SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am back again, and sometimes I wonder how many of these topics and headings there are because it feels like we keep circling the same pain.

A few years ago I became more active on the forum, then life happened and I slowly drifted away again. The problem is that even though time passed, nothing really changed. We still feel stuck and I honestly do not know how to move forward anymore.

I feel like I have done everything the forum usually suggests, but we are still battling with the same core issues.

For example, I acknowledge now that I did not tell my husband everything on D-Day. Years later, after joining this forum and reading more, I realised I was wrong for withholding details. I eventually did a full timeline with as much detail as I could honestly remember.

The fights are not always about the affair details themselves anymore. Now it is more about the fact that I chose not to tell him everything from the beginning.

His view is that if I truly loved him, I would have come to him voluntarily and disclosed everything immediately. My perspective at the time was very different. In my mind, admitting that I had sex with another man already felt like the absolute worst thing imaginable. I genuinely thought withholding some details was better and would spare him more pain. It was not until much later, after reading here, that I understood why full disclosure mattered so much.

So now we are stuck in this place where the argument is not necessarily about the details anymore, but about the fact that I withheld them in the first place.

How do I respond to that in a way that helps instead of making things worse?

The second issue is probably the most difficult and confusing one for us. When I say that I made a mistake, my husband becomes angry and says it was not a mistake because a mistake happens once, while the affair involved repeated choices.

In my mind, when I say "mistake," I mean that the entire affair was the biggest mistake of my life. In his mind, calling it a mistake minimizes the fact that it involved repeated conscious decisions.

I understand now that it was a series of wrong choices, but we seem to get stuck in a battle over the words "mistake" versus "choice."

Has anyone else dealt with this? How do you explain the difference without sounding like you are avoiding accountability?

How do you explain the difference without sounding like you are avoiding accountability?

You don't.

I get it, in our mind mistake means the biggest, most catastrophic regret of our life. In his mind, mistake sounds like you dropped a glass or took the wrong exit on the highway. To a BS, it feels passive, like it just happened to you.

​More importantly, you need to recognize that the word mistake is an active trigger for him.

Every time it leaves your mouth, it hits a nerve and causes him to defend his trauma. Part of our work is learning to see these triggers and doing everything we can to eliminate them from the environment.

​Removing the word "mistake" from your vocabulary entirely is a necessary first step.

It is easy to underestimate just how far radical accountability goes for a betrayed spouse. Right now, your BS isn't just hurting from the past, he is exhausted from having to fight you for the reality of his own trauma. It forces the BS to keep their guard up. It makes them feel like they have to constantly litigate the affair just to get you to see how bad it actually was.

You cannot change the facts of what happened but by stepping into 100% accountability you change how safe you are to hold his pain.

​Keep your head up.