I think my 30 year marriage is over

[tim55]

Hi every body,

This is my first post and I'm not sure if this is the right place for what is going on. I guess I'll just put up my story and see what happens.

I was discovered betraying my wife of 30 plus years through the use of internet pornography, by my 18 year old daughter. That was about 4 months ago. Many would say I was addicted, I'm still not sure if that is right or not. Since then I have done pretty well dealing with that side of the problem. Through some counselling, reconnecting with my faith and involvement with a 12 step program, I am "sober" since discovery. I have lied and deceived even after discovery trying to minimise what I had done. The full truth all came out about 2 weeks ago.

My wife and I have been on a roller coaster about what will happen with our marriage. At the moment it looks as though our marriage will end. I am currently living out of the family home and pretty well every interaction I have with my wife upsets her peace. I don't think she is on the road to any healing; that is now just about out of my hands. Any suggestion I make is rejected vehemently.

Its now becoming clear that I will not be spending Christmas with my family. Having me in the house is just the catalyst for my wife's pain and hurt, leading to anger that just spills over our adult children. So I expect to stay away.

I have no family where I am living, although, I have cut myself off from them. My father was a verbally abusive man who introduced me to pornography. I have some support through a church, however, he will be out of the city from tomorrow and has a family of his own to care for. So I am staring at the likelihood of being alone for Christmas. One of the characteristics of an addict is pushing people away and I have done that, with no real friends at all.

There are some things I know I can do. I will be attending Church on Christmas Day, possibly with the family, but I'm not expecting that. I guess I am looking for suggestions about dealing with a weeks worth of days by myself as work will shut it's doors. I will be tackling my addictive issues separately with my counsellor. I'm looking for some general suggestions.

Thanks

[tim55]

Hi birdy,

My pleasure, I'm glad to share here, this is a place has helped me a lot over the past 3 weeks or so. I hope it can help others.

I'd never heard it before either and it is one that has stood out in a raft of suggestions that I have read and heard over the past 4 months.

I must remember to share it at the church group when we get back together in the next couple of weeks.

Tim

[tim55]

Hi bindi,
I've seen a counsellor since Christmas, but I am having a few doubts about him. The pearls of wisdom come at a very slow and expensive pace. That said, I did an intake interview with the Vietnam Veterans Counselling Service (they now cover all post 75 conflicts as well). The counsellor who did that interview did suggest some boundaries between my wife and I, much have been suggested here. I think both of them were concerned about my mental health. I may be feeling down, but that is really the extent of it. I am also very aware that I have substituted or used other things, alcohol and food, to deal with both the pain I am currently feeling and as a salve to being away from the filth.
I am really looking for some help with the discussions with my wife. She said yesterday she only sees bad decisions; trying to save the marriage is a bad decision, splitting and going our separate ways is a bad decision. In my mind a way ahead would be to decide to try and save the marriage, find the appropriate help and work on it. If then with the best of intentions we cannot pull something very good from the wreckage I've created, then we decide to walk away. But how to get that into place I'm not sure.
I have been very guilty of objectification and mistreatment of women over the years. I have fantasied and mistreated my wife emotionally. The latter I didn't think was the case until a priest heard our story and called me an abuser, I realised I was. I thought that because I would never yell at a woman, physically (or sexually) abuse a woman I was better than many. That was not the case.
I have live in environments that have objectified women, think about what you know of the military of the 80s and 90s. I spent 2 years studying in an environment where there where over 100 male students and about 12 females in a very male dominated environment. I'm not excusing what I have done, more trying to understand myself and what I have done.
There is no excuse for any objectification of women, or any thing less than complete respect. Everything must be based on their abilities nothing else.

[bindi-QLD]

Hi Tim, I'm sorry to hear the counsellor has been only partially useful. I agree, the expense is frustrating when you feel your counsellors don't have quite the right insight to help a lot, after a certain point. I can relate to that.

Tim, I was wondering, have you ever been diagnosed for `Complex PTSD'? You may already know all about it, so I apologise if I'm covering ground you already know. If not, this is quite common in abused kids, and moreso in men who have been involved with the armed forces. My early co-dependence counsellors failed to identify this in me, and therefore counselling sometimes felt a little off, or perhaps too shallow after a while.

