Mental/emotional affair

[EasterJoy]

Not disputing anything. I simply saw:

Deciding whether or not she is going to go through a divorce is entirely up to her.

Instead of: Deciding whether or not she is going to go through a divorce is not entirely up to her.

And the rest followed from the dumb mistake, so please just ignore.

Re: can. 1153.1, though, it doesn’t talk about divorce, merely not living together. For divorce, look to canons 2383 and 2384 in the Catechism (emph. added):

In short: ensuring means ensuring, not just getting a chance. It means we can go for full certainty. But only way also means only way, so it can’t be a bonus or overkill or added symbolic relief, it has to be the minimum to ensure the rights. And here we get to another thing: precisely the claim to break the contract is what’s wrong with civil divorce, so a Catholic can’t grab a civil divorce for the reason of finding some comfort in feeling no longer married to the abuser. This is because it’s not only about living together, it’s also that: ‘Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which sacramental marriage is the sign,’ (next sentence in 2284) so there’s basically more at stake. Married is married, and a Catholic does not get to on some level not be married. This is not to say that removing the ring, reverting to the previous surname (for someone who changed) etc. is automatically bad for the sole reason that it brings some relief, but it basically means we can’t fall for the temptation of ‘unmarrying’, especially not by acting like a JP say-so has any effect on the continued existence of marriage between two sacramentally married Catholics.

Then there’s can. 1153.2 CCCC:

So basically in order to forever disappear from the radar for someone who was abusive but didn’t cheat*, the diocese has to okay it.

(* There are some exceptions for cheaters, e.g. already forgiven.)

I’d like to hear what someone who sits on marriage tribunals has to say. From what I hear, the bishop almost never gets these cases to OK, in spite of what canon law says, or the bishop decides that he does not want to tell a spouse who believes his or her situation to be too dangerous or too difficult that it is not. Sometimes, those with authority are properly consulted so rarely that they don’t even have a protocol to handle the times when they are!

Again, though, I have this on hearsay, so I’d be interested to hear what someone with actual experience has to say.

The OP, meanwhile, wants to know how to handle her marriage, not her divorce. The signs she has already described make that a very difficult although not impossible prospect. Having said that, however, the success stories have been known to be extremely successful. It’s like going from wondering if you are going to have to have a leg off to going through a long rehab process that leaves you able to run and play tag and go on weekend backpacking trips when you never used to be able to do any more than limp along in great pain. The transformations can be that remarkable, when they do happen.

 

[EasterJoy]

I actually meant that I would hide the other things from them. I won’t tell them he may be unfaithful. I will not share his faults with them, but try to build him up. My older children see things, and they’ve come to conclusions without me having to disparage their dad.

You are very wise to never disparage the father of your children. There are things that are not your children’s to know, after all. Not saying “it is nothing” when it is obviously something does not mean you have to give all the details to someone who only needs to know “it is something, but you did not cause it, you cannot change it, and we need to take care of it just between the two of us.” After all, when they are grown and in a healthy relationship, this is how they will deal with their own marital difficulties: that is, by being truthful and yet appropriately discrete.

 

[Xantippe]

Not disputing anything. I simply saw:

Deciding whether or not she is going to go through a divorce is entirely up to her.

Instead of: Deciding whether or not she is going to go through a divorce is not entirely up to her.

And the rest followed from the dumb mistake, so please just ignore.

Re: can. 1153.1, though, it doesn’t talk about divorce, merely not living together. For divorce, look to canons 2383 and 2384 in the Catechism (emph. added):

In short: ensuring means ensuring, not just getting a chance. It means we can go for full certainty. But only way also means only way, so it can’t be a bonus or overkill or added symbolic relief, it has to be the minimum to ensure the rights. And here we get to another thing: precisely the claim to break the contract is what’s wrong with civil divorce, so a Catholic can’t grab a civil divorce for the reason of finding some comfort in feeling no longer married to the abuser. This is because it’s not only about living together, it’s also that: ‘Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which sacramental marriage is the sign,’ (next sentence in 2284) so there’s basically more at stake. Married is married, and a Catholic does not get to on some level not be married. This is not to say that removing the ring, reverting to the previous surname (for someone who changed) etc. is automatically bad for the sole reason that it brings some relief, but it basically means we can’t fall for the temptation of ‘unmarrying’, especially not by acting like a JP say-so has any effect on the continued existence of marriage between two sacramentally married Catholics.

