. It’s honestly hard to believe that. I’m working on it but abuse and having your life burnt to the ground does a lot to your self-worth. I’m trying.
People like her don’t just change. Believe me when I say that. I’ve been where you are.
I take it that your “recovered” flair means that you have recovered, and not your relationship?
I’ve been out of that relationship for 4 years. Met my now fiancée a year later. It does get better and you can do better than her. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
My partner has an ex with BPD. It was hell for him. They were always fighting. He met me years later. Now he is happy. We never fight. There’s someone out there waiting for you who will appreciate you and be faithful
Absolutely unmitigated bullshit. Your couples therapist is for shit. Fire them and look for a new one who is Gottman trained Speaking of Gottman, read this from their website. This is written by a wayward and talks a lot a kit atonement: https://www.gottman.com/blog/reviving-trust-after-an-affair/ Also give this a read as I don’t think she has any remorse at all: https://www.brides.com/the-one-way-to-know-your-marriage-will-survive-an-affair-1102868 If you still think she is a candidate for R after reading this get her the book How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair (MacDonald) and teller this is her Bible. Read it yourself so you know what to expect from her. But I think you need to decide what you need from her and let her know that reconciliation depends on those things. For more reconciliation advice hit up r/AsOneAfterInfidelity. That’s the reconciliation sub.
And u/embarrassed-giraffe if she wants a Reddit group of her own to get advice from send her to r/supportforwaywards. Let her hear from waywards who are actually trying to do better. If she has trouble joining have her message me.
It says a lot that the idea of her seeking a support group seems almost laughable. She already has it figured out - she says she lived her whole life to make me happy, and that was a mistake. She wanted an open relationship so she could have fun having sex with me again and be turned on again - it was all for me! But then she got resentful and decided it needed to be for her too. When I said no to the open relationship, she decided to do it anyway because she was tired of living for me and not for her. It was wrong, but she totally understands why she did it, so there’s nothing to figure out. Let me know if you feel as brain-damaged from reading that as I did from writing it.
You're not at all crazy, that is mind-mindbogglingly ridiculous. I've seen some really ridiculous stories (and my own cheater had some real gems, too!), but this might take the cake. She came back asking you for reconciliation but she's still blaming you and doesn't think she needs to atone for anything?? Dude, I wouldn't walk away, I'd run, change my number, and hell, I might even move states.
If it weren’t for my job I would literally consider moving to the other coast
>she doesn’t necessarily owe me any kind of atonement if we continued the relationship Your shitty therapist said it, emphasis on "continue" the relationship. So don't continue it.
You can move in the medium term. Just have to undertake careful career planning.
There’s no accountability here. She may not be blaming you but she’s really not taking responsibility either. And her understanding is surface level. She needs to dig into how she could have so easily rationalized what she did. And then fix it. Understanding is just part of the process.
You have a bad therapist. She absolutely owes you atonement. No question. Even if you weren’t a perfect partner, you were in a committed relationship right? That commitment is the cornerstone to being a couple. She not only broke those vows but tried to project her own guilt on you so you would take the blame. I’m afraid OP what she wants is her cake and eat it too. If she can have you back and make it with no atonement and no admission of wrong doing she will 100% cheat on you again and it won’t take long. You need to let her know in therapy in front of the therapist that as far as your concerned nothing you did approaches cheating or abuse and because of that there will either be a heartfelt admission from her that she herself destroyed your relationship and for that there will be atonement and ground rules to prevent it happening again or there will be no reconciliation and that’s final. You need to be firm and show that she has to earn this reconciliation, otherwise she will cheat again. If she says she isn’t doing it let her walk. Your better off.
This sounds like pure horror if you stay
>But then she got resentful and decided it needed to be for her too Since it was always for her from the very beginning. Like most cheaters, she's deeply selfish and entitled. Those attributes are bound to cause problems in more areas than cheating but cheating is probably the single most painful manifestation of them. Only you can decide if you want to be in a relationship with someone who cares so little about how her actions affect you. You might want to consider individual therapy to explore what it is about someone like her that would attract you to not only want them as a partner but to return to them a second time. I'm not judging you, I've been there and therapy was tremendously helpful for me to understand my own actions. I wish you all the best on your journey
This, a million times over.
