I let him back in and now I am kicking myself

"Winning" against him would look like "making a life for yourself and finding happiness without him"

The best revenge is living well.

Most people don’t care to be involved in other people’s marital issues or divorce reasons. I belong to group of friends and I’d not be passing message than someone was unfaithful. It’s not my business. If it’s my family or personal friend, I’d support them in their plight but I’d not be talking about it to other friends. People usually look it at as whatever happened is between two people and it’s better to stay neutral.

She might spread the word but not in the manner that you wish.

I’d continue venting to your own family and personal friends and maybe try to find a therapist again, but I’d not be sharing details of your marriage and divorce with mutual friends

Continue doing well and take slow steps in moving on with your life

You can be happy OR you can be right. Proving him wrong, revenge and gossip about your marriage are all actions from anger and frustration. He violated your personal value system and its made you angry. It's normal. BUT...you have to choose between being angry and acting on being angry. Acting on your emotions doesn't resolve them

Focus on you and your life and your future.

And also, allowing the negativity into your head and not finding happiness, is allowing him to "win"

Thank you all for your wisdom and support.

I had a weak moment and that's why I did what I did. I wasn't well last night when I wrote to her. I was frustrated and angry. She's actually a friend of mine - more like an acquaintance, but we've talked on the phone before.

I know the best revenge is living well - this is hard. I feel great one day and terrible the next. I am progressing, but then I take a step backwards in my recovery.

I will never get the validation, the acknowledgement or respect I want from him. I have to understand & truly absorb this. He will not own up to what he's done and he will never validate m experience of him. I am saying this for myself, to be able to absorb it more fully. I expect him to act like a normal human being still - and that's just NOT possible.

What makes it important for you to get validation from him?

Good question and something for me to dig into!!

I think because he has downplayed and excused his bad behaviors either by blaming me or by minimizing the impact and harm that he has inflicted on me. He thinks he’s been a good husband in several ways. He thinks that the nicer facade he exhibited counteracts all the bad things. But that’s just it - it was all a facade and fake. His niceness towards me is only self serving for him to feel better about himself. He’s been a crap husband and that’s what I’ve told him. His argument is that he wasn’t. It’s maddening!!!

If he was the kind of man to provide validation, acknowledgement and respect, you’d remain married. The whole point is that he’s not providing that while married so hoping he’d provide it after divorce is unrealistic. He will not. And this is too fresh. You have to deal with divorce and it’s usually not the time to reflect. He might be able to reflect later but who cares. Don’t give him power to define or validate you.

And it’s not an argument one can win. He doesn’t need to agree that he was a bad husband. His agreement is not required. You have a difference in opinion on what good spouse entails. It’s fine he thinks he was great. What does it matter?

Plus who knows what he really thinks?? He might not even think he was great. Just says he was.

Are you trying to get validation from the STB-ex-h or from your father?

It took me toooo long to realize i was never going to get agreement / validation from my mother. Its like democrats vs republicans - we were both convinced we were absolutely right. I thought she was narrow-minded, and she thought i was stupid.

Never in my life has a person who did something to deliberately hurt me taken ownership and apologized. I just don’t think it works that way. No one has ever had remorse afterward and reached out to make things right either. And, I have found, that if confronted by me they would double down and escalate.

The unlimited possibilities.

I’m sorry you had to experience this.

I completely agree.

I’m very sorry

Thanks everyone. I don’t know what I’m after, but I know I won’t get what I want or need. Maybe it is wanting validation from my dad that I never received. Maybe it’s just wanting my husband to own up. Maybe it’s me wanting justice in an unjust situation. Maybe it’s a combo of all.

Right now I’m exhausted by it all.

Best to blockify him and never allow him back into your life ever

Have Hope is amazingly strong

Thank you, dear.

Thanks, Buffy. Honest question, though… Has anyone here had the experience of the intentionally hurtful person owning up to their behavior and apologizing? I know I wanted that from them so much! I feel you, HH, how much we all want, at the very least, that person to take responsibility and acknowledge they were wrong . It stems from this feeling of how could they have thought so little or so poorly of us? It is a feeling of being unseen, dismissed, run over.

No one in my family does. I try to apologize and take responsibility for my actions.

I agree with the first statement but not the second. My reaction is, "Really?! THATS what they think? Then THEY are pathetic, not me." The bible says to not cast your pearls before swine, and i finally realize that is the situation im in.

You said it perfectly. It's a feeling of being unseen, dismissed and run over.

And that's how I feel almost every time after I've spoken to my husband about what he's done to me. I've given him the whole picture even and still, I get very little.

I've stated: you yelled & screamed at me for the first 2.5 years of marriage; then you cheated on me; then you fought with me every week for over a month, for hours on end, insulting and demeaning me.

He has said in reply: "I wasn't an a-hole throughout the marriage. I did fight with you and in those fights I behaved like a child". That's the most I got from him in terms of acknowledgement.

And that's the problem. They do think so poorly of us that this is how we get treated. It's not personal. They would do the same to anyone else.

So, no. I don't think it's possible to get acknowledgement after intentional harm.

That's a great perspective to have. Though, when it happens repeatedly for years on end, & when you don't get any acknowledgement, you do feel dismissed and run over. It's like you might as well not even exist.

I do like not casting your pearls before swine - I had never heard that before and I love it. Makes perfect sense!

I now can see and realize that after his infidelity and after we got back together, that I I started to bend over backwards trying to please him. I absorbed his blame and I internalized it subconsciously without even realizing it, which only just makes me angrier at him for all of his manipulations.

I even bought him a $2,000 chair to help his back because the couch was making his back problems worse. Then, as he was moving out? He had the nerve to try to make ME keep the chair that I had bought as a gift for HIM. I. couldn't even believe what I was hearing. I was like, NO! That chair is YOURS & was a GIFT to HELP YOU. You're taking it. He has NO regard for anything.