SOme of my early counselling helped with addressing `shameful' symptoms of trauma, such as addiction, avoidance, and emotional detachment , but I think what I really needed was to understand that I was living in a state of trauma, and I needed to start protecting myself from the triggers, so I could manage my coping mechanisms. There were certain people counsellors encouraged me to engage with, such as my abusive mother, by being more assertive - which I believe was the wrong advice for someone with PTSD. All it did was continue the trauma, and make me feel like a failure because being assertive didn't make her less abusive. Awfully, that relationship also pre-conditioned me to accept abuse and being shut down by others, which eventually landed me in a very bad relationship with a male version of my mother, who was a physical abuser and psychopath.

Anyway, again I apologise if this is ground you've covered. If not, there's a lot of info on the internet. You might find it as helpful as I have, I hope so anyway.

[bindi-QLD]

Hi Tim, Regarding having some boundaries with your wife, I know that's a very delicate problem and I wish I could be more helpful. I don't feel I really know her well enough to properly advise you there.

What I do feel, is that her pain is very understandable, but ongoing abuse towards you is not. I think verbal boundaries would be appropriate in the case of abusive behaviour that's gone too far for too long. That might have to involve physically walking away from abuse if verbal boundaries don't work.

I can say, although I experienced pain similar to what your wife has experienced, I was not abusive during that time. I mainly just said I was hurting or insecure or feeling worthless, and then talked about why. Quite a bit of it was about my personal history and vulnerabilities, and not all about his behaviour. I think its important to own that side of it. He has vulnerabilites as well, such as wanting to feel a sense of belonging, but sometimes choosing company and `bad male' communities that don't share his values. Talking about it all whollistically did help me. Its very easy to personalise a loved ones behaviour, when the issue us often much more complicated IMO.

[tim55]

hi bindi,

The idea of me having PTSD has never been raised by a counsellor or even thought about be me. I guess it has not cross my mind because I didn't believe I had any circumstances that might generate such a diagnosis. The episode of sexual abuse, was as far as I can remember and I've tried to see if there was more, a single episode.

My father's ongoing verbal abuse, well, I don't know how traumatic that really has been. There is nothing from my military service that really qualifies, compared to vets with multiple tours who saw truly horrific things.

Please don't apologise, this is a very new suggestion to me. I don't know if it applies and I'm not sure how to go about broaching it with my current counsellors, if I talk with either of them again.

I have gone a few rounds with my father since my discovery. Most have not ended very well, so I have gone the other way. I have, in a letter, told him that he needs to acknowledge his part in my formation, both the verbal abuse and the introduction to pornography, how he treated my mother and what that taught me when managing conflict and how he has treated my wife over the years of our marriage and how destructive that has been. I asked him to only write back, not to ring me if he was willing and ready to do that. That is a big ask for him, he can barely see, but not an impossible task. So far.......crickets.

But I believe I understand about what abusive relationships teach young people, it certainly taught me to shut down and to not engage, I wasn't going to "win" or have a discussion.

[tim55]

Thanks bindi,

I really don't know what to do as far as boundaries with my wife are concerned. Talking on the phone with her is not going well. Text is even worse. I'm being called cold and impersonal.

I feel I need to not display my emotions, I feel a great deal of frustration in these conversations. A lot of it is defensive and of no use in these conversations. I am the perpetrator of a great deal of evil and abuse, I've turned my wife's life upside down, completely wrecking it. That said, by hiding what I feel I my end up being considered emotionless and repressing my anger and frustration is a contributing cause in my formation, so doing it again could be very unhelpful I feel conversations at the moment are mine fields. Most end with oth of us in a very bad place.

Walking away from a conversation like that is just going make things worse. I'm not sure how saying up front that I don't wish to continue the conversation when you begin to be verbally abusive or start taunting me will play out. I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. I've sent 3 pretty long and full emails in the past few days. That has generated single a phone call. Not surprising really, her broken arm is her dominate one. But phone calls just end up in a bad place.

My wife keeps asking for a "hard" truth, she believes there is a lot I am not telling her and that there is something very nasty in my past. There is nothing new or nasty. But there is her search for detail and truth, something I am failing with.

[white knight]

Hi Tim

There are some things between couples that are unacceptable and (unintentionally maybe ) cruel. Speculation is one of them. The law operates on evidence. Evidence has proven to be the only significant element in a court of law. The reasons are simple- heresay or rumours even pre judgement are all unreliable and can jail someone for life much easier AND can do so more likely with an innocent victim.

In your case your wife is speculating because she lost trust and is "pulling at straws". She doesn't have evidence of affairs or other activity so is causing more harm with guessing. That isn't good. Is it normal? yes. Is it helping?- no. And such speculation is only acceptable once, then if you have convinced her that you didn't involve yourself in such activity then she should move on and be proactive in mending bridges not leaving them broken. Otherwise it poses the question- what does she want?