Then there’s can. 1153.2 CCCC:
**
So basically in order to forever disappear from the radar for someone who was abusive but didn’t cheat*, the diocese has to okay it.**

(* There are some exceptions for cheaters, e.g. already forgiven.)

I suspect that the dioceses don’t even want to have to tackle that one.

 

[Xantippe]

I think you’d go through truck-fulls of Kleenex staffing that office. Even if you said no the first time, people would be coming back with even sadder tales of woe each time they returned. It would just wind up turning into a rubber stamp operation.

So, there’s not a lot of point.

 

[Xantippe]

And for the record, divorce being necessary to protect rights means no step lesser, milder than divorce will suffice (such as living apart or separation, terminating parental rights, cancelling community property without divorcing etc.). The right to go away and live apart because of abusive behaviours, for example, does not translate to a right to pursue civil divorce. And again, the comfort of civil divorce is specifically off-limits, in the sense of being a comforting illusion of something that isn’t true (that would be end of marriage). Men not putting asunder what God put together very much applies here.

I have some quibbles.

1. First of all, there are some issues with treating separation as an alternative to divorce, rather than being primarily a milepost on the way to divorce. In practice, in the US, 4 out of 5 separations eventually turn into actual divorces.

usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/wellness/story/2012-05-06/Splitting-79-of-marital-separations-end-in-divorce/54790574/1

"And for the small number who reunite, the average separation is two years, the study found.

““In fact, we don’t observe any separations that end with the couple getting back together after a three-year period, so three years is the point of no return,” Tumin said. “After three years, the only outcomes observed are ongoing separation or divorce.”
The research found that about 7% of separations lasted 10 or more years.”

1. Living apart while married but not officially separated is not really practical long term for US couples. People do it, but it has the potential to be financially catastrophic, which will impair their ability to care for their children. I have an aunt whose husband flew the coop but financially supported my auntie and the children for quite a number of years before finally filing for divorce–unfortunately, by the time papers were filed, he had run up $80k in credit card debt. All sorts of crazy things can happen when members of a couple are living separately and aren’t cooperating financially. Basically, it’s a tragedy of the commons situation–there is little incentive to take care of family resources or economize.

Couples who have major marriage problems often have major disagreements about financial management, so it’s only to be expected that those disagreements and differences in financial lifestyle will only grow more stark while living separately.

Also, how will this hypothetical couple handle disagreements about child custody?

1. I’m like this over the idea that “terminating parental rights” is a smaller step than civil divorce.

Isn’t it the other way around? And how is that to be done within marriage?

Plus, I’m not an expert on this, but I strongly suspect that it is much easier in the US to get a divorce than it is to terminate the other parent’s parental rights.

1. How does one go about “cancelling community property”? I suppose there must be some sort of complicated legal way to do that, but I have a really bad feeling about the likelihood that the arrangements would stand up in court once there was an actual divorce underway. (See #1.)
2. I don’t know if this view makes sense, but I would see civil marriage, separation and divorce as primarily relating to the financial life and child-rearing arrangements of the couple.

 

[EasterJoy]

I have some quibbles.

1. First of all, there are some issues with treating separation as an alternative to divorce, rather than being primarily a milepost on the way to divorce. In practice, in the US, 4 out of 5 separations eventually turn into actual divorces.

usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/wellness/story/2012-05-06/Splitting-79-of-marital-separations-end-in-divorce/54790574/1

"And for the small number who reunite, the average separation is two years, the study found.

““In fact, we don’t observe any separations that end with the couple getting back together after a three-year period, so three years is the point of no return,” Tumin said. “After three years, the only outcomes observed are ongoing separation or divorce.”
The research found that about 7% of separations lasted 10 or more years.”

1. Living apart while married but not officially separated is not really practical long term for US couples. People do it, but it has the potential to be financially catastrophic, which will impair their ability to care for their children. I have an aunt whose husband flew the coop but financially supported my auntie and the children for quite a number of years before finally filing for divorce–unfortunately, by the time papers were filed, he had run up $80k in credit card debt. All sorts of crazy things can happen when members of a couple are living separately and aren’t cooperating financially. Basically, it’s a tragedy of the commons situation–there is little incentive to take care of family resources or economize.

Couples who have major marriage problems often have major disagreements about financial management, so it’s only to be expected that those disagreements and differences in financial lifestyle will only grow more stark while living separately.

Also, how will this hypothetical couple handle disagreements about child custody?

1. I’m like this over the idea that “terminating parental rights” is a smaller step than civil divorce.

Isn’t it the other way around? And how is that to be done within marriage?

