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July 15, 2018 6:46 pm  #1


Proof

For: Walkbymyself,
I hope you don't mind but I pasted and started a new thread so your subject would be more visable under "proof"
It's an excellent topic:


"I'm actually interested in the way we so often tend to crave absolute proof.  Maybe I have a little too much time on my hands, and I've been spending a little too much time staring at the ceiling at 3 in the morning.

When I got married, we had to attend counseling at our church before the church would perform the service, and all I remember from these sessions: the need for trust, and honesty, and communication.  Over and over, that's what they drilled into us.  Then we got married, and during the service the priest went on and on about trust being fundamental to a successful marriage.  Then we went to the reception and one after another of our friends and family stood and gave toasts and took the opportunity to with us luck, and over and over told us about the importance of trust and communication and honesty.  

So when you're confronted with a piece of evidence that has two plausible explanations, one of which is that your husband can't be trusted ... of course you're going to brush that aside, and choose the explanation that reinforces his trustworthiness.  Lack of trust, you were told over and over, in and of itself will destroy your marriage from within.

No wonder we sit around pining away for absolute proof to a mathematical certainty.  Just look at me: even with everything I know for certain, even knowing that he's acknowledged to me that he's cheated on me ... I'm still trying to figure out what he's up to right this very moment.  I'm still thinking I want to get a look at his text messages.  This is ridiculous -- what more do I need to know, above and beyond what I've already proven?"   


Life is like phases of the moon.... We really only see it when it's beautiful, full and in our face. 
 

July 17, 2018 11:38 am  #2


Re: Proof

Thanks, Scrupulous and Wondering89, I'm still struggling with this issue.

My daughter had asked me whether I thought it was better to know or not to know, and I told her it was absolutely better to know, even if I hate what I've learned.  I hate to turn into a living comic-book stereotype of the "snooping wife" but at this point ... there's no trust, no credibility, and if I need to know the truth for myself, this is the only way to go about finding it.

Things could get very, very nasty in a divorce.  I have no way of knowing for sure how he'll react.  I'd like to know how far he's gone with his extracurricular activities, now, so that when things turn really nasty I don't second-guess myself.  That's another consideration.

 

July 17, 2018 12:46 pm  #3


Re: Proof

I can't seem to stop myself from the snooping. I know for a fact what he has been doing. I keep wishing every time I take a peek at his secret stash, that it will be gone...but the stash keeps getting bigger! WTF!? I swear there is no limit to his perversions. 


“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain, when you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” ~ Haruki Murakami ~
 
 

July 17, 2018 12:52 pm  #4


Re: Proof

Getting proof is a double-edged sword.   You can't seem to resist the urge and the need to know for sure.  Not having proof will drive you crazy.   On the other hand, when you do get proof it is usually of a nature that is very painful. You can't unsee or unhear or unknow.  The proof you get cuts deep and leaves you badly hurt.  It becomes a real experience for you and leaves real scars. 

Be careful what you ask for..  


-Formerly "Lostdad" - I now embrace the username "phoenix" because my former life ended in flames, but my new life will be spectacular. 

 
 

July 17, 2018 2:03 pm  #5


Re: Proof

Roo wrote:

I can't seem to stop myself from the snooping. 

 

The energy inside you Roo that makes it possible...that makes it necessary to find proof, is like a thirst. And you're parched because you see the proof as something you need. 
Soon..when you understand you need that proof to move on, when you realise it's not the amount of proof you find but what finding that proof does to the person inside you.....your focus will change, you won't need to find proof, because you'll start seeing yourself as more important than him.

When I thought my partner was seeing a woman...I would go through his phone...his emails, browser history. It was horrible...feeling like if I didn't look I'd miss something important. No no....I missed nothing important. I did lose my self-esteem/respect though. When it dawned on me it wasn't the proof I'd found that mattered as much as what it had done to me trying to furtively find it, knowing deep inside what it meant.....I stopped looking
 


KIA KAHA                       
 

July 17, 2018 3:24 pm  #6


Re: Proof

I will never be the same person I was...ever. All this shit has turned me into a miserable, unhappy woman. I have to attend network meetings for my businesses and I have become so cynical of everyone. I get so pissed because everyone always seems so happy. I sit there and think, if only these people knew the shit I have to deal with. Same with friends and their perfect lives. I just don't know how to think any other way! 
 

Last edited by Roo (July 17, 2018 3:25 pm)


“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain, when you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” ~ Haruki Murakami ~
 
 

July 17, 2018 3:31 pm  #7


Re: Proof

Roo wrote:

I will never be the same person I was...ever...... I just don't know how to think any other way! 
 

Yes that's right, we will never be the same people....ever. 