I think in this summary of speculation I am exposing your wife as having faults. We ALL have them. But while its understandable her criticizing you and doubting you if she is genuinely wanting to reunite than, as you know, she must forgive. To continue with guessing and no trust is to place you in a difficult situation.

Now, I'm different than you in many ways. But to put this in a nutshell

Luke 10-32 depicts the "Good Samaritan". When a beggar is down trodden and in need of help people came walking by. But they ignored him. Even a priest crossed the street to avoid him. But the good Samaritan picked up the man and paid anonymously for lodgings for the night, fed him etc. That tells me that even priests can be judgemental. They are flawed like the rest of us...including your wife. Such flaws in humans vary greatly. In your case an addiction - to which you are getting treatment, is your main flaw.

You did not break her arm. Concluding this because had you not had the addiction she wouldn't have got angry etc etc is not correct. In another context if I had a speeding fine in the mail and my wife saw it, yelled, then drove off in our car only to crash it....is that my fault? of course not. I didn't bend her arm to drive off!!

Blaming yourself for everything isn't realistic. All relationships take two, two imperfect human beings. If she wont forgive you then even after any reunification your marriage wont be repaired.

Tony WK

[blondguy]

Hello Tim

I understand that you are still in the vortex of pain you have been going through. I really hope you can find some peace soon to have the healing you truly deserve. There has been several posts that I have read that have offered hearfelt solace during this difficult period.

TonyWK , Geoff and Birdy have offered heartfelt life experience/advice to you. If I may ask about your counselor/therapist and if they have been of any assistance in helping you achieve even a little peace ?

If I can just hijack your post for a moment Tim. Bindi-QLD mentioned...."I have to say, I am a little disappointed by some of the posts on this thread from guys. Yes, there is a lot of male culture that normalises and even promotes mistreatment and objectification of women. The red pill is filtering into a lot of what I hear from guys these days, and I'm little disappointed to see it on a mental health forum too".

Hi Bindi...You have many very caring and intellectual posts. There are many people on the forums that strive to help others in pain without being judgemental. I am sorry that you feel this way as we go to great lengths to treat everybody with respect irrespective of their gender. It is your right to be disappointed but criticizing other posters (whatever gender) is unhelpful and negative to anyone reading Tims thread. You are more than welcome to start your own thread about your concerns whenever you choose to

Lets just be gentle to Tim and offer him the support he really needs in this difficult time

Sorry to interrupt your thread Tim and thankyou again for being a part of the forum family

My Kind thoughts

Paul

[bindi-QLD]

Hi Geoff and Blondguy, Apologies for causing you any angst for criticising some of the enabling behaviour on this thread, such blaming your partner when you have an addiction , and stating that oggling women is normal. I do think you are good guys and I like reading your posts. If I've caused you any anxiety or bad feelings,I am sorry you feel that way.

In context of Tim's recovery from addiction, enabling is negative behaviour, since that addiction has caused Tim extreme pain, as well as his wife. Do see why I would call it out? Its like telling a recovering alco that its ok to drink, everyone does it, its natural, and moreover its your partner's fault.

I'm sorry to Geoff , i think you are a good person and Tony is an interesting and intellectual person. I like you both, I only meant to call out something is harmful to Tim. I hope you can understand my perspective.

[bindi-QLD]

Hi Tim,

Regarding Complex PTSD, yes, its quite a bit different to war-vet PTSD and fairly tricky to diagnose. The people in my family who were diagnosed with it got that diagnosis later in life, after treatment for depression, addiction and other things more easy to identify.

I suspect its because of the nature of complex PTSD- you will have a numb or detached response to trauma and abuse, rather than a big display of emotion. And its most likely you avoid thinking about it much. Therefore it becomes more difficult for therapists to to identify that as trauma. You may not even mention it much in therapy, or when you do, you will sound `flat' and detached rather than emotional.

I can say one of my family members did get her diagnosis based on just one incident of childhood sex abuse, but there was a lot of emotional/verbal abuse surrounding that. Thats where I first got my clue about how our family had affected me, as well as my 5 siblings.There was rarely any physical abuse, most the abuse was emotional, mental, and verbal.

Not sure how being diagnosed really helps, but perhaps one way it helped me was to shift my focus to what triggers me. Looking back, knowing what I know about myself now, I probably chose life situations and job types that made it worse. I probably could have focused a bit more attention on dealing with being chronically shut down, and how that affected me in the workforce. Just stuff like that.

I noticed Beyondblue has a PTSD forum, it looks quite good to me.