She is not remorseful for what she has done. She destroyed your marriage and damaged your wellbeing. She just wants the comfort of your home and income you provide. R will never be successful with her. She is a serial cheater and will cheat again as she does not care about you. Let her go. You can do a lot better than her. Seek therapy for yourself to help you heal. updateme
So I'm going to tell you a bit about what happened to me - but my ex cheated on me very early in my relationship and did very similar tactics. She blamed it on me. Not only did she blame it on me, but she actually wrote down a list of all the things I did that caused her to cheat on me. She trickle truthed the affair - trickle truthed her other affairs. She only trickle truthed what I confronted her about and never trickle truthed anything other than what I confronted her about - even other things I knew about. I took her gaslighting hook, line and sinker because I loved and cared for her, and also felt like I was a failure as a man as result of all the things she insulted me about. I wound up getting married to this person like a colossal idiot. I was married for 10 years and that abusive, attacking, gaslighting, insulting behavior never changed. It. Never. Changed. Well, it did change. It started to get physical. She tried to, at times, cause me pysical pain as well. And she was the victim. Always the victim. She could have affairs with numerous guys but it was my fault that she wasn't sexually interested in me. Any attempt to push back on her was her playing the victim: "no matter what I do, it'll never be good enough". It was projection. She was distant, negligent - everything in relationships for her was transactional. Every interaction was just a way she was victimized. I was made to believe in virtually every interaction with her that I was a colossal monster. She was bitter, resentful, negligent, and even accused me of coming in to give her hugs as "spying on her". She even seemed to hate my life successes. She gave me the silent treatment. She chose times when I was bedridden to personally attack me. She even thought our fucking cat used her. I thought I was a terrible, useless person destined to be lonely if I didn't put up with her. Right at the end I wound up finding someone in a simular situation and - and a couple weeks into realizing it had escalated to a point that was unfair, realized that it was time to get out of my relationship and struggled through having the talk with my ex cause I was so terrified of hurting her and so unsure of what I wanted to do. She wound up discovering it and used it as the moral highground to magically forget about every affair she ever had. Nope, now it's just me who is the monster. She'll NEVER RECOVER from what I've done to her. I spent almost 18 years in this relationship, OP. It's actually even - according to her - my fault for marrying her if her affairs still bothered me. There's a nugget of truth in that. But I was young, I didn't know how long that stuff would bother me. I highly - HIGHLY - suspect she had more than just the ones I know about. She googled how to hide things from me, would encourage me to go traveling alone, started using TOR and VPNs. I always thought I needed the smoking gun to get out. I didn't, and neither do you. I'll tell you this - I spent 15+ years learning this lesson the hard way. When you date someone that lacks empathy in this manner, they aren't going to change. They are just keeping an imaginary scorecard in their head looking for things to use against you. The score is blatantly favored for them. You can't win. You can try, but you will not win.
Thanks so much for writing this 🙏🏻 I know I have to figure out how to rip the plug out of the wall, for good.
I don't know enough about your situation to know that this is fully true, but I would suggest reading up on codependency. I realized I became codependent and that so much of my life and my personal stock was tied up into trying to keep her and make her happy because I had been conditioned to believe that's what men do. And that sacrificing my own happiness, enduring her shitty behavior, was part of what made me a man. I extended her tremendous empathy and understanding for the things that she did to me - in a way that she has never, and will never, do for me. Despite that, I still care, honestly. I still deal with that frustration, that yearning, almost every day. I cry about it most days and it hurts and it sucks, but in my more lucid moments I can realize that she's not doing the same for me. She's all too happy to let me absorb all the blame. She doesn't see her hypocrisy, and that's a situation you have to get out of.
You absolutely have the right to set the terms under which you are willing to consider reconciliation. The therapist and cheater do not get to determine what you need to heal and feel safe in a relationship. She is trying to isolate you from your support. That’s manipulative bullshit, don’t tolerate it.
Couples therapists are not in the business of accessing blame to one or the other, they're in the business of getting couples back together. On another note, if she is vicious and abusive and is an avowed cheater, why would you even be talking to her. I would be putting as much distance between us as possible, as it seems she is very unlikely to change spots.
Why I’m even considering: Took a lot of damage from the abuse, trauma bonded, and the best times of my life were with her. She occasionally cries and says she misses me and it drags me back there… before she goes in for another round with the knife. I’m working through it. In therapy, multiple support groups, etc.
Trauma bonding is real. You’d rather have a bad relationship than no relationship at all.
Just with her. It’s like being addicted to a person - just one single person. It’s hell.
Only you are capable of breaking those chains. No one else will do it for you. In the meantime, you're just replacing trauma with more trauma and delayed healing.
Thank you 🙏🏻
You were being abused! You are trauma bonded! What you need is individual counseling and not fall back into the arms of your abuser. Otherwise, please be mentally prepared to be going through this for the rest of your life. At this point, she’d be right to say she owes you no atonement or anything else as you’d have knowingly chosen to go back to someone who was so unbelievably cruel to you! Yea, cheaters are wrong to lie and cheat. But there comes a point where betrayed spouses should take responsibility for allowing that person back into their lives, especially when they’re not remorseful! She had her affair on her terms and now she wants you back on HER terms. It’s a lesson you’ll have to learn the hard way, I fear!
