# Do you stay because you can't trust again



## Big10 (Nov 30, 2017)

Sometimes I feel like my wife A ruined me so much I stay just to torture her. I was a good person before her affair, now have no respect for people. I can't ever really trust another woman again, I feel like I would be so controlling I would do more harm than good in another relationship. I'm controlling now and feel like it actually turns my wife on. We have the best sex and she treats me like a king. She is always apologizing and showing me that she will not cheat again. I used to never be like this, I tell her i hope she likes what she created. Her affair partner was a narcissist and started controlling her every move.He did not allow her to talk to anyone. The moment I started treating her like that she came crying back. her father was abusive and I swear she likes it that way. I'm never like this around my children because I would never want them to be or treat someone like this.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

Big10 said:


> Sometimes I feel like my wife A ruined me so much I stay just to torture her. I was a good person before her affair, now have no respect for people. I can't ever really trust another woman again, I feel like I would be so controlling I would do more harm than good in another relationship. I'm controlling now and feel like it actually turns my wife on. We have the best sex and she treats me like a king. She is always apologizing and showing me that she will not cheat again. I used to never be like this, I tell her i hope she likes what she created. Her affair partner was a narcissist and started controlling her every move.He did not allow her to talk to anyone. The moment I started treating her like that she came crying back. her father was abusive and I swear she likes it that way. I'm never like this around my children because I would never want them to be or treat someone like this.


Do you even love your wife anymore?

I suggest you go get individual counseling. I predict no matter what eventually you will get tired of this and end the marriage anyway, counseling will get you there quicker. Why do I say that? Well because what you have now is not a marriage, it's not a healthy one anyway. Its a system you have set up to make you feel like you have control. To help you avoid the pain and fallout from your wife's abuse. 

The truth is you are making a tactical error anyway. You are not safe. Has you wife done anything to fix her brokenness? Eventually you will tire of being her boss or dom or whatever, stop dominating her and then you will be in just as much risk as you were before this happened. 

I will leave this here.

True healing come when you get over you ex and their abuse of you. When you recover. The pain really completely goes away when you fall in love with someone else because the thing that holds the pain there is your love for the cheater. Once that love is given to another then the cheating is just something bad that happened to you. The spontaneous sting like it just happened that you get when you think about it will be gone forever at that point. 

But even BEFORE that stage you come to a point when you are healed enough that the intense fear of being cheated on again goes away. Assuming you decide to have the right attitude about it. You have the sense that this horrible thing happened to you but you survived and here you are happy again. Once you get that, the idea that if you could make it through this horrible thing you could make it through anything, then the kind of fear that you are worried about having in your next relationship goes away. Now your eyes will always be open, but that is not a bad thing. You will occasionally have fear but it will be a moment. Then you will have the thought, well whats the worst thing that can happen? Couldn't be any worse that the first time and here I am fine. You will know that even if you did get cheated on 100 times life would go on and you would eventually be happy again. There is tremendous freedom and power in that. 

I am probably less guarded of my wife then I would be had I not been cheated on by someone else. (this was years ago) I truly feel like if she cheats that is really her loss. I know I will hurt for a while but I will be fine. I think she know too which is a good thing. She also knows that if I caught her there would be no offering to reconciliation. We would probably speak one or two more times for the rest of our lives. (we don't have kids) To me this is also a good thing. One other thing that I learned is my self worth doesn't come from any other person or even my marriage. It comes from doing the right thing and being a good person. So I can feel that way if she cheats or not. It's all on her. 

Right now your whole life is based on decisions you are making pretty much out of fear. You should go get counseling to fix that. Life is short man, I don't think this was the marriage you signed up for.


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## Lostinthought61 (Nov 5, 2013)

I'm not sure Big, how one can keep peace with one self knowing they are changing their nature in order to keep a wayward spouse...i once knew a guy who was the salt of the earth, there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for his wife or his friends..and yet she cheated on him with someone who treated her like dirt, he was crushed and very very angry..eventually she came back but he didn't want her, in fact he told her off, called her names, told her she was dirt, and that in turn made her appreciate him even more, she found it such a turn on that she would do anything for him, he changed and found he was angry towards all women, he purposely told his wife that he had a date with another woman and if she did not like it she could leave, she didn't, she wanted for him and jumped him when he got home...one day he realized that was not his nature, and he divorced her...never looked back and moved, leaving her and that persona he had created because of her.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

So I went back and checked your other post. Can I ask if you are really posting on here because you rug-swept the affair and you are kinda done now? Maybe I am wrong but your posts have all the signs. 

Generally it's husbands who end up at this stage, they were desperate to keep the marriage when they caught the affair so they hold on while they deal with all the emotion and feeling of rejection. Saving the marriage is really about their feelings of rejection and reestablishing their worth in some way. It's like they feel like if I can get her back that it proves that I was the better man. The problem is once they get stable and start to heal from the intensity of the pain then reality of the deal they chose for themselves really hits them.

Also most men go though a mid life crisis, and it's a hard thing to stay loyal to someone who wasn't loyal to you. Women who cheat never think about this one. 

Is this you?

Read this, you might relate.

No matter what I think it's time for you to really start dealing with the abuse you suffered. You need to take some agency in your life, in your thought process, in overcoming your fears.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

This sounds VERY unhealthy to me. What sort of marriage is it when you treat her so badly because you are angry and bitter?. You say that you don't treat the children this way but they see how you treat you wife every day, and they will think this is normal behaviour and will not grow up seeing a healthy, happy, good marriage. They will pick up every day on this dysfunctional relationship and it will negatively affect their future lives and relationships. 
Either you make a decision to forgive her and let her rebuild the trust, or you leave. 

You say that you have no respect for people and that you don't trust women, all because of what ONE woman did?? Your resentment and bitterness will ruin your life and probably make you physically and mentally ill.


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## Tatsuhiko (Jun 21, 2016)

You CAN trust other women. There are good ones out there. Be in an equal partnership with someone who is a friend and lover. Don't participate in some weird master-slave relationship. Move on and tell her to get therapy for her abuse issues.


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## Slartibartfast (Nov 7, 2017)

..


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## Bonkers (Nov 26, 2017)

She turned you into a bad boy. She likes being abused and you get off on it because you've got this anger toward her.

It's completely dysfunctional but hey it seems to work for both of you.

Not sure I'd choose that sort of relationship but to each his own I guess.


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