Plus, I’m not an expert on this, but I strongly suspect that it is much easier in the US to get a divorce than it is to terminate the other parent’s parental rights.

1. How does one go about “cancelling community property”? I suppose there must be some sort of complicated legal way to do that, but I have a really bad feeling about the likelihood that the arrangements would stand up in court once there was an actual divorce underway. (See #1.)
2. I don’t know if this view makes sense, but I would see civil marriage, separation and divorce as primarily relating to the financial life and child-rearing arrangements of the couple.

The OP doesn’t want a divorce. She wants to stay married.

The problem is that she’s suggesting being effectively divorced but staying in the same house and checking her emotionally-ex-husband’s cell phone and e-mail for signs that he’s spending time with women other than her, his emotionally-ex-wife.

That can’t work. It may feel like a solution, but it cannot work. This is 2016, not 1816 or 1916. As you imply, these “halfway” arrangements do not last long before the couple either figures out to make a real go of the marriage or someone unilaterally throws in the towel.

If she wants to stay married, she has to dare to hope she can have a really good marriage. I suggest the intensive weekend spent learning and practicing communication with marriage communication experts at hand as a possible avenue for that. It is something of a long shot, it is only the “surgery” before a long stint of “rehab” that might eventually lead to a far better quality of life, but the quarry is going to be out of range pretty soon. Better a long shot than no shot at all.

 

[exiled]

I’d like to hear what someone who sits on marriage tribunals has to say. From what I hear, the bishop almost never gets these cases to OK, in spite of what canon law says, or the bishop decides that he does not want to tell a spouse who believes his or her situation to be too dangerous or too difficult that it is not. Sometimes, those with authority are properly consulted so rarely that they don’t even have a protocol to handle the times when they are!

Again, though, I have this on hearsay, so I’d be interested to hear what someone with actual experience has to say.

The OP, meanwhile, wants to know how to handle her marriage, not her divorce. The signs she has already described make that a very difficult although not impossible prospect. Having said that, however, the success stories have been known to be extremely successful. It’s like going from wondering if you are going to have to have a leg off to going through a long rehab process that leaves you able to run and play tag and go on weekend backpacking trips when you never used to be able to do any more than limp along in great pain. The transformations can be that remarkable, when they do happen.

This is what I want. I long rehab process, where he gets help from either the grace of God through Confession and Spiritual Direction, or from professionals that deal with alcoholism and rage. Personally, I think the former is the best course, but that assumes true repentance on his part. Professionals can probably spot lies fairly quickly.
It is so hard to believe I am in this place.

 

[exiled]

The OP doesn’t want a divorce. She wants to stay married.

The problem is that she’s suggesting being effectively divorced but staying in the same house and checking her emotionally-ex-husband’s cell phone and e-mail for signs that he’s spending time with women other than her, his emotionally-ex-wife.

That can’t work. It may feel like a solution, but it cannot work. This is 2016, not 1816 or 1916. As you imply, these “halfway” arrangements do not last long before the couple either figures out to make a real go of the marriage or someone unilaterally throws in the towel.

If she wants to stay married, she has to dare to hope she can have a really good marriage. I suggest the intensive weekend spent learning and practicing communication with marriage communication experts at hand as a possible avenue for that. It is something of a long shot, it is only the “surgery” before a long stint of “rehab” that might eventually lead to a far better quality of life, but the quarry is going to be out of range pretty soon. Better a long shot than no shot at all.

Small misunderstanding. You are correct about emotional becoming ‘exes’ as a course I am considering. But if I do that, tell him it’s over, then I won’t be checking his phone or email because I’ve already detached myself. As I mentioned earlier, I am not the jealous type, and as long as he doesn’t plan to “have his cake and eat it, too”, I can live with it. Not my preference, but it’s up to him because I am just sick to death of pretending this stuff doesn’t happen, until next time.
Unfortunately, I think he is going to have to feel the pain of separation-emotional, social and physical-in order to make a real decision about what he wants, and then he needs to spend some time chewing on how hard it is going to be to make these changes, and commit to them or not.

 

[Xantippe]

The OP doesn’t want a divorce. She wants to stay married.

I’m talking to Chevalier about the practical difficulties of alternatives to divorce.