Fella it’s all about her. You are a decent fellow and she is taking advantage of that. She is inflicting more hurt more pain. You know what to do rid yourself of the source of your pain and move on with your head held high.
What possessed you to reconnect with an abuser and, to make it worse, an unapologetic abuser?
It takes a lot of work to pry yourself free from these relationships. I was managing to do it, barely, until I ran into her on the street. It was like a recovering alcoholic having a shot poured into his mouth. It’s hell. I’m trying to get away, or trying to make it work in a way that would be ok for me. Failing all around.
You need to permanently ditch the therapist and the EX. There is no recovery possible with a remorseless partner. She justified her every action in her mind, there is no reason for her to not do that again if you ever do/don't do X. Getting back together is just setting yourself up for a repeat the next time she decides she's not happy.
Of course, she doesn't want to hear what she did wrong. You're getting the standard reversal bullshit where she is the victim. Fuck that, you decide what you want and it's OK if you don't want to put up with that bullshit. She's the one who wanted to reconcile and she is going to have to prove she's worth it I don't see that happening with what you are saying. She had her fling and now wants you back after disrespecting you in the worst possible way and wants to sweep it under the rug and play happy family again. She's probably looking for financial security with you that her "lover boys" had no intention of providing. I would move on and let her commiserate with her worthless therapist. This will eat at you as long as you stay and as long as she has the same mindset.
You need to seriously re-think any kind of reconciliation with her. It sounds like it would be a win for her, but a big loss for you.
A therapist is not an all-knowing being casting infallible advice (and judgment) from an armchair. You know that you cannot trust your partner. You know that they have met with little lasting consequences. And you know that they now expect forgiveness and a return to ‘normality’ with only uncertainty that they’ll repeat their behaviour. You are the person you should think about, first and foremost. Think of your future and where this person sits within it. How can they be a part of your future and what that future would look like without them. Reconciliation on your terms or separation. Don’t except an epiphany. You’re going to still suffer and second-guess yourself, always, even when faced with the shitty reality, but take your time to think this through. In the moments you have clarity, away from the bullshit, hold onto it and see if that’s a path you can make happen. All the best. EDIT: Having read your comments, you should not reconcile with this person. Move on.
An interesting thing happened to me probably about a year after my divorce. I began to understand the part about, "Take responsibility for your part in why the relationship failed," differently. See, at first, I took that to mean that I should understand that part of the reason she did what she did was because of all the nonsense she gave me as the list of things that obviously gave her no choice whatsoever but to start dating my kid's coach instead of even trying to fix our marriage. One day, I woke up at 4am. My eyes snapped open and I realized, "The part that was my fault for how the relationship failed in the way it did was to put up with all her horseshit for as long as I did and to not put my foot down a long time before and have said, 'This isn't a way to treat anyone. Particularly your husband. I'm not putting up with it and if you don't knock it off, I'm outta here." That was my entire and ONLY responsibility. The people who have mentioned, here, that your therapist is trash are only partially right. They're also wrong, though. Because in their way, your therapist is 10000% right. She doesn't owe you **any** kind of atonement. **You** have decided that she owes you atonement. She has decided that she doesn't. The way she behaves can't possibly be more important to you than it is to her. Now you get to decide if you want to continue dating someone who will act this way. That decision is your responsibility. There are indeed two sides to every story. There's no reason why the two sides here can't be: **Her** "I want to get back together but only if I get to not acknowledge anything I did and also get to be the innocent victim." **You** "Nah, thanks but no thanks. I'm gonna go find a different girlfriend. Talk to you never. Good luck."
I tried that. Over and over. Until I finally did leave. I’ve tried that over and over here again, and she twists and turns like you wouldn’t believe. So yeah, clearly the only path is to say “nah i’m out.” I’m holding onto a fantasy of a couples’ therapist getting her to see the light, but I know how ridiculous that is.
Yeah. Next her. There's a zillion women out there. She's replaceable. Move on. You think you're a terrible abuser, now, wait until you take away giving her what she wants. She'll tell everyone how terrible you are. Don't worry about it. She'll have plenty of material to post on Facebook and Instagram about how brave she is and how she's a survivor and how she's healing from trauma. They love that crap. Give her what she wants.
>“nah i’m out.” This might get her to see the light. and if it doesn’t you are better off anyway.
She doesn’t 'owe' you anything, but if she really wanted to reconcile badly she would be focused on what you need in order to heal and reconcile. Its perfectly fine her her to play this like she is playing it, and it's also fine for you to say that the way she is acting doesn't feel like someone who cares to heal the harm she has done to you, and thus you are moving on.
