During the month between when my husband told me his latest version of the events from 21 yrs ago, until the moment I decided to ask my sister about it (Jan 25 – around Feb 23), he and I got into some of the worst arguments we have had since my affair back in 2009. Things got very ugly for about a week off and on, with lots of crying, yelling, defensiveness, and confusion. I was asking him to simply be consistent. I was beginning to feel crazy because he would say one thing, take it back and say the opposite and be defensive, agree I was right and he was wrong and be contrite, then say it again, take it back, etc.. I felt like I was losing my mind so I said I was going to record our arguments, which he did not want me to do. I told him I wanted to be able to go back to hear what he said because I felt like I was really going nuts with all of the back and forth. Like are you contrite and remorseful or are you going to get defensive and bring up shit from my A so we no longer focus on what you are doing wrong?! Pick one and stick with it because the back and forth was horribly confusing and frustrating. He even went so far one awful night to accuse me of emotional abuse. I brought it up to our MC and she said the examples he used were NOT emotional abuse at all. He now agrees and has apologized for saying that to me. I really do think he was using it because I had brought up his poor treatment of me after my A. But to be accused of that absolutely destroyed me. I was very distraught trying to understand how I could have done that to him in the ways that he mentioned.
So now it’s a few weeks after that and he has been much better. The few times I brought things up, he remained calm, remorseful, answered questions appropriately, etc…i.e..saying all the right things. But also I think things are better because I haven’t talked much about it or brought it up.
Sister update: I went to my sister, about 1.5 weeks ago, with husband’s latest version of events from 20 years ago. I went into the conversation completely expecting her to deny what he said happened. He had asked me before I did that if we could take him for a polygraph and when completed bring that with me when I speak with her. I did not do this.
I calmly and with zero emotion told her what he said happened and she calmly with zero emotion denied his version of events. She did say she can see how perhaps her behavior and attitude at the time could have been misconstrued as interest and that she did have a crush on him but she then said “I had crushes on all your boyfriends over the years”. She gave me a tiny bit different version of the way she originally told me what happened.
She said that he expressed being sexually frustrated, she told him to “take care of himself” and he said “oh you mean like right now?” and she said “yeah I don’t care” and so he proceeded to do so. She explained to me that she always wanted to appear cool and like nothing bothered her, so she felt like she was doing that then as well. She said she takes ownership for that part, but nothing else. She remains completely fine with him, and expressed that she is still not angry at him. In fact, a few days after our conversation she asked how things were at home, I said they are fine, and she said “Ok so can we plan our family vacation now then?”
Here's the craziest thing…I am numb to all of it right now. I feel ZERO emotion at all about any of it. What is going on with me? Where did all the rage, anger, sadness go? Especially in the face of more conflicting information. It’s like a switch was flipped! I am not numb in general (I.e. watched an episode of This is US and got teary eyed over missing my kids when they were little), so I don’t think it’s like an overall depression. And I even feel more motivated in the past few days to do more around the house, looked more into getting my master’s, looked at some job opportunities. I have been reading The Body Keeps the Score, which is a great book by the way.
I also had a meeting with an attorney about what moving forward with separation or divorce would look like. I didn’t get any numbers unfortunately (like what I could hope to expect with alimony, etc) but she really didn’t think my A would have any bearing and his only would if we decided to go FAULT. She doesn’t recommend that because its always ugly, expensive, time consuming and likely wouldn’t get me much more money anyway.
Not much else to report but he is being super hero husband these days, laying it on thick 24-7. He keeps trying to plan an overnight getaway and I keep putting it off because I feel like he’s doing that in hopes I will have sex with him. Not happening!