Come to think of it, another reason that people wind up going to separation or divorce rather than the ad hoc measures Chevalier suggests is that if one spouse has stopped financially supporting the family, separation or divorce is the standard legal way to force the delinquent spouse to provide support. That is part of the reason for that dramatic stat that 70% of divorces in the US are filed by women. I used to find that stat quite as shocking as other people you’ll find on the internet–until I realized that in a situation where the husband is refusing to financially support the family, the wife (being usually the lower-earning spouse) will be compelled by necessity to file for separation or divorce. It even occasionally happens that a spouse will cut off financial support for the family while everybody is still living in the marital home–I’ve known two cases in real life like that.

Chevalier’s less formal ideas only work with a fairly functional couple who have total agreement on financial arrangements and child custody (or who have no minor children at home). However, it would be very rare for a couple with such perfect amity to divorce (or exist, actually).

 

[Xantippe]

My aunt and uncle had a very long period of living separately without a legal separation (it was probably at least half a decade).

One of the headaches of that period was that year after year, my aunt’s husband dawdled on doing his income taxes (and auntie could not do them for him). Fortunately, he was filing for extensions and he did eventually pay. But he was seemingly incapable of filing his taxes on time, or even just a couple months late–if he’d screwed that up just a little more (as a lot of people do), it would have been a total nightmare for my auntie to deal with.

It is very logistically difficult in modern times to maintain two separate households joined by marriage when the two people are no longer working as any kind of functional marital unit. Managing two households is HARD even for two people who are smart, functional, love each other, and are trying hard.

 

[EasterJoy]

Small misunderstanding. You are correct about emotional becoming ‘exes’ as a course I am considering. But if I do that, tell him it’s over, then I won’t be checking his phone or email because I’ve already detached myself. As I mentioned earlier, I am not the jealous type, and as long as he doesn’t plan to “have his cake and eat it, too”, I can live with it. Not my preference, but it’s up to him because I am just sick to death of pretending this stuff doesn’t happen, until next time.
Unfortunately, I think he is going to have to feel the pain of separation-emotional, social and physical-in order to make a real decision about what he wants, and then he needs to spend some time chewing on how hard it is going to be to make these changes, and commit to them or not.

You can end the friendship by unilaterally cutting off the sexual relationship, but how do you end the yelling and emotional outbursts? How do you detach yourself from the fact that your husband will be openly consorting with women other than you, that he’ll have a social life that doesn’t include you?

Here’s another question: Do you think he wants to be friends with you? I mean that as a serious question. Is the idea that he’s going to stick around and you’re going to have your separate bedrooms as a money-saving measure? So he can spend time with the children?

If you’re rejecting him as a sexual partner for good, do you think he’ll want to stay around? What is it about your relationship that is going to keep him in the marriage? Isn’t it reasonable that he’s going to find some woman to dally with who is eventually going to want him living with her, instead?

What if he has never been physically unfaithful and never intended to be? How bitter and angry is your proposal going to make him? How will this arrangement affect what he does and does not allow himself to do around other women in the future? Doesn’t this arrangement imply tacit permission for sexual infidelity?

I would seriously talk this idea over with a marriage counselor and your pastor before you try to float it by your husband. Realistically, I don’t see your future going as you foresee it going: that is, I do not think that this will by any means bring peace into your household. It’s going to be more like living in the zone between North and South Korea.

As for living arrangements, don’t make any change until a divorce attorney explains the ramifications to you. Oh, and document your financial and material assets, too. (You need that in case of a fire, anyway.)

 

[Xantippe]

Y**ou can end the friendship by unilaterally cutting off the sexual relationship, **but how do you end the yelling and emotional outbursts? How do you detach yourself from the fact that your husband will be openly consorting with women other than you, that he’ll have a social life that doesn’t include you?

Here’s another question: Do you think he wants to be friends with you? I mean that as a serious question. Is the idea that he’s going to stick around and you’re going to have your separate bedrooms as a money-saving measure? So he can spend time with the children?

If you’re rejecting him as a sexual partner for good, do you think he’ll want to stay around? What is it about your relationship that is going to keep him in the marriage? Isn’t it reasonable that he’s going to find some woman to dally with who is eventually going to want him living with her, instead?

What if he has never been physically unfaithful and never intended to be? How bitter and angry is your proposal going to make him? How will this arrangement affect what he does and does not allow himself to do around other women in the future? Doesn’t this arrangement imply tacit permission for sexual infidelity?

I would seriously talk this idea over with a marriage counselor and your pastor before you try to float it by your husband. Realistically, I don’t see your future going as you foresee it going: that is, I do not think that this will by any means bring peace into your household. It’s going to be more like living in the zone between North and South Korea.