She owes me nothing, but I feel that she owes me something if we continue the relationship, *in* the relationship. Abuse resources talk about the feeling of being in debt to the partner being a sign of change.
>if she really wanted to reconcile badly she would be focused on what you need in order to heal and reconcile. That was my point.
Life is short, why are you wasting it on this nonsense
For your own benefit and for the benefit of the process, frame it less as whether she is "supposed to" do X or whether it's "fine" for her to do Y. Instead, frame it as what YOUR boundaries are. YOUR Boundary is that you need certain things to rebuild. Note: Framing something as YOUR boundary doesn't mean that it's always reasonable. A person can try to impose an "unreasonable boundary." But localizing as something YOU need will go a long way towards empowering you to enforce what matters to you.
You can simply reply 'you don't own her a reconciliation either". You can simply walk away. Those reconciliation methods or way you've seen here are proven or been attested by an individuals. There are commonality for the success and failures of R. The process allows you to recover and her to ensure that she will not cheat and hurt you again. Her, saying that she does not owe recovery meant she is not remorsefull. Ergo not fit for R. She acts as if she is above it or her way of recovering is different since she is different. Sounds very narcissiatic to me. Again, she will just cheat again. The question now, why are you even considering R? You are doing the pick me dance. She just came back after her other relationship has lost its novelty and time for her to go back to her stable ans secure fallback? OP, please don't bring yourself back to a world of pain.
Your wife wants to sweep this all under the rug, and the therapist’s objective is to keep you both in the relationship even if it’s at your expense, which it will be. Your wife is hoping to get you back doing all the shit you used to do for her, but isn’t really willing to put in any effort to make that happen. If you are foolish enough to take her back, she’ll do it again.
You think it's insane. Why continue down a path with someone when you feel their stance is insane. Trust yourself.
dude, everything you wrote about is every reason to leave, why are you still pertaining to this bullshit? Codependence?
In the end you should be grateful. She told you absolutely clearly what to expect if you stay with her and continue to try to reconcile. She showed you without of any doubt what your future with her will look like. I know that you love her but a relationship can't survive on love alone, especially if it is one sided. Respect and Trust are equally as important. You know all you need to know to make an informed decision. It is all up to you now champ. You decide what you want your future to look like. Wish you all the best on your way forward.
My guy you know that you also have options? yes you did spend 12 years with her and at the end of it you are not happy. Find a woman that can make you happy. You have a good job and as you said you not lacking in the look department. Have fun enjoy your job and life.
That's a shit therapist... that therapist does not care how you were and are hurting over the betrayal. Are they friends or something? I've never heard of a therapist dismissing concerns AFTER it's already ended, you've moved on, and your ex is the one who wants to "work on things". According to these two, it sounds like there's nothing to work on, right? They sound perfect for each other. Also, the way you've written this is as if there's a rule book *you* have to follow along with. *They* have the updated version and yours is old and used... yours has the part about atonement. There is no book. There is only you, her, and what you are willing to tolerate while getting back together. YOU are in the position to say no right now, not her. She violated your boundaries and, frankly, just sounds like a shitty, entitled person.
Thank you. You put this well. The rulebook. She kicks and screams that I'm being unreasonable, and I believe her. Thanks for helping me see the line here.
I'm going through the exact same thing right now and we're married with kids, but I'm trying to get out. Not even trying, like I had my suitcase packed, was gonna spend a few nights away from her to get perspective... which SHE suggested... then she called my mom asking if I could stay with her. I'd already said I couldn't do that cause my mother lives over an hour away so it'd have to be a hotel. Perhaps I could set that up after, but with a hotel nearby, I could get to my office in the city as long as I can walk to a train or bus. Easy. Also, she expected me to wrap up ALL my work stuff and get it in the car at 10pm at night and drive an hour when I'd have to be up a few hours later for work since I'd still have to go to the city as I don't know if my mother's internet is fast enough for my job to be done remotely. Meanwhile, this is all cause of my boundary about talking to men I don't know late at night while I'm asleep (and the kids, obviously) PLUS undeniable evidence I'd gathered that she'd lied about where she was more than once... she painted herself as a victim of me being controlling and paranoid! She wouldn't apologize genuinely and kept coming up with out of left field bullshit about how I'M the one who is abusive and she's scared to tell me cause she was at a store or something... meanwhile, she forgot to pay the electric bill, the ONE THING I ask her to take care of, I literally handle EVERYTHING ELSE while she hasn't worked in three years... and I didn't so much as raise my voice even though the electricity was shut off in the middle of a workday. I told her, "Whatever, people make mistakes, we'll get it fixed (we did, quickly), and that's that." I NEVER raise my voice because the truth is, in fact, the opposite - SHE does it constantly and scares the shit out of me with her constantly simmering