Re: I feel so betrayed...

Re: I feel so betrayed... ----- From: David - Date: 03 Dec 1997

Ouch! I feel for you. I went through a lot of similar feelings a few months ago.

I found out that my wife needed a few things from me that she wasn't getting. I couldn't believe that she would betray me just because of a few (it seemed to me) small things. Besides, I had my reasons for not giving them to her. She had told me so many times about what her needs were, but somehow I just didn't understand. I thought her feelings about those things were unreasonable and that she should be satisfied with all the other things I did for her.

She didn't go looking for someone else because of those things. But when someone else came along and said, "I'd LOVE to do those things for you/with you," she was very vulnerable. It sounds like that's what is happening to your husband. He's been wanting more sexually. Maybe he understands why you aren't "there for him" as much as before. Maybe he doesn't want to burden you. But then he runs into someone on the net that says, "I WANT YOU! I WISH I COULD BE THERE/DO THAT FOR YOU/WITH YOU!!!" It's like there's a painful hole in the middle you, then all of a sudden someone says, "I can fill that for you. I want to do it for you." It is almost irresistable.

It seems to me that you have two alternatives. You can give him more space, let him find out what he really wants, work on your own issues (it sounds like you have a lot of them). That's probably what most people on the forum here would suggest, and I think in a lot of cases it is the best thing to do.

In my case, I tried to step back and see what the other guy had been giving her that I had failed to give her. I talked to her for hundreds of hours trying to find out what she really wanted and needed. Whatever need she had, I tried to satisfy it. I didn't care how hard it was, how much I hurt, or what happened to anything else in my life.

She didn't deserve that -- she should have been the one to put out the effort to make it up to me, right? After all, I was the one who was wronged. But I knew that if I hung on to that, it would only drive her further away. It's taken a year to straighten this out, and we're not done yet. But I'm confident now that we are going to make it.

I feel for you. I was so devastated when I found out what had happened. Sometimes I just wanted to die. It hurt more than every other painful thing that's ever happened to me put together and multiplied by 100. Sometimes I felt like I couldn't even get up off my bed.

You can get space and work on these things seperately. Or you can drop your injury for the moment and work on figuring out what his needs are and meeting them (it has to be a two way street, with him working on meeting yours too). But don't hang close together and then just beat up on him and shame him. That just sends things further into the spiral down.

I sorry this happened to you. I know it hurts like hell.