As for living arrangements, don’t make any change until a divorce attorney explains the ramifications to you. Oh, and document your financial and material assets, too. (You need that in case of a fire, anyway.)

Is it not having sex that ends marital friendship, or being volatile and rage-y? In real life, do we maintain friendships with people whose outbursts we are afraid of?

That is a very good question about the OP would cope with open infidelity if she lived with her husband without a physical relationship with him.

These are all very good questions. However, I would point out that the OP’s husband has never previously demonstrated a lot of sexual self-control and he has been acting shady–I would not bet too hard on his fidelity. If he wasn’t physically cheating, he was well on his way there, and he certainly has had opportunities.

I agree with the advice to talk to third parties before floating the idea of living sexlessly with her husband. Based on the posting history, I suspect that that might be the worst of all worlds, as you’ll have to deal with the ragey-ness with no breaks.

 

[EasterJoy]

Is it not having sex that ends marital friendship, or being volatile and rage-y? In real life, do we maintain friendships with people whose outbursts we are afraid of?

That is a very good question about the OP would cope with open infidelity if she lived with her husband without a physical relationship with him.

These are all very good questions. However, I would point out that the OP’s husband has never previously demonstrated a lot of sexual self-control and he has been acting shady–I would not bet too hard on his fidelity. If he wasn’t physically cheating, he was well on his way there, and he certainly has had opportunities.

I agree with the advice to talk to third parties before floating the idea of living sexlessly with her husband. Based on the posting history, I suspect that that might be the worst of all worlds, as you’ll have to deal with the ragey-ness with no breaks.

I can see two goals here: that the husband and wife or at least the wife learn what healthy communication looks like and by that have a skill set that is absolutely necessary to save their marriage, if it is salvageable. The second goal is that they, or at least the mother, have a chance to learn, practice and hand on these habits of communication to their children before they leave home and marry. If the husband won’t cooperate, the wife would still do well to learn these herself.

I am trying to imagine a way in which this marriage becomes happy and peaceful. If it is not that this fellow could possibly learn with real-time training how to recognize a rage state coming on and head it off at the pass with some self-calming techniques that he and his wife use together, I don’t know what their chances are. She’s so afraid of his rages that she has stopped talking to him in person about anything remotely sensitive, the very things that should only be talked about in person and in a setting where both parties can let down the defenses. She has no way to confront him with legitimate complaints–not just no easy way, but effectively no way at all, not one that has a snowball’s chance in H-E-double toothpicks of communicating the message she wants to deliver all the way to its intended target: that is, from her heart to his. Right now, all routes are blocked. It’s the relational equivalent of a heart attack.

He doesn’t go to individual “lessons.” That’s been tried–washout. Maybe he’d respond if they were essentially locked up together for a weekend crash course in how different their communication could be, one that uncovers some flames still in the embers of the friendship that once lead them to marry and start a family in the first place.

There have been some remarkable turn-arounds at Marriage Encounter weekends, but those do not offer the kind of intervention that is almost certainly needed here. I’d think they need either a Gottman weekend or perhaps a Retrovaille weekend. They need a major intervention, though. Otherwise, I don’t see anything short of a miracle turning this around so that their marriage lasts a lifetime. Still, I have seen guys essentially dragged kicking and screaming to one of these weekends who came home glowing and saying it was the single best thing that they’d ever done. These transformations are so striking it can almost be comical, but the most important results last.

It could be that their marriage has fatal flaws in it and cannot last a lifetime. If that is so, one of these weekends could still help the OP learn how to conduct a conflict with someone you love in a healthy way and what methods you should never ever use if you want to have a strong and trusting relationship. She could use those lessons with her children, and those lessons could lead them to very different marriages than the one they saw growing up, which is currently their inner picture of what a marriage “is.”

I’d also encourage her to go to her library and check out “The New Codependency” or, short of that, its earlier incarnation, titled “Co-Dependent No More,” both by Melody Beattie. If she connects with it, buy a copy. Her life has a lot of drama in it that orbits around her husband’s uncontrolled rage and alcohol use. She has seen that she needs to set boundaries. That book is all about how to identify and set boundaries in a healthy way, to change relationships of co-dependency into relationships of healthy and appropriate caring that recognizes how respect for the non-arbitrary interpersonal boundaries in life is the key to a peaceful heart and a serene life.