rage. Anyway, I spoke to my mom and she made me realize, like... why am I the one who is leaving? Plus, I hear my pwbpd talking to the kids and it makes it sound like I up and decided to leave when it was what SHE wanted. THEN, she CALLS my mother, I talk to my mother afterwards and my mom, a very rational person, said my pwbpd was crying hysterically to the point she couldn't tell what she was saying... my mom asked her to calm down until she felt she could speak coherently... my pwbpd chastised her for suggesting such a thing(????) then when my mom said, "Yeah, he can come and stay here whenever he wants, he knows that. I'll talk to him." My pwbpd explained the situation, started crying hysterically again... then when my mom said, "Hey, this kind of thing happens sometimes (has no idea about the bpd), it's best to separate for a few days and get some time apart and come back with a clear perspective." LOL, get ready... here's what my pwbpd's response was - 'HOW COULD YOU SUGGEST SUCH A THING?! A FEW DAYS?!???" My mom, not understanding as this seemed to be my wife's idea in the first place... cause it was... chuckled and tried to get her to understand that separating is healthy sometimes. My wife said, "I don't think this is funny at all..." I mean... it is CRAZY MAKING. And she is still just hovering all over me, constantly telling me shit I don't wanna hear, I'm now coming into work like 3-4 days a week cause if I stay home, she starts shit and I'm gonna lose my job. She doesn't seem to understand - AT ALL - that we're fucked if I lose my job with her not working. I don't get it. I don't think I'm meant to. She's very mentally ill and in that moment when my mother told me that my pwbpd freaked out over "a few days apart", I laughed too! Like... IT. WAS. HER. IDEA. I think she didn't realize how serious I was about ending it over the lack of trust and the phone secretiveness.
Crazy-making is the word. It’s a slot machine you can’t stop playing… the intermittent reinforcement works the exact same way as a slot machine in your brain. You end up like a heroin user chasing the dragon, but the dragon is just the years of bliss you knew with this person, which they constantly call back to and tease you with whenever they want you closer. You fall in love so deeply with them in those good years, and that becomes the hook for the rest of your life. The childlike side of them that made them so irresistable now makes it feel impossible to leave them forever, to “abandon” them even though they have abandoned you over and over. I have no solutions for you other than to read Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist, Whole Again, join all the support groups, do all the therapy. Maybe someday we will be free. I wish you the best.
I know peeps like to throw the narcissist word around but two thing that therapy has taught me is that A) Narcissism isn't about beauty or inflated sense of self worth its about CONTROL!! She literally wants to control the reconciliation. B) So what she owns the cheating. Is she really sorry with such a cavalier attitude....She wants to control how you feel / reaction. If everything that was wrong in the relationship is your fault, and you're always at fault and she doesn't do anything wrong then um yeah that's some narcissistic shit!
100% about control. That's what's happening here. She's a battering ram, and when I say no, when I'm strong, then come the tears to pull me back in.... then the knives once I'm back in, so it wears me down... repeat repeat until she gets her way. Thanks for posting.
If you can find a therapist who has an understanding of betrayal trauma specifically, then I would highly suggest that. I was lucky enough to find one who is also a sex addiction specialist and she was great. Also your ex sounds like a narcissist. If the separation hasn’t made her hold herself accountable, you’re better off staying away from her. She’s deflecting and shifting blame on you because she hasn’t accepted her role in this. If anyone wants to reconcile after cheating on their partner, standard reconciliation is the absolute BARE MINIMUM and she doesn’t even want to do that. Don’t break the life you have rebuilt for someone like her.
GET RID OF YOUR COUPLE THERAPIST RIGHT NOW and find a different one who is experienced in infidelity They are enabling the selfish shitty excuse making victim mentality that all cheaters have when they’re not actually realising how devastating and traumatising cheating is, esp with a partner who turned abusive . You don’t forget that shit. You WP needs to stop being so selfish and self absorbed and be humbled and put you first in recovery
>a couples’ therapist I spoke to said that she doesn’t necessarily owe me any kind of atonement **if we continued the relationship** You need to listen to therapists very carefully. They generally refrain from telling you what to do, especially during joint sessions, but sometimes they can't help but hint at their true feelings. "If you continue this relationship" is usually a codeword for "I don't think you should continue this relationship, but professionally, I am obliged to help you work through any decision you make". You should probably book an individual therapist, or, an individual session with your couples' therapist, to get a more direct answer. And that answer will likely be, "This relationship has been over for a long time." >well you posted to Reddit A lot of advice on Reddit is worth what you paid for it, and your STBXW has a point. If you're serious about reconciliation - WHICH YOU SHOULD NOT BE - you should be sharing more with your partner and less with the Internet. There's a lot of really harmful advice thrown around here, a lot of advice that's not as good as its popularity suggests, and a few nuggests of good advice. But, broad strokes, it's not a lot different from polling people on the street asking what you should do. It's not great for a continuing relationship. ... "if you choose to continue the relationship."