You will learn to think a new way though. To get to the other side of all this....you have to go through all 
the crap. Read your signature paragraph. Then read it again. 

xx


KIA KAHA                       
 

July 17, 2018 4:06 pm  #8


Re: Proof

I stayed for three years after disclosure.  In the first month after disclosure, I said I would leave.  Then I got re-entangled, and another year was gone.  My stbx met my discomforts by hiding evidence of his (shall we say...) "proclivities," which confused me no end, and led me to torture myself with questions.  Was he or wasn't he still at it?  If not, could I stay?  If so, I could leave.  Sometimes I'd find evidence; sometimes I wouldn't.  I thought I needed to find it to convince myself I could and should end my marriage.  Even when I found nothing, he maintained his silence and his distance, and refused to talk to me.  I lived in his closet, and it was killing me.  I could see how pathologically warped he was from living in the closet, and eventually I decided I didn't wish to become like him.  Honesty is the foundation of trust, and trust is the foundation of all human relations, and I had neither trust nor honesty.  So I ended it.
  I've now lived on my own coming up to four months.  What I realize now is that the longer you stay in it, the deeper the trauma, and the longer it takes you to recover from it.  As many here have said, the biggest regret I have is that I didn't get out earlier.  I've always been a "get in the water slowly" rather than "dive right in" type, but I've realized that although that is my impulse, it didn't serve me well.  (Changing metaphors now.)  Ripping off the bandaid would have been far better for me than peeling it back slowly millimeter by millimeter.  I would have done better to act in my own self protective interests and get free sooner, and then do the emotional work of grieving afterwards, because staying neither eliminated the need to do that work nor made it possible to do it while still there.  I realized after I left that I still had/have all the grieving that comes after you leave yet to do, and, in fact having staying gave me an additional measure of it to do, because in staying I had subjected myself to additional trauma.

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (July 17, 2018 4:13 pm)

 

July 17, 2018 5:58 pm  #9


Re: Proof

I guess in my case, I felt very strongly that his keeping me ignorant ended up really compromising my ability to protect myself, to defend our daughter, to manage finances, to understand why there was so much friction in the house and to understand that it was never, ever my fault.  Not knowing was what hurt me the most.  So I want to know absolutely everything I can find out, right now.

I mean, if you had pancreatic cancer would you rather know or not know?  Of course you need to know, even though it's upsetting.  You need to know things that directly affect you.  When your spouse is cheating, it directly affects you (even if you don't know about it).

I'm going to add this much: I don't think I know everything there is to know right now.  I don't know whether he has engaged prostitutes.  I had the briefest possible glimpse at his text messages, and saw something that I may have misinterpreted ... or not.  I really want to go back and know for sure whether I saw what I think I saw.  If there's any whiff of illegal activity, then all bets are off, I'm out of here and we'll let the lawyers sort everything out.

I'd rather read his texts and learn for myself, than find out when a police officer comes knocking on the door.

 

July 19, 2018 11:12 am  #10


Re: Proof

Answering only for myself here, but I want to know everything because that way, when I'm paralyzed with self-doubt, I can reassure myself that I'm doing the right thing.

After the marriage is officially dissolved, and I'm comfortably settled in a new life?  No, I won't care what he does.  But it DOES matter before that point.  

YMMV, of course, but my husband is a study in contradictions.  On the one hand, he can be very sweet and loving, but on the other hand as long as I've known him, he's never hesitated to weaponize anything he can think of at the slightest provocation.  He goes straight for the jugular the moment he gets frustrated, regardless of how much hurt he's going to cause.  He doesn't have the concept of "mutually assured destruction".  If he has a nuclear weapon, it's not the last thing he goes for, it's the first.

I've never done that.  There are things I would never, ever use against him in a fight no matter how angry I was.  I would never throw his HIV status in his face, for example.  I just wouldn't.  By the time I got that angry, I would have ended the marriage.  But he has no filter.  He goes directly to the worst possible thing he can think of.

I know I've posted this before, but when he got mad at our daughter for suggesting that he take my car to work instead of his own... which at best is a relatively minor infraction, if it's an infraction at all ... he went straight for her insecurities: told her nobody liked her, she had no friends, she always ruins everything when she comes home.  Imagine saying that to your own 22-year-old daughter: none of her friends really like her (needless to say, it's not true, but that's besides the point -- all girls that age are going to be devastatingly insecure about something like that).  

My husband has never passed up the opportunity to say the most cruel and hurtful thing he can come up with, when he gets mad.  You can't ever confide a weakness to him; at some point there will be a fight and the first thing he'll do is exploit your own pain against you. 

Am I going to unilaterally disarm?  Hell no.  

Last edited by walkbymyself (July 19, 2018 11:15 am)

 

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