 

[EasterJoy]

…I would point out that the OP’s husband has never previously demonstrated a lot of sexual self-control and he has been acting shady–I would not bet too hard on his fidelity. If he wasn’t physically cheating, he was well on his way there, and he certainly has had opportunities…

The hurt and insult he is going to feel if he has resisted actual physical infidelity is hard to over-state. Truly, even if he has been unfaithful, it would only be natural for him to go into a fury of self-defensiveness at the suggestion that it is impossible he has not cheated.

This caution comes under “fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” Don’t speak the truth until you know what good is going to come of speaking it at the time and in the way and in the company you have chosen. Once words are spoken, they cannot be taken back. Be very careful where and when you deploy the nuclear variety.

 

[EasterJoy]

exiled:
This is what I want. I long rehab process, where he gets help from either the grace of God through Confession and Spiritual Direction, or from professionals that deal with alcoholism and rage. Personally, I think the former is the best course, but that assumes true repentance on his part. Professionals can probably spot lies fairly quickly.
It is so hard to believe I am in this place.

I think he is going to need help in recognizing the rage state coming on and get alternative strategies for dealing with that. That’s a physical state that he goes through that he’s habitually handled badly. As bad as it is to be around someone in a rage, being the person in the rage itself is not enjoyable, except maybe if you’re a psychopath. Other people do not get any thrill from losing all self-control that way.

Don’t get me wrong: I know some people who don’t know how to control their own tempers do use their loss of self-control as an excuse for bad behavior. They don’t necessarily enjoy it, either, and they certainly don’t like the times when they shoot themselves in the foot by their bad decision-making. Because they don’t know how to control themselves, however, they sometimes give themselves the excuse that since it is “impossible” to control themselves in that state they aren’t really responsible for what they do when they’re in a rage. That’s a crutch that can be hard to let go of. Sometimes people drink for the same reason: that is, it allows them to deny they are responsible for their lack of inhibition. They give themselves carte blanche to “kick loose” and then blame the rage or the alcohol.

You can’t break that merely by wanting to or trying hard. You need to learn how to do it from someone who has knowledge about you that you don’t have yet yourself. My hope for you is that if someone can teach your husband to control his rage just once that he’ll love the feeling of being the master of that demon. That could be your “in.”

 

[Clearwater14]

I have agreed with you on many things over the years, but on this, I suspect you’ve never dealt with someone deceitful. What you suggest works wonderfully with someone who means well, who is honest, who is upright and wants a good and loving marriage.

These things don’t work with narcissists and sociopaths. They don’t work with liars and deceivers and men who want to have their cake and eat it, too.

I absolutely went into my husband’s e-mail. I have no regrets at all. Let’s keep in mind that I did everything right all along. I trusted him…and found out in retrospect, he’d been up to all kinds of no good for years behind my back while I trusted him and respected his privacy.

One result of my trust in him, and my respecting his privacy, was a series of horrible yeast infections–which occurred during the 18 to 24 months he was having ‘just e-mails’ with another woman. I’ve never had yeast infections before or since. Yeast infections can result from a man going back and forth between two women. And interestingly…I’ve never had a yeast infection since the day he (apparently) broke up with her.

In retrospect, I believe he took advantage of my trust, my ‘being best friends’ with him, my respect of his ‘privacy,’ to have multiple affairs–given facts I look back on. I can only thank God that all I got was severe yeast infections, and not STDs. I can only thank God that I never got an STD that adversely affected any of our children being born during those years.

But once I stumbled on the first information that led me to suspect…I did the right thing and talked to him calmly, rationally, asking for explanations. I got yelling. Why? Not because I did the wrong thing, but because he was a cheater who was going to drive me off asking by yelling, no matter how reasonably or lovingly I did it. The ONLY way to prevent yelling would have been to bury my head in the sand.

When I’d asked multiple times, when I’d presented evidence (is four slashed tires, always when he was at work enough evidence to think something was going on?) and it had been denied, I’d been yelled at, I’d been called crazy…when my health was at risk, when I began to fear what would happen if I were the one in the car, with my children, when those tired kept msyteriously blowing…you kow what, at that point, I don’t think his ‘privacy’ outranks my concerns for my health and my children’s health.

At that point, when I’ve gone to counseling, asked upfront, done everything right, and learned I AM going to be yelled at and lied to…yes, at that point, I have a right to know what danger I’m really being put in.

I have no regrets about violating his privacy. He, likewise, has no regrets about putting my and our children’s health and safety at risk. Which tells me I made the right choice.

I feel for you. Your story is very similar to my story. I am sending you a friend request.