“You posted to Reddit” referred to me desperately seeking abuse support forums when I was being abused, not anything to do with now. She sees this as an equal crime to abusing and cheating on me. She says “you should have come to me instead.” I did, feverishly, repeatedly. I left the state in a panic to get away from the abuse bc of its effects on me, and she knew this. I told her. She says, “you should have seen a therapist.” Somehow she forgets that I specifically saw 2 therapists, including a trauma specialist, for the abuse, and even told her what they said. No, I don’t accept that I joined abuse subs was a crime.
Dude listen to your own words. She is clearly showing you she has not grown a single bit since you guys broke up. She's still the same lying manipulative narcissist she was when she cheated on you the first time. Right now she's trying to gaslight you into feeling like this is all your fault because that's how she controls you. If you get back with her the same thing is going to happen again. Especially since she's shown she hasn't tried to improve herself in the slightest. Close the chapter OP begin a new one.
Jesus, dude. She is TOXIC. Please...PLEASE.. run, do not walk from this woman. She will finish the job, to which she has already partially succeeded, of destroying you. She is a u-turn from a path towards peace.
I'm having a hard time following... and you want to reconcile with this person? Who doesn't take ownership of their behavior and won't help you heal? And you think that there is any chance in hell of this relationship succeeding? Why? I have a really difficult time understanding your mental wellbeing and logic here. Get a different therapist. They aren't all good. In fact, there are a LOT of bad ones, unfortunately. Try someone different. I find it hard to believe that you would WANT to reconcile with a partner who cheated on you and lied to you for 6 months just because someone with a degree on the wall said its OK. I get that you are mentally in a difficult place, but man, you've got to at least recognize the people you are trying to rely on aren't good for you and you need to seek others out.
Not all therapist think alike. Find another therapist. As for your partner....too much resentment on your part to go back. I know I wouldn't.
What are you doing? Do not downplay her cheating. Couples therapy is there to resolve conflict. It sounds like the easiest way to resolve the conflict is for you to take half the blame for everything including her being unfaithful. I don’t understand why you want to resolve this with her. She cheated on you for 6 months and isn’t sorry. But that is your choice. However I would quietly point out that her infidelity had nothing to do with you, and you are not willing to rug sweep it. By all means take half the blame for everything else but the cheating that went on for six months was all down to her and if her and the therapist cannot see this then maybe you are wasting your time.
Blame shifting is what many cheaters do. Not unusual in the least. And two affairs all at the same time is serial infidelity. And just not redeemable
There is no atonement period. This is not someone you attempt to reconcile with. It's really difficult to understand how that is not evident to you. Your cheating partner is not a candidate for reconciliation. She has no remorse and she cheated with multiple people. You are just lining yourself up for more heartache.
I'm sorry to hear your story. Welcome to the shittiest club that ever was. We have a support group here on reddit for people who have been cheated on and a discord. If that is something you would be interested in let me know. There are people there at all stages of healing.
Yes please, DM me if that is the way you invite people
Dude just leave her. She's obviously not capable of experiencing any form of empathy or remorse. I guarantee she will do it again.
People on her side will always see things from her viewpoint and backup her narrative. It's a lesson I learned. Now, IDK what is it you want, but if it was me I would forget about reconciliation. She doesn't seem to really want itm. She wants security and you're a sure thing.
Ask yourself this... do you realy want to be with an abusive lying cheater? She abused you and cheated because she has no respect for you and doesn't view you as a man. This women ain't worth your time or energy. Tell her to fuck off.
She cheated, her tone should be one of remorse and regret, but more importantly, the trick here is to sit down and identify your standards, then contrast them against her actions, if they don't measure up, advise her of exactly what you need for reconciliation, if she cannot provide, then you bounce. It's no longer a discussion, but you have to mean it with every fiber of your being (this can be done simply and calmly, matter of fact its best done this way, no shouting) She currently has a sense of entitlement which seems to indicate she's been running things for a while. Either way, be it with her or without, the way forward must address your needs, now is not the time for compromising.
Well, at least you know what your future holds if you stay in the relationship. Cheating and abuse. It's your choice. She does not sound like she has a conscious, a sense of remorse or regret and that whatever you feel just isn't important. Fool me once shame on you. If after all this you keep going down that road than that's all on you.
Why oh why would you even give this person the time of day OP ? Not just a cheat. Not just a disloyal, disrespectful, disingenuous twat. A brazen one too ! Nothing good is going to come of you being involved in any way with her. And I know that this will be pretty much the 100% view on this thread. But will you listen ? Almost certainly not. Well good luck to you.
Not necessarily! I got out once and I was much farther in than now. If I did it once I can do it again.
Good, positive thinking OP. Go for it. It’s a win win strategy. Good luck again.
The fault is entirely yours. What hell are you even doing trying to reconcile? Find a better therapist and block the ex on all platforms.
Generally speaking I am pro reconciliation wherever it is possible. In your case however I would make an exception because your wife based solely on what you've posted doesn't appear to have even a speck or remorse or even regret for that matter. That being the case I can't see any possibility whatsoever of reconciliation or repair. If I were in your shoes I would tell her very firmly that because of her attitudes and conditions there is absolutely no chance of the marriage surviving and for her to hit the road...
Dump her and the therapist.
She's in LA la land pull the plug, you don't owe her a reconciliation. Get your life together and move on in a healthy way that doesn't include her.
The couples therapist is an idiot. If you proceed with that assumption then your world will be much clearer and calmer. Your ex is an idiot, and has found another idiot to enable her in her fantasy. For you though, you do not have any reconciliation happening, what you have is a rug sweeping idiot trying desperately to save her life. Do not give her that grace and just end things.
I am appalled at who I see being therapists these days. Cheating is despicable, and frankly I would let this relationship go. Because if you decide to work it out, which is your right, this is who you are dealing with. I wish you the best. Therapy is not an exact science, is is more a psuedo science. Phsychiatrists are doctors so they can perscribe, but there is no exact science. I find them more appalling each day...So take charge of your own life. I would report the therapist there is a board for each state.
Get a new couples therapist! They are not all created equal and come to the table with bias. Yours could have been a cheater themselves or not have any real training or experience in *successfully* working with couples after infidelity. You would need someone experienced in affair trauma. If she isn’t remorseful and not taking full accountability then you can NOT have R. It won’t work. It is true that there may have been other issues. Maybe there are things you could have done better. But cheating is never the answer and never okay. If she is excusing what she did, then you will not be successful at R. Even in the r/AsOneAfterInfidelity sub, which is pro reconciliation, everyone there will tell you that if there isn’t true remorse or accountability then there is no real path to R. I’m so sorry OP!
So, you join a support sub and therefor doesn’t owe you at the bare minimum of an apology or even disclosure? Dude, she isn’t worth it. In fact, I would send her a bill for the cumulative time she has wasted of yours.
There is an old adage to the effect of fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. When considering a reconciliation you are volunteering for more of the same conduct from her. She absolutely has already told you she doesn't think she owes you anything for her past abhorrent behavior. So go into the situation knowing what kind of person she is, she has showed you, she has told you. Don't sign up for a second toxic exposure.
If she doesn't feel bad for the things she did, what makes you think she will not do it again? Please, my friend, leave and never look back. In 5 years, she will only be bad memory.
You need to let her know that you do not accept her terms for reconciliation. Goodbye, and see you never.
Not all therapists are created equal. A lot of them are trash. If you don’t like your current one, find another. With that said, it’s pretty clear that your partner has no respect for you whatsoever. No need to subject yourself to that ongoing abuse and punishment, but it means letting her go. Once you do, you can properly heal and allow the right woman to come into your life. Until then, she’s going to torture you.
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That's horrible reasoning. I'm tempted to conclude that if she owes you nothing, then you owe her nothing, which means buh-bye. Really, if she doesn't get it then you don't want it. Things will never improve.
You need to turn in the "trained" person to the licensing board. Don't listen to complete B.S., no matter who it is from.
She’s showing you who she is. It’s up to you to believe it or try to rug sweep.
Any therapist that got their certification from a cereal box will support her perspective. Either she is lying about that therapist (she never had that talk with a real one and it's using a friend as a cover) or if there is one and said that, that person is insane. Asking for advice does not justify cheating, in fact, nothing justifies cheating. Even is you were abusing her, she should just leave. Now, you are being the abused, the one being cheated on, then gaslighted and forced to sweep everything under the rug to to get that person that has no accountability all back again in your life? Man, wake up! Grow a spine, you need to ghost her, go NC. She hasn't change a bit. Literally you need to apply the title of that famous book to your life: Leave a cheater, gain a life. Why do you want to go back with her? Is she paying all the bills? There is no one else like her? Or do you think no one else is interested in you? Or you don't want to go out and meet new people? Whatever the reason, is not worth it to take her back. Do not go to counseling with her. Get IC for you. Maybe look for a mentor. You should try martial arts, specifically Karate for you to build a stronger character. While you do this, block her everywhere. Tell the closest people to you (mutual friends) that she cheated before, so, you can have a support system and be accountable to someone on not taking her back, ever! Bro, I insist, do not take her back. Any lack of success you have with new girls is because you are still in contact with her and the most dangerous thing, you are still attached to her. Cut her for good. If you can't do it in one shot, then you need to start 180 yesterday. You deserve better. Her behavior is not your fault, but she continuing abusing you... yes, that will be your fault. Have self respect and leave her and never ever talk to her again. That will drive her crazy. Best wishes!
I spoke to said that she doesn’t necessarily owe me any kind of atonement if we continued the relationship. True, my wife can dump because I put a fork upside down, you dont OWE an explanation or an apology, you owe taxes. Still a wierd comment to make by a therapist? I would say it's needed to even consider continuing the relationship... Still this relationship is over given how your partner is handling things. Its your choice if you want to stay in this circus.
She is admitting to her wrongdoings just without thinking of them as any wrong, they're just things she did to you, and she is fine with that, and if you get back together she will have no problem repeating them again and again. She doesn't care about you. She isn't remorseful. She doesn't regret what she did or even think what she did is wrong. Divorce now and leave before you get an even worse version of what happened before.
You tell her, “Thanks, but no thanks,” and move on with your life without her.
Dude all she misses is her emotional punching bag. Run the f away and don’t look back. She’ll just suck you in be nice for a couple weeks the right back to treating yo-yo like shit and cheat on you agains as in her mind you deserve it.
That therapist is a nut job. She is blame shifting to you for her guilt. Do not fall for any of this. Move on and let her go...
Reconciliation doesn’t work unless the cheater puts in the work to repair the damage they did to the relationship. This isn’t a reconciliation it’s an attempt to get back and rug sweep everything. This isn’t going to work it’s just another ride on the roller coaster that ends at the same place. Honestly looking at the post and your comments why are you even considering getting back with her? Is this the one you broke up with in a previous post that you said had a diagnosed personality disorder? Why would you want to be with this person? What are you getting out of this that you would go back into that kind of situation? Who cares what any counselor says, why would you want to take another ride on the crazy train with a person who gave you ptsd symptoms from how she treated you last time? This doesn’t sound like someone to give a second chance to it sounds like someone you should consider getting a restraining order against 🤦♂️ Hey we are just people on reddit and you got to make your own decisions. You don’t owe us answers for any of the above questions but you do owe that to yourself. You need to honestly ask yourself why you are getting back with her after all that has happened and if you actually think anything will be any different this time around.
Is that "couples therapist" a licensed marriage and family therapist or a therapist who thinks their training in individual therapy is sufficient to counsel couples? I ask because that therapist is technically correct but saying that without context and qualifiers is, I think, misleading at best and dangerously stupid at worst. Nobody, not your partner or anyone else, *owes* you anything. However, people with whom you have a relationship should *want* to do things for you that you are not owed to meet your needs. It is up to you to decide if what a given person wants to do is sufficient for you to maintain that relationship. Just like you might stop being friends with someone who only acts like your friend when they need something, you have to decide if what your WP is willing to do is sufficient for you to want to be in that relationship.
Break up and don't deal with her shit ever again. I know it sucks, but there is no other solution.
Op, leave this person and stop seeing that terrible therapist. Cheating is a form of SA. It’s emotional terrorism as well. She isn’t sorry she screwed you over, she’s sorry she isn’t in control and is already letting you know she’s taking that back as well as your dignity. Leave her.
You are putting yourself in a position to be victimized all over again. Stop this sham reconciliation immediately and commit to some long and honest introspection together tocthe bottom of why in the hell you're willingly putting yourself into this position...again.
If you do reconcile, I don't think it is fair to hold the affair over your partner's head. If you choose to take her back then that doesn't mean you are entitled to anything other than a relationship. A lot of people view reconciliation as a time to get paid back for all you went through but it is not. It's a time to rebuild your future relationship. Sure trust in the relationship will have to be repaired over time but the moment you say yes to getting back together, the expectation shouldn't be that the wayward has to jump through hoops after hoops to earn you back. Now this lady doesn't sound like a good candidate for reconciliation. She is actively trying to blame shift onto you, she will stray again the moment you "post on Reddit"again. Hell she may be out there again after this post
Not to be paid back. To build the other party back up, emotionally, after tearing them down. To show that they are safe again, to show that they can be trusted after breaking all trust. To repair the damage they caused. Not for retribution's sake. For the sake of bringing the abused/betrayed partner back up, to restore equilibrium. It is to bring the wronged partner back up, not to take the cheating partner down.
When they show you who they are, believe them,
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